Tucker: American citizens are getting punished
Fox News host reacts to Biden banning Russian oil and natural gas imports on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
You may have noticed that Joe Biden announced today a new front in his ongoing war against America's middle class. Biden didn't frame it that way, of course, Democrats rarely say what they mean. They tell you it's about something else.
In this case, Biden told us it was about Vladimir Putin. Biden explained that we're going to hurt Putin by making it illegal for Americans to buy Russian energy. This, he said, will amount to a massive moral victory for us. We're going to feel great about ourselves. And at the same time, it will be a crushing defeat for the Russians who of course, deserve it.
So, it's one of those rare occasions when we could see the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Hurray. Around Washington, you could almost hear the feverish applause as Biden finished speaking. Every constituency loved it. The media agreed that Joe Biden had never seemed more presidential. Democratic officials seemed deeply relieved. For once, they could talk about something other than COVID and the southern border. They'd rather be on offense than defense.
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President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Republican leaders, meanwhile, seemed happiest of all. They barked like seals. Finally, a chance to sound tough and decisive without making CNN angry. Thank you, Joe Biden. We can all be John McCain now. You rarely see unity like this in a city as divided as Washington. The unity was so heady, in fact so delightful and intoxicating, that no one remembered to ask the most basic question: Why exactly are we doing this? What's the point? Is the point to bankrupt Vladimir Putin? That might be worth doing, but this won't do it.
Putin already has ready markets around the world for his oil, starting in China, in India and Turkey. So that's not going to work. Maybe the point is to force Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine. That would definitely be worth doing, but no, that's not the point, either. Joe Biden will typically say absolutely anything, but even Joe Biden didn't claim today that sanctioning Russian oil will end the war in Ukraine because it won't.
So, who exactly are these sanctions aimed at? Think about it. If you want to identify the target of a penalty, consider who's going to suffer most from it. And in this case, the answer could not be clear. It's middle-income Americans. They're the ones who were crushed for two years under COVID restrictions. They're the ones who are about to be pummeled by shutting down more energy sources. Notice a theme here? The people in charge hate the middle class above all. So, it's not Vladimir Putin who's getting punished, it's American citizens. It's you. It's not speculation.
Gas prices are already the highest they have ever been in history and they're about to get even higher—potentially much, much higher. So will the price of natural gas and the price of electricity and food and everything else you buy that has to be transported more than 100 yards from where it was made, which is to say every single thing in your life. This is not good news for you, no matter what Washington is currently claiming. You are about to get a lot poorer. That's guaranteed. You'll notice as you read this that is the one thing that somehow Joe Biden forgot to mention today.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Today, I'm announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia's economy. We're banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy. That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin's war machine. … It's simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. That's simply not true.
So, lying by omission is pretty simple. You just don't mention the truth. You heard Biden do that just there, but it takes something else very different—whether it's chutzpah, delusion or senility or whatever else, explains Joe Biden's behavior - It takes something like that to tell a lie like the one you just read at the end of Biden's statement, "It's simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production."
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Oh, but it simply is true. It's demonstrably true and everyone knows it. On his first day in office, Biden single-handedly killed the Keystone XL Pipeline. Then, just days before Russia invaded Ukraine, weirdly, Biden's administration shut down all new energy leases and permits on federal land. That happened. Vladimir Putin did not do that. Joe Biden did it. Biden's publicist tried to explain that actually preventing domestic energy production, which they have done, is very different from holding back domestic energy production.
PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: Let me give you the facts here and I know that can be inconvenient, but I think they're important in this moment. To the contrary, we have...been clear that in the short term, supply must keep up with the demand where we are at, here and around the world, while we make the shift to a secure, clean energy future. We are one of the largest producers with a strong domestic oil and gas industry. We have actually produced more oil. It is at record numbers, and we will continue to produce more oil. There are 9,000 approved drilling permits that are not being used. So, the suggestion that we are not allowing companies to drill is inaccurate. The suggestion that that is what is hindering or preventing gas prices to come down is inaccurate.
