WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss President Biden’s nominees to the Federal Reserve that came before the Banking Committee today and sanctioning Russia.
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Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Federal Reserve nominee Sarah Bloom Raskin: “We’re going to have three, I’m certain, very intelligent and talented people, but there’s some great concern, particularly with respect to the candidate for one of the most powerful positions—that’s Sarah Bloom Raskin, who’s candidate to be the Vice Chairman for Regulatory Supervision. She’s talked openly, written explicitly, and recently about her desire to weaponize the [Federal Reserve] to basically de-bank the oil and gas industry. Maria, if you think about where we are right now in terms of inflation—again, inflation, one of the two main mandates of the Federal Reserve—we’re looking at 40-year highs, much of it driven by Biden’s war on the oil and gas industry, you know, killing the Keystone XL Pipeline, basically waging war on oil and gas and driving energy prices through the roof, not only here in America, but around the globe. She’s talking about coming in and starving the industry further from capital. That’s going to increase inflation pressure even greater…”
Hagerty on Raskin’s misguided objectives: “Certainly, Maria. What it’s going to do is, which she’s talked openly about it, starving these companies for capital. She’s going to use the bank regulatory apparatus to do it. We saw it happen with Operation Choke Point when the Obama-Biden Administration targeted the gun industry, here she wants to target oil and gas. Who’s to say that some other governor comes in at some later point and targets another industry? This is not the mandate of the Federal Reserve.”
Hagerty on Raskin’s problematic policy positions: “Well, she’s certainly got a strong resume. I don’t know what the Biden Administration negotiations may have been behind the scenes. She has a strong resume, but it’s her policy positions that are the problem here, Maria. And they’re a big problem for America. Again, for our economic security, for our national security. We should not allow nominees to come in and weaponize the Fed to achieve their own personal policy objectives.”
Hagerty on today’s Banking Committee hearing: “I think she’s going to have a very difficult time. It’s going to be, I think, hard for some of my Democrat colleagues to, you know, accept the fact that she’s ready to wage war on industries that are critical to their own states and frankly, an industry that’s critical to America. We’ve seen, again inflation running at massive highs, four decades, four-decade record highs for inflation. This is going to make it worse if she de-banks the oil and gas industry. And again, back to our national security, if she makes us more dependent on other nations, again, that don’t necessarily have our best interest at heart, that’s going to be bad for our national security. So, I think my colleagues are going to be listening very carefully today about what she says. And I think we should be very concerned about this, you know, again, this use of the old Democrat playbook of basically weaponizing the regulatory construct here in Washington to get policies passed that the public would never vote for.”
Hagerty on sanctioning Russia: “It’s just amazing, Maria. You’ve done such a great job of educating the American public about what’s happening at our southern border. The Biden Administration is unwilling to defend our southern border, yet he’s willing to send troops overseas to stand up and protect another nation’s border. I think it’s really preposterous when you look at it. And if you think about the number—3,000 troops against 120,000 troops from Russia—this is nothing more than a messaging exercise. I think Vladimir Putin’s heard enough messaging from the United States, from the Biden Administration. We need to actually demonstrate our resolve and take action. And that sort of action needs to be in the form of sanctions—sanctions now, not waiting until after something happens. I mean, you know, Vladimir Putin has benefited from sanctions being waived by the Biden Administration already, just look at Nord Stream 2. Congress has passed sanctions that the Biden Administration has waived in his favor. We need to demonstrate our resolve right now to demonstrate American strength and sanction him now.”
Hagerty on the need to demonstrate American resolve: “Well, we have other sanctions that we could put in place, but I think that the major discussion here in the Congress right now is on the timing of sanctions. And there’s a great deal of pressure on the Democrat side to make the sanctions only come into effect after Putin has acted. We need to give Putin a taste of what’s to come. And again, I think it’s critically important, Maria, that we finally step up and demonstrate American strength, American resolve, and that means imposing sanctions now. Nord Stream 2 would be a great start.”
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