Biden Spox Rips Republicans During Air Force One Briefing for Blaming Rising Gas Prices on President
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates ripped Republicans who blame rising gas prices on President Joe Biden, citing a New York Times fact check that says they’re wrong to do so.
On Friday, Mr. Bates briefed reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Q And then the last thing is: Yesterday, we heard President Biden accuse Republicans of playing games with oil prices amid a couple other accusations. Does this amount to a preview of the midterm messaging? And how are you guys going to weather both inflation and rising oil prices?
MR. BATES: So I can’t speak to midterm messaging directly from here. But, factually, I think it’s important to keep in mind, first of all, every action that we have taken to punish Russia for Putin’s unprovoked further invasion of Ukraine has had strong bipartisan support and buy-in. And, of course, Russia’s destabilizing actions have played an important role in recent increases in gas prices.
But I’m glad you raised this, because the New York Times had a very conclusive fact check yesterday. The headline was: “Republicans Wrongly Blame Biden for Rising Gas Prices.” And so I think it’s important to note that independent arbiters in the press have consulted experts and they have deemed that these attacks are disingenuous and that the rising gas prices you’ve seen all over the world, but beforehand, are due to the pandemic and pressures that has put on international supply.
The fact-checking article by Linda Qiu — entitled “Republicans Wrongly Blame Biden for Rising Gas Prices” — examined a number of claims that Republicans have made about rising gas prices, including the notion that Biden’s policies are to blame:
[T]he specific policies cited by Republican lawmakers as evidence of Mr. Biden’s supposed “war on American energy” have had little impact on rising gas prices.
The Keystone XL pipeline, which would have expanded an existing system transporting oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, has been a political and environmental battleground since its conception in 2008. The Obama administration denied the company behind it, TransCanada, a construction permit in 2015. The Trump administration approved the permit in 2017, but the project stalled in the face of litigation. By the time Mr. Biden rescinded its permit on his first day in office, just 8 percent of it had been built.
Watch above via The White House.
