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And if you want a little bang in your yin-yang, come along.
So you've seen some of that data on uh on a fourth dose, a second booster shot.
You think it will be necessary.
It is necessary fourth boost right now.
Our task is to show people that in many ways they got what they ordered, right?
They said this is what they wanted.
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Day number two, thirteen.
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It doesn't matter what Joe messes up.
It's now all gonna be I uh Joe, I blame everything wrong in the world on Vladimir Putin.
The border, that that's Vladimir Putin's fault.
That's not my fault.
Uh the energy crisis, the fact that energy, we were paying almost a buck fifty more a gallon before Putin ever invaded Ukraine.
That's all Vladimir Putin's fault.
Five months of of a 40-year high of inflation, that's Vladimir Putin's fault.
Afghanistan, that's Vladimir Putin's fault.
This is now the big democratic lie.
This is what they're now pushing, and they're hoping somehow they're able to convince enough of the American people that, oh, this if Vladimir didn't invade Ukraine, things would be so much better.
Well, they were so much worse already, headed towards recession.
You can't get four months straight for uh uh 40-year high of inflation and then blame Vladimir Putin uh when he only invaded the country, what, two weeks ago?
It's ridiculous.
And you know, then they're saying, oh, that's that's the reason for high gas prices.
It has nothing to do with our horrific uh energy dependency policies.
You know, nobody seems to want to focus on him doing this idiotic Iranian deal.
Uh but it is what it is.
Now it's even gotten so bad that in the latest attempt to shield Biden from the results of his disastrous economic and energy policies.
Democrats are now claiming if you criticize Biden for sky-high gas prices, you are un American.
And Washington State Democratic Congresswoman Kim Schreier insisting that Biden bears no responsibility at all for gas prices either before or after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Right now, in the last two weeks, this is Putin, she said to some podcaster, you should be blaming Putin, if anyone for this.
To not blame Putin, first of all, is denying reality, and secondly, uh, frankly, I think it's un-American.
So if you hold Joe accountable for his failed policies, it's un-American.
And I mentioned earlier this this article on Fox News.com where Russia duped Europe into energy dependence by funding these rabid environmental groups.
Remember, Germany gave up all their nuclear power.
How's how's that working out for them?
Uh February 20th of this year, we found an article in the New York Times.
The Biden administration halts all new drilling.
Oh, well, they they say, but why don't they drill in these other places?
We're gonna get to that in just a second.
Uh Biden doubles down again on ending fossil fuel consumption as gas prices continue to skyrocket.
So he'd rather deal with Venezuela and that murdering thug dictator Maduro.
He'd rather deal with the mullahs in Iran uh that just attack with a ballistic missile uh uh one of our bases in Iraq.
He'd rather beg OPEC, which has rejected him numerous Times than become energy independent here.
Anyway, so at an in-person fundraiser at the DNC yesterday, as part of his push heading into the 2024 midterms, he focused his remarks predictably on this insane climate uh change agenda cult religion of the left to a group of eighteen attendees that were sitting at two long tables at the hotel Washington and our nation's capital.
We're going to continue to be aggressive on the executive front as well.
He spoke about bipartisan infrastructure deals, climate provisions, and he said Russia's invasion of Ukraine is another reason why we need to get off our dependency on fossil fuels and call the climate crisis an existential threat to humanity.
Our grandchildren will never forgive us.
I'll never forgive him.
Anyway, here's Nancy Pelosi saying, you know, this is more of the big lie.
Vladimir Putin did not cause all of these problems.
They were all in existence ahead of time.
But that's you know, never let a horrible situation go to waste.
Here's Nancy Pelosi.
We have to live in a media where even though the bills for 10 years, they measure it for 20 years.
And Impermontor said a trillion dollars over 20 years is saved.
So when we're having this discussion, it's important to dispel some of those who say, well, it's the government spending.
No, it isn't.
The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt is not inflationary.
Just the dumbest idiocy on the face of this earth, as we've been discussing now for a couple of days.
Now, Pete Buttig is out there saying oil and gas prices are outside the control of any political figure.
