{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/press-releases/2026/08/13/icymi-hagerty-joins-fox-news-sunday-on-fox-news-channel-to-discuss-iran-senate-recess/", "ICYMI\u2014Hagerty Joins Fox News Sunday\u00a0on Fox News Channel to Discuss Iran, Senate Recess", "2026-08-13", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "Senate", "TN", "Bill Hagerty", "H000601", "www.hagerty.senate.gov", "hagerty", "https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "Washington\u2014On Sunday, United States Senator Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations, Appropriations, and Banking Committees, joined Fox News Sunday on Fox News Channel to discuss the latest in Iran and the Senate\u2019s agenda following the August Recess.\n\n*Click the photo above or here to watch*\n\nPartial Transcript\n\nHagerty on Iran: Diplomacy is being tested at every turn of the Iranian regime. They don\u2019t seem to favor diplomacy unless they can use it to tap us along. [President Donald Trump] has seen right through this. We have maintained maximum military capabilities. In fact, he has enhanced our military capability. And what you see now is an act of desperation because President Trump had prepared to unleash unmitigated fury on Iran, just the past weekend, when they came to the table again and said, \u201cNo, we want to make a deal.\u201d And let\u2019s not forget that [Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent] and the team at Treasury have put incredible financial pressure on Iran. Their economy is in tatters right now. They are doing the same thing over and over again. I know people call that the definition of insanity; I think that\u2019s diplomacy Iranian-style, coming back with more of the same demands, et cetera, et cetera. But what has happened is that they continue to degrade in their position; we continue to advance in terms of economic pressure, military pressure.\n\nHagerty on a pending peace deal in Iran: There is going to have to be a deal. I think the American public is indicating it\u2019s ready for a deal to be done, and that deal could be at the end of a military operation as opposed to diplomacy. It\u2019s up to the Iranians, but I think we\u2019re very close, particularly as I listen to Secretary Bessent\u2026 I think the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)], the Iran deal that we saw in [former President Barack Obama\u2019s administration], demonstrated that you can\u2019t trust the Iranians. Everything that we agree to is going to have to be verifiable and enforceable. President Trump has already seen this movie before. Obama just handed over pallets of cash\u2014billions of dollars\u2014and instead of abiding by the agreement, [Iran] continued their nuclear program, surreptitiously, and they then began to foment terror. That will not happen again. I think President Trump has been incredibly clear about this, and what we\u2019re trying to do is maintain a posture that we can allow the Iranian economy to rebuild, the 90 million Iranian people to prosper.\n\nHagerty on other Middle Eastern countries joining the Abraham Accords: I think the entire region has responded to this\u2026 Iran has, on a 360-degree basis, made enemies of everybody in its neighborhood. Now, we\u2019re all coming together. I expect to see more\u2014Saudi Arabia, for example\u2014and more nations in the region step up and enter the Abraham Accords. We are going to see economic prosperity break out like we\u2019ve never seen before in that region, further isolating the Iranian regime. I think it\u2019s just all part and parcel of a major transformation that needed to happen 47 years ago. And finally, President Trump has been able to step up and address it right now.\n\nHagerty on Iran\u2019s alliance with Russia and China: I think a lot of people are looking toward the [U.S.\u2013China bilateral meeting in Washington, D.C.] in September, and I think there is much that will come from it. But I think President Trump has been increasingly clear with [Chinese President Xi Jinping] that [China] should not cooperate nor support in any way the Iranian regime\u2026 What we are going to continue to do is mount increasing pressure on the Iranian regime directly. And we are going to increase sanctions; that\u2019s exactly what Secretary Bessent has done. And if you look at what we did in the Senate, [the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 placed] more pressure on this \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d that was just described. We are going to continue with sanctions; we are going to continue with military pressure. I think that everybody in the world needs to wake up and see this. That\u2019s all the more reason why this escalation with Iran must be successful. I think it\u2019s going to be incredibly important, not only for the Iranian situation, but also for others in the neighborhood, if you will\u2014Russia, Iran, North Korea, China\u2014they all need to see this.\n\nHagerty on Senate Democrats\u2019 opposition to President Trump\u2019s agenda: The only two things the [Senate Democrats] have accomplished since [President Trump] came into office, in the past year and a half, almost two years\u2026 are two historically long government shutdowns. In fact, that was on tap this week. That\u2019s why we worked so hard to make certain that we got a continuing resolution [to] keep the government open beyond the election and into December. That was [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)]\u2019s primary goal, to shut the government down to create more chaos. That seems to be the Democrat playbook\u2026 create chaos and mayhem, and in so doing, somehow get their friends in the media to blame that on the Republicans.\n\nHagerty on the Senate\u2019s schedule: I think the task is on us now. We got a lot accomplished in terms of legislation that put [U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche] in place, the Russia Sanctions Act that I mentioned just a moment ago, and again, extending the government\u2014keeping it open. When we get back, though, we are going to have to do something on election integrity. We tried again this week to get that done. Democrats again, every single one of them, even on something as simple as driver\u2019s license IDs, showing your ID to vote\u2026 they were against it full force. I think they\u2019ve made it clear. They want the ability to have insecure elections because that somehow advantages them. The American public hates this; we have got to do something about it. I think we\u2019re going to have to move into a different type of vehicle or reconciliation vehicle to make that happen. And that\u2019s what we are going to have on top of the agenda when we get back.", 1, "2026-08-14T06:13:05Z", "2026-08-14T06:14:08Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/press-releases/2026/08/13/icymi-hagerty-joins-fox-news-sunday-on-fox-news-channel-to-discuss-iran-senate-recess/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.47072016261518, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}