‘You Don’t Take Any Responsibility?’ CNBC Host Confronts Hakeem Jeffries For Deflections on Gas Prices

CNBC’s Joe Kernen called out Democratic caucus chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries for his non-responsive answer on the subject of gas prices during an interview on Squawk Box on Tuesday.

Kernen spoke with the budget committee member on a variety of economic issues Tuesday, including energy prices. He asked Jeffries point blank whether he and the Democrats “take any responsibility” for the burden on American workers or just continue to blame Russia’s Vladimir Putin for the domestic issue battering President Joe Biden and the party ahead of the midterms.

Kernen brought up California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna’s remarks in June that the U.S. should increase domestic production and ban exports of domestic oil. Kernen described Khanna’s acknowledgement that domestic energy policy needs “some tweaking” as “breaking ranks.”

“I can’t get any Democrat to really cop to that,” Kernen said as he introduced the subject of energy. After discussing Europe’s transition to green energy, he circled back to the idea of breaking ranks, or admitting to some need to change domestic policy, asking bluntly whether Jeffries or any Democrat will take any responsibility.

“You don’t — you don’t think there’s anything that you can do in Congress or to convince a Biden administration, you don’t think there’s any regulations that need to be eased? You don’t think there’s any offshore activity? ANWR, Keystone, trying to get rid of some of the red tape for refineries,” said Kernen. “You don’t think there’s anything? You don’t take any responsibility? It’s just all a Putin price hike?”

Jeffries immediately replied by pointing his finger at oil companies, saying “Part of the challenge domestically in terms of production is that the oil and gas companies have refused to actually act on the permits to drill…” before Kernen cut in to object.

“That’s kind of a red herring, congressman,” he said. “There’s leases, there’s also just the overall pressure from ESG and the green lobby about whether an oil company is going to make plans five or ten years down the road when, you know, a large part of population wants to put them out of business completely.”

Jeffries then brought up “record profits” of oil companies, again instead of answering about policy, and Kernen pointed out they aren’t making the money they were ten years ago.

The interview ended without Rep. Jeffries answering the question of whether his party takes any responsibility for energy prices, or whether he or the party should do anything to tweak domestic energy policy.

KERNEN: In this country, we’re still down front from peak production. You don’t — you don’t think there’s anything that you can do in Congress or to convince a Biden administration, you don’t think there’s any regulations that need to be eased? You don’t think there’s any offshore activity? ANWR, Keystone, trying to get rid of some of the red tape for refineries… You don’t think there’s anything? You don’t take any responsibility? It’s just all a Putin price hike? That’s the that’s what I meant about breaking ranks. I think Ro Khanna finally did say you’re headed to Saudi Arabia and domestically, we’re not producing as much as we could here.

JEFFRIES: Yeah. Part of the challenge domestically in terms of production is that the oil and gas companies have refused to actually act on the permits to drill that they they currently…

KERNEN: That’s that’s kind of a red herring, congressman. So there’s there’s leases. There’s you know, there’s also just the overall pressure from ESG and the green lobby about whether an oil company is going to make plans five or ten years down the road when, you know, a large part of population wants to put them out of business completely. So would you invest hard-earned capital on a five-year project or a ten-year project? Now, if you were a fossil fuel company.

JEFFRIES: Yeah. I mean, it’s not clear to me that the oil and gas companies really care that much about the so-called green lobby. They have made clear in their earnings calls and in their representations to shareholders that they do care about the record profits that they’ve been making on the backs of increased gas prices for the American people.

KERNEN: They’re not, they’re not making what they made ten years ago. Their records based on the last two, three, four years, five years. But no one — I don’t remember you feeling bad for them when they lost $20 billion in 2020 either. So, I mean, it is a very volatile business that they’re in. And that’s, unfortunately, that’s the way capitalism works. Some years you do well, other years you don’t do as well. We don’t want to change that.

JEFFRIES: Well, record gas prices are problematic for everyday Americans. I don’t think that’s a partisan issue. I think that’s an issue for all of us to try to work to address. And it’s a good thing that gas prices have begun to come down, certainly for my constituents and for the American people.

On Monday, Kernen likewise confronted Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein for blaming Putin for energy prices.

Watch the clip above, via CNBC.