Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan tangled over the United States’s foreign funding on Sunday, as the Trump administration slashes the country’s spending on operations abroad.
Brennan pressed Hagerty on President Trump’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as thousands of federal workers are out of work and aid for various international communities is halted.
“I think there’s a tremendous appetite to do it,” Hagerty said about dismantling the agency. “Because what we want to see is the alignment of our programs with America’s national security interests. USAID has been out of control.”
Hagerty then suggested that USAID funded the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and brought up a popular GOP point that the agency spent money funding various LGBTQ efforts internationally.
“The U.S. government does not fund sex change operations or fund Hamas,” Brennan interjected. “You know that, though.”
Hagerty said he asked the secretary of State if the U.S. was funding Hamas and he “couldn’t” answer him. Brennan asked if he had any evidence that the American government was funding the terror group.
Brennan also pressed him on various other Trump administration efforts, including the mass federal worker buyout plan. The senator noted that he’s been in the private sector most of his life and this is routine.
“I think what President Trump is trying to do is be humane in the process of allowing them to make plans, to find other employment,” he said. “I certainly think the government is far too big, far too bloated, and we’re on a path now to start to see it shrink.”
