Tucker Carlson: Biden’s Sanctions Will Cause Energy Prices To Skyrocket

Since the day that Donald Trump became president, Democrats in Washington have told you it’s your patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin.

It’s not a suggestion. It’s a mandate. Anything less than hatred for Putin is treason.

Many Americans have obeyed this directive. They now dutifully hate Vladimir Putin. Maybe you’re one of them.

Hating Putin has become the central purpose of America’s foreign policy. It’s the main thing that we talk about.

Entire cable channels are now devoted to it. Very soon, that hatred of Vladimir Putin could bring the United States into a conflict in Eastern Europe.

Before that happens, it might be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious: What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?

Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?

These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no. Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that. So why does permanent Washington hate him so much?

…snip…

The point here is to defend democracy, not that Ukraine is a democracy. It is not a democracy. Ukraine’s president has arrested his main political opponent. He has shut down newspapers and television stations that have dared to criticize him. So in American terms, you would call Ukraine a tyranny. But Joe Biden likes Ukraine. So Putin bad, war good. How will this conflict affect you?

Will affect you quite a bit, actually. Energy prices in the United States are about to go way up, and that means that everything you buy will become much more expensive, from the food you eat to the car you drive to the tickets you need to take your family on vacation this summer, assuming you can still afford a vacation by then. You’re about to become measurably poorer. That’s not a guess. Joe Biden has admitted this.

…snip…

What’s this going to cost us to defend [Ukraine]? Well, in fact, Joe Biden addressed that question today. “Defending freedom will have cost for us here at home,” Biden said. “We need to be honest about it.” Really. Biden went on to outline what he called the pain of our sanctions.

JOE BIDEN: We’re implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, VEB, and their military bank. We’re implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russia’s sovereign debt. That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western financing. It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade and its new debt and our markets or European markets, either. Starting tomorrow and continuing in the days ahead. We’ll also impose sanctions on Russia’s elites and their family members they share and the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies, and should share the pain as well. And because of Russia’s actions, we’ve worked with Germany to ensure Nord Stream two will not, as I promised, will not move forward. 

So let’s put aside the question of why you would ever want to shut down any energy pipeline anywhere, ever, especially now crude oil is nearing $100 a barrel, it’s the highest price since 2014.

That’s not a small thing because you need the energy to live. It’s not negotiable. So how does having less energy help the United States? Joe Biden didn’t even hint at an answer to that. He didn’t answer any questions. He ran away the second he had finished reading the script.

Back in real life, every person knows nothing will tank our economy faster than cutting off the supply of fossil fuels, because despite what you may have heard from noted energy experts like Sandy Cortez, a country of 340 million people can’t run on windmills and solar panels.

And even if we had enough of those, which we don’t, we don’t have the transmission lines to get that power to your house, and we won’t for a long time.

So that’s all a lie. But don’t worry, says Kamala Harris. The administration has ways of fixing the spike in energy prices. They’ve got it under control because it turns out Kamala Harris is secretly in charge of global energy markets.

No, just kidding. Harris has no idea what a barrel of oil costs. She doesn’t know how natural gas is measured. What she knows about is diversity, and that’s pretty much it. Though she does sense that everything is about to get a lot more expensive for you. And so to warn you, she mentioned it today.

…snip…

But at least she’s honest enough to say what’s happening in Eastern Europe quote may relate to energy costs. That’s a euphemism for: Good luck filling your truck this August. Does that bother Kamala Harris? Maybe it does in the short term. Voters aren’t going to like it in November. The party will be punished.

But they’re doing it anyway. They’re shutting down domestic energy pipelines here. They’re picking a fight with Europe’s biggest gas supplier. So maybe there’s something bigger at work here.

Maybe they’re thinking long-term. Maybe they’re not against rising oil and gas prices. Maybe there for them. Maybe expensive energy would be good for the many renewable deals their friends and donors are invested in.

We don’t know the answer. We do know that all of us are about to suffer. So we hope that hating Vladimir Putin was worth it.

h/t Rúnar O.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening commentary on the February 22, 2022 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”