--- ---  # Arkansas Senator: GOP Should Let Trump Redefine the Party ## Video: Tom Cotton says Trump would be a president who “calls the enemy by its name” [Watch (HLS stream): Tom Cotton says Trump would be a president who “calls the enemy by its name”](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VAJeZAwJ.m3u8) (1:09)  _Published 2016-07-19. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton argued that Donald Trump would be a strong commander-in-chief who “calls the enemy by its name” in a prime-time speech at the Republican convention Monday._  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 8:30 AM UTCPublished: May 5, 2017 11:43 AM UTC  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) speaks to the media during a news conference on Capitol Hill, February 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) speaks to the media during a news conference on Capitol Hill, February 7, 2017 in Washington, DC.Mark Wilson—Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 8:30 AM UTCPublished: May 5, 2017 11:43 AM UTC Arkansas Senator [Tom Cotton](http://time.com/4411613/republican-convention-tom-cotton-speech/?iid=sr-link2) doesn’t always agree with President Trump, but he says Republicans need to accept Trump’s changes to their party. “You have to recognize that our party’s leadership was selling a product that wasn’t that popular,” Cotton [told Politico](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/tom-cotton-donald-trump-238015). “Donald Trump won, and he’s the president and everybody needs to accept that,” he continued. He said he’s reflecting on what being a Republican means when Trump won without setting himself apart on the party’s signature issues, like tax reform. “What made him distinctive are issues like immigration, crime, trade, foreign policy and so forth. And the Republican Party as an institution needs to reflect on why he won those primaries and then why he didn’t just beat Hillary Clinton but beat her in places where Republicans had not won for decades,” Cotton said. The young senator, who is often considered a GOP rising star and keeps two Abraham Lincoln books in his office, also explained how he sees Trump fitting into the [historical arc](http://time.com/4766619/donald-trump-andrew-jackson-history/?xid=homepage) of the Republican Party: “In some ways, I think, you could say that Donald Trump is resurrecting some of the tenets of the Republican Party of [Lincoln](http://time.com/4761335/trump-jackson-lincoln-civil-war/?iid=sr-link1) and McKinley and Coolidge.” **Correction:** The original photo caption for this story misstated the abbreviation for the state of Arkansas. It’s AR, not AK. 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