WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Liz MacDonald on The Evening Edit to discuss the Biden Administration’s actions that have damaged its credibility and demonstrated weakness to our adversaries around the globe.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the dangers of Biden’s negligence: “I think the White House needs to be extraordinarily careful right now, Liz. You know, I served as a diplomat in President [Donald] Trump’s Administration. I was the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Our words do matter. The United States is the most exceptional and the strongest nation in the world. Everyone in the world is listening right now, particularly to our leader. [President] Joe Biden needs to be far more careful about what he does because he’s becoming a national security risk when he speaks out of turn, as he does, when he gets things wrong, as he does, he’s putting our nation at risk and our allies as well.”
Hagerty on Biden’s lack of credibility with the American people: “I think the American public is a lot smarter than the Biden Administration and the Democrat leadership here in Washington seem to believe. As you say, the American public knows that the Biden Administration has essentially underwritten Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, because we’ve allowed them to have such a massive windfall again, thanks to the war that Biden has declared on American energy. He destroyed our energy independence from the day he came into office. He’s the one that’s responsible for precipitating this massive price hike. Now he’s trying to blame it on Putin. They’re going to bring in CEOs from oil companies this week to try to blame it on them. Again, they’re great at trying to play the blame game, but I think the American public is too smart for this. So, if they go after executive orders again, we’ll be calling this out. They’re just looking at the polls and trying to react. Everything they do will probably last just until about November of this year. […] It’s just more evidence that this Administration leads by press release. They don’t think about the second and third order effect of what they’re doing. And again, they’re letting the far, far radical left of their party drive them and steer them in a direction. If they go after these executive orders to again, implement their Green New Deal agenda, what they couldn’t get done in the Build Back Better that was defeated here, they’re going to push the American public further and further away from them. That’s why their poll numbers are dropping.”
Hagerty on not losing sight of Communist China: “I think China’s watching every aspect of what we’re seeing right now. And if you talk about the hypocrisy of the left, these electric vehicle pushes—look, I’m from Tennessee. We have the largest electric utility in America, the Tennessee Valley Authority right there—we don’t have the infrastructure. You know, Liz, just the other day, I saw a Tesla with a bumper sticker on the back. It said ‘powered by coal.’ This is just hypocrisy here in America. But the Chinese are watching all of this, and they’re going to take any advantage they can. They’re looking long term. They’re looking over the horizon and trying to find ways to supplant us. We need to wake up and keep our eye on that ball.”
Hagerty on the need to put America’s interests first: “You think about the fact that the Biden Administration has given Russia even a greater geopolitical weapon over Europe. The Europeans that she’s [Hillary Clinton] so worried about—the [European Union]—has been free because we’ve subsidized them through [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], they’ve been free to trade with whom they want. Guess what? They traded with Russia. They’ve become dependent on them. We should step up and focus on America and what makes America strong first. We should put ourselves in a position where we can offset Putin’s great advantage with far cleaner fossil fuel industry than what’s being pumped out of Russia. This is so hypocritical.”
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