CLAY: We are joined now by Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee. Senator, I appreciate you making the time for us here, and I want to dive right into the situation in Afghanistan. You have spent time as an ambassador overseas before. You are a student of American diplomacy and history. Have you seen anything like what is going on right now since Vietnam, and what should be happening that is not happening in your mind?

SEN. HAGERTY: Well, Clay, great to be on with you two, and congratulations on the great success of the program.

CLAY: Thank you. I appreciate that.

SEN. HAGERTY: I’ve been following you. It’s just wonderful. The situation in Afghanistan was anything but wonderful. And, as you mentioned, I was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. That’s the third largest economy in the world. On any given day, I had a quarter of a million Americans in Japan.

And it was my responsibility, as the chief of that mission, to have a plan in place that would take care of those Americans were any sort of disaster or situation like this to arise. You can imagine what happened when I arrived in Japan, in North Korea, Kim Jong-un launching intercontinental ballistic missiles over Japan. I completely reworked the plan.

It took a lot of time and effort to do it. But the situation, the risks had changed, and every person that’s got that sort of responsibility, every ambassador that has responsibility for American lives should be constantly vigilant about saving those lives, protecting those lives, and making sure that you’ve got an orderly plan and process in place.

That has clearly failed here. And an ambassador is the representative of the president in that nation. At the end of the day, the buck stops with the president. And this president has done everything to deflect, to spin, to avoid responsibility and has created an embarrassment of epic proportions for America. Meanwhile, threatening the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and our allies. It’s just an embarrassment.

BUCK: Senator Hagerty, Buck here. I just want to know what you can tell us from any contacts your office has with Americans on the ground in terms of what they’re facing. We know they go into Taliban checkpoints, and many are being turned back. How is that supposed to change?

I mean, is it just the negotiations between Biden administration intermediaries with Taliban leadership? What is the plan here? They keep saying they’re hoping to get 5,000 — the Biden White House is saying 5,000 — Americans a day out. I don’t think anyone believes it’s gonna happen like that unless there’s some kind of major agreement reached. Is that underway, and what do you think the next few days look like?

SEN. HAGERTY: Well, it was very disturbing to see Secretary Austin’s press conference yesterday when he essentially that said that we’re relying on the goodwill and the diplomatic relationship with the Taliban for this to all work out. I mean, I’ll remind you, the Taliban are a terrorist organization. They’ve been named as such not only by America, but around the world.

This is an incredibly precarious situation. I hope and pray that they are able to meet the type of numbers that they are talking about now. What we have not seen is confidence in execution on the ground at this point. And I hate to say it. You know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But we are into pounds and pounds of cure right now.

And we are working, you know… I know we’re working diligently. I’m talking with administration officials on a regular basis. But we’re also hearing, as you say, from people who are on the ground there. In fact, we were talking yesterday — we’ve got word to my office — three families in safe houses near the airport looking for their opportunity to make a run for it.

What’s happened is they have basically let Americans know that if they can get themselves to the Karzai airport there in Kabul, then they’ll be taken care of; they’ll be protected. That’s not the way we should be doing this. We should be going and getting the American citizens that are at risk there, protecting them, moving them and flying them outside of the country.

CLAY: I know we’re still early in the process in some ways, unfortunately, potentially 10,000 or more American citizens still at risk in Afghanistan. But based on what you’ve seen so far, Senator, is this an impeachment-level failure, in your mind, by Joe Biden as an administration?

SEN. HAGERTY: Well, this is clearly a failure. Is it a high crime or misdemeanor? There’s more to be uncovered here, I’m sure. But I would say this. Right now, we need to be working together and forward looking to make certain that President Biden undertakes his most precious responsibility, and that is keep safe the lives of American citizens.

So that is gonna be my focus right now. Holding this administration accountable? Absolutely. I have jurisdiction on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and on the Appropriations Committee. We will be digging into this in great depth to find out how an embarrassment of this proportion could have ever happened, how we could have put this many lives at risk, and how there was no planning in place.

It feels to me, Clay and Buck, that they spent all their time focusing on a press release to the celebrate the fact that to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, they had accomplished the removal of American troops. But they spent no time on the plan. And they certainly didn’t spend time bringing our allies into the equation. And in doing that, they’ve jeopardized the very foundation of our alliance with NATO. They have tarnished our reputation around the world. And we have both allies and foes that are watching this very carefully.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee. Senator, it’s Buck again. What would you like the Biden administration…? If you were in the Oval right now with President Biden as commander-in-chief, for better or for worse — we’re seeing, I think, for worse these days — and the secretary of defense, the top decision-makers here, what would as somebody who’s operated diplomatically at the highest level yourself, what would you want to see happen in the next two weeks?