Now, this this man with this wealth of experience, he's the mayor of South Bend, and he did a lousy job as mayor.
Being frank.
Now he's telling, well, get another high-paying career job, union career job, after the Keystone XL pipeline workers were were let go.
Um, the same idiot that's telling everybody, just go buy an electric car, 60 grand.
Oh, you're gonna give us a 60 grand?
Uh, I'm sure a lot of Americans would appreciate it.
But now he's saying that oil and gas prices, that's not true.
Joe Biden's policies have artificially reduced the world supply.
It has made our NATO and Western European allies dependent on Russia, and now it's got Joe Biden kissing the ass of mullets in Iran and thug dictators like Mindoro and begging OPEC.
Here's Buddha judge, the genius that he is.
Gas prices at the pump have been a huge tax uh on anybody who is driving anywhere.
Um, what do you do about that?
And are you in favor of potentially putting a hold on the national gas tax in in the meantime until those prices do come down?
Well, it continues to be important to keep options open.
As you know, the president's taken a lot of steps to bring relief and to help stabilize oil prices, including that big release from the strategic petroleum reserve.
Of course, the long-term solution for this is energy independence and a shift to renewable energy uh here in this country.
Uh, but let's also remember that while oil prices and gas prices are famously something that is largely outside of the direct control of any political figure.
All right, joining us now is Joel Griffith, and he is a research fellow for the Institute of Economic Freedom and Opportunity at the Heritage Foundation and former CKE restaurant CEO and heritage visiting fellow Andy Puzder is with us.
Uh welcome both of you, Joel.
Uh, is what they telling us true?
Because I learned I had a double major when I was in college, and it was economics and political science.
And economics 101 taught me that supply and demand crisscross and this dictate the price, and Joe Biden has artificially reduced the world supply of oil and given up energy independence.
And before Putin invaded Ukraine, gas prices were about a buck fifty more a gallon uh around the country.
So are they lying to us?
Um well, uh, thank you for having me on the show, uh, Sean.
And here's what uh Mayor Pete didn't tell us.
Uh in that first year of Joe Biden's presidency before Putin invaded Ukraine, gas prices increased 50 percent.
And here's something else Mayor Pete didn't tell us.
In 2020, the last year President Trump's president, in 2020, our nation became a net oil and net oil product exporter for the first time since 1949.
Well, that's in reverse.
In 2022, this year, we're expected to once again be a net importer, and that's likely to be the case in 2023.
and this is partially due to the fact that this administration has declared war in the fossil fuel sector.
I know right now they're be rating oil companies telling them to produce more, but everything that's come down from this administration from day one has been a s an assault on pipelines, an assault on new refineries, and it's been a declaration of war long term on our own ability to produce abundant fossil fuel source.
All right.
Do you have an estimate?
Because I asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry about it, and he said well over a hundred years worth of energy independence.
I've heard estimates up to we may have two hundred plus years if we with new technology, for example, microwaving shell and liquefying it and and absorbing it and extracting it that way.
How many years does America have in terms of its supply of energy?
Well, just in terms of just in terms of proven reserves we have um generations here.
But if we're talking about the reserves that we know were there that we haven't actually explored, we're talking in excess of two hundred years of abundant natural gas sources here in the United States.
Okay, so in other words, we don't need a drop of oil from anybody.
And why we would artificially, you know, reduce the world supply and beg you know these nations, the the biggest state sponsor of terror makes no sense, Andy Puzder.
No, it makes absolutely no sense at all.
You know, if you listen to what Boo just said, he said, look, Biden released these uh strategic energy energy reserves.
He didn't happen to say that there was oil in them because of President Trump.
But he released what was in the strategic energy re reserves, got some other countries to do it, and the price went down.
Well, the price went down because it increased the supply of oil.
If then he says there's nothing Biden can do.
Well, obviously, if he increases the supply of oil, the price of oil is going to come down.
All he's got to do is stand there, stand up in front of the White House and say, look, we're going to do everything we can to encourage American energy production.
We're going to make permitting easier, we're going to make transportation easier by approving these pipelines.
We're going to encourage banks to lend to oil companies, particularly the independence.
