Washington—On Sunday, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations, Appropriations, and Banking Committees, joined FOX News Sunday on Fox News to discuss the latest in Iran, Reconciliation 2.0 and funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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Partial Transcript
Hagerty on President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Iran: “[The Trump Administration has] all the time in the world, because they have absolutely devastated the Iranian Navy, the Iranian Air Force [and] have complete control over the skies. They’ve devastated their defense industrial base. The nuclear program is at the bottom of a mountain… There is a tremendous amount of pressure on the regime right now… That’s why it’s taken so long to negotiate anything. But President Trump has been clear he wants this decision to be made by the Iranian people… I’m looking at this with a sense of optimism, knowing that President Trump is a great deal maker […] Whatever the deal may be, it’s going to be a performance-oriented deal with real checkpoints. This isn’t going to be like the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)] where the Obama administration used billions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars of pallets of cash to bribe the Iranians. What this will be is clear performance. [Iran] is going to have to perform to get any sort of relief, and President Trump will make that very clear.”
Hagerty on DHS Funding: “[The Senate is] coming back to deal with the most fundamental problem that we’ve got: that the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security. They don’t want any sort of border enforcement. They don’t want law enforcement in America—and we have to get that funded. We need to remember the fundamentals. [Republicans] are going to fund [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)] beyond President Trump’s term so that they stop becoming a political football, and are allowed to do their job to make our nation more safe. With respect to the other items, I think we’re going to be able to navigate that.”
Hagerty on Budget Reconciliation 2.0: “There are discussions underway right now between [the Senate Republican Conference] and the White House to get to something that’s going to work. I’m looking forward to seeing the details this coming week. We’re going to get right back onto this reconciliation package. Again, we would not be here were it not for the obstructionism of the Democrat Party. Chuck Schumer and the Democrats seem to want to create chaos at every turn, and it’s our obligation to try to fix that.”
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