Sen. Tom Cotton doubles down on comments urging people to 'forcibly remove' protesters blocking traffic

Sen. Tom Cotton on Tuesday doubled down on comments urging people delayed by traffic stemming from pro-Palestinian demonstrations to "forcibly remove" some protesters who are blocking streets.

"Absolutely, I support people, if they’re blocked by traffic, by pro-Hamas vigilantes in the street, they should get out of their cars, they should move them to the side of the road, and they should let traffic continue," Cotton, R-Ark., told NBC News on Tuesday.

Asked whether he was calling for violence against protesters, Cotton said he wasn't.

"I’m saying that if people are trying to get to work or pick up their kids from school or take a sick kid to the doctor and you have pro-Hamas vigilantes blocking the streets, they should get out and move those people off the streets," Cotton said. “The police will get there eventually. But a lot of damage will be done in the meantime."

Cotton on Monday had urged people delayed by traffic stemming from pro-Palestinian demonstrations to "take matters into [their] own hands."

“I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense,” Cotton wrote Monday night on X.

Cotton also referred to the demonstrators blocking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as “criminals” during a Fox News interview Monday and suggested that they would have been treated differently had the protest happened in his home state.

“If something like this happened in Arkansas, on a bridge there, let’s just say I think there’d be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard — not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they’re blocking,” Cotton said.

“And if they glued their hands to a car or the pavement, well, it’d probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off, but I think that’s the way we’d handle in Arkansas,” he added.

Protests over the war in Gaza closed down San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge for roughly five hours Monday. Twenty-six people were arrested, and several were charged with conspiracy because of the coordinated protest, NBC Bay Area reported.

California Highway Patrol Chief Don Goodbrand said: “You can protest any which way you want. But it is unlawful to block a roadway and to prevent people from getting to work, emergency personnel from getting to help people. You can’t do it.”

Demonstrations were also held in other cities nationwide, such as Chicago and New York City.