Senator Bill Hagerty Answers Questions on His January 6 Vote After More Evidence of Election Irregularities in Georgia, S1, and the Border

Senator Bill Hagerty Answers Questions on His January 6 Vote After More Evidence of Election Irregularities in Georgia, S1, and the Border

 

Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed TN (R) U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty to the newsmakers line to answer questions related to his January 6 vote as new election irregularity evidence mounts in Georgia, S1, and the continuing border crisis.

Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line our friend, Senator Bill Hagerty. Good morning, Senator Hagerty.

Hagerty: Good morning, Michael.

Leahy: I want to talk about a couple of things in this segment. Georgia, S1, and the border. So in Georgia, the light of the ongoing evidence that no chain of custody documents exist for more than 300,000 absentee ballots cast in Georgia in November 2020 and reports of massive regularities in Fulton County, it appears to me that Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger’s decision to certify those results were, in fact, as a Georgia GOP convention recently found a dereliction of his constitutional duty.

Here’s my question for you. If you knew on January 6, what we know now about Georgia, would you have joined Jodi Hice in objecting to those Electoral College votes?

Hagerty: Michael, let me take both parts of your question. First, Georgia, because we haven’t talked about it. Then we’ll come back to January 6. You and I have talked about that in the past.

I didn’t need to see this latest evidence on the chain of custody in Georgia to know that there are serious problems there. In fact, I was down in Mar-a-Lago in April with President Trump reviewing the Fulton County data.

We were going through it in 15-minute increments at that point. There are major irregularities in Georgia and those are regularities that need to be addressed by those people responsible for them. And that’s the states.

And you and I’ve talked about this. The states are the ones that are given the responsibility and the authority to set the rules. They should be addressing this. And that’s the reason that President Trump loves the legislation I put for one of the first pieces of legislation I put forward as a sitting senator which is to protect the Electoral College Act.

And what that requires is an audit of the 2020 election to find out every state where the Constitution was violated and in any state that violated the Constitution. And I believe there were a number of them.

Those states will not receive any federal funding for their elections until they rectify that. That’s related to the conversations that we’ve had in the past about January 6. You recall, I said I would, and I objected to the Arizona results.

It was the first state that was objected to. I did that because I wanted to debate the formation of a commission. A commission that would identify those places where the Constitution was violated and put it back to the states to fix that before the inauguration.

That is the right way to fix it. I was never going to vote to federalize the election. I was never going to vote to give Congress the authority and take it away from the states. That would be the first step if Congress were to take control of the elections and we allowed Congress to change the result every time you’ve got the legislature in control of a different party than the incoming President.

That’s just the first step toward doing away with the Electoral College, in my view. And that’s not something that we would ever support. I don’t think you would, either. That conversation about forming a Commission completely changed when the capital was breached.

When the riots broke out, we were sequestered, put away and the conversation changed very quickly from debating a Commission to invoking the 25th amendment against our President to be impeaching him. The best thing to do at that point was to shut this thing down and focus on fixing it in a different manner.

And that’s why I put the legislation together that I brought forward to require an audit of all the states that violated the Constitution and again deprive them of funding until they repaired it.

Leahy: Crom Carmichael is in studio and he has a question for you on that, Senator Hagerty.

Carmichael: Senator, I have a question in regard to January 6. There’s evidence that now comes out that the FBI had people inserted in these groups. And some of the reports I’ve read is that the FBI was actually helping to insight the riot. Do you all have any information that the riot that happened was contrived?

Hagerty: Crom, this is very disturbing. I’ve heard the same reports that you have. I would actually be meeting with FBI Director Wray today. We have very, very strong reason to be concerned as a nation when we find out how the intelligence community has been abused, how law enforcement has been abused, and we need to get to the bottom of this.

Do we know the answers to this with certainty today? No. But are these serious serious questions? Absolutely, Crom.

Leahy: Well, that’s breaking some news that we didn’t know – that you’re meeting with the FBI director today.

Let’s talk about what happened last night in Washington. S1 came up with a 50 50 vote, didn’t get the 60. They needed to break a filibuster on it. What’s your take on what happened last night?

Hagerty: What happened last night, I think, was very predictable. What you had underway with this S1 was a blatant power grab by the Democrats in the most narrow, narrow majorities.

It’s a 50, 50 Senate right now. And the only way they controlled is because of who’s occupying the White House. They’ve tried to push through one of the most blatant power grabs ever.

