WASHINGTON—Yesterday, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, joined America Reports on Fox News to discuss concerns with the United Nations and the qualifications of President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Representative Mike Waltz.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the current state of the United Nations: “I think that [Representative] Mike Waltz did a good job in the hearing. He’s taking on a very challenging organization–that’s the United Nations. If you think about it, the original charter of the U.N. was about bringing peace, justice, and human rights to the world. And it’s so far divorced now from what it was originally intended to be. Today, it’s a completely politicized organization, very often working counter to the interests of the United States and our allies. Frankly, far too often, it’s been captured by authoritarian regimes to do their bidding. The United Nations has a lot of room to improve.”
Hagerty on U.N. bias and October 7 attacks: “One of the most egregious examples that came up a couple of times during the hearing with Mike Waltz was what happened on October 7, 2023. At that point, Hamas was assisted by U.N. personnel in attacking Israelis. The United Nations has done everything to dismiss that. Yet, at every turn, their leadership seems to want to criticize Israel. There are real problems at the U.N., and I think it’s an opportunity to send a leader in to make quite a difference for the United States. We need to make certain, as stewards of taxpayer dollars, that our dollars are being spent in a way that’s effective and works well for the American people, not being abused in the way they have been up to this point by the leadership of the United Nations.”
Hagerty on the Signal chat controversy: “As he [Waltz] said, and as many people have said, the information that was passed was not classified. Would I have done it that way? Would you have done it that way? In retrospect, perhaps not. I think there was a serious mistake made–a glitch, if you will– in how the name roster was managed and the fact that somebody was there in the wrong spot. But with all that said, there wasn’t classified information involved. I don’t believe it’s disqualifying in any respect.”
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