Exclusive — Sen. Bill Hagerty: Nancy Pelosi Will Hold $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Package Hostage to Force Senate Democrats to Vote for Additional $3.5 Trillion Bill

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) told Breitbart News on Tuesday that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is making House Democrats’ support for the $1.2 trillion “Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal” contingent on Senate Democrats’ support for a separate $3.5 trillion spending bill.

“Nancy Pelosi has been very clear about this,” Hagerty began on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with special guest host Jerome Hudson. “She said she will not take up the $1.2 trillion so-called bipartisan package until she gets the $3.5 trillion package on her desk. They are linked. They’re going to bring them up together, and the far-left wing of her party believes that doesn’t even go far enough.”

He continued, “So what [Nancy Pelosi] will be in a position to do now is hold the infrastructure package hostage, and use that as pressure to force the Senate Democrats to all walk in line to vote in the [$3.5 trillion package], because if [Senate Democrats] don’t vote for what is called a reconciliation bill — that they’re going to use to put Bernie Sanders’ new transformative package through — if they don’t vote for that $3.5 trillion package, the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package will never see the light of day. That’s what she’s in a position threaten right now.”

House and Senate Democrats are coordinating support for the $1.2 trillion and $3.5 trillion spending proposals, Hagerty stated.

He remarked, “As we move into this $3.5 trillion fiasco. That $3.5 trillion package, as promised and on queue, is going to be brought to the floor as soon as we finish voting on the $1.2 trillion dollar piece today. This is part and parcel. It’s a two-part plan to transform America, as Bernie Sanders has said. He’s been the author of this, and what we’re seeing is the actual realization of Joe Biden’s promise during the campaign to transform America.” 

Hagerty said the two bills, combining nearly $5 trillion in spending, if passed, expand government control and centralization of power.

He said, “[The two bills] put more and more government control in play. They make America far more dependent on government, far more control over every aspect of society and our economy. This is pushing us immediately toward a Western European-style socialism [with] less opportunity, less prosperity, and a lot more misery.”

Hagerty said he had helped convince some Republican senators to vote against the $1.2 trillion bill, marketed by Democrats and the broader left as an “infrastructure package.”

“A couple of my colleagues already announced that they’re going to change their vote from being for this bill to being against it,” he remarked. “We’ll see what happens today in the final vote, but [what I did] made a difference in the Senate, and I think it’s putting a tremendous amount of additional pressure on those Democrats in the House who are in swing districts [where] their voters are understanding a lot more about what’s in this.”