We're going to generate some real oil production in this country, and just the anticipation of the oil prices of oil production going up is going to lower the prices, which in fact happened today when Saudi Arabia and the Emirates indicated they might they might produce some more oil.
So he does have the power to do something.
He just chooses not to use it because he's got political pressure preventing him from using it.
So do we have the the alternative energy capability that that idiots like Buddha judge and others talk about all the time?
Because I I've not seen the great success of windmills and solar panels.
But here's what the Biden administration wants to do.
They're on the record wanting to spend trillions of dollars to manufacture that capacity.
So sure, perhaps they could cover the entire heartland with windmills and and and with solar panels to help compensate us for the loss of natural gas and oil facilities, but that's not going to be cost effective.
At the Heritage Foundation, we estimate that that type of a proposal will cost the typical family eight thousand dollars per year in higher energy costs, and that's not just a number made up.
If you look at what's going on in Germany, they've actually tried to implement their own version of the Green New Deal, and Germans pay about twice the rate for electricity as we pay in the United States.
And that's almost exclusively because they've actually embraced this Green New Deal program and shut down the nuclear power plant and really uh force a lot of natural gas production capacity um to the wayside.
Quick break, we'll come right back more with Joel Griffin and Andy Puzzder as we discuss and and continue to talk about the idiocy of America abandoning energy independence.
All right, more with Joel Griffith and Andy Puzder.
You know, the puzzling question why Joe Biden would want to beg the world's worst hostile actors, including mullahs in Iran and dictators in Venezuela, then use the vast resources, energy resources we have in this country is beyond any comprehension I have.
Is it true what the Alberta Premier had said that the pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline, would have now been finished and it would have a capacity of importing to America from Canada, 900,000 barrels of oil a day, Andy?
Yeah, That's absolutely true.
And that would be a obviously we need those we need that oil.
The world needs that oil.
Oil is priced on an international basis.
It's not priced domestically.
But that oil coming down to the United States and the reducing the transportation costs for the producers of that oil would have a huge impact.
And it absolutely is true.
You know they said ten years ago we're not going to approve the pipeline because it'll take ten years for it to get in.
Well if you know if they'd approved it before we'd have it now.
Uh that it uh look all you got to do is increase oil supplies and the price will come down.
And you don't even have to actually increase the actual supply.
You just have to increase the anticipation of supply going up and the price will come down.
So there's a lot this president could do.
As I said he just can't do it.
Well he it's not that he can't do it.
It's that he won't do it because he's beholden to the extreme radical leftist that represents the new Green Deal Democratic Socialist Party.
Isn't that it, Joel?
Oh that that's exactly right.
They've been very open about this.
This has been about the moving resources away from fossil fuels and into green energy because they believe that humankind is a parasite on humanity.
And to hear the Biden administration putting all the blame on Russia right now other than you know the price numbers, think about this our daily imports from Russia are close to about three hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.
That sounds like a lot until you realize that we use about nineteen million barrels per day and until you realize that our production has dropped off a cliff over the last two years.
Our production has dropped off by about seven hundred thousand barrels per day.
That is a multiple of what we import daily from Russia.
You know if I look if we look very objectively at the reserves we have natural gas, oil coal, how quickly would we be able to supply our NATO allies, Western European allies, and then their dependence on Russia and Putin uh Joe will ask you that and Andy same question.
Well sadly this can't will not happen overnight.
Uh we know that over the last years Germany has moved and parts of other parts of Europe have moved into dependency on Russia.
And to President Trump's credit, he was pushing against Europe developing this dependency because he feared that what has happened today would happen, that Russia would make some sort of an invasion upon its neighbors and because Germany is dependent on Russian fuel sources, they're going to be hesitant to push back and that's exactly what has happened and President Biden stood alongside and allowed that pipeline project that was going to move oil or move gas from Russia to Germany.
He allowed that to go forward.
It's going to take some time to win Europe off this dependency.
Andy, last word, same question.
It can happen very quickly, I think, because, look, we're the world's largest exporter of natural gas.
We were the third largest exporter of oil.
But very specifically how how do we get it there?
