Trump Rips Biden for Tapping Oil Reserves to Lower Gas Prices — When He Endlessly Bragged About Doing the Same in 2019

Former President Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden’s tapping oil reserves to lower gas prices, saying “he shouldn’t do that.” Thing is, he did the same in 2019.

Trump appeared on Mornings With Maria Wednesday morning to  — among other things — opine on Biden’s first State of the Union speech. Maria Bartiromo asked her guest what he thinks Biden should specifically do to stop the fighting in Ukraine now.

“He’s got to get them the weaponry he needs and he’s got to open up the oil,” Trump said.

The weaponry part of his reply is a bipartisan idea that was also suggested by Hillary Clinton during an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show Monday night. The “open up the oil” part is something that has been repeated on conservative media nonstop as if changing the oil supplies will have an immediate impact on the conflict in Ukraine.

Trump also argued that opening up new oil supplies would lower prices and affect inflation “tremendously” which he then reframed immediately as “stop buying Russian oil immediately.”

He then went on what can only be charitably called an elliptical or stream of consciousness sharing of ideas regarding his past and what Biden is doing now in comparison. Trump said:

Now the problem is that is going to drive oil up because we don’t have oil anymore don’t the drilling we don’t have nearly the supplies, and you know what he is doing? I filled up, for the first time in 60 years, I filled up the strategic national reserves. He’s now giving that oil out to other countries to try to keep the oil price down, can you believe it? So I filled up 75 million barrells I got, at a very low price, that was when oil was just about at lowest, I said tell me about strategic reserves, ‘sir, they haven’t been filled in 60 years, or 50 years,’ I said let’s fill it up, oil is really low, lets fill it up, you know I filled it up Maria, do you know he is using what I did, to lower oil prices, and he shouldm’t be using it, it’s supposed to be used for our war, for our emergencies so I fill it up, nobody wants to write that story because you know its not good thing to write when Trump does all things correctly, I filled up, strategic reserves, right to the top Maria right to the top you couldn’t get a drop more, and now this guy is emptying it out to try to keep the oil price down what he has to do is he has to create, new energy, and you know the windmills aren’t going to do it.

The key takeaway, which was highlighted on Twitter by Washington Post writer Aaron Blake, was this quote: “He’s using [it] to lower oil prices. And he shouldn’t be using it for that. It’s supposed to be used for our war, for emergencies.”

As Blake then noted, Trump authorized the use of reserves after Saudi oil fields were attacked in 2019 for which he cited, you guessed it, oil prices. Blake also added a screen capture of a Reuters report citing a Trump tweet in which the former 45th President which read “Based on the attack of Saudi Arabia, which may have an impact on oil prices, I have authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, if needed.”

Now it’s worth noting the larger political context at play here. Trump’s releasing strategic oil reserve was tied to opening up more domestic supply lines and a plan for replenishing it, and it followed a direct attack on Saudis, cutting their output in half affecting the global supply, which the US would ostensibly shore up from here.

Nonetheless, on its face, it looks like another episode of Trump’s “do as I say not as I do” rhetorical approach gone completely unchecked by Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo.

Watch above via Fox Business.