And this is legislation that’s been lying around. The components of it have been lying around at Democratic smoke-built backrooms for years. They tried this right after the 2016 election.

They brought this up in the first part of 2017. The emergency, then and the crisis then that they brought forth was the fact that Trump was elected. Of course, that was wholly unacceptable to them.

So if you look back at what they brought back in 2017 essentially the same sort of thing, they tried it again in 2018, even in 2020. Nancy Pelosi tried to put this through, using the pandemic as the excuse in her effort to again rewrite all the election laws under the guise of a pandemic emergency.

And now the latest emergency that they’re siding, again this was their excuse, is the crisis that’s being caused by states trying to come in and impose some election integrity after the 2020 election.

It’s ridiculous. It’s nothing but a blatant power grab. And as I said, if we allow them to federalize elections, which is exactly what they were trying to do, they are going to use this as the first step, I think, to do away with the Electoral College and completely take control.

Carmichael: Senator, Michael, earlier in the show where I maintained that a lot of what’s going on by the Democrats in Washington right now essentially a head fake because what the Democrats are not being able to accomplish through the legislative process they’re accomplishing through the administrative process.

For example, the Secretary of Defense kind of unilaterally just came out and said that the Code of Military Justice will no longer apply to cases of sexual harassment and that they will be referred to the Justice Department, which I think is a huge change in the military. What are your comments on what’s going on in the administration?

Hagerty: I’m very concerned about this type of activity is something that I’m looking into right now. In fact, you had an extensive meeting on it yesterday utilizing the Congressional Review Act to come back and take these executive body administrative decisions like you described, apart and subject them to congressional review.

Because something like this would not pass congressional muster. What they’re trying to do again is just a blatant power grab. They’ve swung so far to the left I think they’re trying to reshape America into something that most of us can’t even comprehend.

And we’ve got to push back at every turn, and Congress has an important role to play. And so I’m looking into utilizing the Congressional Review Act to go after misuses and abuses just like you described.

Carmichael: So if we retake the House and the Senate, the Congressional Review Act, does that require 60 votes?

Hagerty: 50 plus one.

Carmichael: 50 plus one on the Congressional Review Act. So there’s a lot of authority to push back against administrative overreach if we can retake the House and have control of the Senate.

Hagerty: Absolutely. And there’s no reason to stop right now because you’ve got Democrats that I do not believe are as far left as the outspoken minority that seems to get all of the media amplification.

You think about leaders like Joe Manchin or Krysten Sinema, who will have a very hard time supporting or voting with some of these extremist policies that the Biden administration is putting forward.

There’s no reason to wait 18 months. I think we should start right now. And that’s what I’m going to put in motion because we cannot wait another day. We can get this. We’ve got to start pushing back on this immediately.

Leahy: Senator Hagerty, let’s talk about the other big issue out there, the border here. It appears to me that the Biden administration is absolutely failing to enforce our immigration laws and the border is entirely open. What in Congress can you do about that?

Hagerty: Well, one of the first things that I did is I took the absolute first official congressional trip done by the Senate of the pandemic. I’m the only member of the United States Senate that actually has diplomatic experience.

I served as U.S. ambassador to Japan, the third-largest economy in the world, after the United States and China. I’ve had experience doing this sort of thing, and I went to Guatemala, into Mexico, just like Vice President Harris did all be it a full month before she did.

I met with the President of Guatemala. I met with his Foreign Minister. I explained to them the urgency of the situation. We need to stop the crisis at the border right now. The talk about root causes, they were very clear to me.

The President of Guatemala was very clear to me what the root cause actually is. The root causes are the messages coming out of the White House. It’s Joe Biden in his campaign saying, hey, if I win my election, I’m going to treat you better.

It’s Joe Biden saying, we’re going to reunite families again? The President of Guatemala said to me, the Coyotes immediately began marketing and collecting children, getting their parents to give them their life savings to undertake one of the most treacherous journeys imaginable.

They are praying on the most vulnerable in their society. Using again, messages coming out of Washington, D.C. Messages like a $15 an hour minimum wage, $1,400 of free money going to illegal immigrants.

These messages are being marketed by Coyotes. They’re enriching the cartels, and they’re creating this massive illegal movement that’s destroying nuclear families in their countries. They don’t like this one bit.

They’re very upset about it. And they made it clear to me that we have a lot to do with this. We mean, the Biden administration being the most important and significant root cause and causing our border to collapse has really made something else happen as well.

