DALLAS, TX — United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today joined Griff Jenkins on Fox News Live to discuss his panel at CPAC, the ongoing infrastructure negotiations, and future debt ceiling negotiations.
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Hagerty on CPAC Panel: “We talked a lot about the threats that face our nation and the fact that the Biden Administration is opening the door to so many of the adversaries that we had done such a great job under President Trump’s leadership of showing strength and the fortitude of America. What we’re seeing right now are the knee-jerk policies that Biden has used, collapsing our border, kowtowing to the WHO and refunding them, Nord Stream 2, letting the Russians have that pipeline, entering the START deal with the Russians, and getting nothing in return. Certainly if you look at what we’ve done with China, killing the Keystone XL pipeline, stopping all drilling here in America, making us dependent on solar panels from China, on wind turbines from China. China’s laughing all the way to the bank, just as Vladimir Putin is in Russia, just as the Ayatollahs are in Iran, as they see us again move back toward an Iran De that would give them tens of billions of dollars. Again, to fund more terror against our allies in the Middle East. And frankly, the cartels in Mexico are loving the Biden Administration policies as well. The flow of illegal fentanyl coming in from China through Mexico, across our borders. And of course the criminal elements here in America are thriving under the policies of the Biden administration. That’s who’s enjoying the benefits.”
Hagerty on concerns of conservatives: “Really at the core of it is America is hungry for strong leadership. And I can tell you from the past, serving in the Trump Administration as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, again that’s the third largest economy in the world, after the United States and China. The world is hungry for American leadership. They need America to be back at the forward, not leading from behind, but leading with America’s interests at heart, with the interest of our allies at heart, and standing up for the greatness that this nation has always been a founder of.”
Hagerty on infrastructure negotiations: “Well, my concern is very obvious. The radical Democrat position is they want to push through a $6 trillion package. They’re going to use parliamentary tricks and something called reconciliation, which is the exact opposite of what you or I might think reconciliation means. They’re going to use this parliamentary trick to shove through all of this radical social policy that very few Americans would support. They’re trying to get Republicans to cooperate on certain aspects of infrastructure that probably we would agree on roads, bridges, airports, highways, even broadband. But they want to go far beyond that and mask this under the guise of bipartisanship. It doesn’t appear to me that they’re looking for a bipartisanship solution at all. They’re looking to shove through their policies.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ use of parliamentary tricks: “I’m going to have a very hard time moving forward myself. And I think that would put me in alignment with President Trump here. Looking at what they’re talking about doing and the way Biden flipped immediately to talk about pairing these two things and not signing one without the other. Again, they’re trying to walk that back with the White House, but I think the message is pretty clear what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to again use parliamentary tricks to shove through this massive package that will add trillions of more dollars of debt to our children and grandchildren’s backs. This is not good for America. We’re creating inflation at the same time and we’re moving in a direction that I think Americans don’t want to see us go.”
Hagerty on debt ceiling negotiations: “I think it’s going to be a very strong stand that you’ll see from conservatives. You’ll see us standing up for what we believe is the long-term future of America. We’ve got to navigate through this coronavirus pandemic. We’ve done that, I think that the Congress took on debt in order to get us through a once in a lifetime crisis. At least I hope that’s the case. But we need to begin to bend the curve back at this point. And again, the policies that are coming out of the Biden Administration, a $6 trillion infrastructure package, that’s moving in entirely the wrong direction.”