ICYMI—Hagerty Joins Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to Discuss Iran, Reconciliation, AI

WASHINGTON-Today, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss Iran, reconciliation, Federal Reserve leadership, and artificial intelligence.

Partial Transcript

Hagerty on Iran and other revisionist nations: "It's at least good to see other nations step in and try to offer a hand here. Russia is going to be impacted. The whole world is going to be impacted once the Iranian regime is taken down. This unholy axis that you've seen: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. It's time for it to break, and I think the Iranians are creating an embarrassing situation for all of them."

Hagerty on President Trump's negotiating strategy with Iran: "What the Iranians are seeing is a very different negotiating style. You remember the last time they sat down and talked about the nuclear arsenal and nuclear ambitions with the US president- that was under Obama. Their negotiator, the Iranian negotiator, walked out of the room, and John Kerry chased him out of the room. They bent. They broke. The Obama administration broke and gave them everything they wanted in terms of being able to pursue their nuclear ambitions. President Trump has made it clear that he will not do that. The Iranians tried that old play again. It didn't work this weekend. J.D. Vance stood strong. I think the Iranians are seeing it's a different play now, and President Trump is doubling back on them and shutting them down, blockading the Iranians, and cutting off all revenue. At this point, I think they're realizing this is a very different game, and I'll be anxious to see how J.D.'s latest and final offer is received by the Iranians."

Hagerty on maximum pressure and Iran's economy: "It [the maximum pressure campaign] worked last time. We were almost there in the first Trump administration. My job was to get the Japanese government to stop buying Iranian crude oil when I was US Ambassador to Japan. That happened all over the world. And again, John Kerry inserted himself and suggested to the Iranians that they should wait and see what would happen in the 2020 election. Again, Biden comes in, opens up all the spigots, money starts flowing to Iran, and they're back in the terrorism business. President Trump is not going to allow this. The Iranians need to get the message. And I think after this weekend, Vice President Vance, [United States Special Envoy to the Middle East] Steve Witkoff, and [United States Special Envoy for Peace Missions] Jared Kushner have delivered that message loud and clear."

Hagerty on global support and the Strait of Hormuz: "These nations need to step up. They're much more impacted. Japan, South Korea, China, and other parts of the world are far more impacted by what happens in the Strait [of Hormuz] than we are. President Trump is trying to deliver good for the entire world. I think the world needs to step up and support this effort. Iran has always threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz. This has been their playbook for decades. They're trying to exercise it now. It's not going to work."

Hagerty on reconciliation and DHS funding: "The reconciliation process is already underway. Senator Barrasso and Senator Graham met with the president just recently. Our teams have been working on putting a reconciliation bill into motion when we get to Washington later this evening, and tomorrow will be full on it. And the reconciliation process, as you know, is one that requires no Democrat votes. The Democrats have put us in this situation. They're not cooperating at any level, maximum resistance. They've shut down the Department of Homeland Security, and they've indicated that they're not going to do anything to cooperate with President Trump or the Republicans. So we're gonna move forward on this endeavor. The reconciliation process has to be tied to the budget. That's precisely the type of thing that we can use, again, to open the department also to deal with defense and several other items that I hope we'll be able to address."

Hagerty on timeline for DHS funding: "President Trump has found a way to deliver revenues there to keep the department open. But I certainly haven't seen any indication that the Democrats are going to cooperate yet. Perhaps they'll change their tune this week. The American public certainly is tired of these sort of antics, but I think we need to continue to move along the direction of a reconciliation bill to do it as quickly as we possibly can. Again, President Trump has set the deadline for the first of June. I'm certainly hopeful that we can do it sooner than that."

Hagerty on Kevin Warsh confirmation: "I certainly don't know how my colleagues are going to vote. Kevin Warsh has already been a decade ago voted unanimously by the Senate. He has been confirmed before. I think he's been meeting with senators on both sides of the aisle. I think he will do very well in the voting process with respect to the machinations in the Senate Banking Committee and going through the confirmation process. I believe I'm the only senator who's actually gone through this confirmation process myself when I was up for US Ambassador to Japan. It's a complicated process, lots of paperwork. It may get moved a few days here or there, but I'm with Kevin [Warsh]. We need to go ahead and have the hearing, be ready to go. Jay Powell's term ends on the fifteenth of May. We need to be ready."

Hagerty on the Federal Reserve and economic focus: "I think Kevin [Warsh] is the man for the moment right now. The markets are ready for Kevin. He's focused on productivity, on making investment a top priority, on private credit here in America, and on credit formation. And again, getting the Fed back to its core business. The basic mission drift that took place over the past years, where they were focused on climate change and DEI activities at the regional banks, and even inclusion or inclusiveness was included in the maximum employment mandate. I think we'll get back to basics. The Fed will be the engine that it needs to be to support our economic growth."

Hagerty on AI and financial system risks: "I think what we've seen is that Secretary Bessent is on it. He's on target, and he's making certain, as this new technology evolves, that we're utilizing it in the most effective way possible if a vulnerability is identified. And again, AI can be utilized to identify vulnerabilities and [mitigate] them as much as it can be used to attack vulnerabilities. I'm very pleased to see that he was on it, that he brought in banking leaders to address it, and they're staying ahead of it. The last thing I want to see is regulation that would shut down the innovation that AI promises. We need to win in this game. The United States needs to lead in this innovation. And there are often voices in Washington that suggest we should shut it down, that we should stop it. But in that case, who then takes the lead? China. Others. We need to be careful. And I think Secretary Bessent has demonstrated that sort of care."

Hagerty on AI guardrails: "I think having rules of the road in place-guardrails-certainly does make sense. I just don't want to see them so tight and so overly prescriptive that it kills the industry. We saw this with the stablecoin legislation that I passed, the GENIUS Act. We put in place guardrails, and now that technology is thriving, but it can't be overly restrictive."

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