WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations and Banking Committees, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss student loan forgiveness and Democrats’ attempts to divert attention away from their failed policies.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Biden’s effort to buy votes with student loan forgiveness: “It certainly would’ve been more appropriate if [Senator Joe Manchin] just said that this should have never happened. But what’s happening is obviously [President] Joe Biden’s attempt to change the narrative and to buy votes for the upcoming midterm elections. In fact, when I was in my home state of Tennessee, I spent the last month doing an Economic Development Tour of the state. When this news broke, it was met very, very sourly by the people of Tennessee. Think about the people that did not go to college—it’s up to them to somehow support those that decide to do that? What about the people that worked their way through college? Those that didn’t take out loans but worked hard to make certain that they were able to do this responsibly? They’re all chumps, too, in Joe Biden’s world. So, I think this is going to be very, very poorly received by America. It’s the wrong move, and Joe Manchin could have been far stronger than he was in terms of criticizing it. […] Clearly, the Constitution and the law does not matter to the Biden Administration or the Democrats. This is all about the midterm elections in November. They don’t care whether it turns out to be legal or not. In fact, this probably will be struck down by the courts. And when we take control of the Congress after the November elections, I think that we’ll be in a position to come back—I serve in the Appropriations Committee—and address this and take it down. But in the meantime, what Joe Biden has done is make it very obvious he’s willing to do anything—anything—to try to buy votes, try to shift the narrative, try to distract the American public from the disaster that his Administration has been managing this country leading up to the 2022 elections. If you think about the economy, the state that we’re in right now, inflation at record high rates, gas prices at record high rates because we’ve lost our energy independence. You know, from a national security standpoint, we’ve never been in worse shape, you know, you think about a year ago and what happened in Afghanistan and everything that’s followed. Joe Biden has been a complete disaster—just look at our southern border. But they’re trying to distract the American public’s attention from that and talk about matters that frankly are going to change after November.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ attempt to distract Americans from their record of failures: “What you see is the Democrats’ attempt to distract, to take attention away from what should be, you know, a sharp focus on the disaster that their policies have delivered for America. I think if you look at Joe Biden’s overall approval ratings, the answer is very, very clear. He is in the tank, and what this is, is an attempt to distract, deflect, and to, you know, make this election about Donald Trump, to make this election about the Republicans, make this election about anything but the record that the Democrats have amassed as they put our economy in the tank, they put our nation in a far more dangerous place. You know, crime is rampant, defund the police has not worked, collapsing the border has not worked, and making America the greatest apologist in the world clearly hasn’t worked overseas.”
Hagerty on his annual Economic Development Tour of Tennessee: “Every business owner told me that all of their input costs have gone up, certainly far beyond what’s being reported. And if you think about wage costs, those are very, very sticky coming back down. They’re not coming back down. As we look at wage increases, those are permanently inflationary increases. Now the public is hurting, and I think the wage increases have been necessary to attract people back to the workforce, but also to help them earn a living because every cost that they have, every cost that the American public [has], certainly Tennesseans, has gone up. Joe Biden has set off the most pernicious tax in the world, and that is inflation, and he’s stealing it from the people of Tennessee, the people of America who can least afford it. […] In Tennessee, we drive to our jobs. And what Joe Biden has done, what the Democrats have done, is wage war on energy independence here in America. From the day they took office, they’ve driven the cost of fuel through the roof. Diesel fuel, gasoline, heating oil in the Northeast—you think about the inflationary impacts—that could be changed overnight if they would just cease this war on the fossil fuel industry here in America. That would take costs down for fuel. Everything that we buy has to be transported. That would be immediately deflationary, [and] they will not do it.”
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