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April 6, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
31:49
Strategic Oil Reserve Failure - April 5th, Hour 2

Tim Stewart, President of US Petroleum and Gas and EJ Antoni, Research Fellow, Regional Economics, Center for Data Analysis, discuss the terrible state of the economy and the crisis levels of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) that the Biden administration explains is too expensive to replenish. Mind you it was him and his minions that emptied it in the first place. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, thanks, Scott Shannon, and thanks to all of you for being with us.
800-941 Sean on number if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, big issue if if peace and prosperity drive elections, well, one of the big issues is going to be the economy.
We now see a price of a barrel of oil going up to 90 bucks a barrel.
That means the prices are going to continue to go up.
We're already seeing the highest gas prices that we have seen in six months.
And now speculation, Biden might drain even more the little of the reserves in terms of our petroleum reserves that he that he squandered to artificially drive down gas prices in 2022.
Looks like he's going to try and do it again.
But anyway, here to weigh in on all of this is Tim Stewart and E.J. Antonio with us.
Tim is with the the president of the petroleum and gas uh institute, EJ, of course, research fellow, regional economics.
Uh thank you both.
Uh all right, Tim.
So ninety bucks a barrel.
There was an article today is Saudi Arabia trying to sabotage Joe Biden.
Well, what's going on with gas prices and the price of a barrel of oil?
Well, you know, we are at the highest point we've been, and you're exactly right.
There is not a lot of wiggle room the administration has with regards to the strategic petroleum reserve.
The fact of the matter is, um, look, you know, it's a combination of issues, pressuring issues and pump they're pushing pump prices higher.
You know, it's the right refinery transition, which happens every year at this time.
But more importantly, it's what's happening overseas, and particularly with Ukraine and with uh the Hooties and the cost of transporting crude across the globe.
That's what we're seeing right now.
Uh the problem with higher pump prices is that U.S. producers, we're kind of tapped out on our private lands.
If the administration hadn't put a stop work on all the federal lands, we'd have about 20% extra capacity coming online right now, and that's where we're at.
So you're gonna see higher prices for the foreseeable future, I think.
When you talk about the foreseeable future, give me a time frame.
Well, again, it's always uh always uh it depends on what happens overseas, but uh obviously I think we're gonna see high prices through the summer for sure.
There's just not a lot of extra wiggle room.
U.S. producers, we're tapped out.
We're producing more than we ever have.
We are record levels of production right now.
We don't have a lot more to give.
It's got to come from other places around the globe.
And frankly, OPEC is doing exactly what we expect him to do, which is when the administration comes in and says produce more, they're probably going to tell him they like the price climate where it's at right now.
Wow, that's pretty amazing.
Let's get your take, EJ Antoni.
I think Tim's exactly right.
You know, he he really has his uh his his finger on the pulse of the industry here, and it's important for Americans to realize that today's higher oil prices are gonna trickle down into uh prices for goods and services throughout the rest of the economy.
We really underestimate just how much the price of energy affects the price of everything else that we do and everything else that we buy.
Every time you go to a store, you're picking an item up off a shelf that got there on a truck that was powered by oil.
And it's not just simply transportation.
There are lots of other ways that that it affects our our daily life as well because of how much uh chemical blend stocks, for example, come from oil, come from natural gas.
And so even if an energy source is not explicitly being used for energy, it is still being used for products and services again that affect all aspects of our lives.
And so if you look at inflation numbers, how that those have have come down erratically, at least over the last year, that was with lower energy prices.
Now we're talking about energy prices going back up.
What do you think that's gonna do to inflation?
Well, we know what it's gonna do because the cost of everything we buy at every store we go to goes up dramatically whenever this happens, right?
Uh Tim Stewart, I mean, it's simple basic economics one-on-one.
Supply demand, crisscross dictate price.
Now, if you listen to the Biden administration, they are telling Americans that they're producing more oil than ever before.
Is it that the demand is higher?
Uh they're also importing oil from Venezuela, which is probably the dirtiest oil in terms of the need for pr uh for uh going through a refinery and and being turned into uh usable gasoline, and you know, where else are we getting oil from?
