On Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press,” Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas was such a relentless firehose of lies that at times he appeared to be auditioning to replace Karoline Leavitt. His biggest whopper? That he cares about “American kids.”

That’s the risible rationale he gave for applauding the illegal attack on a Venezuelan boat ordered by Whiskey Pete Hegseth—who, one can only hope, will eventually become the first Fox News host to stand trial at The Hague.

Since, as the Trump administration claims, the minuscule craft Pete blew to smithereens was brimming with narco-terrorists jonesing to poison America’s youth—an unlikely mission for a vessel bound for Suriname—Cotton argued that his deep concern for “American kids” compelled him to cheer its obliteration.

The host, Kristin Welker, and another guest, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, both identified Cotton’s gargantuan hypocrisy: if he cares so deeply about the drug scourge that’s killing our children, why doesn’t he howl in protest at Donald Trump’s outrageous pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted of flooding the US with hundreds of tons of cocaine?