WASHINGTON -- When terrorists strike and ayatollahs rage, national media outlets are increasingly turning to Arkansas' U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton for his opinion on foreign policy, national security and defense issues.
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As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence, Cotton has access to key information when a crisis is unfolding.
And Cotton -- Harvard-educated, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran -- is using his position to speak out on foreign policy, as evidenced Saturday when he spoke about Iran's prisoner exchange and Taiwan's presidential election.
"I try to speak out on issues on which I have some expertise and experience, and it just so happens that as the chickens have come to roost from Barack Obama's foreign policy and the world has grown more dangerous, that security issues have risen to the forefront," he said.
In his first year in the U.S. Senate, the Republican from Dardanelle has appeared on the Sunday morning news shows at least five times, snaring invitations to speak on NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week and CNN's State of the Union, plus two sessions on CBS' Face the Nation.
On Tuesday, just hours before President Obama's State of the Union address to Congress, Cotton was standing in front of a CNN camera in the Russell Senate Office Building, denouncing Iran for seizing American sailors and accusing Tehran of trying to upstage Obama's big speech.
"Rarely are matters coincidental when you're dealing with the ayatollahs in Iran. First off, it's humiliating to Barack Obama and therefore the United States to have American sailors held hostage during his final State of the Union," he told a televised audience.
Cotton's criticism is familiar to foreign governments and to the White House.
Shortly after taking office in January 2015, Cotton captured headlines by sending Iranian officials a letter warning them that any deal they reached with Obama could be rescinded on Jan. 20, 2017 -- the day the next president takes office.
Forty-six Senate Republican colleagues added their signatures to Cotton's message, which was promptly posted on social media and distributed around the world.
Since then, Cotton has gotten a national platform to speak out on a number of other issues.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer, for example, routinely invites Cotton to appear live on his program.
In September and October, he quizzed Cotton about the war in Syria.
He invited Cotton back in early November after Islamic extremists claimed responsibility for downing a Russian jet over the Sinai Peninsula. By mid-November, Blitzer was questioning Cotton about the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris.
Other CNN anchormen turned to Cotton in December, asking him about the White House's response to the San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and U.S. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, have both encouraged him to speak out, Cotton said.
He says it's easier to be heard now that he's moved from the 435-member House to the 100-member Senate. He served one term in the House of Representatives.
The Senate position "has allowed me to be a stronger advocate for Arkansans than I could be in the House," he said in an interview. "I resolved early on that I wasn't going to let Arkansas' voice be muffled here."
As a lawmaker, one of his priorities is to increase defense spending and ensure that funding for the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville continues.
"The world's growing more dangerous almost every day, and our military has been drastically cut over the last seven years, strained almost to the breaking point," he said.
Although Cotton is the youngest and one of the newest members of the Senate, U.S. Sen. John Boozman, the senior senator from Arkansas, says Cotton has quickly become a leader on issues of vital importance.
"He has a tremendous interest in national security and has done a great job of really focusing in on it," said Boozman, a Republican from Rogers. "He's essentially visiting with everyone who's anyone in the national security sphere. ... He has worked very, very hard to not only look at current events and current leadership and current analysts, but he's gone back as many years as he could and looked at people that have been around for a long time, looking at these issues."
Political commentator and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, a longtime Cotton supporter, said he's impressed by the freshman senator.
"Cotton's had a remarkable first year. The key has been his hard work on the substance of policy in key areas. His colleagues, the administration and the press all know when they deal with Cotton they're getting a well-informed and well-thought ... argument, not talking points. He's also been able to disagree not just with Democrats but with establishment Republicans at times without being disagreeable," Kristol said in an email.
In a presidential election year, Cotton could end up as the party's vice presidential nominee, Kristol said.
"He's an obvious VP possibility this year. Who else combines as well youth and gravitas?" he said.
Democrats are less enthusiastic about the junior senator.
"He's no Dale Bumpers, that's for sure, or a David Pryor or a Mark Pryor," said Democratic Party of Arkansas spokesman H.L. Moody. "Somehow, Cotton convinced the people of Arkansas that he was speaking for them when actually he's just toeing the line for the special interests in Washington, D.C."
Since arriving on Capitol Hill, Cotton has traveled extensively, including a trip over the holidays to meet with government leaders in Burma and Thailand. Before returning to the U.S., he also stopped in Japan and met with U.S. troops stationed there.
There's still a reservoir of goodwill for America in the nations he visits, but there's also apprehension, fears that the U.S. isn't as engaged as it once was, Cotton said.
"What I've seen in my conversations one-on-one with heads of state and foreign ministers is a desire to have stronger relationships with the United States but also a real concern that the United States is not playing its traditional postwar role in the world," Cotton said.
Members of the military are also concerned, he said.
"They're proud to be serving in the United States military ... but I do hear lots of reservations and doubts about the defense budget and about the choices the president has made in our foreign policy," Cotton said.
Asked what is most difficult about his new job, Cotton said, "I'm not sure I'd say there's anything that's particularly difficult, in part because I contrast it with jobs I've had in the past, whether it's carrying a heavy pack or fighting in Iraq or in Afghanistan or working on our family farm."
Plus, he said, he's aware that many of his constituents have "jobs that are back-breaking and very challenging."
"All that said, it's difficult to forge consensus in our system of government," Cotton said.
That's how the founding fathers intended things to be, he added. "Our system of government was designed in a way to ensure that if we made big changes, that those changes had widespread and long-standing support among the American people."
Last year, Cotton and his wife, Anna, became parents for the first time. Their son, Gabriel, turns 1 in April.
"It's been a lot of fun. He changes so rapidly," the senator said. "It brings a new perspective to life and makes life a lot sweeter and reminds you why we're here in the long-term."
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