WASHINGTON – United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Mornings With Maria on Fox Business to discuss President Joe Biden’s selection of abject partisans to run Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget, as well as the latest on COVID relief and Biden’s misguided immigration agenda.
Partial Transcript below:
Hagerty on COVID relief: “This is nothing more than a clear shot across the bow of partisanship. The Congress has already put close to $4 trillion available to our economy, a trillion of that almost has not yet been spent. What the Democrats are doing is taking advantage of a crisis yet again to push through this wish list of items that have nothing to do with the pandemic. What we really need to be focused on right now is getting shots in people’s arms, getting our kids back to school and getting our parents back to work. Not this wish list… that would never pass under any type of normal circumstance.”
Hagerty on Biden’s immigration agenda: “The open doors policy that the Biden administration is pursuing is going to have a very negative effect on our recovery. If you think about the people struggling at the bottom— the small companies, the hospitality businesses in Tennessee, the restaurants who are trying to reopen—they need to get Americans back to work. It’s easier to cross the border from Mexico into the United States today than it is to get a beer in a honky-tonk in Nashville, Tennessee. It really is amazing that people want to keep our schools shut, yet our borders open at this point in time. It’s going to have a negative economic effect. I’ve asked the White House: are you going to be testing people as they cross the border, are you going to vaccinate them, are you going to vaccinate them ahead of Americans, are you going to give them work permits? This is a huge problem for us right now.”
Hagerty on Xavier Becerra and Neera Tanden: “Both Tanden and Becerra cut directly against Biden’s call for unity. We all heard Biden’s inaugural address talking about unity. I believe that we really do need unity here in America. Yet he’s taken some of the most partisan candidates he could possibly put forward. And Becerra’s experience has much more to do with litigating the Little Sisters of the Poor, suing President Trump over 100 times, as you’ve mentioned a litany of issues that are highly partisan, highly charged, and highly political. Again, what we need is someone with business experience, management experience, and medical experience that will be focused on the pandemic. The number one thing we need to be doing right now is putting this pandemic in our rear view mirror. There’s a tremendous amount of logistical challenges ahead of us. We need… someone capable of doing that, not an abject partisan like Becerra. And with respect to Tanden, I don’t blame Senator Sanders. She’s attacked him, she’s attacked so many members of the United States Senate. She’s attacked Susan Collins, calling her ‘the worst’— Senator Collins is one of the most polite people I’ve ever met. She’s called Tom Cotton a ‘fraud’— a stand-up gentleman, Senator Cotton. She has made a lot of enemies here. And you think about how closely the OMB director needs to work with the Senate, I think it will be very hard for her to be effective.”
Hagerty on holding the Biden Administration accountable: “I think we’re going to do everything we possibly can against the agenda. I put a tremendous amount of pressure on the White House to make certain that they recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I got an amendment passed 97 to 3, and pushed it hard against the White House. We hit them hard every day for five days, and finally they capitulated and agreed that they would maintain the United States embassy in Jerusalem. It’s that type of pressure that we’re going to have to keep pushing forward.”