Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) bested CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday, using his nine-minute interview to undermine her narratives and poke holes in her questions.

Russian interference

Last week, the Justice Department unveiled an indictment against two Russian nationals on allegations of a "conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering."

The story was used as yet more evidence of Russian interference in the election, a narrative that Bash regurgitated.

'If that police officer hadn't been there, if Kamala Harris had gotten her way, many more students and teachers might have been killed.'

In response, Cotton not only explained why the narrative isn't true, but he drew attention to a more obvious and serious example of election interference.

"People should not knowingly take money from the government of Russia or Iran or China or any other adversarial nation to try to influence the election," Cotton began. "But I also think it's fair to say that a few memes or videos in the vast sea of political commentary is not going to make much of a difference in this election, nor has it in past elections as well.

"What did make a difference in the last election is the lies about Hunter Biden's laptop that more than four dozen former intelligence officials lied about in the middle of that campaign," he continued.

"And most networks, including this one, bought that lie hook, line, and sinker," Cotton pointed out. "That did make a difference in the election."

JD Vance quote

Later in the interview, Bash repeated a debunked accusation made against Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance.

Last week, Vance was accused of saying nonchalantly that school shootings are a "fact of life" in America when, in reality, he was mourning such incidents. The framing appears to have originated with a social media post from the Associated Press, a post the outlet later deleted. The Harris campaign and Democrats immediately repeated the false framing to smear Vance.

"Do you accept that school shootings like this are just a way of life now?" Bash asked.

"No, absolutely not. And JD Vance doesn't either. He said that he doesn't want them to be a fact of life," Cotton fired back. "And this week, the Associated Press got caught distorting that quote from him, so bad that they had to retract it."

The Arkansas senator then demonstrated how Harris' policy preferences will exact real-world outcomes.

"Here's what we also know about that shooting, even as we're still gathering all the facts: It wasn't as bad as it might have been because there was a police officer on the school premises that was able to neutralize the shooter," Cotton explained.

"Kamala Harris wants to take police officers out of schools. She said it in the past. That's her position," he pointed out. "If that police officer hadn't been there, if Kamala Harris had gotten her way, many more students and teachers might have been killed."

Cheney's endorsement

At the beginning of the interview, Bash tried to magnify the significance of former Vice President Dick Cheney's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, describing it as "really remarkable" while suggesting that it is bad for Donald Trump.

But Cotton wasn't buying the narrative.

"In the end, endorsements are not going to make the difference in this race. What's going to make the difference is their records," he told Bash.

Cotton later explained, "Some of this is probably that Donald Trump beat his daughter [Liz Cheney] in her last election by 39 points.

"I think most Americans are going to look at this race and compare the records they have. Again, it's a very unusual race when you have a president who served in office, who brought good times to America, and you have Kamala Harris, a San Francisco liberal, who has brought to America exactly what you see in San Francisco as well," he added.

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