Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) reportedly used a private Republican lunch this week to caution his colleagues against talking to the press — a warning that, within a day, leaked to the press.
Politico’s Jordain Carney reported Wednesday that Cotton, “per multiple attendees,” delivered a speech at Tuesday’s GOP lunch “warning against talking to reporters.” The senator, Carney noted, already “has a blanket no-comment policy in the halls.” Colleagues told her they “don’t really know what sparked it,” but that it set off “a lot of questions/speculation” among Republicans.
The amusing optics were not lost on the reporters who cover the building.
“The concept of telling a reporter that you were advised not to talk to reporters in a closed-door meeting is peak Congress,” wrote Deseret News congressional reporter Cami Mondeaux. The New York Times’ Michael Gold agreed that “it’s peak Congress that this leaked.”
Others filed it under the Capitol’s long tradition of self-defeating secrecy. “The leak about not leaking is one of my favorite Hill traditions,” wrote Inside Elections’ Nathan Gonzales. “Pretty telling that this leaked out,” added reporter Nathaniel Reed.
At least one senator had already turned the edict into a bit. Reporter Nancy Vu noted that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) emerged from the same lunch and deadpanned, “I’m trying out a new thing that we learned in conference today. It’s called ‘no comment.’” She then, Vu observed, “proceeded to comment about the news of the day.”
Not everyone was sure the warning was worth the drama. Reporter Jonathan Nicholson pointed out that most hallway questions before a recess amount to “‘Is Issue X gonna get a vote before y’all leave?’” and “‘What day are we getting out of here?’” — “hardly the stuff of which ‘gotcha!’ is made.”
The lecture on discipline comes at a jittery moment for Senate Republicans. As conference chair, Cotton recently left colleagues “visibly shaken” at another closed-door lunch after presenting internal polling showing independents fleeing the GOP ahead of what leaders are privately calling a possible midterm bloodbath. That anxiety has fueled public infighting between President Donald Trump and Senate leaders, with one senator griping to CNN that instead of “talking up the wins,” Republicans “are knifing each other.”
Cotton is one of a handful of senators in what Axios dubbed the Senate’s “silent caucus” — lawmakers who won’t answer reporters’ questions in the hallways, sparing them from reacting to “every utterance from President Trump.” He also leads the party’s messaging arm, making him the Republican most responsible for controlling the GOP’s message.
Cotton has long been one of the press’s sharpest antagonists in the Senate. He once blocked the PRESS Act, a bipartisan bill shielding journalists from being forced to reveal sources, calling it a “floodgate of leaks” that would turn the Senate into an “accomplice of deep-state leakers.”
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