Fist Bump Fail: Biden Scrambling Before Midterms After OPEC+ Cuts Oil

The White House is in scramble mode to avoid skyrocketing gas prices after OPEC+ announced it would be cutting millions of barrels of oil per day, but the Biden administration’s concern has nothing to do with sound policy or cheaper gas prices for the American people. It is evident that President Joe Biden and his gang are attempting to save face and stave off a shellacking like no other in this year’s midterm elections.

Biden traveled to Saudia Arabia in July to fistbump the Saudi crown prince and reportedly beg that his kingdom ramp up oil production. At the time, Biden was dealing with months of high gas prices, which he blamed on the war in Ukraine. To help increase the supply of gasoline, Biden released millions of barrels of oil from the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The SPR was never supposed to be a long-term solution; its primary purpose is to provide fuel to the U.S. in times of crisis. It has a limit and America needs to keep some oil in reserves for actual emergencies — not ones created by the green energy cabal in the federal government.

Biden has no idea what to do because he has spent the past three years campaigning and governing on the promise that he would, in effect, shut down the oil industry. Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) concisely broke down how we arrived at this situation.

“Let’s be clear about what happened,” Scalise tweeted. “1. Biden destroyed America’s oil/gas industry and made us dependent on OPEC again. 2. Biden begged OPEC to produce more oil. 3. OPEC is doing the opposite—cutting output by 2 million barrels a day.”

“Total failure,” he concluded. “OPEC is laughing at him.”

According to CNN, sources within the White House describe the cutback as a “total disaster.” As flagged by National Review, one White House official said that the administration is “panicking.”

Now, the White House’s only move to try and slow rising gas prices is to release even more oil from the SPR even as it is at record lows.

Shortly after OPEC+ gave Biden the cold shoulder, his administration announced that it would be releasing even more oil from the SPR. As pointed out by Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, just yesterday, the White House said it wasn’t considering that as an option.

“Joe Biden draining our oil reserves just to mitigate Democrat losses in the midterm election might be the most despicable thing a president has ever done,” conservative host Jesse Kelly observed.

Joe Biden draining our oil reserves just to mitigate Democrat losses in the midterm election might be the most despicable thing a president has ever done.

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) October 5, 2022

As analyzed by Politico, OPEC+’s decision “is feeding an autumn of anxiety for Democrats over energy inflation as prices at the gas pump march higher” and promoting worry that momentum “could swing in Republicans’ favor in the midterm election.”

Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and a top oil adviser in the George W. Bush administration, was a bit blunter in his characterization of the situation for Biden.

“The Biden administration is looking at a guillotine blade across its neck and it’s going to fall soon,” McNally said. “That is going to cause a really large and sudden drop off in Russian oil production and trigger another oil price spike.”

Yet as explained by Paul Bledsoe of the Progressive Policy Institute and a former Clinton administration climate change adviser, “The corner gas price is the single most important number in American politics, especially for the party in power.”

As that number creeps back up, you don’t have to be an energy expert like Hunter Biden to see that it spells bad news for the Democrats.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.