Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the Friday meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin should not have high expectations.
“It’s more of a sensing session for him to hear directly from Vladimir Putin, not indirectly or through intermediaries, what it will take to get to a ceasefire and ultimately negotiate a settlement. As he said, he should probably know pretty early if Vladimir Putin is serious about that,” said Cotton.
“He frankly was not serious about it in the first several years of the war when President Biden was in office. I don’t think we provided Ukraine the weapons that they needed quickly enough and in enough volume to win early as opposed to let this war drag out. President Trump understandably wants to get to a ceasefire and ultimately to a peace agreement,” added Cotton.
The state’s junior senator said he doesn’t see the summit leading to a breakthrough deal or peace agreement. He emphasized he thinks Trump is merely testing the waters to see if a ceasefire can be obtained.
“Then, you can begin negotiations with the government of Ukraine as well,” he said.
With Congress on recess, Cotton said there are spending bills that will need attention when lawmakers return to Washington D.C. A defense spending bill will be a high priority.
“The first legislation I think pending when we return next month is the National Defense Authorization Act. That’s our annual bill. Pay raises for the troops, outlines what kind of weapons systems, aircraft, ships, vehicles, munition that we believe our military will need in the future. It has a lot of priorities in there that I authored to include efforts to increase the workload at the Pine Bluff Arsenal. I think it’s going to be the very first thing we’ll turn to when we return to Washington in September,” said Cotton.
He also said he shares other members’ concerns that all of the funding bills for the federal government can be accomplished by Oct. 1.
“I think we’ll probably have a short-term funding bill, but that’s not our preference ever. We’d like to pass all the funding bills for the full fiscal year in an orderly fashion, but I agree with Steve [Womack] that we probably won’t get that accomplished given the Democrats obstructed us on so many other fronts and we’re getting a later start than we would like,” he said.
“But I do believe that if we have a short-term funding bill that allows us to bridge into later this year to complete all the work that is needed to be done, that hopefully we can fund the government in early fashion and keep it open,” he added.
You can listen to Cotton’s full interview at this link.