Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., slammed the Biden administration fo failing to commit to the protection of American athletes at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing after the U.S. announced a diplomatic boycott over China’s record on human rights. Sen. Cotton joined “America’s Newsroom” on Tuesday, arguing the U.S. should not send athletes to compete if America cannot protect them.
TOM COTTON: Dana, this is really nothing more than the sleeves off of Joe Biden’s vest. This is the status quo. China was going to have very strict travel controls anyway on diplomats and corporate officials because of their Draconian coronavirus lock-downs. What I’m worried about is the safety of our athletes. I sent the Biden administration a letter last summer asking them for how they would assure the safety of our athletes. They sent me back a letter through restricted channels, but there was nothing classified about it, and they had no plan to protect our athletes – whether it’s from ubiquitous technical surveillance of their electronic devices or DNA harvesting under the guise of coronavirus testing, or even outright kidnapping. I mean, China will take hostage and disappear one of its own tennis stars and trot her out for hostage videos. What will they do to one of our athletes if one of those young men or women should dare speak up about Tibet or Hong Kong or Taiwan, or any of China’s crimes against the civilized world? If we can’t secure this, if we can’t protect our own athletes, we should not be sending them to compete in the games of a country that is committing genocide.
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