Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, got into a heated debate over fentanyl scheduling in a Senate hearing.
COTTON: “The simple fact of the matter is Democrats will not take this seriously unless they get something in return like more violent felons released from prison. So I'm happy to have this debate on the floor later today. I have a stack of letters, right here, from parents whose children were killed by fentanyl sent to Senator Booker and I'm more than happy to go to floor and read those into the record if we want to.
BOOKER: “Again, I'm sorry, mister but that's just not true. This, this partisan rhetoric, this partisan warfare that we all don't have people in all of our states who are dying from this crisis and so what he's asking for is already done. We have fentanyl scheduled right now but more and more people are dying. Why can't we come together because there are a lot of Republican groups that I work with, a lot of Republican think tanks that I work with that have real solutions to this crisis of people dying. I would never accuse my colleague, Tom Cotton, of not caring about dead children. We both have hearts. I know your heart. So to accuse me of that is outrageous. I literally run a city where people are dying from these drugs and all I hear often is the same things we've been doing for 25 years or on the drug war that just are increasing incarceration, not helping. We're going to hear from people here, who are addicted. Let's find real solutions and stop accusing ourselves in partisan warfare of things that just aren't true. Right now fentanyl is scheduled. We've been extending that scheduling over and over again, but this problem is going worse. I'd love to work my colleagues on things are actually going to solve the problem and not just the rhetoric that works good for partisan left-right debates, but doesn't work for actually saving the lives that we need to save. I'm tired of this ridiculous partisanship. Let's solve problems and stop accusing each other of not having hearts. You're a good man. I'm a good man. Let's see if we can come together and actually solve some problems.”