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"Let me give you the facts here." Now, when they say that, you know the lies are coming and indeed, in this case, they arrived promptly. Because oil companies have not used all the permits they've received, Jen Psaki told us, that means this is their fault. They're not trying hard enough to produce energy. They could, but they don't want to. But wait a second, Jen Psaki. What if there's no oil or gas underneath the permitted land? In that case, energy producers would want permits for land where the energy is. Turns out they don't want dry wells. They want wells that flow, but they're not getting them thanks to the Green New Deal lobby that completely controls this administration, they can't get those permits. And that's what's happening here and if you doubt it, ask anyone who works in the energy business.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
Jen Psaki just lied to you. They are all lying to you. You probably guessed that already, but you can't say it because if you wonder what these policies may be doing to your country or to your family, you are selfish and disloyal. In fact, you're unpatriotic because real patriotism is caring about Ukraine first. And by the way, caring about Ukraine means prolonging a bloody war on Ukraine until the entire country of Ukraine has been destroyed and millions of Ukrainians are refugees.
We know we can do because we did it in Iraq. We can do it in Ukraine. That's patriotism. Once you spell it out, it all sounds kind of complicated, so we're going to hand it over to our late-night moral leader Stephen Colbert to explain:
STEPHEN COLBERT: Today, the average gas price in America hit an all-time record high of over $4 per gallon. OK, that stings, but a clean conscience is worth a buck or two. I'm willing to pay. It's important. I'm willing to pay $4 a gallon, hell, I'll pay $15 a gallon because I drive a Tesla.
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A Late Show with Stephen Colbert during Sunday's February 7, 2021 Super Bowl Special. (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)
Well, it turns out a guy who makes $16 million a year is willing to pay a little more for gas if that's the right thing to do. He's willing to make that sacrifice, because that's the kind of caring, decent man Stephen Colbert is. Now it's true, as you just heard, that he doesn't actually use gasoline. He drives a $150,000 electric car, but he will do it anyway. He's the kind of man who will take you out to dinner and let you pay, and at the end, he'll let you leave a big tip because he cares about the server.
Sometimes, as Stephen Colbert reminds us, life is about making tough moral choices and that's especially true now. If at the end of this project, this protracted exercise and social reorganization achieved through COVID plus a war with Russia, if at that point, whenever it is, we no longer have a self-sufficient middle class, if people who make under $100,000 a year are more desperate and demoralized and dependent on government than they've ever been, if the only Americans who remain truly free at that point are the oligarchs, well, at least we can say we helped democracy.
When Mark Zuckerberg controls everything in America, you will know it's a truly democratic system. Justin Trudeau understands this. He ran over members of his middle class with horses because that's what it took to preserve democracy in Canada. And then he went further. He seized truckers’ bank accounts and then he shut down a coffee shop that serves people who didn't vote for him. That's what democracy looks like.
Elizabeth Warren was excited when she saw this kind of democracy at work. Warren knows that if we're going to preserve democracy in America, if we're going to fight Russia, then Elizabeth Warren is going to need fingertip control of your family's finances now and always. And by the way, don't try and hide anything from Elizabeth Warren, say, in cryptocurrency, because if you do, Elizabeth Warren will know you are working for Vladimir Putin.
SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN: As I mentioned earlier, we're going after two things: trying to squeeze the Russian economy and also trying to squeeze those oligarchs, right. The problem is we're doing that only through the formal banking system and we're doing a good job on that and that is very effective. It's historic. I'm 100% behind it. But, there's a hole in the dike here and the hole is crypto. In other words, you got to pick it, crypto. If you want to continue to trade and provide the trading platforms and so on in the wallets, you can do business in Russia or you can do business in the United States, but you can't do business in both.
