Volunteer State News

NEW YORK CITY—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, today joined Kudlow on Fox Business to discuss the Biden Administration’s weakness toward America’s adversaries after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping in China. 

Partial Transcript

Hagerty on Biden’s failed policies: “[It] seems that [President Joe Biden has] totally weaponized the Justice Department, the FBI, and every other aspect of government to keep himself in perpetual power. The Democrats have all fallen in line with this. It’s really a disgrace […] If you think about the war that he waged on the domestic energy industry here, it started out on the very first day of his presidency. He’s driven energy prices through the roof. Everything I know, Larry, has to be transported, moved. Energy is a major input factor for most things that are manufactured. It’s inherently inflationary. And he did it, damned the torpedoes. Then you had, on top of that—the stimulus that they put into the economy at a time that we didn’t need it—they just put fuel on the fire, and they stand back and try to claim that this is some sort of victory.” 

Hagerty on Blinken’s meeting with President Xi: “I saw [Blinken say that the U.S. does not support Taiwan independence], and these are dated State Department talking points, but I think that they marched them out probably in exchange for Blinken to get the meeting with Xi, and that meeting with Xi was an embarrassment as well. If you saw the way that they were situated when Xi met with [Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson, when Xi met with [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, [and] when Xi met with [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton, they all sat side by side in the position of equals. Even [Sergey] Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, sits side by side with Xi. But when our Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, meets with him, Xi’s in the middle of the table, and Blinken’s on the side. There’s disrespect all the way around. You know how the subtleties matter.”

Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s weakness toward the Chinese Communist Party: “Our State Department has continued to do this in terms of trying to appease the Chinese Communist Party. You know, one of the conditions, at least it was reported, that one of the conditions of this meeting between Blinken and these high-level Chinese Communist Party officials was that the FBI report on the China spy balloon not be released. Well, the report has never been released, and Secretary Blinken has had his meeting. I think we come into this from a position of weakness like this—kowtowing to the Chinese and their demands—that’s not the position we need to be [in], and you and I both know that speaking from a position of strength, that’s exactly where America needs to be. That’s where our Secretary of State should be.”

Hagerty on Biden claiming the Chinese Spy Balloon was more embarrassing for China than intentional: “To say this is an embarrassment for China—I know this is an embarrassment for the United States and for this Administration to allow this to happen. It takes someone in Montana to spot it with his naked eye before they’re going to disclose this to the American public? They allow this balloon to loiter over the United States for days, flying over our military assets, loitering over Oak Ridge National Lab in my home state of Tennessee. This was an absolute embarrassment […] It’s just unbelievable that President Biden would parrot this Chinese Communist Party talking point when we know that’s disinformation. And to actually extend that when he should be calling it for what it is: This is an act of aggression. It’s a violation of U.S. sovereignty. And the Chinese Communist Party decided it was okay to do that.”

Hagerty on the Biden Administration’s aim to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal: “I think the Ayatollahs have been very clever in terms of how to play this Administration, and they’re playing him like suckers. What they waited [for] was for Joe Biden to announce his 2024 candidacy. Lo and behold, one of the promises that he made was that he was going to re-enter this deal. And the Ayatollahs have held off. We’ve tried everything—I shouldn’t say we, but Biden’s negotiating team—through our partners, Russia and China, who are handling the negotiations on our behalf. I mean, what could go wrong with Russia negotiating on our behalf for this deal? But the Biden Administration has bent over backwards to try to seal this campaign promise, even what they’re calling a mini deal. But this will be a terrible deal for America. It’s going preserve Iran’s current capacity in terms of being at a breakout point with a nuclear weapon. At the same time, it’s going to free up billions more dollars, as you mentioned, close to $3 billion have already been released through Iraq. They’re talking about $7 billion coming from South Korea. This is the Biden Administration’s willingness to enrich the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. Someone who’s said ‘Death to Israel. Death to America,’ who’ve waged war on our troops in Syria and other places. They’re willing to do this. So, the next time that the Israelis feel a rocket coming in from Hezbollah or Hamas, they can say that America paid for that. You can thank Joe Biden for this”

Hagerty on expanding the Abraham Accords: “[The Abraham Accords] was a capstone accomplishment of President [Donald] Trump. I mean, it was an accomplishment worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. And instead, the Biden Administration is trying to destroy all of President Trump’s legacy. I think this has to do with domestic politics. It doesn’t have to do with other national security because, just as you articulated, Larry, that’s where we should be expanding the Abraham Accords. But the Biden Administration has no interest in doing it […] Our strongest ally in the Middle East, and the Biden Administration is refusing that relationship.”

Original source can be found here.