NASHVILLE, TN—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today joined Cavuto: Coast to Coast on Fox Business to discuss Joe Manchin’s announcement over the weekend that he would oppose Democrats’ so-called Build Back Better legislation.
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Partial Transcript
Hagerty on a 50-50 Senate: “Well, certainly we would, Neil, we welcome taking back control of the Senate. I’m sure Leader [Mitch] McConnell would like to become Majority Leader again. But you remember it’s a 50-50 Senate right now. This is not any type of mandate that Chuck Schumer is seemingly acting as though he has. We’re in a dead set 50-50 Senate. The only reason they have control is because they control the White House. And of course, we’d be happy to have Joe Manchin.”
Hagerty on listening to constituents and stopping “BBB”: “That’s a possibility as well, Neil, but I think getting to the bottom of it—what we saw was Joe Manchin listening to his constituents in West Virginia, the same way that I listen to my constituents in Tennessee. They don’t want this. The American public does not want this “Build Back Better” plan at this time. We’ve got massive inflation. They want to pour more fuel on the fire. They want to destroy the oil and gas industry. They want to attack job creators. This is not the time nor place to be doing this. I think Joe Manchin is listening to his constituents the same way that 50 other Republicans are listening to theirs. There are 51 senators that are against this right now, not just one.”
Hagerty on the far-left taking over the Democrat Party: “I think this is just a reflection of anger. It’s a reflection of fear. You think about people like Chuck Schumer, who are concerned about getting primaried from the far-left of his party, that’s what’s driving this sort of behavior. I think it underscores the fact that the far-left have taken over the Democrat party. They’re driving it harder and harder. You just heard earlier, Democrats in the House calling for the Senate to take action. That’s not their position or place, but they’re driving activity in the Senate right now because the far-left has got that much control over the Democrat party.”
Hagerty on the need for real leadership during the COVID Omicron variant surge: “I think he’s back at another crisis. Again, you remember he ran on a platform of being able to deal with this crisis—deal with the pandemic. Within 100 days we’re going to be in a much better place. Yet, we don’t have test kits in place. We’re not prepared for this new surge. Here we are again, back with another Joe Biden crisis. So what we see is more react mode, more spin. Will he go back to mandates? It’ll depend on what the polls tell him, I guess, Neil. But what we need is actual leadership, at this point. We need real preparation.”