Well, you know, the Biden campaign, they're they're terrified rightly so with higher gasoline prices.
And uh despite the fact that they took since January of twenty one, the Biden administration's taking over two hundred individual actions to make it harder to produce oil and gas in the United States.
We're still we've we've gone around them.
But like I said earlier, when you have twenty-five percent of the entire federal oil and gas uh oil and gas assets on federal lands that have been taken offline, you don't have much more wiggle room on the private lands.
And so we're in election mode, and it's the administration's sensitive higher prices, and so that's why they're going to Ukraine and saying, hey, stop hitting the Russian oil facilities and they're leaning away from imposing sanctions on Venezuela.
Uh we've seen this movie before, Sean.
You know, they'll they'll pressure Trump pressure OPEC to produce more, which LPEC won't.
Then they'll call on American oil companies to do boot to reduce more, which we can't without some regulatory relief.
Then they'll call for the FTC investigations about price gouging, etc.
etc.
And then they may get to s to strategic petrol reserve releases.
That's not that's their their last uh option of last resort.
Well, they they did that in 2022.
Uh the petroleum reserves uh were not designed to help Democrats get elected, but that's what they used it for in 2022.
Are they trying to do the same thing in 2024?
And and if I hear one more person on television tell us how great the economy is, obviously they're not living the life of the average American because grocery prices are now up a whopping thirty-seven percent than four years ago.
Uh layoffs have now surged to a 14-month high.
Industrial goods manufacturing uh had an increase of 726% in jobs cuts in the first quarter.
Uh and you know, you even have guys like former chief of staff of Biden Ron Klein, uh, who is now pointing out that, yeah, it has failed to tame inflation.
Uh well, we saw that with the latest CPI numbers, and we saw that with the latest uh wholesale price numbers that came out in in just the last month.
So things are not getting better, and and when they cite the stock market or oh, we've got all these job gains, well, that will likely be you know revised downward as it usually is, number one, and number two, how many of those jobs are part-time jobs?
Uh EJ.
Sean, you hit on a lot of really great points there.
And when we start looking at that that distinction between the full and the part-time jobs, what do we find?
We find that the economy is hemorrhaging uh full-time jobs and we're only adding part-time ones.
And that wasn't just true for for the month of March, the report that we just got, it's been true for the entire last year.
We've been losing full-time jobs, gaining part-time jobs.
Why?
Because a lot of Americans, Sean, are are essentially having to go out and get a second or even a third gig in order to try to make ends meet because of uh exactly the types of things you were talking about, like grocery bills being up thirty-seven percent.
I mean, that's just absolutely insane.
But that's the reality a lot of Americans are dealing with.
And and it's not just a matter of of the kinds of jobs that are being created where we're only adding lower paying part-time jobs, but it's also a question of who is getting the jobs.
If we look at over the last year, for example, over 650,000 native-born Americans lost their jobs on net.
How many foreign-born workers gained jobs?
1.3 million.
So all of the job gains that that we are seeing, and again, it's not just the last year.
This has basically been a four-year walk.
Well, well, Jerome Powell just told us that, in fact, that's a good thing.
He said that this week.
Oh, well, it's it's certainly good if you're a member of the political elite, if you're a member of the ruling class and you want some some cheap labor to do menial work for you, and that also helps keep down your your labor costs, which reduces the inflation numbers.
But how good is that for the average American?
How good is that for prosperity here at home?
So what what we're essentially seeing, Sean, is these numbers being uh artificially increased, if you will, by a flood of illegal immigrants, which by the l by the way, the labor department admits illegals are counted in these numbers.
They just don't know how many, or at least they won't tell us how many.
But whatever the case, that flood of illegal immigration coordinated by the Biden administration is certainly keeping down labor costs, which is helping Jerome Powell as far as he's concerned, but it's also impoverishing Americans.
Well, I think this is where I get frustrated because people look at oh, the numbers are the numbers are looking really good on the stock market.
That's not impacting the sixty percent of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck.
Oh, certainly.
And you know what?
It's also not impacting the quarter of Americans, the quarter of American households who don't have a single cent in retirement savings.
