ICYMI—Hagerty Joins Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to Discuss Japan’s Elections, DHS Funding Standoff, the SAVE Act, the GENIUS Act

WASHINGTON-Today, United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations, Banking, and Foreign Relations Committees and former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, joined Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to discuss Japan's parliamentary elections, Democrats' threats to shut down the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the SAVE Act, and ongoing negotiations surrounding digital asset legislation.

Partial Transcript

Hagerty on Japan's parliamentary election and President Trump's endorsement: "It's an incredible show of strength at a very important time. President [Donald] Trump is hugely popular in Japan. The fact that he endorsed Prime Minister Ochi ahead of this election, I think, showed great unity. I think it gave her a huge lift. And now she has a super majority in the lower house there in Japan that's going to give her the momentum and the impetus to make needed economic reforms, and importantly, to step up defense expenditures to levels well beyond anything that we've seen in the past. It's going to strengthen our reliance and our relationship there with Japan and in the region. Who's not going to like this? Well, clearly the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], North Korea, and Russia. But for our allies in the region, Japan is taking an even stronger posture. Their economy is moving. Look at the Nikkei. The Nikkei hit 57,000, a new record there as well. Think about what that says about the overall confidence in the market to come. I'm feeling very good about our relationship with Japan, and Prime Minister Taichi is coming to America in March to visit with President Trump. I'm looking forward to supporting that effort as well."

Hagerty on Japan increasing defense spending and regional coordination: "That's very clear, the direction that she's going to take it. The Japanese already made the commitment to eventually get to two percent of their GDP. That's a doubling from where they were. Prime Minister Abe always wanted to do this, but Japan has watched very closely China's aggression in the Taiwan Strait. Public sentiment has shifted. The Japanese public is clearly for a stronger defense right now. So I think what you'll see-and Ambassador Glass, my successor there in Tokyo, is working very hard toward this end-is Japan's going to continue to step up their defense posture and, more important, their interoperability with the United States, with South Korea, with Australia, with our allies in the region, to see more joint exercises and more coordination. That's going to increase our forces there and multiply our capabilities in something beyond what we've ever seen before in the region."

Hagerty on Democrats' DHS funding demands: "Senator [John] Fetterman mentioned there are a lot of requests here. If we were to abide by all of them, we would basically turn the United States of America into a sanctuary nation. That's where they're headed with this. That's not going to happen. They picked the wrong vehicle here as well. The Department of Homeland Security performs very important roles. Think about what they do with respect to the Coast Guard, interdicting drugs coming into our country. Transportation in America will come to a halt when the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] gets defunded. And in my home state of Tennessee, we've been hammered heavily by ice storms. FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] is a critical aspect of addressing that. They want to defund it. The one thing this will not do is it will not defund ICE [United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement], because we already funded ICE in the big reconciliation bill that we did last year in 2025. So again, they're tilting at windmills, trying to achieve things that the American public does not want to see. Will there be some movement on this? I think there will be. If you look at what's already in the bill, we've already taken steps to provide funding for body cameras. ICE wants to do this. There are several things that I think we can accomplish here, but if the politics of the matter seem to overwhelm the Democrats, they may not be listening to that. It's certainly not a practical approach to take. And I'd hate to see the government shut down, at least the Department of Homeland Security, because there are so many other aspects of America's wellbeing that the Democrats are willing to put at risk just to make this point."

Hagerty on Democrats and shutdown politics: "I think [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer thrives on chaos. That's what they're hoping for. They're not winning from a policy standpoint. Look at what's happening in our economy. Look at the international wins President Trump is achieving. Their heads are exploding, and so all they can do is throw temper tantrums like this."

Hagerty on the SAVE Act and voter ID: "This is a fundamental threshold question. Clearly, the Democrats don't want people to identify themselves. The blue states are the ones that are trying to do away with voter ID. This is a hugely popular issue across America. And this is a fundamental issue as well. This is not about states' rights to administer and to determine the time and place of elections. This is about demonstrating that you're an American citizen to vote. And every time a non-American citizen votes, they're disenfranchising the citizens who do vote and who are entitled to vote. It's pathetic that they're turning to this, but again, this is all about power. It's not about policy. It's about shifting power to their lane. And when they try to project, as they did about federalizing elections, look no further than their top priority legislation when they had the triumvirate-they had the House, the Senate, and the White House-H.R. 1. The number one bill for them was to come in and nationalize everything with respect to the elections, so they could do away with voter ID and could have mail-out ballots to everybody. They could register 16-year-olds to vote and felons. They're willing to violate the Constitution and the 14th Amendment just to get power. Again, this is common sense. The SAVE Act makes complete sense to most Americans. And I think what we're going to see is a healthy debate, and the Democrats, again, are going to have a lot of egg on their face trying to argue this one. I'm one of the co-sponsors of the bill in the United States Senate. The House is going to pass it. We're going to keep pressing on this."

Hagerty on the GENIUS Act and digital asset legislation: "This is an area where we've already litigated the GENIUS Act. I worked night and day, as did my team, to get that across the finish line. The President has signed that into law, and the Treasury is in the process of implementing it. Frankly, we're getting wonderful feedback from foreign jurisdictions that want to follow the GENIUIS Act. They want to be compliant with it. This is the direction that we should be moving to increase the uptake, to increase the utilization of GENIUS Act regulated stablecoins, not to push that offshore. There are players who have come into the scene later, trying to change some of the aspects of the Genius Act, moving forward into the market structure bills that we've been working on. You saw what happened in the [Senate] Ag Committee here in the Senate-party line vote. Every Democrat voted against moving it forward. But I think in the Banking Committee, that's where the real tough lifting is going to happen in terms of rewards on stablecoins, et cetera. Those negotiations are ongoing. We've got to deal with this DHS funding issue that you just raised. That'll take us through Friday, maybe longer, depending on whether Senator Fetterman is correct. But as soon as that's over, I think we'll turn our attention back to this. And my hope is that we'll be able to come up with a rational policy that makes sense for America and make certain that these stablecoins stay utilized here in America under our regulatory regime, not going off into some foreign jurisdiction where we have no regulatory oversight whatsoever. My goal is certainly not to re-litigate this legislation that we've all agreed to and signed and passed in a historic bipartisan margin. So, I don't see a need to do that. We just need to come to the table and get an agreement here."

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