WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss President Joe Biden’s capitulation to Russia, Iran, and the Biden-precipitated crisis at our southern border.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the consequences of Biden’s remarks: “Before I became United States Senator, I served as U.S Ambassador to Japan, and diplomacy when you’re working overseas representing the United States, your words matter, you need to be precise. As you said, President [Joe] Biden is being anything but precise and is presenting a serious national security risk for us and actually endangering Ukraine and our neighbors in NATO.”
Hagerty on Biden’s capitulation to Putin: “Well, Maria, just go back to the very beginning of his engagements with [Vladimir] Putin. Is he intimidated by him? Well, I don’t know. The New START treaty that he negotiated with Putin—if you even want to call it a negotiation—you know, that treaty was terrible terms for the United States. President [Donald] Trump wasn’t going to get it extended until he got more reciprocity in the treaty. Biden just extended it for five years with no improvement. Putin signed it immediately. You know, when the Russians attacked the Colonial Pipeline here in America, what were the repercussions? Nothing. Joe Biden instead shows up with a list of 16 industries that Putin shouldn’t attack. I mean, he hasn’t seen any sort of resolve coming from this president, that is Putin. So, I think that this continues to play into a position of weakness, Putin sees an advantage here, and we need to be very careful of about how President Biden speaks as he moves forward.”
Hagerty on talks to revive the disastrous Iran nuclear deal: “It’s just shocking. And there is bipartisan concern here in the Senate, Maria, about the movement toward the Iranian deal again. It’s going to be a worse deal than the previous one, which was a bad deal for America, a bad deal for the world. We’re talking about giving over $80 billion—immediate cash—from South Korea in the billions to the world’s greatest sponsor of terror. We’re going to put Russia in a position to negotiate this on our behalf. And again, Russia’s trying to navigate this. They’re trying to maneuver it so that they can get around the sanctions that we’ve imposed, putting Russia back in business.”
Hagerty on the Senate’s role in reviving the Iran nuclear deal: “I have been briefed on it. I’ve got legislation that would force this agreement to come to the United States Senate for review. We are trying to do everything we can on this side to keep the Biden Administration from navigating around the Senate. You know, the normal process is to bring this to us as a treaty. If they try to do something different than that, we have INARA [Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act], we have other abilities to come in and push back on this. But, as I said, there is bipartisan concern about what the Biden Administration is doing. And if you look at our allies, we’re moving our allies in the Middle East, you know, into the direction of Russia. This is a terrible deal for America. It’s a bad deal for everybody concerned.”
Hagerty on why Biden is obsessed with reviving the Iran nuclear deal: “You know, I think it’s a vanity project, if you will, for Joe Biden and [Climate Envoy] John Kerry. They’re going back to the days of the Biden Administration—I’m sorry, the Obama-Biden Administration. It seems that they want to revive this deal at any cost. Our allies are going to suffer as a result of this, and America’s going to suffer. The world will be a less safe place if they do it.”
Hagerty on the crisis at the southern border: “The Biden Administration has created the greatest national security crisis that we’ve faced as a nation by collapsing our southern border when they came into office. This is a tragedy that’s occurring there. And today, if they allow this to expire, the Title 42, that means that this onslaught is going to continue. We’ll see a massive new wave of illegal immigrants coming across this border. More fentanyl, more drugs, more human trafficking. This has been a tragedy of epic proportions. The Biden Administration is precipitating this directly. If you look at their new budget, they’re defunding all the border protection there. They’re increasing expenditures for all types of Green New Deal exploits, but they’re defunding the border and every effort to protect it. This is a massive crisis, and I expect that if they allow Title 42 to expire, we’re going to see again, another wave, another bad wave of immigration coming across this border in illegal fashion.”
Hagerty on the perilous implications of ending Title 42: “Title 42 has been for the protection of our health and safety here in America. We’ve been able to use that to keep the pandemic at bay, because the people coming across the border are bringing with them all types of disease. COVID has been the number one concern. If we delete this Title, if we delete this ability to block people coming that way, we’re going to have again, a massive onslaught and the people have already built up at the border anticipating this. So, we’re going to see another massive wave that happened just like it did when Joe Biden came into office. They’re going to crush our border. They’re going to overwhelm our, you know, any ability that we’ve got to protect the border. And we’re going to see just another wave of illicit drugs in the process.”
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