Why would number one you you got to encourage uh these producers to go in is either open up the sh wells that were shut down or open new wells and they can only do that if they've got a an incentive to do it and if they've got the permits to do it.
You know they talk about having leases but you also need to have permits you need to be able to move the oil and you need to be able to get the money particularly if you're an independent producer to open those wells.
They're $20, 30 million dollars per well per drill site.
So you've really got to get these people encouraged to produce you encourage American energy producers to get out there and and produce and you'll find very very quickly that we'll be meeting the needs of the world not to mention our own needs once again.
All right thank you both Joel Griffin thank you.
Andy Puzder.
Thank you.
800-941-SHAWN, a number you want to be a part of the program.
Thank you.
Continuing to build the foundation for conservative victory.
Victory now back to the Sean Hannity show.
All right twenty five till the top of the hour we'll get to your calls 800 nine four one Sean our number you want to be a part of the program.
So when uh it was such an embarrassment when when Kamala Harris and I know it's been announced today that Joe is going to make a trip to Europe.
This is good probably going to be a disaster.
Because Joe's going to be on Air Force One.
No matter what when you travel, how often you travel I've traveled a ton in my life.
And it doesn't matter.
You travel you're tired, end of sentence it takes at least a day or two to get back to normal.
except for short flights, obviously.
But even that can be a pain in the you know what.
Anyway, so Kamala goes over, Joe's going over, can't wait for that disaster.
But Kamala goes and she's with the president of Poland, and she explains uh the in in great intellectual depth with great intellectual depth and specificity, the complexities of this issue with Ukraine and Russia.
Uh, listen.
If you're watching any level of news, even social media, you've seen everything that's going on right now in the Ukraine.
Break it down in layman's terms for people who don't understand what's going on and how can this directly affect the people of the United States.
So Ukraine is a country in Europe.
It exists next to another country called Russia.
Russia is a bigger country, Russia is a powerful country.
Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine.
So basically that's wrong.
Okay.
So Ukraine is a country in Europe.
Um it's next to a bigger country called Russia.
Uh Russia is bigger, Ukraine exists in Europe, and and Russia's bigger and more powerful, and they made an invasion.
I think probably a kid in first grade could do that.
Uh, but not in the average public school, they actually need to go to a real school.
Um no offense to good public school teachers out there.
Now, Kamala Harris has spoken out again.
It appears Kamala Harris does not know that the country of Ukraine is not a part of NATO.
Remember, NATO matters because of Article 5, an attack against one NATO allied country is an attack against all NATO allied countries.
Listen.
So I will say what I know we all say, and I will say over and over again.
The United States stands firmly with the Ukrainian people in defense of the NATO alliance.
Great applause line.
The only problem is Ukraine is not a part of NATO.
Um, there is a difference.
How far out do Vladimir Putin's territorial ambitions go at this moment?
I don't know.
Do I think deep down in his heart that that he wishes to to bring the band back together and reform the former Soviet Union?
I do.
Uh will probably, you know, one of the reasons that you know some of the Baltic countries like you know, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, are saying, yeah, we support the no fly zone.
We better deal with this right here, right now, uh, or this could get really, really bad, and it can be World War III, is for that reason.
Um, I never thought I'd say that I I just don't like Bill Maher.
There's nothing to me that likable about him.
Um occasionally he's funny, you know, but he's interesting sometimes because he's constantly lecturing the Democratic Party about being a bunch of nitwits and having gone so dramatically hard uh radical left, he's saying you're never gonna win doing this.
So he's not dumb, he's smart.
I just don't agree with him, nor do I particularly like his personality.
And by the way, he doesn't like me or my personality either, so there you go.
But he raised a good question this weekend.
Why didn't Putin invade while Trump was in office?
Listen.
If Putin thought Trump was really that supportive of him, why didn't he invade when Trump was in office?
It's at least worth asking that question if you're not locked into one intransigent thought.
He's right.
Why didn't he?
And as we discussed earlier, I think because Donald Trump of what he did, he destroyed the caliphate that Biden and Obama allowed to grow.
