Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) ripped President Obama's national security team as full of "yes men and fan boys" during a radio interview Tuesday, The Hill reports.
Cotton singled out top White House adviser Ben Rhodes as a "chump" after a New York Times profile in which Rhodes boasted of creating an "echo chamber" to sell the Iran nuclear deal and constructing a false narrative with the help of a clueless press:
"Some of the coverage of Ben Rhodes is what happens when you put van drivers and campaign flaks and failed novelists in charge of foreign policy and national security," he said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio broadcast, referencing Obama’s deputy national security adviser.
"You know, most of who’s left in the administration now are all these yes men and fan boys who were van drivers or press flaks for Barack Obama in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2008," Cotton added, recalling Obama’s first presidential campaign.
"As if any of them have ever seen anything more dangerous than a shoving match when they were playing beer pong in the back of a bar in Georgetown."
Rhodes drew ire for his portrayal in the New York Times piece as arrogant and deceitful. However, the White House has insisted everything he said about the deal was true.
"That chump may think that subsidizing Iran’s nuclear program with millions of dollars is a laughing matter," Cotton said. "I don’t think it’s that funny."
The White House has ripped Cotton by name numerous times over his stern opposition to the Iran nuclear deal. Press secretary Josh Earnest quipped Cotton was an "international man of mystery" over his revelations last year about secret side deals in the Iran nuclear agreement, and this week Earnest said Cotton was either lying or utterly misinformed about the deal's particulars.