Connect with us

News

‘Drill Baby Drill’: Trump Has Just One Answer When Asked How He Will Bring Food Prices Down

Published

on

As Republicans in 15 states cast their ballots on this Super Tuesday, Donald Trump called in to Fox News, and when asked how he will bring down the price of food at the grocery store, which is Americans’ number one “beef” when asked about their top concerns, he served up just one answer: “drill baby drill.”

Without question, prices at the supermarket have increased even more than the rate of inflation, and continue to do so.

“Grocery prices have jumped by 25 percent over the past four years, outpacing overall inflation of 19 percent during the same period,” The Washington Post reported last month. “And while prices of appliances, smartphones and a smattering of other goods have declined, groceries got slightly more expensive last year, with particularly sharp jumps for beef, sugar and juice, among other items.”

The Post adds that at the supermarket, “prices remain elevated due to a mixture of labor shortages tied to the pandemic, ongoing supply chain disruptions, droughts, avian flu and other factors far beyond the administration’s control. Robust consumer demand has also fueled a shift to more expensive groceries, and consolidation in the industry gives large chains the ability to keep prices high, economic policy experts say.”

What did Donald Trump say on Fox News?

READ MORE: ‘The Good of the Country’: Trump Explains Why He Thinks He Should Have Immunity

Here’s how the interview went.

“Mr. President, a lot of people believe that you’re at your best when you’re fighting for the American people,” Fox and Friends co-host Lawrence Jones said. “And we just heard in the diner, we heard immigration as the other top issue with the economy. What are you going to do to give us some relief when it comes to this inflation? People go into the, you know, whether it’s the gas station or to the grocery store and they’re being hit hard. How do you fix that in the first 100 days?”

“Well, first of all, let me speak to the people in the diner,” Trump replied. “I saw the vote, and it was 100% Trump. None for my opponent. And I love you in the diner. I will take care of you and we’re gonna drill baby drill and we’re gonna get prices down, energy’s going to bring it all down.”

“We’re gonna get a lot of that oil, are going to get the oil and gas right from Texas and other places, but from Texas largely, and I just appreciate it,” Trump continued. “I saw that vote early this morning. They said, Will said, Will’s doing a good job, by the way, Will said, you’re for Trump and the whole place went crazy. What about Haley? Nobody, not one person. So all of those people in the diner. I love you.”

Trump’s claim that increasing oil production will bring down prices at the supermarket appears to ignore that right now, the U.S. is producing more oil than at any time in our history.

Not just our history.

READ MORE: Here’s What SCOTUS Just Did – and Did Not Do – in Its ‘Unanimous’ Trump Ruling: Experts

“The U.S. is heading into the New Year as the world’s largest oil producer,” Forbes reported at the end of last year, adding: “the country is in fact currently producing more oil than any other nation in history.”

In fact, the amount of oil the U.S. “is exporting is near the total production of Saudi Arabia or Russia,” one industry expert told Forbes.

A recent CBS News poll found: “More voters expect Biden’s policies to cause price increases, while they tend to think Trump’s policies would lower prices, something Republicans overwhelmingly believe will happen.”

Political science professor David Darmofal, responding to that poll, noted, “Trump wants to place a 10% tax on all imported goods if he gets back into office. That would raise prices for Americans.”

Watch Trump below or at this link.

See the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘All Had Security Clearances’: Trump White House Loaded With Speed, Xanax, and Alcohol – Report

There's a reason 10,000 people subscribe to NCRM. You can get the news before it breaks just by subscribing, plus you can learn something new every day.
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Grifters’: A MAGA Civil War Is Eating Away at Its Own Power

Published

on

A MAGA “civil war” is playing out across the right-wing ecosystem, sapping attention from the ideas that once powered the base and held GOP leaders to power. Now, the movement appears more consumed by infighting than achieving political goals.

MAGA is being drained of “its political muscle, leaving it defenseless as the Trump administration revisits policies previously opposed by the base,” according to Axios. The strength of MAGA “lies in its ability to rally influencers, politicians and activists behind a hard-charging conservative agenda.” But that “superpower is faltering amid a cascade of bitter personal feuds.”

The National Pulse’s editor-in-chief Raheem J. Kassam told Axios, “There’s no focus on anything philosophical or even ideological right now.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

“It’s all just a cacophony of grifters tussling over audience and ego,” Kassam said. “So, corporate America gets to wield power with the admin virtually unencumbered by scrutiny from the base.”

Serving up a series of examples, Axios reported that on issues such as artificial intelligence, marijuana, Venezuela, and redistricting — all of which “would have triggered significant MAGA backlash” earlier — there has been “mostly crickets.”

