WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today spoke at a press conference calling out the Biden Administration’s irresponsible appeasement of Iran that has enriched Iran and emboldened its terrorist proxies like Hamas to attack Israel.
Partial Transcript:
Hagerty: “My colleagues have done a good job of pointing the finger to the true culprit here; it’s unfortunate that President Joe Biden will not do so. He’s in Israel; none of his remarks pointed to the fact that Iran is behind this, the world’s greatest sponsor of terror.
“If you look at what happened during the Trump Administration, we imposed a Maximum Pressure Campaign on Iran. We brought the flow of funds to Iran down to a trickle. What happened? In 2021, Joe Biden was [inaugurated as] President.
“Joe Biden then implemented a new policy toward Iran, a policy of appeasement, setting aside the Maximum Pressure Campaign of President Trump, and what we’ve seen then is a dramatic ramp up of revenues. Joe Biden put in place a [U.S.] Special Envoy [to Iran], Robert Malley.
“Robert Malley has now had his security clearance stripped. He’s been dismissed from the State Department, and he’s under federal investigation. This is the person that was in charge of negotiating with Iran. This was the person that was in charge of the non-enforcement of sanctions. This was the person that oversaw the Biden Administration’s failure to enforce the sanctions that so greatly enriched Iran.
“If you look back to the Trump Administration, by 2020, we had reduced Iran’s revenues to below $8 billion. It was widely reported in the media that both Hezbollah and Hamas were going broke. Once Joe Biden comes into office, once Rob Malley takes his post, we see the Iranian regime enriched beyond comprehension. We see the violence coming from Gaza in 2021 and the 11-day war against Israel, and now we’ve seen the most horrific act yet.
“Iran’s fingerprints are all over this; the Biden Administration needs to wake up and accept responsibility in this policy of appeasement and bring civility back to the world. Thank you.”
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