On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Senate Republican Conference Chair Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) argued that Vladimir Putin’s “aggression right now is being funded by energy, which is his cash cow and the Biden policies previously have been a jackpot for Putin that is funding all of these things.” And that if Russia invades Ukraine, energy prices will go up “and I think $100 a barrel is not out of the question.”
Barrasso said, “So Putin’s — all his aggression right now is being funded by energy, which is his cash cow and the Biden policies previously have been a jackpot for Putin that is funding all of these things. So, we’re going to see exactly how this plays out. But as a poker player, Putin is a guy that gets a lot of different hands dealt to him and then ultimately decides to choose which of those hands to play.”
He later added that if Russia invades, “people will be paying more at the pump and they’ll be paying more to heat their homes. Because Vladimir Putin uses energy as a weapon and Joe Biden has fallen into Putin’s trap. Right now, people are paying a dollar a gallon more than they were a year ago when Joe Biden came into office. Remember, on day number one, Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline, declared war on American energy. And then he’s had to go back and ask OPEC plus Russia to produce more energy to sell to the United States. So, today, we are using twice as much crude oil from Russia than we were a year ago. Energy prices are at a seven-year high right now at home. So, I expect energy prices to go up if Putin invades and I think $100 a barrel is not out of the question.”
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