Sen. Hagerty tells 'America's Newsroom' Dems aim to use migrant influx to 'expand electoral power'
Sen. Hagerty reacts to Democrats voting for tax money to be used for migrant flights
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss his reaction to the party-line vote and how the media has covered the Biden administration's handling of the border surge.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., praised Elon Musk Wednesday for spotlighting Democrats' united opposition to his proposed amendment aimed at stopping the Biden administration from using federal funds to charter flights for illegal immigrants.
"This is insane!" Musk wrote in an X post showing Hagerty's Senate floor speech that amassed nearly 40 million views.
Hagerty, weighing in Wednesday on "America's Newsroom," said he was "shocked" that Democrats overwhelmingly voted against the measure, arguing the dead-of-night vote was done in an effort to make sure "no one would see" what happened.
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"The Democrats are being outed," he said.
"Chuck Schumer tried everything he could to block this until the very dead of night. We ran right up to basically a government shutdown before he finally capitulated and said, 'Okay, we'll put it on the floor.' But I didn't get it onto the floor until the middle of the night, perhaps 1:30 in the morning when the vote went down.
"I think they thought no one would see that every Democrat voted to fly illegal migrants in here from countries like Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia on taxpayer funds, using charter flights, flying them over our border and putting them into the interior of America."
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This is insane! https://t.co/s8qHtKJ9CQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2024
Republicans have previously called on the Biden administration to terminate the controversial flight program that has reportedly ushered approximately 320,000 illegal immigrants into multiple cities across the U.S.
Democrats' support for keeping the program alive, as evidenced by the vote, had Hagerty in a state of disbelief.
"I was shocked. That was a terrible vote for them to take," he said, responding to host Dana Perino's question about how Democrats in closely contested Senate races will explain their position.
Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, reacted on ‘America’s Newsroom,' saying he was ‘surprised’ Democrats made the ‘terrible vote.’ (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Hagerty, meanwhile, suggested Democrats' support for lax border policies is for eventual political gain, alleging they seek to count illegal immigrants in the Census, which is used to determine how many House seats each state receives.
"The motive behind the crime at our border is the ability to count these illegal migrants in the population, so they can hang onto their congressional districts and expand their electoral power," he told Perino and Bill Hemmer.
Taylor Penley is an associate editor with Fox News.
