Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) rebuked a couple of Code Pink protesters interrupting a meeting by the Senate Intelligence Committee, pointing out that the group is “funded by Communist China.”
Cotton made his remark shortly after he attempted to ask FBI Director Kash Patel, one of several U.S. security officials testifying before the committee on Tuesday, about the deportation efforts in the state of Arkansas. Patel only said a few words before a protester loudly chanted, “Stop funding Israel,” before being escorted out.
“So that protester was a Code Pink lunatic saying the greatest threat to world peace is funding Israel,” Cotton stated. “I will observe for the benefit of the audience here and on television that Code Pink is funded by Communist China as well, which simply illustrates, speak up now if you want to be removed as well, whoever’s saying that.”
A second protester was then escorted out, who could be heard saying that Code Pink is “not a Communist thing.”
The Arkansas senator then stated that China funding the group, which interrupted the meeting, “simply illustrates” the argument by National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, being that multiple adversaries of the U.S. “are working in concert to a greater degree than they ever have before.”
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Cotton’s accusations against Code Pink come after the House Committee on Natural Resources cited a report in 2023, which stated that the group “is part of a lavishly funded influence campaign” that works closely with the “Chinese government media machine.” This prompted Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR), the committee’s chairman, to be one of several lawmakers to pen a letter to Code Pink President Jodie Evans informing that the committee was conducting oversight on the group’s suspected ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Amid the U.S.’s ongoing rivalry with China, National Security adviser Mike Waltz has stated that President Donald Trump recognizes that standing up to the foreign country is “the competition of this century.” As such, the U.S. will rise to this challenge by bringing back “meritocracy and lethality in our military” to show strength on a global scale.