ICYMI—Hagerty Joins The Sunday Briefing on Fox News to Discuss President Trump’s Actions Against the Venezuelan Regime, Drug Cartel Threats, China’s AI-Driven Cyberattacks

NASHVILLE, Tenn.-On Sunday, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriations Committees and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, joined The Sunday Briefing on Fox News to discuss President Donald Trump's military posture toward Venezuela, the ongoing threat from drug cartels, and China's use of AI to infiltrate U.S. and allied systems.

Partial Transcript

Hagerty on the Venezuela operation and drug cartels: "We're going to see the flow of drugs coming into this country dramatically reduced. President Trump is sending an incredibly important message. We've got 15,000 troops that the USS Gerald [R.] Ford just moved into range there. That's an aircraft carrier and the destroyers with it. That's an impressive strike group. We're going to demonstrate that we're not going to allow these drug cartels to move across our southern border. We've done everything we can to stop the human trafficking, the drug trafficking that's coming across land."

Hagerty on rising overdose deaths among American youth: "Three thousand youth in my home state die every year from drug overdoses. The largest killer of young people in America, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, is drug overdoses. A hundred thousand young people every year in America are dying from drug overdoses. President Trump is taking this very seriously. He's designated these narco-terrorists. He's going after them. They need to get the message with the amount of pressure that he's putting on the region right now. Again, they're all in international waters. They're [American military operations] not operating on any side or inside of any country's boundaries, but what they're doing is demonstrating our resolve, strong resolve to stop the flow of drugs into this country, to stop the murder of young people here in America."

Hagerty on the China-backed AI hack (Anthropic): "It's important to know that China used Anthropic, which is a US-based tool. The only reason we know about this is because it's US-based, and Anthropic disclosed the fact that its Claude model, its large language model, had been hacked and used for these nefarious purposes. Luckily, we do know about it. Anthropic is doing a number of things to address this, to stop it. I met this week with David Sachs, our AI czar in the White House. I met with a number of AI officials and the CEOs of AI companies in Silicon Valley this past week. This is something where we must lead. We must stay on the cutting edge of innovation. And from a regulatory standpoint, I want to make certain that in Congress, we're not doing anything to stop the ability of these cutting-edge companies from operating here in America, putting us in a position to be way ahead of China, so this type of thing doesn't happen. We can stay ahead of the competition here."

Hagerty on the national-security stakes and Chinese motives: "What we're seeing is that there really are serious threats. And the biggest threat of all is if we step back and allow China to lead here, if we allow our adversaries to lead. We understand what China's motives are. They floated a spy balloon over our country. They steal intellectual property on a regular basis. We need to make certain that leadership in this field remains in America, and that it's what everyone in the world is using. Not Chinese models but American models. Again, this is a critical national security issue. We've seen it manifest itself just recently with these thirty countries that have been infiltrated. This competition is going to continue to mount. I say we need to have the strength and the capacity here in America before all of the nations."

Hagerty on why the AI hack disclosure matters: "The fact that the hack was made public is incredibly encouraging. That would never have happened had China used its own models. The fact that we know about the hack, that Anthropic is working on it, and that they're talking with leaders right now about how to address it, is critically important, and it's a step in the right direction."

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