Here's an idea: Let's keep dumb people and crazed partisan demagogues away from our financial system and our power grid. They can keep the sociology department. Have fun. But why don't you stay away from the fundamentals that keep the country running? How's that sound? That was the arrangement for decades, but no longer. You must submit to total personal control by irresponsible lunatics like Elizabeth Warren or you can serve Russia, as she put it, "you can't do business in both." And by the way, you better not complain about this. Good Americans love higher gas prices. They love suffering for a cause they don't understand. CNN looked into it and that's what they found.
CNN CORRESPONDENT: People we've spoken to over the last couple of weeks, they're OK paying higher prices if it means holding Russia accountable for what they are doing in Ukraine, but these prices are likely going to creep higher.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the Kremlin, in Moscow on February 14, 2022. (Photo by ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
It turns out Americans are delighted to be poor and helpless. They love it because poverty means holding Russia accountable, not Putin's poverty, that's not going to happen, your poverty.
Well, how exactly does your poverty hold Putin accountable? CNN didn't ask that question, but the polling company Rasmussen did ask. That's what they do. They asked this question, "If a wider war breaks out in Europe, should the US military be involved?" Pretty simple question.
The answer was not simple, though. The answer varied by income. This may not surprise you. The people who actually fight our wars, the people making under $30,000 a year were overwhelmingly opposed to this war. Only 37% of them supported military action, and then it changed going up.
The richer and more cut off from physical reality people got, the more ardently they supported war with Russia, and it turns out that's the subset you see. Those are the people on television, the people with fake jobs and inherited money. They're totally for it, and they’re for it because they are going to pay no cost, but they'll still get to feel virtuous about promoting it. Then they'll tune in to Stephen Colbert at night with a clean heart. As for the Americans who will do the actual fighting and then the suffering here at home, they don't count. Because in a democracy you can safely ignore the middle class and so our leaders are doing that.
REP. STEVE COHEN: But the truth is, we should be thinking about the fact that when Americans go to fill up their cars that they should think about sticking it to Putin when they put that gas handle in your gas tank, it's going to cost a little more and part of it's going to be because of Russia and just stick it to Putin.
REP. ADAM SMITH: Now, here in America, we got to be ready for the fact that will drive up oil prices, that will drive up gas prices and if we are really standing with Ukraine, we have to be prepared to absorb that.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Just ban all Russian imports into the United States in terms of oil and gas. Four percent of our oil supply comes from Russia. We can easily make that up. So, what we haven't done yet is go after the oil and gas sector in Russia. That's the Achilles heel to Putin's war machine.
They don't care about you at all. They have complete contempt for you and your interests. Notice, they don't even bother to apologize to you for what they're about to do to you and your family, which will change your life. We're not overstating it.
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Now, who are they? The first two men were Democrats. The third was Lindsey Graham. We'll let you decide what he is, apart from utterly loathsome, obviously, but we have to tell you that virtually every elected Republican in Washington, D.C. is fully on board with this, which is another way of saying they are totally committed to screwing their own supposed constituency, which would be America's shrinking, desperate middle class. Those are the people who vote Republican and this is what they get in return. No apology. Shafted.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
It's hard to remember a betrayal at this scale and yes, we have been here before, by the way, we've been in conflicts with Russia for a long time. The United States traded with the Russians through the height of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and United States had nuclear weapons pointed right at each other and we worried one might go off. We traded with Joseph Stalin in the middle of his terror at the very moment he was murdering four million, yes, Ukrainians. That happened. And then we armed Stalin.
We armed the Soviet Army as he was killing Ukrainians and the New York Times endorsed all of it. But now, because Putin invaded Ukraine, effectively encouraged by the Biden administration to do that, which is true, because that happened, we are going to send billions of dollars to the Saudi theocracy and then to the Iranians and then to Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and at the same time, we're going to embrace green energy, which means giving the government of China complete control over a power grid here in America. That's our plan. Are you confused by it? Don't be. It's a moral victory. Let us know when you get tired of winning.
This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the March 8, 2022 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
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