WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees, today joined Making Money With Charles Payne on Fox Business to discuss the Biden Administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s threats, President Joe Biden’s divisive rhetoric against Republicans, and the Federal Reserve’s response to inflation.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Russia’s increasing threats to Ukraine: “Well, we need to have a plan. We need to have an idea of what the endgame is. The Biden Administration needs to articulate what it wants the world to look like as this evolves, and we need to know what the Biden Administration’s strategy is. You know, you go back to the beginning of this, Vladimir Putin has dug himself into a deep hole. He made some serious assumptions—two main assumptions. One was that his military was competent. Indeed, it has not been shown to be competent. And two, he thought that Ukraine would roll—44 million people would capitulate. In fact, [President] Joe Biden and his White House on day two of this conflict, offered to fly [President] Zelensky home—to get him out, away from Ukraine and bring him out. I think there have been serious miscalculations on both sides at the outset, and what we’ve seen is failure after failure on behalf of the Russian military. Now he’s bringing in 300,000 reservists—I would say they’re probably conscripts—not that competent. I’m not as concerned about that as I am about the fact that Vladimir Putin has raised the threat of nuclear weapons. That has a real serious impact that needs to be taken very seriously by our Administration.”
Hagerty on the importance of preparedness for Russian tactics: “We need to be preparing for every scenario, certainly including the worst case. And if Vladimir Putin decides to take a turn toward nuclear weapons, again, we have to take that very seriously. Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and we need to understand the fact that Vladimir Putin is actually using words that are extremely threatening, not only to Ukraine, but destabilizing to the entirety of Europe.”
Hagerty on Biden’s divisive rhetoric: “It’s extremely destructive. If you think about Biden’s Inauguration speech, the way he campaigned back in 2020 as a [unifier], this has been the biggest political bait-and-switch that we’ve ever seen. If you think about the speech that he gave in Philadelphia, the most divisive speech I’ve ever seen from a sitting President of the United States, he’s [attacking] half of America right now. It’s demoralizing to our country—I think it’s dividing at a time that we need to be uniting. Particularly when you think about the threats that we’re facing overseas, we need a strong America right now rather than continuing to wage war on half of the population. So, the rhetoric must change, and it’s got to change at the very top with Joe Biden.”
Hagerty on Congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve: “Yes, we have oversight here. And the challenge is the fact that Democrats control the Banking Committee. The process is one where 50 votes plus one gets a person onto the Federal Reserve Board. The philosophy needs to come back to its true foundations. We need to stay in line and focused on the economy, not pursuing some sort of social agenda. At the same time though, I wish the Fed had acted sooner, and this is not a social comment. But what we’ve known is that this inflation is not transitory. [Chair] Jay Powell and I’ve had this conversation since the spring of 2021. I wish we’d act sooner, but I’m glad to see things are moving forward right now. The Fed has taken on responsibility that I, again, wish it had begun to undertake earlier so that the situation wouldn’t be where it is today. Right now, we’re looking at 13.2 percent inflation since Joe Biden took office. There’s been a lot of concerns because fiscal policy has created a lot of this. You think about the March 2021 inflationary package that was passed on a wholly partisan basis—almost $2 trillion dumped into the economy. Some of that money’s still not spent yet, so there’s more inflation baked into the pipeline, Charles. So, it’s a very challenging environment that the Fed finds itself dealing with today.”
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