‘If you think about who the biggest winners are with Joe Biden’s border policy, it’s the Chinese Communist Party and these billion-dollar criminal enterprises here that are the Mexican cartels’
LAREDO, TX—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures to discuss the national security and humanitarian crisis that he witnessed at the border this weekend precipitated by President Joe Biden’s failed policies, and the Biden Administration’s efforts to return to the Iran nuclear deal.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the inattention to the drug overdose epidemic in America: “Well, we’ll talk about the U.S.’s slow response to national security issues because I want to talk about what’s happening right here at the border where there’s no response. But I was again, you know, surprised and pleased to see President [Volodymyr] Zelensky step up and say he’s going to do what it takes to protect his people. A crisis last night uncovered near Kyiv—300 bodies, Maria, found in a mass grave. That’s tragic. I think the world feels that tragedy. Three hundred bodies found in a mass grave. But Maria, let me tell you this: that’s equivalent to one night of death from overdoses to our youth here in America. One night’s worth of fentanyl death coming across this border right here. Yet, nobody’s talking about this. You’ve been the best of all in terms of covering this in the media, but no one’s talking about what’s happening right here to our own nation, with, you know, tremendous amounts of illicit drugs coming across the border. Again, killing probably at least as many kids last night—300 here in America—as were found buried near Kyiv.”
Hagerty on the perilous repercussions of eliminating Title 42: “I was here Friday evening when they put together what they call the evening muster. The leadership came out to tell the border patrol agents that, indeed, the President of the United States decided to lift the Title 42. That’s the last tool that they have left to send people back to, you know, back across the border. There was just a complete cloud of depression that fell over the room, Maria. That’s the last tool left. They’re already overwhelmed. They’ve got capacity to process perhaps 5,000 coming across the border. They’re now getting 7,000. This is going to 15, 18,000 overnight. In fact, what the president has done is send an invitation to come to America. May 23rd, the border’s going to collapse. There’s going to be a tidal wave coming across this border. It’s going to be a mass of drugs coming across the border, illegal activity, and there’s going to be a tidal wave of humanity coming across the border at the same time. This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions.”
Hagerty on the burdens of eliminating Title 42 on overwhelmed border patrol: “Maria, here’s what’s going to happen: they’re not going to be able to protect the border at all. They’re going to be spending the entirety of their time processing paperwork because, without Title 42, which can be handled in about 15 minutes, they have to go through a different process that takes an hour and 15 minutes. It’ll take five times as many border agents to process the number of people coming across. It’s going to be all paperwork, no border protection. The border’s going to be open. I’m sure that the Chinese Communist Party is ramping up fentanyl production right now in China; they’re shipping it to Mexico. The Mexican cartels are ramping up. There’s going to be another flood of illegal drugs coming across the border, particularly after the 23rd of May.”
Hagerty on the illicit drug war Communist China is waging on America through the southern border: “It’s amazing to me. I brought mayors and sheriffs on this trip with me—mayors and sheriffs from Tennessee—Maria, because we’re feeling it in our home state. We’re losing kids to overdoses every night and every day. The mayor of one of our smallest counties, Cocke County, told me that she had 27 deaths due to overdoses in her county last year, 23 of them from fentanyl. The Chinese Communist Party’s fingerprint is on every one of those deaths in my home state, Maria. They are waging war on us. Maria, I was on the phone with White House staff during the G20 Conference in Buenos Aires when President [Donald] Trump directly told President Xi he should not send fentanyl to the United States. President Trump demanded it. President Xi agreed. But President Xi never agreed to stop sending it to Mexico. And when [President] Joe Biden decided to collapse the border here, basically he’s opened the door for the Chinese Communist Party to again begin to wage war on America’s youth. And that’s exactly what’s happening. […] Again, they’re flooding the border, working with their partners, the illegal cartels. If you think about who the biggest winners are with Joe Biden’s border policy, it’s the Chinese Communist Party and these billion-dollar criminal enterprises here that are the Mexican cartels that not only control the entirety of the Mexican side of the border, but they’re actually moving into Laredo where I am right now. They’re controlling stash houses. They’re influencing neighborhoods. They’re destroying life here on this side of the border, too.”
Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s efforts to return to the disastrous Iran deal: “It certainly appears that the Biden Administration is doing everything they can to move in that direction. It’s so foolhardy, but yet again, another example of President Trump taking a decision that was best for America—getting us out of that deal—and the Biden Administration doing everything they can to undo President Trump’s great policies just to, you know, support their own vanity. President Trump is going to be proven right again here with Iran, the world’s greatest sponsor of terror. We’re talking about putting tens of billions of dollars into their hands, talking about putting them on the path to a nuclear weapon, completely destabilizing the Middle East. We’ve heard nothing of the Abraham Accords since the Biden Administration took office. President Trump achieved a tremendous victory there in terms of the possibility for peace and economic prosperity in the region. The Biden Administration’s willing to set that to the side immediately. They’re going to do everything they can to go back to the failed policies of the Obama Administration, just like they’ve done here at the border. President Trump had the wall funded here in Laredo, where I am. There is no wall here, Maria. It’s a tragedy. It’s chaos here. If you look around the globe, every place that the Biden Administration has taken an action to undo President Trump’s good policies, we’ve suffered, and nowhere more so than with domestic energy. Americans are feeling this every day at the pump. The Biden Administration came in and killed our domestic energy policy. They’ve waged war on domestic oil and gas industry, and you’ve seen the inflation repercussions around America.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ politically-motivated refusal to secure the border to the detriment of American lives: “The national security crisis that Senator [Marsha] Blackburn mentioned is enormous. They’ve apprehended 157 different nationalities here at this border since President Biden took office. 157 different nationalities. The [United Nations] only recognizes 195 countries. This is a massive national security crisis, and people keep asking me: why don’t the Democrats do something about this? What’s the motivation? Well, their big-dollar donors, I’m certain, are happy to have cheap labor coming across this border, but even worse, it’s the cynical thought that Democrat politicians with their sanctuary cities are trying to change the map, trying to change the electoral map for themselves in a way that is incredibly cynical, and they’re willing to put Americans at risk. They’re willing to lose a hundred thousand lives a year to overdoses. It’s amazing what they’ll do for search of power.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ evasion of congressionally-mandated oversight in returning to the Iran deal: “Maria, it certainly appears they’re going to try to do this. They’re going to try to go around the Congress again, not submit it as a treaty as it should be. Let me be clear: what that means is as soon as a Republican takes office back in 2024, that deal’s going to be torn up again. We’ve got a process called INARA [Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act]. They’ll probably try to avoid that as well, but we’re going to do everything we can to exert congressional oversight. I’ve tried to put legislation forward. The problem is I can’t get Democrat support to do that, but I know that my Democrat colleagues see the folly in this as well. This is a major national security crisis.”
Hagerty on the heartbreaking humanitarian crisis he has seen first-hand at the southern border: “What I’m hearing here on the border, Maria, is that we’re going to see a human tidal wave across this border. We’re going to see a humanitarian crisis beyond anything you’re seeing on the planet right now. What I’ve seen here in the past three days on the ground are babies being left as distractions. We’ve seen drugs moving across this border in record proportion. We’ve seen children that have been subject to sexual abuse. This is horrible.”
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