ICYMI—Hagerty Joins Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street on Fox Businessto Discuss Trump’s China Trade Talks, Canada’s Unfair Trade Practices, the Supreme Court Tariff Case, Schumer’s[...]

WASHINGTON-On Friday, 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 Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street on Fox Business to discuss President Donald Trump's China and Canadian trade negotiations, the pending Supreme Court tariff case, Democrats' political theater in the government shutdown, and the Biden Justice Department's surveillance of Republican senators.

Partial Transcript
Hagerty on U.S.-China trade talks: "It's a complicated relationship. I talked both with U.S. Trade Rep [Representative] Jamieson Greer and with our Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just a few days ago, before they headed to Malaysia. We've got a great team on the ground that's going to be negotiating with the Chinese team. But it's going to come together when President Trump and President Xi are in the same room. That's the only way we're going to get this resolved. I've been with both Xi and Trump together. There is a relationship of mutual respect, but that relationship was seriously damaged. When you look at what happened with the COVID pandemic cover-up and the spy balloon during the Biden administration, the relationship was frayed. Now, with China's critical minerals and magnets blockade, this has to come to an end. President Trump has demonstrated he means business. The 157 percent stacking tariffs are going to say to China, you have got to come to the table. We're going to have to break this logjam. We're going to have to come to terms. And I think with President Trump and President Xi in the room, that's perhaps the only way this is going to happen."

Hagerty on Canada's unfair trade practices: "Canada's been a very difficult trading partner for years. I just met with Brown-Forman, the owners of Jack Daniel's, one of the premier products from my home state of Tennessee. The Canadians have blocked all whiskey sales in Canada-taken them off the shelves. This is the way they play. They don't play fair. What President Trump wants is fair and reciprocal trade. They harken back to some free trade dogma, but it's never been free trade with Canada. It's always been lopsided. President Trump is trying to fix it, and they've decided to take to the airwaves and actually tamper with the American public's perception, at a time when a critical case is before the Supreme Court. I don't blame President Trump for being quite upset with this. I hope it comes to a resolution. Canada is an important strategic partner for us, but they need to come to the table."

Hagerty on the upcoming Supreme Court tariff case: "I've talked with several experts, and I do believe it [the decision] will go President Trump's way. They certainly think it will. And frankly, it's critical for our national prosperity that it does. At the end of the day, the Supreme Court will make the right decision. We'll be continuing forward on this in any country that's holding out, hoping that they're going to get some break from the Supreme Court. That's folly. We need to get these deals done. We need to rearrange the unbalanced relationships to date all the way back to World War II, and we need to see a much fairer and reciprocal trading environment for American goods."

Hagerty on Schumer's shutdown politics: "It's absolutely disgraceful. My colleague [Senator] Ron Johnson from Wisconsin put forward a simple piece of legislation and said let's at least pay those people who have been deemed essential. They have to continue to work: our military, our law enforcement, the people who keep our planes in the air. Think about the folks who are stepping up- the ones who look after our nuclear arsenal- the Democrats refused even to pay them. They voted against that. This is nothing but political theater. They continue to put Chuck Schumer's primary in New York ahead of the needs of the American public, and certainly ahead of the needs of those who are actually serving America- dutifully, loyally, and patriotically without pay. It's an absolute disgrace. President Trump is looking at this, and he sees it's nothing but political theater. Logic is not working with Chuck Schumer and his team. I don't know when they're going to come to the table, but at some point they're going to have to."

Hagerty on DOJ spying and Verizon's complicity: "The notion that it's proper is absolutely ridiculous. The one thing we all have in common is that we're Republicans. The other thing that was happening at the time was the biggest case of legal weaponization and politicization of the Justice Department and the FBI that we've ever seen. Everybody knew what Jack Smith was up to. At the time that our records were requested, any sentient being would've known that this was a political witch hunt that was going on. What happens? My carrier hands over my records. What does AT&T do when Senator [Ted] Cruz's records are sought? They say no. And I ask myself, why would Verizon have done this? Why would they have complied? I talked with legal experts in Washington. They said, even if I were a drug dealer, Verizon would've at least notified me if they were turning my records over to the government. But they remain silent in their complicity. It turns out that the general counsel, I presume the person who would've been making the key decision, was a Democrat Hill staffer before coming into the company. I don't know what happens when you get companies like this playing this political game, but it reeks to high heaven. Their complicity in this is very disturbing. Sadly, I've been a Verizon customer for decades. I certainly wish I'd been an AT&T customer, and they might have actually stood up for my rights and protected me the way Senator Cruz was protected. I don't even get a call back from the customer service department [at Verizon]. They have some low-level person in the government affairs shop who just tells me to talk to the hand. This is not over. We're going to get to the bottom of this."

Hagerty on Japan's new Prime Minister and U.S.-Japan relations: "I absolutely do [believe she'll be a strong partner]. She's a protégé of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was a good friend of President Trump's and a very good friend of mine. I just met with the incoming Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last week. I think she's very anxious to move forward with our relationship. She wants to see it as strong as possible from an economic standpoint, but also from a national defense standpoint. Our posture in the region is absolutely critical. It's a very dangerous neighborhood where Japan finds itself; think about North Korea, Russia, and China right at your doorstep. She is looking forward to strengthening the relationship. I think that she and President Trump will get along very well."

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