ORLANDO, FL—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Cavuto Live on Fox News live from CPACto discuss the consequences of President Joe Biden’s war on the oil and gas industry and his weakness that enabled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Biden’s inaction impacting Ukrainians: “I think the Ukrainians feel very much left alone. A lot of tough talk, but not a lot of action. We had the opportunity, Neil, to impose sanctions on Russia early on. We should have done this months ago, weeks ago. That would’ve had an impact of deterrence. Now, what we’re talking about are sanctions that may have some impact in terms of penalization, but it’s not going to have any deterrent effect, obviously. And if we step back and say, ‘What caused this? What precipitated this?’ Well, it’s the very myopic green energy policies that the Biden Administration started back in January of 2021 when we declared war on the oil and gas industry here. That elevated energy prices around the world. You know, Vladimir Putin and Russia, one of the largest producers of energy ever, that windfall has come to Putin. That windfall has basically fueled the war machine that Putin is now deploying on Ukraine. I can understand why she feels vulnerable and left behind.”
Hagerty on the need to immediately return to energy independence: “What that indicates to me, Neil, when they talk about opening the strategic petroleum reserve or dropping the gas tax, is that the Democrats are finally realizing they’re coming into an election year. What they should do is go back to the energy independence that we established in the prior Administration. They should be announcing today that we’re reopening the Keystone XL Pipeline, that we’re going to be drilling on federal lands. We need to become energy independent again. That puts us in a position to come to the aid of our allies, not just driving up prices around the world and fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine.”
Hagerty on Biden’s capitulation strengthening Russia: “Well, certainly we started the oil inflation early, early on in this Administration. But if you look at what happened between Putin and President Biden along the way, the very first negotiation that they encountered was the New START Treaty. The previous Administration held back on that START Treaty because we were trying to encompass more of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal to get more for it. Biden came in, gave him a five-year extension for nothing. The next thing: you had Russian hackers hit the Colonial Pipeline. There were zero consequences for that, Neil. Zero consequences. Instead, President Biden comes with a list of 16 industries that Putin should not attack. Again, what sort of resolve does that demonstrate? And the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. These were congressionally-mandated sanctions that Biden waived. Putin’s been dealt a face card by this Administration at every turn.”
Hagerty on Biden’s weakness emboldening Putin: “Your previous guest talked about Putin… likening [Putin] to a shark that’s looking for blood in the water. What he’s looking for is weakness. And I say after the fall of Afghanistan, he saw weakness on display like never before. So, you’ve got Putin stepping in and again, striking at a point of weakness. And you’ve got his friends like President Xi standing in a position that essentially is encouraging it.”
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