NASHVILLE, TN—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations and Foreign Relations Committees, today joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss Democrats’ reckless spending and their continued blocking of his legislation to help stop the fentanyl crisis.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the Senate’s passage of a short-term CR yesterday: “It’s a short-term bridge, but it’s something I’m not supportive of. We need to move this into the next calendar year. We need to move it to a point where Republicans have an advantage. I’m a business person. I’ve negotiated my entire career. You want to negotiate from a position of advantage. We don’t have an advantage right now. We shouldn’t be closing this at this point in time. We should wait until Republicans have control of the House of Representatives. I’m quite disappointed that we’re moving [in] the direction we are, but that’s where we find ourselves right now. And at least I’m glad that [Senator] Josh Hawley’s bill has been introduced that will take TikTok off of all government phones. I would encourage everybody in America to take it off their children’s phones. This is quite dangerous. The Chinese Communist Party is looking at every avenue they can to invade our privacy and to gain [an] advantage. This is at least one positive note in something that is very, very disturbing to me in terms of our continuing to fund [President Joe] Biden’s reckless spending and the Democrats’ willing disregard for the real crisis that faces us at our southern border.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ inflation-fueling spending: “I think they don’t care. The 40-year high inflation, of course, is a direct result of this reckless spending spree that the Democrats have precipitated. They put roughly $3 trillion into an economy that was already moving forward. They’ve set it on fire, and the inflation that we felt is due not only to their reckless spending, but also to Biden’s very reckless policies regarding energy in America. He’s waged war on oil and gas here, driving energy prices through the roof. At the same time, from a fiscal standpoint, we’ve had, without a single Republican vote, Democrats push forward stimulus spending and green new deal spending that has driven inflation through the roof here in America. It’s not going to stop until we stop this spending, and it is just incredibly reckless, and I think you’re responsible to continue moving in this direction.”
Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s failed immigration policies: “Whatever their immigration plan is, it’s basically a plan to flood our border, to destroy America, to bring in more and more illegal immigration. And if you think about it, Maria—we’ve talked about this before—this is about power for the Democrats. They’re trying to shift and transform America in a direction that is uncontrollable… You know, 160 different nationalities have been apprehended at that border. They don’t know who’s coming across. They don’t care. Fentanyl can come across, you know, major drug traffickers, terrorists can come across. They don’t care.”
Hagerty on Democrats blocking his legislation to modify Title 42: “You know, President [Donald] Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy was the one thing that actually worked in terms of making people that were seeking asylum here in America stay in the country that they were from. What it demonstrated was that most people coming here are really not here to seek asylum. They’re here for economic reasons. That’s not a legitimate reason to come here [for asylum]. The Remain in Mexico policy was actually working. It worked in a tremendous way under President Trump. Now with Title 42 falling, there needs to be something to take its place. I’ve tried now twice, Democrats blocked both times, to modify Title 42 to focus on the most existential health crisis that’s facing us as Americans. The number one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 is death by drug overdose. Where does that drug overdose come from? That southern border, the majority of it’s fentanyl. What I’ve done is put forward legislation that would stop and allow border agents to use the threat of fentanyl crossing that border as a reason to turn people back to stop and block this, and the Democrats blocked it twice now. I’m going to bring it back to the floor again. I’m going to continue this fight because fentanyl is an existential threat to the health of America, and that’s what’s happening in our southern border. They are bringing this poison across our border with no checks or balances, and we are seeing Americans die in over a hundred thousand last year alone.”
Hagerty on pushing back against the Chinese Communist Party: “We need to do far more than we have. Again, I served as U.S. Ambassador of Japan when we were pushing back in the Indo-Pacific. We need to use tariffs. We need to use economic measures. We need to use military measures. We need to do everything that we can to push back against the predatory nature of the Chinese Communist Party. They are here in America. They’re even establishing police stations here to basically pursue and observe their own people that happen to be a resident here in America. We’ve got to push back at every turn. Their predatory practices are just unconscionable. And I think that Josh Hawley’s bill, at least gets TikTok off of government phones, is a good step in the right direction. But it sends a message to America to wake up and realize that we’ve got a huge problem with the Chinese Communist Party.”
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