Tucker Carlson has claimed that President Biden is pushing the European Union to stop buying oil from Russia as “payback” for Trump’s election in 2016.
During a segment on high fuel prices and airline shortages on Friday’s episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the pundit said that Biden has been intentionally raising gas prices as part of a “clampdown on domestic energy” and his “lunatic war against Vladimir Putin.”
“So, back in February, you may remember that Joe Biden pledged to destroy the Russian economy. ‘Let’s make them poor,’” Carlson said, calling the president’s sanctions against Russia “counterproductive.” “Of course, this is in retaliation for installing Donald Trump as president.”
Trump himself has, on multiple occasions, refuted findings that Russia meddled with the 2016 election.
Responding to a clip of Biden saying that prices are not likely to come down “in the near term,” Carlson accused him of “single-handedly prolonging” the war in Ukraine instead of making a “push” for it to end.
Later in the segment, Carlson turned his attention to the delays, cancellations and price increases plaguing airlines. In particular, he took aim at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whom he called on to resign.
Rather than “working feverishly” to fix these issues, Carlson claimed that Buttigieg was too busy working on an “equity agenda,” referring to an initiative to increase the number of female pilots and pilots of color.
“United has announced that 50% of its company’s pilots will be ‘women or people of color’ over the next decade,” Carlson commented. “Why should you care what the color of your pilot is? What does it have to do with anything?”
Claiming that everyone “except the New York Times and the Biden White House” cares about pilots’ skills rather than their race or gender, Carlson repeated his theory that the president is purposely driving up prices for revenge.
“By the way, at the same time, the White House is doing all it can to keep fuel prices high,” he reiterated. “Biden is just pushing the EU to stop buying Russian oil. It’s payback for getting Trump elected, but the effect is to guarantee higher prices on international oil markets, and that means higher prices for you.”
Casting an even wider net, he also said that the Green New Deal “they couldn’t get through Congress” and Buttigieg’s stance on abortion were to blame.