U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton is in frequent contact with President Donald Trump, offering personnel advice and policy recommendations, the lawmaker told a Little Rock audience Wednesday.
"We probably talk, you know, on a weekly basis, either in person at the White House or over the phone, and I try to get him to see things the way I think that we should go for the good of the country and for the good of Arkansas," Cotton said. "When he's right, I support him and when he's wrong, I try to change his mind."
On the issues, "President Trump is right a lot more than President [Barack] Obama was," Cotton said.
Asked to grade the president's job performance thus far, Cotton said Trump deserved "an A+ in certain matters," a comment that unleashed applause -- and audible groans.
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The Republican from Dardanelle described his relationship with Trump on Wednesday during an hourlong interview with Clinton School of Public Service Dean Skip Rutherford.
The event, which was held at the Robinson Center, drew roughly 800 people, including former White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and former U.S. Rep. Ed Bethune.
Rutherford, a Democrat and longtime Bill Clinton associate who had personally invited Cotton to speak, promised Wednesday's conversation would be "informative, respectful and candid."
The tone was civil as they discussed "President Trump's first 100 days" in office. A handful of audience members who booed and jeered were encouraged to mind their manners.
"[The senator] has a right to state his opinion," Rutherford said.
Cotton gave Trump an A+ grade for nominating Neil Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and for firing missiles on a Syrian airbase after a deadly nerve gas attack.
Trump would get "a lower grade ... a B" for filling executive branch vacancies, Cotton said.
"The White House needs to move faster on getting those nominees to us," he said, referring to those needing Senate confirmation.
Cotton also was critical of the administration's efforts to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
A measure favored by Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin was scrapped after encountering considerable opposition.
"I thought it was written in secret and didn't go through the right kind of deliberative process and that they were more focused on getting it fast than getting it right. I think we need to focus on getting it right, not getting it fast," Cotton said.
Cotton predicted that Congress would pass legislation this year to fix the nation's health care system. He also downplayed the chances of another government shutdown over budgeting, saying he believes the federal government will remain open.
The senator sidestepped questions about Trump's income tax releases, saying the president would need to address that issue.
"Whether the president releases his taxes or not is not going to bring a single job to Arkansas or give our kids a better education or give our troops the equipment they need to fight around the world to keep us safe and that's really where my focus is," he said.
When Rutherford asked about Russia's "alleged" interference in the U.S.'s 2016 presidential election, Cotton suggested the word "alleged" was no longer necessary.
There's "no reason to dispute the intelligence community's assessment in January that Russia was behind the hacking of those emails and the release of those emails. The motives are still murky, I would say," he said.
As the Senate Intelligence Committee investigates, "We'll follow the facts wherever they lead us," Cotton said. He is a member of the committee.
During Wednesday's event, Cotton also discussed efforts to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and Trump's attempts to restrict the flow of visitors from certain predominantly Muslim nations.
Rutherford told Cotton that the current debate about immigration is troubling to many international students.
"They're scared to death. They're scared to death," Rutherford said. "If you can, don't penalize the college students. They're not terrorists, they're good, decent people and they're trying to do the right thing."
Cotton said Trump wants to change the system so that the world's best and brightest qualify for immigration into the United States.
Metro on 04/20/2017
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