The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Bill Hagerty, Republican of Tennessee, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Nov. 10, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we turn now to Tennessee Republican Senator Bill Hagerty, who also served as US Ambassador to Japan–
SEN. BILL HAGERTY: –Yes Margaret
MARGARET BRENNAN: During the first Trump administration. It’s good to have you here.
SEN. HAGERTY: It’s good to be with you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Donald Trump has this sweeping mandate, as do Republicans. Do you see this as an unrestrained presidency?
SEN. HAGERTY: 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, there are a number of places where Washington 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’ve 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, the failure in Afghanistan–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –there’s no U.S. presence in Ukraine
SEN. HAGERTY: No but our funds. I’m talking about the vast amount of funds, again, $175 billion. That’s 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 borders collapse, with crime in the cities, we’ve got to pay attention to America.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So does that mean just cuts to U.S. military aid to all countries?
SEN. HAGERTY: What it means is that we need to take a very deliberate focus on America first. But we need to be leading from a position of strength, Margaret. As I said, we would not be in this position. Now what we have is an administration that’s allowing Russia to sell at a $60 a barrel cap. The argument they make 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, interestingly, I’ll call this the Trump effect. But just in the past 72 hours, what we’ve seen is the EU say, “Maybe we should replace Russian LNG with U.S. LNG. You’ve seen in New York City–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Well that’s been talked about for some time–
SEN. HAGERTY: 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 UK has said we’re going to step our defense budget up to about 2.5% all since President Trump was elected
MARGARET BRENNAN: Some of that was- was in process already, but let me ask you specifically on Ukraine. So Hungary’s Prime Minister has said that Donald Trump has told him he will cut off support to Ukraine. You are saying here, I think, in the new Congress, there will be no more aid to Ukraine.
SEN. HAGERTY: I’ve certainly not voted for any aid.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you haven’t, but is that the mandate?
SEN. HAGARTY: And I think President Trump will find- 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’s 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.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But here’s the thing, we also are seeing this alignment of like an axis of adversaries, right? You have Iranian equipment, you have Chinese equipment–
SEN. HAGARTY: — Deeply concerning, yes–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. You have North Korean personnel on the battlefield. So this idea that Ukraine is somehow divorced from the rest of geopolitics doesn’t seem to be bearing out. It’s of deep concern to some of our Asian allies, Japan, South Korea. So how are you going to be able to do this without complicating the chess board?
SEN. HAGARTY: Well, I think it’s become complicated because America has not been standing in a position of strength. The reason is that Russia has been fully funded because of the policies that allow them to sell energy–
MARGARET BRENNAN: – on Russia whether or not they’re–
SEN. HAGARTY: Iran we had them shut down. Iran was broke, whether or not they’re now they’re able to fund terror all over the world, we had a maximum pressure –
MARGARET BRENNAN: – In part because they have all these other adversaries that they’re doing business with, right? China –
SEN. HAGERTY: They were not able to do that 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’re 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–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — There were attacks by Iran during the Trump administration–
SEN. HAGERTY: — Nothing to the level that we’ve seen here–
MARGARET BRENNAN: And the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, but on the Middle East. Israel’s Prime Minister said this morning that he spoke to President Trump three times in recent days, and they discussed Iran and they discussed a peace plan. Do you know what the content of those conversations was?
SEN. HAGERTY: No, and if I did, I wouldn’t discuss them here, because that has to be navigated very carefully.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, one of the reasons I ask is we do have this this mid-November deadline that the State Department- the Pentagon have set for Israel to improve the flow of aid to Gaza’s two million residents. The UN says there is famine already, or on the verge of famine. If it is found that Israel is indeed violating. U.S. law, would you hold them accountable? Should there be consequences? Because they are recipients of U.S. aid.
SEN. HAGERTY: Well I’ve had huge disagreements with this administration in terms of how they’ve administered their entire policy –
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this is U.S. law, it’s not just this administration. It’s humanitarian law.
SEN. HAGERTY: 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.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you mean?
SEN. HAGERTY: They’ve announced they’d like to see peace. They like to see peace in Gaza. Let’s see where that–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You believe- you believe that there will be a hostage deal negotiated under President Trump?
SEN. HAGERTY: I’d like to see what, I’d like to see what Hamas means by this statement. But it seems that the entire environment is shifting right now–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Yeah–
SEN. HAGERTY: — 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.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, one of the interesting dynamics we saw in this election was that Mr. Trump was able to, in some ways, successfully campaign and peel off Muslim voters, Arab voters, certainly in the state of Michigan, you saw some of that. Do you think- and they were frustrated by the carnage in Gaza. As a result, do you think Mr. Trump ends up with more wiggle room here to perhaps hold the Israeli prime minister to account, or does he just give a green light?
SEN. HAGERTY: 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 last administration. He’s going to focus on Iran because the cause of this is the Iranian funding and training of Hamas, of Hezbollah, of the Houthis. That would have never happened–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — but in terms of —
SEN. HAGERTY: — Except for the fact that they released- the enforcement of sanctions.
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Upholding international law and U.S. legal standards to recipients of US military aid, do you think he will stick by that?
SEN. HAGERTY: President Trump is certainly going to uphold U.S. law, but he is also going to make certain that our allies are properly cared for and that our adversaries are dealt with accordingly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, I don’t have to tell you this, because you know Asia really well, but five of America’s seven treaty commitments are in that Asia-Pacific. The U.S. has exposure there in a tremendous way. The last time Donald Trump was president, he talked about pulling US troops out of Japan, pulling them out of South Korea. Is that a priority now, reducing the military footprint in Asia?
SEN. HAGERTY: I think that comes back again to the failure of the elite here in Washington, Margaret, to understand how a business person negotiates. Everybody has got to sit down and talk about what the options are. We have been supporting military presence in that area ever since World War Two, 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–
MARGARET BRENNAN: — But in terms of signaling strength, saying we might ditch our allies isn’t exactly a positive message, right?
SEN. HAGERTY: 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% to 2% 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.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go. You are on a number of powerful Senate Committees. Do you think you’re more useful to Mr. Trump in the Senate, or would you join his cabinet if asked?
SEN. HAGERTY: I’ll just say this, I was privileged to have a tremendous career in business, but one of the greatest honors in my life was to represent the United States, the greatest country in the world, in President Trump’s administration overseas. It’s also been one of the greatest honors in my life to represent the people of Tennessee, serving the United States Senate. In whatever role I hold going- going forward, it’s going to be advanced. It’s going to be advancing the positions that President Trump has articulated, that the American people overwhelmingly supported, and I’ll do that in whatever role necessary, but we are going to see America strong again.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Hagerty, thank you for your time.
SEN. HAGERTY: Thank you so much, Margaret.
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