{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/press-releases/2026/09/11/icymi-hagerty-joinsthe-scott-jennings-show-on-salem-news-channel-to-discuss-midterms-iran-memphis-blade-act/", "ICYMI\u2014Hagerty JoinsThe Scott Jennings Show\u00a0on Salem News Channel to Discuss Midterms, Iran, Memphis, BLADE Act", "2026-09-11", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "TN", "Bill Hagerty", "H000601", "www.hagerty.senate.gov", "hagerty", "https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "DALLAS\u2014On Thursday, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations, Appropriations, and Banking Committees, joined The Scott Jennings Show on Salem News Channel to discuss the upcoming midterm election, the latest in Iran, the Memphis Safe Task Force, and the BLADE Act.\n\n*Click the photo above or here to watch*\n\nPartial Transcript\n\nHagerty on the RNC Convention: We have had a great delegation from Tennessee and frankly, great delegations from all over the country. There\u2019s a lot of excitement, a lot of enthusiasm. People loved [President Donald Trump\u2019s] speech last night\u2014a lot of energy there. And frankly, a lot of people that weren\u2019t here, but I\u2019ve heard from across the country that are very pleased to see the energy turnaround. And frankly, to be drawing a contrast finally against Democratic candidates. I think people are tired of reading New York Times headlines running these generic polls, Republicans versus Democrats. And now that we actually see what a Democratic socialist stands for, there\u2019s a huge contrast to be made. I think if you just step back and look at what the Democrats have accomplished this past 18, 20 months, they\u2019ve delivered the two longest government shutdowns in history. What they seem to want to deliver is nothing but chaos, shutdowns, and acrimony. The American public hasn\u2019t seen anything positive coming from the Democrats.\n\nHagerty on Iran: The Iranian regime is holding on to see what happens on November the third. It certainly worked out well for them back in 2020. Back at that point in time, I was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. I got the Japanese and my colleagues around the world\u2026 to stop buying Iranian crude oil\u2026 We brought the Iranian economy to a difficult place. It\u2019s even worse right now, but the Iranians held out to see what would happen in the election. Having [former President Joe Biden] in the Oval Office was a gift extraordinaire to the Iranian regime, because immediately the Biden [administration] stopped enforcing all sanctions. Money began to flow by May 2021. We had the 11-day war break out in Israel\u2014you know what happened on October 7th of 2023. Terror breaks out through the entire region because Iran [was] in a position to fund it. We have shut that down now\u2026 they\u2019re hanging on by a thread.\n\nHagerty on the Memphis Safe Task Force: I don\u2019t think you could see a finer contrast in America than the difference between Memphis, Tennessee, and Minneapolis, Minnesota. And the one difference there, the one singular difference is that in Memphis, we worked together. We cooperated; we coordinated.\n\nHagerty on the creation of the Memphis Safe Task Force: When [FBI Director Kash Patel] called me in December 2024, he said, \u2018Sir, the President is about to make his decision on the FBI director, and I would really appreciate your support.\u2019 I said, \u2018Kash, I\u2019m happy to support you, but I\u2019m going to need your support in Memphis, too.\u2019 And Kash kept his word to me. We began working on this right after Kash came into office and put together, very quietly, a task force. [The task force] first entered the city working with local police and very quietly came in and took out 154 of the worst of the worst criminals. These are gang members. Through the summer, we took that number up to well over 500, and President Trump is watching our progress all along the way, and said, \u2018Okay, we\u2019re going to put the full menu in place.\u2019 Meaning 16, 17 different crime enforcement agencies, including the [U.S. National Guard]\u2026 People in Memphis today would tell you, \u2018Thank you, thank you, and thank you again, President Trump,\u2019 for doing it. Crime has gone through the floor. Memphis is a great city\u2014now it\u2019s one of the safest cities in America. We\u2019re going to continue working on this. My hat is off to [Memphis Mayor Paul Young], who has cooperated with us, to [Tennessee Governor Bill Lee], who has now taken what were eight state troopers up to 100 in the area. And President Trump has done a magnificent job.\n\nHagerty on the cooperation of state and federal agencies: It shows what happens when you have cooperation between federal government, state government, local government\u2014cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. It shows that it works in these other cities. We know Chicago has been resistant to this idea\u2026 where the Democrats will not cooperate. Violent crime continues to proliferate over Labor Day weekend in Chicago\u2014scores of people were shot and murdered. They just won\u2019t put their people first. They cannot get over the politics. It\u2019s so sad that they\u2019re willing to sacrifice their own citizens to stand on some ideological point that obviously doesn\u2019t work. But again, Memphis stands as a shining example, and my hat is off to [Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller] at the White House, to the president, of course, to Kash Patel, to the [U.S. Department of Justice], and all of the agencies that are there on the ground.\n\nHagerty on the BLADE Act: My experience in Asia goes back to 1988, when I worked for Boston Consulting Group. They sent me to the region for three years. What I have seen evolve is an industrial policy that the Chinese deploy where they steal our intellectual property. They don\u2019t play by the same set of rules. They use our IP, come in, cut costs, and try to push American companies out of business. They\u2019re doing the same thing in AI. Their distillation models are stealing from us, basically. They\u2019re stealing intellectual property from us. They\u2019re using those to come in and offer a cheap alternative to take over the AI marketplace. We cannot let that happen. We\u2019ve got to lead in this arena. We need to do it responsibly. But the BLADE Act gives us the tools to put in place sanctions to come in and deal directly with those companies that are involved in this illegal distillation, and sanction them in a way that will stop it.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-12T09:02:30Z", "2026-09-12T09:03:27Z"]], "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/2026/09/11/icymi-hagerty-joinsthe-scott-jennings-show-on-salem-news-channel-to-discuss-midterms-iran-memphis-blade-act/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7866208218038082, "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"}