Why?
Because their costs are up so much more than their wages that they can't afford to save anything.
And it's not just a matter of inflation driving up prices, which means they can't save anything, but their wages have also stagnated in part because of this flood of illegal immigration.
And so what we're looking at essentially is a situation where again, if you're a member of the political elite, you're doing just fine.
If and also if you're at the far other end of the of the income distribution where you're not earning anything and you're living off the government goal, you've also done pretty well under this administration, which has expanded welfare, both in terms of of who's eligible and also how much you get.
So who's really getting crushed?
The American people in the middle, the American middle class, the people for whom homeownership is no longer a dream.
It's a nightmare, one that's you know, it's a dream that they can never never achieve.
Uh, I tend to agree with that.
And you know, the idea that Americans are losing jobs and illegal immigrants are getting jobs, uh, Tim Stewart, I mean, it's it's pretty obvious what's going on with that.
And and that would be corporations looking for uh labor costs to be reduced, and and then we've got this big fight over how you know how high they want to raise the minimum wage, uh a series of uh a bunch of stores have now closed, fast food stores are starting to close because they can't afford to pay uh their workers twenty dollars an hour like they want in California.
You know, Sean, there's nothing in the world that's more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity, right?
Uh and the fact of the matter is I like I really like what EJ said because you're talking about one aspect, which is energy poverty.
The economy now has a majority of Americans from middle and and lower income households who are living paycheck to paycheck and having to make this decision.
Do I buy gas from my car, do buy food for my table?
And it shouldn't be like this.
And uh again, the administration on energy policy has been so schizophrenic uh with regards to having uh a they there's intentionally driving scarcity, uh particularly for use of fossil fuels on the inside.
And uh again, we're we've put millions of people into energy poverty where they haven't made these tough choices, and it shouldn't be like this.
Shouldn't be like this for for any American.
Anyway, I appreciate both of you, Tim Stewart and E.J. Antoni.
Thank you both for being with us.
800-941 Sean, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, let's get to our busy phones if we can.
Uh Brian, Ohio, next on the Sean Hannity Show.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
I'm great.
How are you?
Oh, it's it's uh snowy and rainy here in the Ohio River Valley right now.
Absolutely.
Uh sorry to hear that.
It's sunny and it's eighty in the free state of Florida, but I'm not rubbing it in or anything.
You better flip better flip.
Oh well, my my friends used to do that to me.
It used to piss me off.
Now I'm like, I love doing it back to everybody else.
Oh, yeah.
Thank you.
Anyway, what's on your mind today?
Well, what I was wondering about is uh I'm I've an ancestor that signed the declaration of independence, and I believe fully that our forefathers earned the bill of rights, which are the first ten constitutional laws, uh to put everybody because prior to them life was tyranny.
Uh my my issue was with Robert Kinsey Jr.'s uh recorded uh statements and I think he's a signal to the Democrats.
He said he personally would not go after the amendment.
And I don't care which one of the amendments and ten amendments you're talking about, none of them should be touched.
And uh he he would not go after the second amendment.
However, he said if Congress brought him a bill change the second amendment, he would sign it.
I think that was the signal uh to the Democrats and completely not what the president's for.
The president is to protect that bill of rights.
All of them.
Uh I totally agree.
And you know, for people that think that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to be some conservative that just mistake it.
And I know some people might might be drawn to his views on on COVID mandates and shutdowns.
That's fine.
Or maybe even some people uh agree with them completely on immunization.
But if you look at his environmental record, it's atrocious.
He is a climate alert alarmist religious cultist.
Uh he wanted and has advocated his entire adult life uh to protect wild lands, doesn't want development, wants to curb mining and logging and oil drilling, eliminate fracking.
Uh he has endorsed and praised Bernie Sanders plan to curb fossil fuel extraction, quote, hashtag keep it in the ground.
Uh he and that goes with fracking.
You know, he supported a regulation ban and he's done it many, many times.
Then you can look at his position on guns, and you know, he said the NRA is a terror group.
Then you can look at his position on affirmative action, uh, which he supports.
