WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today joined Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss the Biden Administration’s failed appeasement policy that has enriched Iran and emboldened its terrorist proxies like Hamas.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s appeasement of Iran through compromised Robert Malley: “Clearly, it’s an Iranian influence operation that’s active inside this Administration. Larry, can you imagine, under the Trump Administration that we both served in, that something like this could have ever materialized? Here you have [Robert] Malley, who is our special envoy for Iran under [President Joe] Biden, the person responsible for negotiating the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] under [President Barack] Obama. Here he has lost his security clearance. He’s been suspended from the State Department. He’s under federal investigation. He’s been tied directly to this Iranian Experts Initiative that you mentioned. Now the Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense. Now she has been one of those members that he put into the DOD [Department of Defense]. This is deeply, deeply concerning, and you can thank Rob Malley for this as well. Today, the United Nations’ sanctions on Iran all permanently expired. This was negotiated by Rob Malley. The Biden Administration allowed them to expire. These were multilateral sanctions. They could have had a much more extensive effect if we’d snap them back. And frankly, we should snap back every sanction we possibly can on Iran and point to who’s responsible for this chaos and murder in Israel. Rob Malley has a lot of blood on his hands.”
Hagerty on the need to enforce sanctions on Iran, not Hamas: “These primary sanctions [on Hamas] will have no impact. It’s the sanctions that the Biden Administration allowed to expire today on a multilateral basis, secondary sanctions that you and I both worked on. You recall when I was Ambassador to Japan, we got the Japanese to stop buying Iranian crude [oil]. Those are the types of sanctions that bite. Those actually matter. That’s what the Biden Administration should be doing right now, and they’re doing nothing of it. This is just a smokescreen, and it underscores the fact that Joe Biden’s appearance in Israel was just a photo-op.”
###