United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Face the Nation on CBS to discuss the mandate of President Trump’s landslide victory and American foreign policy in a Trump Administration.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on the sweeping mandate for President Trump’s Administration: “I think this is a presidency that has a mandate like we haven’t seen, as you mentioned, in 36 years. The American public has spoken loud and clear. And I think if you go back to your interview with Bob [Costa], there are a number of places where Washington [D.C.] has been out of touch with the American people. You mentioned Ukraine. I think that’s a great example. The American people want sovereignty protected here in America before we spend our funds and resources protecting the sovereignty of another nation. You think about it: we’ve sent $175 billion of U.S. aid to Ukraine. That’s more than three times the entire annual budget of the U.S. Marine Corps. I have been one of the few senators in the United States Senate who has voted and has opposed every cent of this Ukraine aid. I’ve been listening to the American people. We need to focus on our own issues first. And I’ve taken a lot of heat over it from Mitch McConnell from the Wall Street Journal. But this is what the American people spoke up and want us to do. We should never have been in Ukraine. It’s a result of failed policies, failed energy policies […] I’m talking about the vast amount of funds, again, $175 billion is a tremendous amount. As I said, more than three times the budget of the U.S. Marine Corps. The American people want to focus on fixing our problems here, and with the border collapsed, with crime in the cities, we’ve got to pay attention to America […] What it means is that we need to take a very deliberate focus on America first, and we need to be leading from a position of strength, Margaret […] Now what we have is an Administration that’s allowing Russia to sell at a $60 barrel cap. The argument they make is that reduces Russia’s profits. What it does, actually, is it subsidizes China to compete again unfairly against us with an energy cost advantage, and we keep Vladimir Putin fully funding this war in Ukraine. We need to stop that. We need to go back to producing our own energy and take Russia out. Interestingly, I’ll call this the ‘Trump Effect’, but just in the past 72 hours, what we’ve seen is the E.U. [European Union] say, ‘maybe we should replace Russian LNG [Liquified Natural Gas] with U.S. LNG.’ You’ve seen in New York City: we’re not going to issue debit cards to illegal immigrants anymore. Migrant caravans are being broken up below the border and turned around. The U.K. [United Kingdom] has said we’re going to step our defense budget up to about 2.5 percent. All [happening] since President Trump was elected.”
Hagerty on future aid to Ukraine: “I’ve certainly not voted for any aid, and I think President Trump will find […] a way to deal with this. I’m not going to get ahead of him. I’m certain that he’s going to find a way to navigate this that is in the interest of the American people and will stop the carnage. Look: what’s happened in Ukraine is terrible. People are dying. They continue to die, but we need to stop this.”
Hagerty on the current complications of the global stage: “I think it has become complicated because America’s not been standing in a position of strength. The reason is that Russia’s been fully funded because of the policies that allowed them to sell energy. Iran, we had them shut down [under the Trump Administration]. Iran was broke […] Now they’re able to fund terror all the world over the world. We had a maximum pressure campaign […] They [Iran] were not able to do that [freely sell Iranian oil] under the Trump Administration. That’s why we saw peace breaking out in the Middle East. Without Iran being shut down, which is what we did under the maximum pressure campaign—President Trump led this. We were able to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Everybody said it couldn’t happen. It did. The Abraham Accords: peace was breaking out in the Middle East because Iran could not fund terror. As soon as the Biden Administration came in, they stopped enforcing the sanctions [that had cut off Iranian revenues]…”
Hagerty on the prospects of peace in the Middle East under a Trump Administration: “…I’ve had huge disagreements with this [Biden] Administration in terms of how they’ve administered their entire policy […] I think what we’ve seen just break out again, in the past 70 plus hours since President Trump won the election, Hamas is now looking for total peace, so I think the environment has totally changed. They’ve [Hamas] announced they’d like to see peace. They’d like to see peace in Gaza, and let’s see where that leads […] I’d like to see what Hamas means by this statement. But it seems that the entire environment is shifting right now because they see new leadership coming in. And I’m encouraged by that, and I think we’ll have new opportunities to, again, President Trump was able to deliver peace through strength. I think that’s on the way, and I’m optimistic what it might lead to […] I think what President Trump is going to do is focus on the ‘root cause’ to borrow a term that was used a great deal in the [outgoing] Administration. He’s going to focus on Iran because the cause of this is Iranian funding and training of Hamas, of Hezbollah, of the Houthis. That would’ve never happened except for the fact that they released the enforcement of sanctions on Iran […] President Trump is certainly going to uphold U.S. law, but he’s also going to make certain that our allies are properly cared for and that our adversaries are dealt with accordingly.”
Hagerty on the idea to pull U.S. troops out of Asia: “I think that comes back again to the failure of the elite here in Washington, Margaret, to understand how a business person negotiates. Everybody’s got to sit down and talk about what the options are. We have been supporting military presence in that area ever since World War II, ever since the Korean War—a significant investment on behalf of the American people. Those investments were made at a time when these economies were collapsed. They were developing countries. Today, they are fully developed countries. It’s entirely relevant and I think appropriate for President Trump to discuss within the level of support […] I think the message should be that our allies can and should step up to the extent possible to strengthen their own capabilities. We’re seeing it happen. We’re seeing it happen in Japan. They’ve agreed to double their defense budget from 1 percent to 2 percent of GDP. That’s a positive development. They’re trying to work more closely with us. I think in President Trump’s Administration, they definitely will. This is the direction that we need to go. Same for South Korea.”