Then you can look at his, you know, position on you know, reimagining police departments with social workers, or the fact that he called uh Lewis Farrakhan a rabid anti-Semite and racist, uh a great partner.
Uh he wants the minimum minimum wage of fifteen bucks.
He wants free child care, uh, tax-free three percent government back mortgage bonds.
He supported Al Gore and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and loves Bernie Sanders.
I don't know what else to say about the guy.
I don't dislike him even.
I think the Democrats have treated him like crap.
Anyway, I got a break.
Appreciate the call.
800-941 Shawn our number as we continue.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to take a second to hear the immortal Bob Grant's talks about the world today.
Hey, uh ladies and gentlemen is sick, and it's getting sicker.
Now back to the Sean Hannity show.
All right, 25 now to the top of the hour, 800, 941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
You know what?
America's not the same country we all grew up in, and violent crime, you see it, we talk about it every day.
It is spiking at a very alarming rate.
The media, they want to protect Joe Biden.
They don't report it much.
Uh, they're the same people that said that the riots in the summer of 2020 were mostly peaceful.
Anyway, we have uh no bail laws, defund, dismantle, reimagine police departments.
Well, okay, now departments are underfunded.
Officers, uh, they're leaving that job that many of them dreamed of since they were kids.
New recruits, they're nowhere to be found.
Response times are doubling and tripling now across the country.
And the truth is is that more and more you and your family, you and your employees are on your own.
It's a harsh, harsh reality to face, but you know, I'm just telling you the truth.
Now, the former head of training for the FBI and the USCCA, they are partnered.
I want all of you to get this complete concealed carry family defense guide.
You download it absolutely free when you go to USCCA.com slash Hannity.
Do it now.
You'll learn proven ways to deter criminals, protect your home, protect your family, protect your employees.
And by the way, all around the country, the USCCA has over 8,000 classes available for situational self-defense.
If if you want to take one, I I strongly recommend you do.
That's what I practice every day in my own life.
Uh, but anyway, go to USCCA.com slash Hannity, and God forbid you you have to use lethal force one day to protect your life.
Well, they'll be there uh for you every step of the way.
USCCA.com slash Hannity.
So I almost I couldn't believe it until I heard it.
I almost forgot about our giggling vice president because she was giving a speech on energy this week, and your giggling VP was back in in great form.
Uh and then she wrongly claimed that the NCAA women's basketball was not allowed to have brackets until 2022.
Sounds like Joe Biden making up stories about you know 17 hour trips with the uh president of China, President Xi.
Anyway, here's your giggling vice president and your vice president not knowing a thing about brackets.
Listen.
The largest investment ever to take on the climate crisis.
Roughly a trillion dollars with a T I had to.
When President Biden and I first ran for office, folks told us we we have to take on the climate crisis, and we have to also lower monthly energy bills.
And here in North Carolina to help you lower that monthly Duke Energy bill.
You're welcome.
Do you know?
Okay, a bit of a history lesson.
Do you know that women were not the women's teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022?
Think about that.
And what that talk about progress, you know, better late than never, but progress.
And what that has done, because of course, when you know, I had a bracket, I'm it's not broken completely, but I won't talk about my bracket.
But you know what just the how we love we love March Madness.
And even just now allowing the women to have brackets and what that does to encourage people to talk more about the women's teams, to watch them.
Now they're being covered, you know, and and this is the reality.
People used to say, Oh, women's sports, who's interested.
Well, if you can't see it, you won't be.
But when you see it, you realize, oh.
But I think my all-time favorite when it comes to the vice president really is the word salad.
You know, the passage of time and communities and time passing, and all together we're we're passing through time.
And and the communities are for everybody in the community for the sake of the community.
That's what communities are for.
Listen.
Together, we are expanding access to transportation.
Seems like maybe it's a small issue, it's a big issue.
You need to get to go and need to be able to get where you need to go to do the work.
And get home.
So I'm here to ask you to do what you know how to do.
Because when you do what you do on all of these issues, the American people talking about the significance of the passage of time.
Right?
The significance of the passage of time.
So when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time.
