The GOP's staunchest young hawk is having a moment

Within months of being sworn in, the next-generation leader of GOP hawks Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR) lost major showdowns over the Iran nuclear deal and government surveillance, two of his top causes. “I don’t think it's a hard year for me,” Sen Cotton said. “I think it’s a hard year for the American people and their national security.” But Sen Cotton now seems to be having a moment of redemption.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and California, the national security pendulum is swinging sharply back in his direction. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants to revisit the surveillance powers that Congress did away with over Sen Cotton’s vocal opposition. And Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) has seized the tough-on-defense lane that Sen Cotton helped open earlier in 2015, hoping to ride criticisms of libertarian-leaning Republicans all the way to the White House. Sen Cotton said he’s optimistic about the party’s turn and said he has every intention of continuing to warn Americans about the dangers of the Iran deal and the need for bulk collection of phone records to root out terrorists. It's not just good policy, the 38-year-old lawmaker says: It's now good politics. The latest evidence of Sen Cotton's rising influence is a Majority Leader McConnell-backed effort to overwrite major portions of the USA Freedom Act, a collection of intelligence reforms that most notably ended the bulk data collection program used by the National Security Agency. The law passed in June, but after terrorist attacks and calls to more easily obtain "metadata" culled from millions of phone calls, party leaders are strongly considering holding a divisive vote on Sen Cotton’s legislation.