POLITICS/TRUMP PEOPLE/TOM COTTON: “To be a Senate Republican in President Trump’s Washington is to moonlight as a sort of executive life coach, coaxing the commander in chief toward discipline and conservative policy in the face of 140-character headwinds.
And perhaps no lawmaker is more committed to this difficult work than the chamber’s youngest member: Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a gangly, 40-year-old Iraq war veteran with two Harvard degrees, abundant ambition and, it often seems, a more coherent vision than the president for how to assemble policy scaffolding around loosely defined ‘Trumpism.’
‘It’s not a matter of the president changing,’ Mr. Cotton said of recent White House stumbles, offering more hopeful spin in an interview than some fellow Republicans these days. ‘It’s a matter of the president being his best self.’
For months now, as much as any high-profile lawmaker navigating the Trump era, Mr. Cotton has strained to guide Mr. Trump toward his best self.”
-Maggie Haberman and Matt Flegenheimer, “As Trump’s Coach, Senator Cotton Provides Policy to Match Rhetoric,” The New York Times online, June 8, 2017