VA10 GOP Nominee Hung Cao Says It’s an “Honor” to Be Endorsed by Sen. Tom Cotton. Let’s Take a Peek at “Trump Loyalist” Cotton’s Far-Right Record.

Since Hung Cao won the VA10 Republican nomination in Saturday, a lot of information has come out about Cao. For instance, it turns out that Cao holds a number of VERY extreme views, including:

• Supporting supposed “off-label alternatives” to treating COVID19.
• Being against a woman’s right to reproductive freedom from the moment of conception (which would also outlaw certain types of contraception).
• Railing against what he calls “insidious grooming and exploitation of students at the hands of well-funded, government-backed organizations hell-bent on sexualizing our vulnerable children.” (WTF?)
• Buying into Trump’s “Big Lie,” saying: “It’s just very difficult for me to understand what happened in 2020, when the person sits in their basement for the whole election cycle and they got more votes than Barack Obama…I’m just saying it’s just very hard for me to understand and decipher that …and you know you can’t change the rules halfway through like in Pennsylvania.”
• Railing inaccurately against clean energy: “The left just wants to come up with crazy ideas about, you know, wind power well…what happens when there’s no wind? Solar power; what happens in the winter time? Also what what do you do with the lithium?”
• Denying climate science, stating “I believe in god and…why we have a rainbow is because that’s god’s covenant to us, it’s his promise to us he’ll never wipe out the world again, so it’s kind of arrogant for us to believe that we can we can destroy god’s creation” (WTF?)l and “I need a lot more data about for climate change to really convince me that and also if we did everything and we did what AOC said which is kill all the cows because the farts are killing their ozone” (again, WTF???)

On and on it goes. As the Democratic Party of Virginia pointed out, Cao “went as far as praising the Supreme Court’s pending decision to destroy decades of women’s rights, tweeting he was thrilled‘,” asking “How is it that bacteria on Mars is considered life, but a viable fetus is not?”  DPVA also noted:

One of his main supporters is former Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who resigned in disgrace after misusing taxpayer dollars and abusing his position for personal gain. Cao is also endorsed by former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was found to have engaged in “inappropriate conduct” during his time in the White House. The report alleges that Jackson had a pattern of abusive behavior towards staff, sexual harassment claims, and illegally prescribed medicines including opioids to staff. If these are the people Cao surrounds himself with, then Virginians have reason to be concerned.

Well now, as you can see below, Cao says it’s an “honor” to be endorsed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas). A few quick facts on Sen. Cotton really say it all about this one:

• “During Trump’s presidency, Cotton was characterized as a Trump loyalist… Bannon told The New Yorker in November 2017, ‘Next to Trump, he’s the elected official who gets it the most—the economic nationalism. Cotton was the one most supportive of us, up front and behind the scenes, from the beginning. He understands that the Washington élite—this permanent political class of both parties … needs to be shattered.'”
• “In a CNN interview shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Cotton denied that waterboarding is a form of torture.” (spoiler: it most certainly is!)
• “Following the murder of George Floyd, Cotton rejected the view that there is ‘systemic racism in the criminal justice system in America.'”
• “The New York Times published an opinion piece by Cotton titled ‘Send in the Troops’, arguing for the deployment of federal troops to counter looting and rioting in major American cities. Dozens of Times staff members sharply criticized the decision to publish Cotton’s article, calling its rhetoric dangerous.”
• “In July 2020, Cotton introduced the Saving American History Act of 2020, proposed legislation preventing the use of federal tax dollars for the teaching of The 1619 Project, an initiative of The New York Times.”
• “In January 2019, Cotton was one of 31 Republican senators to cosponsor the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.”
• “In 2013, Cotton voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, saying that the federal powers in the act were too broad.”
• “On May 28, 2021, Cotton voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the 2021 United States Capitol attack.”

Also see here for information on Cotton’s “history of publicly denying climate change,” as well as his comments on COVID, “without regard to science or facts, and willing to use rumors surrounding a global crisis to attack his geo-political opponents.”

Bottom line: Cotton’s one of the most far-right members of Congress, and any endorsement by him should be interpreted accordingly. Needless to say, anyone endorsed by Cotton should not be elected to the U.S. House from a “purple” district like VA10, let alone to replace the excellent Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D)!