Sen. Tom Cotton Tom Bryant CottonThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump stokes fears over November election outcome The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Trump previews SCOTUS nominee as 'totally brilliant' Abortion stirs GOP tensions in Supreme Court fight MORE (R-Ark.) said Sunday he hopes President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE's statement that the U.S. will not tolerate any attacks on American personnel "gets through to the leaders in Tehran."

He added, however, that he worries about Tehran's "long history" of stepping up aggression.

"I fear if Iran doesn't have firm set of boundaries drawn around its behavior, we're going to see an attack on U.S. ship or a U.S. manned aircraft," he said.

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"I think retaliatory strikes were warranted when talking about foreign vessels on the high seas and they are warranted against an unmanned U.S. aircraft," he said this week.