President Trump speaks while Sen. Tom Cotton listens in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Aug. 2, 2017. (Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Cotton, who won re-election by a landslide in the 2020 Senate election in red-state Arkansas, spent plenty of time in 2021 and 2022 on the campaign trail on behalf of fellow Republicans running in the midterm elections. And those trips brought the senator multiple times to Iowa and New Hampshire, which for a half century have led off the GOP's presidential nominating calendar.
The senator also bolstered his fundraising and political operation, and expanded his national profile with a book on military history.
WATCH WHAT SEN. TOM COTTON HAS TO SAY ABOUT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ALITO FLAG CONTROVERSY
But days before the 2022 midterms, Cotton announced he wouldn't run for the White House in 2024.
And in his first interview after announcing his decision, the senator emphasized why he didn't run.
"Family was really the only consideration," he told Fox News Digital.
Former President Trump holds a rally in the heavily blue New York City borough of the Bronx on May 23, 2024. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Fast-forward nearly two years and Cotton told Fox News' Brett Baier last week that he and Trump have had a few conversations "about what it's going to take to win this election in November, to elect President Trump to another term in the White House and elect a Republican Congress so we can begin to repair the damage that Joe Biden's presidency has inflicted on this country."
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But the senator said that neither Trump nor his campaign had reached out to him regarding serving as running mate.
"I suspect only Donald Trump knows who's really on his short list," Cotton added in his interview on Fox News' "Special Report."
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