Joe Biden has repeatedly blamed Vladimir Putin for U.S. oil market price spikes, but the Russian strongman may have given the president exactly what he campaigned on, historian Victor Davis Hanson told Fox News Tuesday.
Although the price of 87 octane gasoline sat around $2 per gallon in the final days of the Trump administration, Biden has continued to deflect blame for the oil crisis, despite campaigning to "get rid of fossil fuels" and nixing a key Canadian-American pipeline on his first day in office.
On "The Story with Martha MacCallum" Tuesday, Hanson cited several instances where Biden instead blamed Putin for increased home heating and motor fuel costs:
"Putin's war is already hurting American families at the gas pump," Biden said in one example.
"Putin's price hike in gasoline – The consequence of Putin's price hike -- We've never seen anything like Putin's tax on both food and gas -- I'm doing everything in my power to blunt Putin's gas price hike — It's inching up because of what the Russians and the Saudis," Biden said at other times this year.
Hanson said Putin essentially gave Biden what he wanted and what he campaigned on – unaffordable gasoline to force Americans away from fossil fuels.
"If he had any integrity, he would say, 'I want to praise Vladimir Putin for increasing the price of gas, because that's what I ran on. I ran on eliminating fossil fuels. I like these price hikes'," Hanson said.
Notably, during a 2020 campaign event in New Hampshire, Biden declared he would put an end to fossil fuels and see to it that there are "no more coal plants."
During a debate with Donald Trump, Biden responded to the then-president's query about his stance on the issue.
"I would transition from the oil industry, yes," Biden said, eliciting Trump to ask rhetorically if energy-rich swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio would "remember that" remark.
On "The Story," Hanson added that the public concern over high energy prices now being voiced by Biden and the Democrats will likely instantly subside after the midterm elections.
"You know what's going to happen after the midterms are over and gas is still high? You're not going to see any of this because secretly they're going to be delighted that it's high, and they're going to continue with that agenda until the general elections in 2024," he said.
"This is really injurious to American national security, and it's pathetic. It's humiliating as well."
