WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations, Banking, and Foreign Relations Committees and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today joined BloombergTV to discuss President Donald Trump’s first actions in office via executive orders and confirmation of his cabinet nominees.

Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Trump’s cabinet confirmations: “[The confirmations are] going to be as soon as this evening. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s going to meet later this afternoon. I expect [Senator] Marco Rubio to be reported out unanimously from that committee. He’s our next Secretary of State, and I hope that our Democrat colleagues will cooperate with us. [Let’s] go ahead and accelerate the process, and let’s get him appointed tonight. We can do that. We have the authority to do that here in the Senate with Democrat cooperation. I think that’s a possibility. I also think that John Radcliffe could come out of the Intelligence Committee tonight. We can see the same thing. This type of pace, I think, is absolutely necessary, given the national security challenges that we face right now. These two gentlemen, Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe, [are] critical elements of President Trump’s team, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to move very rapidly, and similarly just keep making this pace as rapid as possible through the course of this week and next, and really put the core part of President Trump’s team around him as soon as possible.”
Hagerty on executive orders dealing with immigration: “I talked to Tom Homan just shortly after the inaugural speech. Tom is going to be the busiest man in America starting tomorrow, but I think we’re going to see a lot of action fast. Executive orders will be coming into place this afternoon, and we’re going to see a tremendous amount of movement because this mandate has been clear. Seventy-five percent of Americans said this nation was on the wrong track before election day. The number one issue has been immigration, crime in our cities, the fentanyl coming into towns across my home state of Tennessee. And we’re going to also be passing the Laken Riley Act here in the Senate. That may be the first piece of legislation—I believe it will be—that President Trump will sign into law.”
Hagerty on America First policies under Trump: “He’s made a very clear point that he’s got America’s interest first. If you think about the conversations around Greenland, critical minerals, I think these conversations are extremely healthy. The Panama Canal is something he’s been focused on for some time. I’ve talked with him about this on numerous occasions. That should be an asset that is very favorably directed toward U.S. interest and not in any way contradictory to those interests. And President Trump went through it today, in terms of the way our Navy is treated moving through there. The fact that we’ve got Chinese-owned shipyards on either end of the canal, these are serious national security concerns that he wants to address. He also talked about basically putting us in a position to go to Mars. I think that’s incredibly exciting for young people. It’s a great challenge. It’s something I’ve talked to Elon Musk about the possibility of doing. Elon told me it’s a six-month voyage. I think we’re on the cusp of being able to see that happen here in America. And President Trump can inspire that type of activity here in America. We’re the only nation that could possibly do this, I believe, and I think we will.”
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