Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton Monday turned up the heat on China and its communist leaders for hiding the spread of the coronavirus, calling them liars.
“You should never believe anything the Chinese Communist Party tells you,” he said at a conference. “They consistently and routinely lie,” he added.
Cotton has led in the fight against China after the coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, China, and he opened the “Liberty Summit” hosted in Washington by Liberty University’s Falkirk Center. It took place at the Trump International Hotel.
He told a socially distanced group wearing masks that the Chinese Communist Party was “responsible” for the virus and that “they should be held accountable for it.”
Later, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn presented several ways to make China pay, including limiting college visas.
Cotton was blunt in his blame and said that by allowing the virus to spread worldwide, lives and jobs were lost. He said that China is “deeply indifferent to human life.”
But, he added, the controversy has helped to convince people of the threat China poses. The virus, he said, “opened the eyes of so many Americans.”
He added, “The American people have seen the true face of China’s Communist Party.”
President Trump, once hopeful of cutting a new trade deal with China, has reversed course and is also critical of the Asian nation.
Cotton and Blackburn are advocating for legislative measures to punish China. Blackburn sounded hopeful of some action but acknowledged that nothing will happen if Trump is beaten by Democratic challenger Joe Biden, whom she views as sympathetic to the communist regime.