WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today joined Fox and Friends to discuss his questioning of former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, President Joe Biden’s nominee to be U.S. Ambassador to Israel, during which Lew refused to admit that funding Iran’s terrorist-funding regime leads to more terrorism.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Lew’s refusal to admit funding Iran’s terrorist-funding regime leads to more terrorism: “[Iran] is the world’s greatest sponsor of terror. And he couldn’t answer my questions, Brian, when I asked him: if Iran, the world’s greatest sponsor of terror, has more funding, do you think that will lead to more terror? He obfuscated and couldn’t answer the question. We know the answer to the question. And I’ll tell you this: We know what happened when we choked those funds off; I worked in the Trump Administration as we implemented the Maximum Pressure Campaign. You saw us push Iranian funding down below $8 billion. We totally choked this off. Back during [the] Obama [Administration], during the appeasement campaign in 2014, 2015—you saw the violence coming out of Gaza—[President Joe] Biden comes back into office [and] looks the other way. You get this hockey stick of revenues coming into Iran. As soon as they start getting funding again, guess what happens? The 11-day War in Gaza in 2021, and now you’ve seen this. Hamas and Hezbollah were going broke; it was widely reported in the media under President Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign. Now, we’ve got Biden’s appeasement program, they’re back in business.”
Hagerty on Lew’s chances of being confirmed by the Senate: “Not with any Republican votes, Brian. I think it’s going to be a tough decision for the Democrats. I hate to see them line up as they so often do and fall right over the cliff. This is an insult to Israel. We should put somebody in place—we’ve got a very qualified chargé d’affaires right now. They could bring her forward, nominate, and confirm her quickly. But instead, they’re going to send a proponent of Iran to serve as our representative to Israel. You think about it, Iran wants Israel wiped off the map, and you’ve got this person who’s been deeply involved in this flawed strategy to enrich Iran. I think it’s quite an insult to our allies in Israel.”
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