Bret Baier Clarifies With John Kirby Three Times U.S. Didn’t Sabotage Nord Stream, Day After Tucker Carlson Declared Biden ‘Responsible’

Fox News anchor Bret Baier interviewed John Kirby, a retired rear admiral and national security council official, on Tuesday and asked him directly, multiple times, if the U.S. government was involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

Notably, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson had suggested on multiple occasions the U.S. was behind the explosions which disrupted the gas transfer on the pipeline from Russia to northern Europe.

On Monday, Carlson outright declared the U.S. was “responsible” for the explosions as part of an effort by President Joe Biden to start a war between the U.S. and Russia.

“Did the U.S. or a proxy for the U.S. have anything to do with the explosion on the Nord Stream pipeline?” asked Baier after discussing other issues like China.

“The United States had nothing to do with it. That’s just Russian propaganda and disinformation,” Kirby replied, adding:

Now we know it was an act of sabotage, but there’s an investigation going on right now. I don’t think we’re going to get into into credentialing that in terms of who was responsible. We’re going to let the investigators take a look at that. But clearly, this was an act of sabotage

“All right. Here’s the secretary of state. This is why it has churned up all kinds of questions,” then said Baier, an apparent reference to Carlson who called the clip an “admission” that Biden “blew up” Nord Stream. “Take a listen,” he added, before playing the clip:

It’s a tremendous opportunity to, once and for all remove the dependance on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs. That’s very significant. And that offers tremendous strategic opportunity for for the years to come.

“Talking about strategic opportunity about this moment. So you can officially say that the U.S. was not involved in any way in this attack,” Baier asked again, ensuring his audience had no doubt as to the response.

“That’s right. That’s correct. Now, what we are trying to do is try to limit Mr. Putin’s ability to garner revenue through the sale of oil, which is why we push so hard with the G7 back in the early summer on trying to get a price cap in place,” Kirby replied, adding:

You saw today European Union leaders are now that much closer to working out some implementation details on that price cap. We think that that will help. While it will keep Russian oil on the market because it is a global market and supply, we want supply to meet demand, but we don’t want Putin to be able to profit off it, to continue to prosecute this war so that price can move. That’s another effort in line with what Secretary Blinken was talking about.

“Not to belabor this, but for the people who look at this and say, why would Russia attack its own pipeline that creates leverage over Europe and perhaps the West. What do you say to them?” Baier asked again.

“Again, I can’t speak to specific accountability for this act of sabotage. I can just assure you the United States had nothing to do with it. Of course, that’s just Russian propaganda. And look, again, without crediting it to anybody right now, what I would say is just look at what Russia has done in the past, since the last seven months of this war when it began. And that is to weaponize energy,” Kirby responded, adding:

We’ve been absolutely trying to weaponize energy to try to punish customers in Europe, countries in Europe, our allies and partners, to try to coerce them into not being willing to support Ukraine the way they have been. So he’s the one weaponizing energy. That’s a that’s part and parcel of his playbook.

“But John wouldn’t weaponize the energy mean controlling the pipeline?” followed up Baier.

“He does. He has control of,” Kirby replied, before Baier interjected, “Not if he blew it up.”

“Again. Well, again, I’m not I’m not attributing this to anyone after, right now. I’m saying we have, we have every every reason to believe that this was an act of sabotage, but we haven’t settled on who’s exactly responsible. All I can say is going back over seven months, again, let’s take the Nord Stream explosion. Just take it off the table for a minute. You just look at what the guy has done over the last seven months. He’s holding people hostage in weaponizing energy,” Kirby explained before Baier ended the interview.

Notably, one of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which were frozen by Germany after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have never entered operation was left undamaged and is still believed to be capable of transporting gas. President Joe Biden vowed to end the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which Germany effectively did in February by freezing its permit to come online.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News