More parents are seeing the value of educators when they had to crit and say we're not paying them nearly enough.
It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.
Every day it is time for us to agree.
When we talk about our children, I know for this group, we all believe that when we talk about the children of the community, they are the children of the community.
You gotta take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are, because you have been forced to have to take it seriously.
We invested an additional twelve billion dollars into community banks because we know community banks are in the community and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community.
All right, to our busy phones we go.
Let's say hi to Aaron.
He's in the great state of Ohio, the Buckeye State.
What's going on, Aaron?
Hi, Sean.
Thanks for taking my call.
Um comment about Biden going to Baltimore today and visiting with the families of the construction workers.
Now I I am a construction worker, however, I am a former deputy jailer.
And it's kind of aggravating that he still hasn't reached out to the police officers' family.
after all this time.
You're talking about Officer Diller, and yeah, that's kind of sad, isn't it?
It is very sad.
And is he going to be present when he's with these families anyhow?
I mean, is he going to be checking his watch as he's standing there talking to them or listening to them?
You know, that's it kind of fits into the fact that he did go to the site of where this bridge collapsed today.
And it it's almost like he's only doing it because he's forced to do it because while he was yucking it up and and he and Clinton and Obama were at Radio City uh music hall raising, you know, twenty-five, twenty-six million dollars, Donald Trump was at the wake of this officer, Officer Officer Diller and offering the family comfort.
Um I mean, what a comparison, right?
And while he was in New York, you would think that maybe he'd have a little bit of time.
Uh he could take helicopters and pretty much land them anywhere he wants in any open field out long island, and there are plenty of them.
And he and he could have stopped by and talked to the family.
But he didn't.
And I think that speaks volumes volumes about him.
Uh the fact that he didn't show up till a year later in East Palestine.
He didn't have the time on his schedule, he said, but every weekend he was on the beach in Delaware, uh any warm weather weekend.
Uh he had plenty of time if it was a priority for him.
It was not.
Then I think it just, you know, that's him.
That's who we got as our president right now.
It's very sad.
We need to have accountability for this in our country.
And you know, he wants security, but he denies security for other people.
I mean, I'm talking about Junior here, you know.
It it it's just sad.
It's a sad state that we're in right now.
Well, two hundred and thirteen days, if you don't feel the urgency of the moment, this this being an inflection point for the country, I don't know what I can say that will convince you.
Because everybody knows it.
Everybody's feeling it.
The only thing they're gonna run on is hating Trump and lying about what Republicans stand for.
They won't run on any record they have unless they're gonna lie about their record, which by the way, they've already been doing.
And of course, blaming Donald Trump for the border and blaming Donald Trump for crime and blaming Donald Trump uh for the economy and blaming Donald Trump for, you know, if the dog bites the beast things and you're feeling sad.
Uh anyway, thanks, Aaron.
Appreciate it.
800 941 Sean, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
Let's say hi to Hala, she's in Florida.
Holla, how are you?
Happy Friday.
Great, Sean, thank you.
I wanted to refer back to your show two days ago when you stated that Biden is changing his stance on Israel.
Um, let's not be fooled.
Um, number one, I am a Palestinian American.
I'm definitely pro-Palestinian and proud to say it.
Um unfortunately we cannot go into the history and the real reason why Israel is attacking Palestine.
But let's put that aside.
Biden is not changing his stance.
I'm a big Trump supporter, and let's make it clear, especially so all of the Arab Americans across the country, Muslims and Christians understand he's only changing his stance because he's going to lose in Michigan.
He needs Michigan.
He needs to use the Middle Eastern people to win this election, and it's not going to happen.
So I mean, the fact that they in the middle of a war after the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history, is openly advocating to replace the the current prime minister.
i mean is it should shock everybody especially our top ally they are not looking for anything except that they want to buy american military aid and support that's really all they wanted and and the idea that joe may condition any military aid over a ceasefire A ceasefire means they don't win their war on terror.
And Biden is now demanding an immediate ceasefire.
He did it in a one-hour call that he had with Netanyahu.
Um war is ugly.
Israel did not start this war.
Israel is not responsible for the war.