SEN. HAGERTY: The first thing they need to do is acknowledge it and own it. Quit spinning, quit implicating but engage in a real process of getting this resolved. In my own view, I would put somebody in place responsible for the overall rectification of this situation. I’m talking about someone serious, who’s had on-the-ground experience there, who has diplomatic capability.

And this is nothing against the two-star general that’s coming in right now to operate the airport; it’s nothing against the career ambassador that they’re sending in from the State Department to oversee civilian operations. But I think you need somebody in with real gravitas and experience who can come in who understands the theater there, who can come in and work with our allies, who work with our own people, and who can see to the orderly execution of a workable plan. That would be my advice.

CLAY: Senator, pivot a little bit from Afghanistan which obviously is getting a lot of attention. Yesterday Joe Biden addressed the idea of booster shots for the covid vaccinations, and he also for a second time took a shot at parents in tense who are opposing mask mandates. Important here, they’re not saying that no one can wear masks.

They’re just saying, “Hey, we think parents should be able to make individual decisions.” It’s also now been endorsed by the governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee; many other governors making similar decisions. What do you think of Joe Biden consistently deriding the opinions of parents — I’m one of them — in many different school boards around the Nashville area who are standing up and saying, “The data doesn’t support masks on school children.” Biden keeps taking shots at those parents.

SEN. HAGERTY: Well, Clay, you’ve been a tremendous voice in this. But it’s just shocking to me that Biden is spending more time waging war on Americans than he is on our adversaries. If you think about the focus of the focus of this administration, we’ve got a massive failure at our border, we’ve got inflation that’s moving through the economy at a pace that’s unbelievable that we haven’t seen it since Jimmy Carter’s era.

And, you know, they’ve got a crisis in Afghanistan that is just beyond anything we’ve seen since Saigon, Saigon on steroids. Yet this is what he’s spending his time doing: Attacking parents for decisions that they’re gonna make, personal decisions that they need to make for their own children. And it’s just a travesty that he’s doing that —

BUCK: Senator, do you think maybe the Biden administration…? I mean, this is at the federal level they’re talking about the possibility of using an interpretation, to use a euphemism here, of the Interstate Commerce Clause, to put a federal vaccine mandate in place for interstate travel, for perhaps flights and whatever else they have in mind. Do you think that’s a serious consideration as in the Biden administration might actually try an executive order. They’d go around you in the Senate, right? They’re not gonna will come legislate this, they may just do it at the executive level?

CLAY: Well, on the flights I think they extended the mask mandate on board flights until the 18th of January now.

BUCK: Oh, I mean, for vaccines though, yeah.

SEN. HAGERTY: Oh, you’re talking about vaccines?

BUCK: Yes.

SEN. HAGERTY: It’s something that is certainly something I’m sure they are contemplating. But what they need to be focused on right now is addressing this fairly in Afghanistan first and foremost and getting this economy back on track without pumping more and more inflation and more and more stimulus into it (chuckles) and dealing with the border crisis on the southern part of our country that is a national security disaster. Again, the priorities are all wrong here. I think America can see through it, and it may be a diversion on their part to begin, again, to focus on these things that are divisive and that they don’t have the science is to back up.

CLAY: Last question for you, Senator Hagerty. We appreciate you giving you the time here. In addition to Afghanistan and covid chaos we’ve also got the budget which is working its way through in conjunction with the infrastructure bill. I’m curious, inside of the Senate, what conversations are taking place associated with what they’re saying is a $3.5 trillion budget bill even though it may cost more? Does the situation in Afghanistan cause more trouble for Joe Biden as it pertains to this budget process? What are you picking up in that respect in the Senate right now?

SEN. HAGERTY: Well, I think this whole situation in Afghanistan has really put a bright light on the lack of competence of this administration and their Democrat allies in the Senate and in the House. I think it’s gonna make everything more difficult, and I think they’re — at this point — looking to use the budget reconciliation process as a means to slam through the Green New Deal rebranded and more and more government dependency.

And America’s having an opportunity to wake up and see how incompetent this administration is and how poor they are at execution. And I think it’s gonna make it extremely difficult for them to move anything through at this point. I’m not saying they won’t try, but I do believe that this has made their life more difficult on every front right now.

BUCK: Senator Hagerty from Tennessee, great to have you here with us on the Clay and Buck show. Thanks so much.

SEN. HAGERTY: Great to be with you both. Thank you.