WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss the 2022 government funding package, Biden’s war on the oil-and-gas industry, and the Biden Administration’s foreign policy failures.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the government funding package: “On the first point with respect to timing, this is legislative malpractice at its finest. Evidently, the [House of Representatives] passed something in the middle of the night last night. The government is set to shut down in about 36 hours, Maria. I’ve yet to see any text, and I’m on the Appropriations Committee. So, this is unbelievable, the recklessness that the Democrats have applied here in a situation where they’re trying to pass a 2,700 page plus bill over $1.5 trillion. As you say, money going to support other people’s borders, other countries’ borders, yet they won’t pay a penny to support our effort at the southern border. In fact, they’re inviting more chaos at our southern border at this point. You’ve been so great on advising the American people about this, but the Democrats in Washington want to ignore that, yet throw all of their attention toward Eastern Europe.”
Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s duplicity: “It’s downright Orwellian when you think about it, Maria. Everything that you cited is absolutely true. All of the problems are true. And the Democrats have been able to spin with a very friendly media—and I’ve got to say that’s key to it—but a very friendly media and Big Tech that has actually been able to step in and cancel voices of reason and truth sometimes when they disagree with this Administration. So, it is a massive head fake by the Biden Administration. Everything they say, you need to just assume the opposite is true. With respect to the energy situation right now, I mean they claim that this is big oil’s fault, that these leases are available. Well, the Biden Administration won’t permit any transit for gas or oil. They don’t talk about where these are, the amount of capital that needs to be committed to realize any of these leases. When at the same time, they’re trying to put forward nominees that want to de-bank the oil and gas industry. The whole thing is preposterous. And then what they do is they go with hat in hand to terrorists like Maduro or to the Iranians, the greatest sponsor of terror in the world. They want to deal with international killers to put oil on the market rather than American drillers.”
Hagerty on the need to prioritize defense spending over socialist spending: “As usual, Maria, you site a great concern, a very real concern, and I’m not comfortable at all. Again, back to the process. This has been just reckless by the Democrats, not sharing any of this with the Appropriations Committee here in the Senate. We have about 36 hours to go before the government shuts down. On the defense side, the initial Biden budget that came out actually defunded the Department of Defense. The only two areas that they defunded, of course, were the Department of Defense and [Department of] Homeland Security, back to your first point on our border. What they want to do is spend, spend, spend on the domestic side, creating more social programs, more government dependency, moving closer and closer to socialism, but not toward military readiness. When you see the situation that’s unfolding in the rest of the world, as you mentioned, China, you think about what’s happening right now with Russia, with Iran, with the terrorism happening around the world, we need to be moving exactly the opposite direction—a stronger America, a stronger defense, not more socialism.”
Hagerty on Vice President Harris’s incompetence: “I think whenever we hear her say, ‘I want to be very clear,’ that means I’m about to not answer your question. And if I were the President of Ukraine or the Polish people right now, I’d be very concerned because [Vice President] Kamala Harris’s portfolio seems to be where they park every problem in this White House. Think about it. She’s responsible for the border. She’s the person that they put in charge of federalizing our elections. Now they’ve sent her to Poland. I think [President Volodymyr] Zelensky should be very concerned.”
Hagerty on lowering costs for everyday Americans by unleashing U.S. energy production: “What we ought to be doing right now is getting back into the drilling business right here in America. That would have the most immediate impact in terms of lowering the cost of energy here in America. Energy is an input factor for so much of what we produce. Everything that we make has got to be transported. This would have a dramatic effect if we would just stop the war on American industry [energy].”
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