Israel now has an obligation to protect their country.
Their very survival, in my view, is hanging in the balance.
that serious.
Now we see the CIA warning that Iran is going to attack Israel within 48 hours.
That makes things even more precarious in the region.
Joe, of course, has allowed the Iranians to get rich by not enforcing sanctions and stopping them from selling their oil.
He lifted sanctions.
So $10 billion can go into the mullah's coffers, Uh and in that case, you know, that's outrageous also.
I mean, I can't believe he did that, but he did.
Uh then of course he was gonna give another six billion dollars in monies um, you know, uh for uh a ransom for hostages.
And now now Israel has to go this all by itself.
Um I don't know.
I've if this happened after nine eleven and other countries were telling us how to run our war on terror, I don't think America would take kindly to it.
I certainly wouldn't have.
Yeah, uh to say that Biden is demanding a ceasefire, unless I see him standing there and saying I am demanding a ceasefire.
I'm not really sure how you can believe that.
He is dancing around it to appease the Middle Eastern people.
That is all he's doing.
And also John Kirby, he can't come out with a straight answer as well.
With the world central kitchen.
He can't condemn that either.
Why?
We don't know.
Because Israel has started this war.
It's been seventy-five years.
This has been going back and forth.
Again, I'm sure you've heard of this over and over.
This did not start on October 7th.
But let's put that to the side.
This war never would have started.
Well, there maybe there could have been a war.
But the the slaughter, we call it the second coming of the Holocaust on the Palestinian children and the people would not have happened under Trump.
This only happened under Biden.
And Biden is only trying to appease the Middle Eastern people.
That's why he's dancing around it, and he can't be completely demanding it.
Because he has to be careful.
But at the same time, he's like, oh, but I still need these Middle Eastern people who are make a big part of this community in this country.
But it's easier for the people in this country just to sweep the Palestinian people under the carpet that they're all terrorists.
Let's just sweep them under the carpet.
They're all terrorists, so let's keep slaughtering all of the children and Palestine.
So this is a uh point that I also what he's basically doing is he is prioritizing his election over uh fighting radical terrorists that want to not only destroy Israel, it's bigger than Israel.
Radical Islamists, you know, they view Israel as the little Satan, you know, from the river to the sea, and they view America as the big Satan.
And the the and what have we been hearing from the FBI director?
What have we been hearing from top generals?
That, you know, they expect terrorist attacks on our country, and with all the people that Joe Biden has allowed in from Iran and Syria and China and Russia and Afghanistan and and Egypt.
Uh, it seems inevitable that we are going to be attacked, probably sooner than later.
And yeah, Joe will have blood on his hands, but at that point the price has been too high.
Anyway, I appreciate the call.
800-941-SHAWN is our number.
The final hour of the Sean Hannity show is up next.
Hang on for Sean's conservative solutions.
All right, back to our busy uh phones as we say hi to Simon in California.
Simon, how are you?
Glad you called.
Thank you, Sean.
Long time listener, first-time caller.
Well, thank you for listening for a long time, and thank you for calling and glad you checked in and happy Friday to you.
Thank you.
Look, I thought it would be a good idea between now and election day, maybe once a month, you would read off a list of Donald Trump's accomplishments during his first term, all under the banner of keeping his promises.
I could definitely do that.
I can give you a lot of them off the top of my head.
I mean, pre-COVID, he set record low after record low after record low unemployment for many demographics in the country, for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, uh, for uh women in the workplace, Asian Americans, African American youth uh as well.
Uh the economy was flourishing.
Uh we had low interest rates.
Gasoline never went on a national average, never never got to three dollars a gallon in the four years he was president.
For the first time in 75 years, he made the country energy independent.
We know what he did with the wall.
We know what he did with the state of Mexico policy.
Uh we know that immigration, illegal immigration was brought to the lowest levels it had been in many, many years, and Joe Biden inherited that.
Uh, we know for the first time he put tariffs on China that were meaningful and biting.
Uh we know that he did uh he got respect on the world stage as the leader of the free world, and that we know that our enemies feared him.
I don't think they fear Joe Biden at all.
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