He destroyed Salomani, the number one terrorist in the world, and and the you know, of course, coming from Iran, General Solomonny, and he was fomenting terror, fighting proxy wars all over the Middle East for decades.
Took him out right on the tarmac and everybody with him.
He took out Baghdadian associates.
He took out the Al Qaeda leader in Yemen.
He never gets credit for any of this.
So he projected a strength That Joe Biden obviously does not have.
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are not up to the job of president and vice president.
It's clear to every hostile regime in the world right now.
The big winner, if you're going to pick a winner in a horrible situation, it's China.
Because China now emerges as the needed ally of Russia.
They are now pursuing their territorial ambitions.
I believe, you know, their threat over the weekend, warning of the worst consequences for any country that supports Taiwan militarily, which by the way, we are already doing, is is a clear message that he's just going to sit back for a while, President Chi, and then figure out what his territorial ambitions are.
And he kind of has already concluded what I've concluded.
That Joe and Kamala are not up to the task.
Period.
Sad is the United States of America.
Now we're seeing what America last policies look like, and we're seeing what an weakened America looks like and the impact it has on the world.
It's the reason I wrote this little book before the election.
Live free or die, America and the world on the brink.
This is the on the brink part that I saw coming.
I never thought it would get this bad this fast.
I thought it could get this bad.
I didn't think it would happen this fast.
All right, let's get to our phones.
Uh let us say hello to Teresa is in Florida.
Teresa, how are you?
You're smart.
I'm dumb.
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean, how are you doing today?
Thanks for taking my call.
Thank you for calling.
Listen, I'm just the average person here in Central Florida who's sitting around being like really upset and mad right now about all this mess.
Um, I want to know, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I want to know why we're not having more serious discussions about what could very possibly be motivating this president, his administration, and his associates.
Um it defies logic, the things that he's doing, all right, and the things that he isn't doing.
Like you said earlier, these things could be easily fixed.
Why aren't we even entertaining the idea that so much of this is driven by self-preservation?
Because the man is so compromised.
Good old fashion blackmail and extortion.
I mean, and no one's really talking about it other than occasionally, you know, you guys talk about it.
What's up with that?
I I I believe that the Biden family syndicate is compromised.
I say I think they're compromised with Russia, that they're compromised with China, they compromised with Kazakhstan, not involved here.
They're compromised uh with Ukraine.
I I I think they all have dossiers and information on the Biden family that if they reveal.
Now it wasn't interesting that Putin did something that didn't get a lot of notice.
He put out a list of people.
Um what was it that's sanctioning today?
Yeah, he's that.
Yeah, and and let's see who's on the list.
Oh, Hillary Clinton's on the list.
Oh, wow.
Oh, and Joe Biden's on the list.
And Hunter Biden is on the list.
Now, is Vladimir Putin sending a message?
I can't say for sure, but it certainly looks like a message to me.
Um, you raise a good point, because they are compromised.
It's a very good point.
Um go ahead.
When you're driven by self-preservation, you're never going to back up and pivot, admit that you were wrong.
Let's look at something out.
So that concerns me for our country right there.
It should concern you.
Anyway, great thought, great call, Teresa.
You get the gold star and an A plus for today's call.
Awesome observation.
No, if it was Trump, I can guarantee you that the investigations would be ongoing in perpetuity, would never end.
All right, quick break.
Welcome back.
More of your calls, 800-941 Sean.
you want to be a part of the program.
Right back to our busy phones.
Let's say hi to Kerry.
Kerry's in Midland, Texas.
Kerry, how are you?
Glad you called.
Why do I live in New York when I can live in Florida or Texas?
That makes me a very stupid person.
I'm acknowledging it.
Oh, brother, I ain't no expert.
I'm I'm I'm I'm not the smartest one either.
I'd have your job.
Well, that not not when the government takes 65% of what you earn, but anyway, I'm very happy doing my job.
I did it for free and for little to the next to no money.
But anyway, what's on your mind today?
By the way, middle in Texas, we wouldn't have to beg you to produce more energy there, would we?
Uh, we've got it.
We've got it, but that's uh there it's a little bit more in depth than that.
So so Jim Sockey said there's nine thousand permits ready to drill.
