Freshman Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a former Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, said on Tuesday that military women should not serve in front-line combat roles because their "nature" makes them unfit for the task.

"To have women serving in infantry, though, could impair the mission-essential tasks of those units," Cotton said on Laura Ingraham's radio show, according to ThinkProgress. "And that’s been proven in study after study, it’s nature, upper body strength, and physical movements, and speed, and endurance, and so forth."