Sen. Cotton at CPAC

Senator Tom Cotton spoke to the assembled multitude in free Florida at CPAC yesterday. Among other things, he recalled the chaos he sowed inside the New York Times with the publication of his column calling for federal troops to restore order in riot-torn cities last year. Times staffers protested that the column put the lives of “Black @NYTimes staff in danger.”

The column caused a “total meltdown with the little social justice warriors at The New York Times,” as he put it, “all these children that have been marinated in the language of the campus seminar room.” He recalled, “They said things like, ‘your words put my life at risk,’ as if typing on their phone, sitting on their futons, was as dangerous as being a cop trying to stop rioters in the streets. Or, ‘your words are violence.’ No, I’m sorry kiddo: words are words; violence is what your friends are doing out on the streets of America.” The internal revolt at the paper led to the resignation of Times opinion page editor James Bennet.

Senator Cotton posted highlights of his speech on his Twitter feed. You can catch them scrolling up or down from the one below (via Zachary Evans/NR). The New York Post also covered the speech here in delightful detail.

Or you can watch the speech in its entirety in the video below.

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