And I can okay, I can I'll give her that.
And let's say that maybe half of those are tier one, you know, good spots ready to drill, since 4500.
But to do this, now then you've got to build a pad, move a drilling rig in, drill down ten thousand feet, then you turn and go horizontal for about another fifteen thousand feet, get them out, get the rig out of the way, bring frack in, frack it, get them out of the way, bring coal in, re uh clean the well out, bring the production stack, put it on, and then get the oil out of there.
Well, that's not cheap.
And it seems like every you know, every administration that we that we change, well now then they change the rules on.
You know, now then we're they're talking about windfall taxes.
Well, if you knew that if you kept investing that eventually the government was going to completely shut you down, why would you keep drilling?
It doesn't make any sense at all.
Well, it's interesting you bring that up because we now have Democrats that are literally saying now, well, first Biden is doubling down on ending fossil fuel consumption uh altogether.
He's he's doubled down on that.
Also, and nobody's paying attention to it, we are.
Democrats are pushing a plan to tax the oil company and their profits and then send checks to Americans uh and blame the oil companies uh for actually doing their job and making us energy independent, which is good for our economy, good for inflation, would drive it down, and good for not being reliant on foreign sources of energy, which is good for our national security.
Those are not things they're interested in.
You're a hundred percent correct.
Well, if you think about it, it McDonald's doesn't want a small fry to cost twenty dollars.
But they they'll choke themselves off.
Oil companies don't want oil at $200 a barrel.
That's the last thing they want because just like every other industry, if oil's $200 a barrel, they can't buy as much of it.
There's a there's a sweet spot probably in around the forty, fifty, sixty dollar range for a barrel of oil where everybody makes money and we get relatively and I mean relative, relatively cheap energy.
Uh we don't have an alternative, but you're right.
It's not as easy as Chen Saki saying, well, I didn't use the nine thousand leases you already have.
That's not how it works.
What do you do in the oil industry?
Clearly you work in it.
What do you do?
Uh I've right now I'm a I'm a crane operator in the oil field.
I've started about 25 years ago as a as a floor hand on a drilling rig, and it worked.
I opened up an own company and and some other things, but now then I'm out here, I'm I'm on the step, I'm on the frack step, and then sometimes I'll I'll stay around for the step after frack.
So how many years total in the energy sector?
Uh I think I started out here in 01 when I was uh 10 years old when I came out here.
So let me ask you a personal question.
Don't answer it if you don't want to.
Give me the range of salaries that people in your industry that you know put in the decades that you put in.
That's a great point.
A 19-year-old can come out here right now and make a hundred thousand dollars a year if he's willing to work.
I've done this then.
I mean, well, well, hang on a sec.
You mean a new a new person with no experience, willing to work, hundred grand a year they start at.
Easily.
And you can go online right now, go on Facebook to some of the West Texas job sites.
I mean, they're they're begging people.
I have a really good friend that I'm not gonna name the company, but he works uh he they build drilling rigs.
And he said they need they have customers, but they can't find enough people to put on the rigs to send the rigs out to work.
Let me ask you the next question.
Where where do you where do you cap out at?
You know, you start at a hundred grand, you have people that you know making two hundred, three hundred grand a year.
Yeah, and maybe even it just depends.
I right now I'm at about two hundred thousand, and that's with no I didn't even go to college.
I didn't even graduate high school, and I went to prison for three years.
I mean it's it's the money's out here.
Yeah, this I grew up.
Well, what what did you what did you go what did you go to prison for?
What'd you do?
Oh, this will be fun.
This was uh in in 1996, we we robbed some houses and maybe maybe set one of them on fire.
I was a young, dumb, stupid seventeen year old kid that had just got out of foster care and didn't work out directly.
you like I said that that that road is is available to just about anybody that won't we could hire my company right now could hire 50 more people and we would still need more the old out here would could hire 5000 people and we would still need more there's money out here I read all the time about these people that are in you know three hundred thousand dollars worth of student loan debt and they got a a master's degree in basket weaving and wondering why they're going broke and that I should have to pay their college you know pay their loans back.