Tennessee U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) predicted on Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees will be tasked with “executing” the Trump administration’s policies to fulfill his electoral mandate, and those who are unwilling or incapable of enacting Trump’s agenda will face consequences or be fired.
Hagerty offered his prediction for the Trump administration after he was questioned about the ideological differences between the president-elect and some of those asked to serve in his government, including Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
The senator suggested ideological unity is less important to Trump than an effective government.
“President Trump will fire people that don’t do their job well,” said Hagerty. “I fully expect everybody coming into the cabinet will listen to President Trump, they’ll let him set the policy, and they’ll execute according to that plan.”
He also suggested this willingness to fire cabinet members represents a level of “consequences” that President Joe Biden did not introduce to his own administration.
“What I think happens here, though, is there are consequences in President Trump’s cabinet,” said Hagerty, before stating, “there have been zero consequences in President Biden’s cabinet,” despite the “massive failures by his cabinet members.”
He stated, “You look at what Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin have done on an international scale. They’ve not been held to account. Again, the debacle in Afghanistan, probably the greatest embarrassment in our lifetimes. No one held to account.”
Hagerty, in addition to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, targeted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in an earlier portion of his “This Week” appearance.
“If you look at the cabinet that’s in place right now, it’s the worst that we’ve ever seen,” said Hagerty. “Alejandro Mayorkas has got to go down as the worst cabinet secretary in history. If you think about the failures on his watch, the failures of FEMA, if you think about what’s happened at our southern border, the invasion that’s happened there, the murder of Laken Riley, the Secret Service failures, we have to get competent people into office.”
When asked about Trump skipping FBI background checks for his nominees, Hagerty suggested voters are not concerned about the evaluation of the controversial agency.
“I don’t think the American public cares who does the background checks,” he told the hosts. “What the American public cares about is to see the mandate that they voted in delivered upon.”
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The senator also defended the possibility Trump could appoint cabinet members through recess appointments, allowing them to serve until January 2027 without Senate confirmation.
Hagerty stated, “President Reagan used it. President Clinton used it. George W. Bush used it. This is a constitutionally available tool.”
Both Hagerty and U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have indicated they will vote to confirm Trump’s nominees, including Pam Bondi as the next U.S. Attorney General.
Hagerty was reportedly considered for a role in the Trump administration, but the senator maintained he would “work arm in arm” with the president-elect from either the White House or the Senate.
Watch Hagerty’s full “This Week” appearance:
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
