Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton apparently wants to remain in Trump's good graces with this mealy-mouthed defense of Trump's statement that he'd "absolutely" consider pardoning every single one of the January 6th insurrectionists.

Here's more from NBC on the statement made by Trump in April:

Former President Donald Trump, who is currently facing felony criminal charges in connection with Jan. 6, said that, if elected, he'd "absolutely" consider pardoning every single one of the hundreds of criminals convicted in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But Trump's campaign, in a statement to NBC News, said such pardons would be "on a case-by-case basis," not the sort of blanket pardon Trump referred to in a recent interview with Time magazine.

Trump told Time he was "absolutely" considering pardoning every single Capitol rioter, who he described as "J-6 patriots."

After first being asked by CNN's Jake Tapper whether Trump would accept the election results this time around, and with Cotton responding that "of course" Trump would accept the results but then giving a list of qualifiers to that response (which we all know means he absolutely will not accept the results) Tapper reminded Cotton of what happened the last time around on January 6th, and there's the exchange that followed:

COTTON: Well, look, what happened on January 6, 2021, is that there was a protest in Washington that got out of hand and it became a riot. And as I've said from the very beginning, anyone who injured a law enforcement officer or committed acts of violence on January 6 at the Capitol should be prosecuted and face severe consequences.

Again, that's unlike Democrats who won't prosecute violent protesters, for instance, from Democratic street militias outside the homes of Supreme Court justices or defacing statues of veterans right across from the White House.

Anyone who commits acts of violence, in my opinion, should be prosecuted and face severe consequences.

TAPPER: So you disagree when Donald Trump says, as president, he'll consider pardoning every one of the January 6 rioters convicted, of course. He said every one. And I understand that others who maybe didn't participate in violent protests are different than the ones who used violence or assaulted police officers, but he says every one was considering it.

COTTON: He didn't say he would.

TAPPER: No, he said consider it.

COTTON: He'd consider it. And I think what that means is what he did in his first term. He'd take each case for a pardon request on a case-by-case basis. And I do think there's a strong case for many of the defendants to be pardoned because they didn't engage in acts of violence. They didn't damage federal property.

In some cases, they were subject to pretrial detention for a longer period than the sentences for the misdemeanor crimes that they faced. Some of them are probably about to have their convictions or their indictments overturned by a Supreme Court decision because the Biden administration stretched the law beyond reasonable balance to go after some of the people who were present, not even in the Capitol, but near the Capitol that day, which is again in contrast to the violent pro-Hamas protesters you see outside the White House or Democratic street militias who are marching in violation of federal law outside Supreme Court justices homes, trying to intimidate them on the way they rule in a particular case.

TAPPER: I'll just observe that some critics might say, it sounds like you have a different standard. You have a tough law and order stance on everything other than these issues here that have to do with President Trump and his supporters.

You seem to have a, because you have a very hard line on law and order, but here you're talking about, oh, maybe pardoning them if they didn't engage in violence. That's not the language you use when you're talking about the Black Lives Matter protesters or others.

COTTON: Well, many of the BLM and Antifa riots in 2020 were not so-called peaceful protests. As some on your network said, they were looting and rioting and committing arson and murder. Again, the same techniques that were used for every grandma and MAGA hat who was within a country mile of the Capitol on January 6 are not being used for those street militias who protested outside Supreme Court justices' homes, or the pro-Hamas lunatics who were defacing statues of veterans, or who occupied college campuses last month. I'm simply calling for the same standards to be used regardless of one's politics. that's the essence of the rule of law.

"Protest" that "got out of hand." Sure Tom.