WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations and Banking Committees, today joined Mornings With Maria on Fox Business to discuss the ongoing border deal negotiations and his legislation to add a citizenship question to the census and end the counting of illegal immigrants in determining Electoral College votes and congressional district apportionment.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the ongoing border deal negotiations: “When they talk about good faith coming out of this White House—they have shown zero good faith in terms of addressing this border. They have all the policies in place. Look, President [Donald] Trump had the border secured. This White House came in and systematically took apart every one of the policies that President Trump had in place. They could put those policies in place right now. In fact, this White House went to the Supreme Court last week to get the permission to cut the razor wire at the southern border that Governor [Greg] Abbott put in place. This is absolutely preposterous. The only language that I’ve seen coming through, in terms of their supplemental request, was the White House requested the ability to ‘reprogram,’ that’s Washington speak for turning upside down, the entire budget of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], to turn ICE from a law enforcement agency to a resettlement agency. They’re so unserious; it’s pathetic. President Trump is right: Unless this is airtight, we better walk away from it.”
Hagerty on his legislation to take away Democrats’ incentive for illegal immigration: “Let me explain what I’m often asked to explain: why would the Democrats do this? You heard John Kirby say the word ‘process.’ They want to process more people into this country. The question is why? Why would the Democrats subject our nation to the mayhem that fentanyl is delivering in every state? The crime, the human trafficking, why would they do this? Let me tell you why, Maria: It’s because the blue states are losing population to red states like mine. You think about where they’ve situated these sanctuary cities, it’s in blue states like New York, Illinois, California. These sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, they’ve all pledged not to enforce the immigration laws. That makes them magnets. What they’re doing is they’re attracting a disproportionate number of these people that have entered the country illegally, and these people will be counted for the purposes of allocating electoral votes and for the purposes of allocating legislative districts. We count people, not citizens. Therefore, I’m introducing legislation that will make certain that we only count citizens for these purposes, for allocating electoral votes, and for allocating congressional districts. When we do that, we take away the Democrats’ incentive because their incentive is power, and they’re willing to subject the United States to all of this mayhem just to hold on to it.”
Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s failed economic policies: “What you have is an Administration here that wants to continue their regulatory overreach, Maria, and you’ll see me pushing back at every turn. Whether it’s the Basel III Endgame that the [Federal Reserve] is working on right now that would increase capital requirements at banks. I mean, just weeks ago we had Fed regulators saying the banks are well capitalized. We navigated a pandemic without banks going down, yet they’re coming back now and trying to raise capital requirements on banks by more than 20 percent, making us less competitive as a nation with respect to our capital markets, which are the most competitive in the world. Again, we’ve got to push back on these sorts of regulatory overreaches that come from out-of-touch bureaucrats that may have great degrees from great institutions, but not enough practical experience to make good decisions.”
Hagerty on the border supplemental deal: “It’s hard to say where it stands because none of us have seen text yet. We’ve been told that it’s in process. It’s been in process for weeks, and we have yet to see text. All I’ve seen is the initial proposal that came from the White House, which absolutely was dead on arrival […] I haven’t seen the precise text on this; the way it’s worded is actually confusing. I’ve seen people try to explain it; it is quite difficult, I think, to explain and understand this until we see the precise text and understand what it is they’re proposing here […] I hope [to see text] any day now.”
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