Trump reportedly will loosen federal regulations on marijuana soon — an act that once would have attracted MAGA influencers to scream about “pothead culture,” Axios noted. This time, however, the news “barely made a ripple on right-wing social media.”

The “America First” president seizing a tanker loaded with Venezuelan oil and refusing to rule out boots on the ground to overthrow the Maduro regime “barely pinged on MAGA’s radar.”

MAGA influencer CJ Pearson told Axios that “the movement is wholly consumed right now on personality clashes. That is a recipe for electoral doom, and it’s unfortunate to see the unity that we saw after Charlie [Kirk]’s death dissipate so quickly.”

READ MORE: ‘His Heart Just Ain’t in It’: Report Reveals Trump’s ‘Achilles Heel’

 

Image via Reuters

 

Continue Reading

News

‘Political Vendetta’: DOJ Blasted for Suing Fulton County Amid Debunked Fraud Claims

Published

on

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, demanding records related to the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.

Trump “has increasingly pressured his administration to find widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, despite those claims having been debunked and dismissed in dozens of cases by the courts,” The Washington Post reported.

The lawsuit calls for Fulton County to hand over to DOJ “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

READ MORE: ‘Wall of Resentment’: Trump’s ‘Affordability Weave’ Isn’t Working Says Columnist

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, according to the Post. “indirectly and without evidence accused Georgia officials of ‘vote dilution'” in a statement.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Dhillon said.

“At this Department of Justice,” Dhillon added, “we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Trump in a recorded telephone call told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

READ MORE: Trump Is the ‘Biggest Security Threat’ Facing America: Columnist

Two years later, a Georgia grand jury indicted Trump on racketeering charges. The case ultimately was recently dismissed after setbacks and that Trump, having since become a sitting president, could not be indicted.

Democracy Docket, which covers voting rights, elections, and the courts, called the move “a major escalation in the Trump administration’s dangerous effort to revive President Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that the election was stolen.”

The news site also reported that Kristin Nabers, the state director for All Voting is Local, said in a statement: “This administration’s unending obsession with the 2020 election results in Georgia uses outright lies to compensate for the fact that they lost.”

“With this terrible overstep of power, the DOJ is now weaponizing laws meant to protect voters for their political vendetta,” Nabers added.

Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics called it “More insane nonsense.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

‘Wall of Resentment’: Trump’s ‘Affordability Weave’ Isn’t Working Says Columnist

Published

on

President Donald Trump’s “signature” weave — where he goes off-script and off-topic — is not working for Americans when it comes to affordability.

That’s according to CBS News correspondent John Dickerson, writing at The Atlantic.

His weave was “on display” this week during a speech that the White House promoted as focused remarks on the economy, but his comments included, Dickerson noted, “the topics of tariffs, U.S. Steel, fracking, wind turbines, electric-vehicle mandates, immigration, crime, gender policies, Obamacare, the Fed, his election victories, rare-earth negotiations, a D.C. terror attack, and ‘the lips that don’t stop’ of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.”

READ MORE: Trump Is the ‘Biggest Security Threat’ Facing America: Columnist

The problem, he noted is, “now that the engine of the U.S. economy is smoking, the American people are looking for a technician, not an improv comic.”

Trump is hitting “a wall of resentment,” according to Dickerson, who pointed to a Politico poll which, he noted, found that “nearly half of voters—including 37 percent of Trump’s own 2024 coalition—said that the cost of living is the ‘worst they can ever remember.'”

There’s more.

“Only 31 percent of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, a new AP/NORC poll found, down from 40 percent in March,” he reported. “It’s the lowest economic approval that AP/NORC has registered in either of Trump’s two terms. In a recent CBS News/YouGov survey, a majority of respondents said that his policies are driving up food and grocery prices.”

During times of crisis other presidents have worked to get results:

“Franklin D. Roosevelt passed 15 major bills in 100 days. Ronald Reagan, in the teeth of double-digit unemployment, pushed for sweeping tax cuts week after week. Bill Clinton built an economic ‘war room’ before he even took office, and his team introduced what has now become a political cliché: focusing ‘like a laser beam’ on the economy. Barack Obama instituted a morning economic briefing that put the issue on par with national security. Each practiced the same principle: If you can’t solve the problem fast, at least get caught trying.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

He say that now, Trump is trying. “Kind of.”

Despite talking about “affordability” during his Pennsylvania speech, he also knocked it.

“The president’s most focused message on affordability is that affordability concerns are a hoax. He used that word, or an equivalent, several times on Tuesday, as he has in Oval Office remarks, in a Cabinet meeting, and on social media.”

The “unavoidable truth, no matter how hard you weave,” Dickerson wrote, is that “his argument is weak because he has to overcome people’s lived experience.”

READ MORE: ‘You’re a Loser Dude’: Carville Scorches Trump as ‘Done’

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.