Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Tuesday that the students taking over college campuses across the country — Columbia University, most acutely — are "fanatical" and "deeply troubled" but "easily detained" nonetheless, adding that university administrators need to respond, regain control, and "restore law and order."
Cotton made the comments during an interview with conservative radio host and podcaster Hugh Hewitt.
Cotton was reacting to the news that the pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia had broken into and barricaded themselves in an academic building overnight.
"We shouldn't be surprised that they're escalating their tactics when the supposed adults on these campuses won't do their basic responsibility of providing safety and security to all students and bringing in police, and if necessary, police from outside their university police departments, and if beyond that, the National Guard, to restore law and order," Cotton told Hewitt.
"Look, these are not criminal masterminds. They're not paramilitary militants," Cotton added. "They are deeply troubled and fanatical students who can be easily detained and removed from these so-called encampments, or from seizing the building. That should have been done long ago."
Cotton called for a federal investigation into who, exactly, is funding the protesters.
"These are not just spontaneous student uprisings, Hugh. I mean, just look at the pictures. They're out there in tents that cost hundreds of dollars apiece," Cotton said. "There's credible reporting that left-wing groups like the Soros Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation have been behind funding these groups."
He also said that foreign students who are part of the riots and uprisings need to be rooted out and deported.
"They have no right to be in this country. Their visas should be revoked immediately, and they should be told to go home. And if they don't go home, they should be deported immediately," Cotton said.
"Frankly, these private universities should kick out the students, even if they're American citizens, who have engaged in that kind of pro-terrorist rhetoric. You don't have a 1st Amendment right against a private university to come on and advocate for Hamas or Hezbollah or other foreign terrorist organizations," he added.
Cotton doesn't expect President Joe Biden's Justice Department to do that, but he knows a president who would.
"Just wait until next year when Donald Trump's back in office. I can tell you, I can tell these fanatics on campus who are breaking the law, and all the administrators on these campuses who won't enforce the law, that when that happens, winter is coming for them," he said.