WATCH: Sen Tom Cotton tells Dan Bongino the US must be tougher on China

"According to one new report, a top researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has deep ties to China's military," Bongino said. "What does this mean for the United States and what can we do to hold the malignant Communist Party of China accountable?"

"I'm glad to see that NBC News is finally reporting to its viewers that that lab has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party's military," Cotton said. "If you're watching Fox 18 months ago and ever since you would know that there is no distinction in China between the party and the state and the military, and supposedly private institutions like government research institutions or companies or anything else, the party controls everything. The military is the arm of the Communist party in China."

Bongino told the Arkansas Senator that it feels like America is "losing" to China, asking how America can fight back against the CCP.

"Politicians in both parties, for many decades, put China's interests ahead of so many Americans interests, whether it's our factory workers or our troopers who are stationed in the Western Pacific," Cotton replied. "Some of the missionaries we had going to China say nothing about what they're doing to their own people in places like Hong Kong or Northwest China, where they're committing genocide against ethnic and religious minorities."

"We need to remember that China needs us a lot more than we need them," Cotton said. "We can buy our T-shirts and sneakers from another country, but where are they going to sell theirs?"

"We can slap more tariffs on them. We can take away visas from Chinese Communist officials and their kid so they don't come here and take spots in our universities that should be for American kids."

"We can revoke their permanent, most favored nation status so they don't get that beneficial trade status. But rather, Congress and the president have to decide every year, whether we'll extend it for one more year. Those are all ways that we can make China pay, not just for unleashing this plague on the world, but also for decades of lying and cheating and stealing."

"It is time to lower the boom on China," Senator Tom Cotton emphasized.