And this is where the leadership of Mexico made very clear to me. The Mexican Foreign Minister when I met with him, said, look, China is moving in. They’ve stepped up their fentanyl operations in my country.

In Mexico, they’re shipping more precursor chemicals, more fentanyl in. They’ve got Chinese lab technicians working with the cartels making fentanyl in Mexico and shipping it across this porous border.

Our Customs and Border Patrol agents are all tied up dealing with these families, dealing with these unattended minors. Meanwhile, the cartels are shoving more and more drugs across our borders.

And as I talk with sheriffs in law enforcement in Tennessee every day, they told me since January, since the border collapsed, they’ve seen a dramatic rise and overdoses and death from Fentanyl and Methamphetamines. Where is it coming from? Mexico? Who’s manufacturing it? The Chinese.

Leahy: Senator Bill Hagerty. Thanks so much for joining us. I know sometimes we ask you questions that are a little tougher than maybe you get from some folks. But you always step up. You always come on. You always answer the questions. We really appreciate that.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senator Bill Hagerty Answers Questions on His January 6 Vote After More Evidence of Election Irregularities in Georgia, S1, and the Border

United States Senator Bill Hagerty Explains His January 6 Vote and Positions on Big Tech, S1, and Israel

 

Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed TN (R) U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty to the newsmakers line to answer the questions of why he voted the opposite of what he initially said in an interview of January of this year, Big Tech, S1, and his position on the conflict between Hamas and ally Israel.

Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line, our good friend, United States Senator Bill Hagerty back to The Tennessee Star Report. Welcome, Senator Hagerty.

Hagerty: Good morning.

Leahy: Well, good morning now, senator. And let me begin with this question for you. It’ll take me about a minute to set it up. The last time you were here on this program was January fifth of this year. And right here on this program, you told me how you were going to vote the following day.

It was January sixth during the joint session of Congress when it convened to accept or reject the Electoral College vote. And here’s exactly what you said. I’m quoting. “I could not Michael, in good conscience, vote to accept the results of this election when I have such deep doubts about what happened here.” That’s exactly what you said.

But then less than 40 hours later, you voted to accept and certify all the Electoral College votes, even those from Georgia and Arizona. Here’s my question. Can you please tell me and our audience why you voted exactly the opposite of how you told us you would vote?

Hagerty: What I did on January the six was I objected to the Arizona results. I did that because my aim was to create a commission Mike that would put the constitutional violations that we all know occurred back to the state legislatures which is where this belongs to get it fixed.

I was never going to vote to nationalize the elections. What I want to do is uphold the Constitution and basically put this back to the state legislatures who are the ones that are constitutionally embodied to set the rules for state election laws for our federal election laws in their state.

After the riot broke out we lost all momentum to get this done. It wasn’t going to happen. And what I did is I turned my attention to the legislation that I put forward. President Trump loves the legislation called the Protect the Electoral College Act.

And what it requires is an audit of what took place in the 2020 elections. And every state where there is a constitutional violation will not get federal funds for their elections until they fix those problems. That’s the way we’re going to address this going forward. And I’m working through the process of getting it supported right now.

Leahy: But in the end, you voted to accept Arizona’s Electoral College votes and Georgia votes.

Hagerty: I voted to shut the arguments down. There are only two states raised and that was not enough to make a difference. We needed to bring that to an end and find another venue to fix this problem.

Leahy: That was a disappointing vote to me. But thank you for answering the question. Tell me now, you’ve been critical of the Biden administration on its efforts to get Israel to stop defending itself. Tell us about that.

Hagerty: The Biden administration is simply tone-deaf on how we should treat our allies and our foes. It seems that they want to criticize our allies to remove support for our allies and embolden our foes. If you think about the momentum that President Trump created with the Abraham Accords, what we were doing in the Middle East was creating a huge movement toward peace.

He brought four nations into normalization agreements with Israel. What we had was real momentum to finally established peaceful relationships, economic relationships, travel relationships between these nations in the Middle East.

And what the Biden administration has done in the past four months is they’ve wasted all that momentum. Instead, they’ve done the exact wrong thing to do. They’ve talked about re-entering the tragic Iran deal that President Trump thankfully got us out of.

And by moving to appease Iran, they’ve just emboldened the Iranians and their proxies Hamas. Hamas are the Iranian proxies that are working out of guys launching rockets at Israel. You know, where every one of those rockets is coming from?

