Exclusive — Sen. Tom Cotton: JCPA ‘Will Allow Big Tech and Liberal Media to Collude’ Against ‘Conservative Outlets like Breitbart’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Wednesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow that the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), if enacted into law, would allow left-wing news media and the world’s largest technology companies to conspire to censor “conservative outlets like Breitbart.”

“I think the bill, if passed into law — which I hope it won’t be — will allow Big Tech and liberal media to collude together to further suppress conservative views and harm conservative outlets like Breitbart,” Cotton stated.

Cotton previously warned that the JCPA forms a “cartel” between technology and media companies leading to “an avenue for censorship” of Breitbart News.

Cotton addressed the bill’s proponents’ ostensible goals.

He remarked, “I hear from small Arkansas newspapers that they feel like they’re getting a raw deal from Big Tech — and I would like to find a way to help address that challenge — but this bill, by creating an explicit exemption to our antitrust laws for legacy media companies, who can then discriminate about who joins their cartel, just creates more opportunities for mischief.”

“What the bill does is basically allow newspapers, magazines, websites, media outlets to band together — in what would otherwise be unlawful collusion under anti-trust laws — to negotiate terms under which Big Tech companies can use their content,” Cotton stated.

He continued, “However, the bill also allows those media companies to decide who they want to let play in their sandbox, and I believe they’ve already told Breitbart, for instance, they don’t want any part of Breitbart’s content in their cartel.”

Cotton contrasted left-wing news media derision of Giogia Meloni, the prospective next Italian prime minister, as “neo-fascist” with its hype of former first lady Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign as “historic.”

“I do have to say I chuckled,” Cotton said. “[The left] used to celebrate women running for high office, saying that ‘I’m with her’ was the only thing you could say, but if you’re with Giorgia Meloni — who is now the legitimate, democratically elected, presumptive leader of Italy — then you are a neo-fascist descended from Benito Mussolini.”

Cotton speculated that Meloni’s electoral victory was a sign of Italy’s government realigning itself with its national purpose as opposed to increasing subservience to the European Union.

“National governments in Europe,” he said, “must be responsive to their people, not Eurocrats in Brussels. … People in America [must also] have a say who runs their government — that is to say, elected officials, whether it’s the president, Congress, governors, state legislatures — not bureaucrats and the permanent administrative state in Washington.”

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.