NASHVILLE, TN—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss the Biden Administration’s disastrous energy policies and failure to address rising crime.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Biden’s short-sighted energy policies: “I am surprised at is the reaction of this White House [to OPEC cuts]. They say that they’re disappointed—that this is short-sighted. They should look in the mirror, Maria. That disappointment in short-sighted energy policies originated right here in Washington. And their response to this, I’m afraid, is going to be to sell down more of the SPR—what is supposed to be the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. What they’re calling it now, I think, is the Strategic Political Reserve because their eyes are on the November elections. They’re trying to get gas prices down, and that’s what this is all about. They’re out pleading with Iran—with Venezuela; they’d rather deal with international killers than work with American drillers right here at home. The answer is so obvious—it’s right here. [President] Joe Biden needs to take his foot off the oil and gas industry’s throat. […] when you look at what he’s done with, again, the ‘Strategic Political Reserve’—we’ll call it in Biden land—what he’s done is he’s actually sold more oil than we could process here. Who’s taken it? China’s taken it. Guess what? Saudi Arabia has taken oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve under the Biden Administration. They’re taking that oil at yesterday’s prices, and now they’re hiking the price of oil, and they’re going to turn around and sell it right back to us. I think the Biden Administration has yet again been played.”
Hagerty on rampant crime sweeping the nation: “Defund the police has manifested itself in this behavior. The other thing to look at is what happened at our southern border. The day that Joe Biden came in, he dropped all enforcement at the border. What these criminal elements are able to see is anybody can walk into the United States of America—nobody cares. There are no consequences for that crime. Why should there be any consequences for crimes in our city? It’s happening all across America, particularly in our cities. It’s even happening here in Tennessee. That’s prompted [Senator] Marsha Blackburn… my senior senator from Tennessee, [and I] to put forward legislation to deal with this right now. We need to turn around and get our law and order… reinstated here in our cities in America. We need to properly fund the police and prosecutors. We need to stop… this whole notion of no consequence bail— no cash bail — and get back to the notion that America is going to fulfill its basic promise to the public— that’s to keep us safe. That’s what our act will do, and we need to get back focused on this. We also sent a letter to [President] Joe Biden, encouraging him to do the same thing. Fund police right now— not IRS agents to come snoop on Americans. Let’s bring law and order back to our cities and to our streets. […] We sent a letter to President Biden outlining what he should do. But again, we had every Democrat in the United States Senate voted against deporting those illegal aliens that are here and have committed felonies, so the priorities of the Democrat Party are so detached from the American public—it’s crazy. And as the American public realizes this situation; they’re going to continue more and more to side with the Republicans on this.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ green energy fantasies: “What [Democrats] want to see… is gas at $15 a gallon in America—whatever it takes to force us into some sort of brand new energy fantasy, but not before November. They want to get reelected. They want to stay in power, but then they want to turn around and force America into this green new energy fantasy that they’re proposing. It doesn’t work. We don’t have the infrastructure. I’ve been here in Tennessee all week talking with people about how we’re going to put the infrastructure in place even to do this. It’s not possible. This is a pipe dream. It’s a political pipe dream, and they’re destroying the American economy in the process.”
Hagerty on record-high inflation: “If you look at the policies of this Administration in the misplaced priorities, they just don’t seem to be in touch with the economy whatsoever. And if you think about the inflation that we’re trying to deal with now, I argued back… more than a year ago that this was not transitory… If Joe Biden would just take his foot off the throat of the American energy industry, we would have much less inflation right now.”
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