They’re coming from Iran. These are Iranian rockets being launched on Israelis of civilians. Israel is entitled to defend itself. It should defend itself. It’s been surgical in its defense. And it’s just amazing how the European and the U.S. news media want to paint this in a different way.

We should be standing with our ally Israel and not emboldening Hamas. And you look at the Democrat Party. There was legislation that was put forward just a couple of days ago, the sanction, those who finance the Hamas those who support terrorism.

You had a party-line vote by the Democrats not to do that. In essence, to support terrorism. Two years ago, they all voted unanimously with the Republicans for just a sort of legislation. The Democrat Party has moved so far left it’s unrecognizable at this point.

Leahy: Now you serve President Trump as ambassador to Japan. And there you worked with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The current Secretary of State is Tony Blinken. Compare Mike Pompeo’s service as Secretary of State with Tony Blinken’s first four months as Secretary of State.

Hagerty: Well, it’s still quite early to say. Tony Blinken said the right things to me when we talked about the Abraham Accords. He said he thought they were a great breakthrough, that we should continue the momentum.

But his voice isn’t being heard in the Biden White House and certainly not among the Democrat representatives up in the Congress. I hope that Secretary Blinken will be emboldened to step up and do the right thing here. Secretary Pompeo had no trouble doing that.

And Mike Pompeo is a very clear-eyed, deliberate, and thoughtful diplomat. He did, I think, a terrific job serving President Trump. I enjoyed serving with Mike Pompeo and President Trump. We got a lot accomplished for America and a lot accomplished for our allies. And I think that Secretary Blinken has some big shoes to fill and I’m going to be pushing them hard to do just that.

Leahy: Senator Bill Hagerty, you’re a big critic of Big Tech, the oligopoly of Facebook and Google and Twitter and that crowd. What do you see should be done to control their uncontrolled power right now?

Hagerty: What I’ve done to address this is put forward legislation that would take down Section 230, which is the clause that they use. The large Internet platform providers like Facebook, like Google, like Twitter, use this as a means to censor.

What I think we should do is treat them like a common carrier. Justice Thomas did a great job, in one of his opinions laying this logic out. I read that I thought this makes complete sense to me. And what we did is we translated this into legislation.

What we would do is we would take these large carriers and acknowledge the fact that they really are more than just private companies. They have become the modern-day marketplace for ideas and the public square. We would regulate them the same way we regulate other common carriers, like telephone companies, telegraphs, and railroad companies.

And require them to provide non-discriminatory access to their platforms. That is the way to approach this and to do away with this. And to do away with this Section 230, to be clear, 230 provided that platforms like this could police the content on their platforms to make certain that they were family-friendly.

Not allowing obscenity, not allowing extreme violence. Those were clear definitions, but they also had a clause, both material that’s otherwise objectionable. And that otherwise objectionable language is what these Big Tech companies have used to just drive through that loophole like a Mack truck and use that as their reason, that is their excuse.

That is their lever to censor conservative voices. We need to bring that to an end. And this is the way to do it with this legislation.

Leahy: Last question for you today, Senator Hagerty. The Democrats are pushing through this S1. It passed in the House as H1. This is an attempt to nationalize all elections, to get rid of state election laws, and nationalize them. Will this pass in the 50/50 Senate? What’s your prognosis there?

Hagerty: I seriously hope not. And I’ll encourage your listeners to go to my website to see my statements in the committee fighting back on that. But I pushed back very hard on this. What the Democrats are trying to do is resurrect a lot of their old wish list of federalized elections. They tried this after the 2016 election.

Again they’re coming back and trying to create a crisis now, pointing to the situation in Georgia and the Georgia legislatures’ attempt to strengthen their election laws. Pointing to that is an excuse to come back and essentially nationalize the elections and create an advantage that would make their party the only party in power for decades to come.

They want to come in and do the things that would absolutely weaken the integrity of our elections. In fact, Jimmy Carter and Secretary of State James Baker put together a commission to look at election integrity a number of years ago. And the two things that they cited as the greatest vulnerabilities were mail-in balloting and ballot harvesting. That’s what the Democrats are trying to put into legislation right now.

Leahy: Absolutely. Senator Bill Haggerty, thank you so much for joining us today. Come back again and make it less than four months next time.

Hagerty: Good to be with you.

Listen to the full third hour:


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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.