BOSTON, MA—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Fox and Friends on Fox News to discuss the Biden Administration’s recent tone-deaf responses to The Covenant School shooting, Hunter Biden, and the situation in Sudan, along with his legislation to keep Title 42 in place and stop fentanyl trafficking into the United States.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on The White House’s response to The Covenant School shooting and their focus on the “Tennessee Three”: “I understand that this White House is focused entirely on politics. I’m certainly focused on The Covenant [School] six—those who lost their lives. We can put into place legislation to harden schools, to protect these children, to protect the most vulnerable, and political stunts really are secondary in mind, I think, to everyone, certainly in Tennessee, that cares about the situation at Covenant School […] Certainly, it was a stunt that took place on the floor of the Tennessee [House of Representatives]. The bullhorns, all of the racket making. They knew what the rules were. But again, this has turned into something I think the White House can make some political gains on—at least, that’s their calculation. I wish they would instead focus on the victims of this horrendous murder […] Everyone in Tennessee’s hearts are broken about this. We are extraordinarily focused on the families, those whose lives are lost, and Senator [Marsha] Blackburn and I have put [forward] legislation to harden schools at the federal level. The state legislature has put [forward] more resources for schools to protect them, and I think the Tennessee legislature’s looking at a special session to come back together right now to see what more that can be done […] We’ve got an Administration in the White House that’s far more focused on press releases, spin, and politics than they are in substance and reality. It’s not just what’s happening here domestically; it’s what’s happening around the world.”
Hagerty on The Covenant School shooter’s manifesto not being released: “It’s been very perplexing to all of us involved. You know, it seems that certain information is flooded into the marketplace immediately if it fits the narrative, so to speak. If the information does not fit the narrative, it seems to get suppressed. I don’t know what’s in the manifesto. I want to be sensitive to our law enforcement officers that are going through this, but it’s certainly taken a long time to figure out whether and what information can be released. I think people do deserve to know what took place, [and] what was in the mind of this sick person that committed these heinous murders.”
Hagerty on the investigation into Hunter Biden: “Well, I’m not surprised at all that the investigation is beginning to open up now that you’ve got the House Republicans in a position to actually subpoena and get at the data. But I’ll go back to a question that I asked [Attorney General] Merrick Garland more than a year ago when he was before me. I asked him to assure me that this Administration would be able to deliver an investigation in an unbiased fashion. Now that we’ve had the whistleblower come forward, particularly coming forward in light of his suggestion that perhaps this Administration is not being unbiased, that what Attorney General Garland told me was not in fact the case. We need to get to the bottom of this. I’m deeply concerned about it […] Again, I’m very concerned about it. Many of my colleagues are [concerned], and I think we will get to the bottom of this.”
Hagerty on the evacuation of American citizens in Sudan: “Those plans are called Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) Plans. And Brian, when I was U.S. Ambassador to Japan, when I came in, I immediately reworked my Non-combatant Evacuation Plan. They called them NEO plans. In Japan, I had a quarter of a million Americans on any given day that I needed to be responsible to identify, to process, and flow away from danger. Here, we’re talking about in Sudan, roughly 16,000 Americans. That’s what we know of. And again, the State Department doesn’t have a full grasp of who’s on the ground, but still a large number of Americans, 16,000 plus, I would say, that we need to be in a position to understand where they are, to be able to protect them. Right now, all they’ve been told is that they need to shelter in place. But this is a grave concern. You’ve got Wagner group involved here, Wagner Group who came in and destroyed Syria. You see what they’re doing in Ukraine right now. Now they’ve moved into Sudan. We’ve moved out, clearly. You think about the opportunity that we had with the Abraham Accords being signed in January of 2021; Sudan was one of the greatest opportunity spaces for us to improve relations in the Middle East. The Biden Administration has been so unserious. I’ve been paying attention to this relationship. The void that they’ve created has now allowed Russia to flow in, and again, negative in the accounts of the United States of America from a diplomatic standpoint [is a] big positive to Russia and a plus to China too.”
Hagerty on his Stop Fentanyl Border Crossings Act: “It’s amazing to me that this White House is so focused on politics. They’re not focused on the more than 100,000 deaths that happen every year due to drug overdoses coming across that southern border. In fact, the biggest killer of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 [is] drug overdose, most of it [is] fentanyl, and that fentanyl is coming across our southern border. I reintroduced legislation—blocked three times last year, mind you, by the Democrats—I’ve reintroduced legislation as Title 42 is about to come down that would stand Title 42 back up and allow our border patrol to use Title 42 if there’s any concern about fentanyl trafficking coming across that border. We all know that it’s a great concern. And, in fact, it’s one of the greatest health crises we face here in America. I’m hopeful that this time the Democrats will wake up past this and put a tool back in the hands of Border Patrol to begin to push back on this wave of humanity that’s pouring across the border and bringing tons and tons of [fentanyl, which is] killing hundreds and thousands of people and bringing tons of deadly drugs into America.”
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