No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Republicans blame Biden for Putin's gas price hike

Episode Date: March 13, 2022

The GOP goes all in blaming Biden for gas prices, and what Democrats should do to actually fix it. Brian interviews Fox LA’s Elex Michaelson about this exact issue, whether it’ll be the push needed to transition to renewables, and how Trump would have reacted to the Russia-Ukraine conflict if he were in office. And then Elex interviews Brian about his trip to the White House and what it was like behind the scenes.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the GOP going all in blaming Biden for gas prices and what we should actually do to fix it. And I interview Fox LA's Alex Michelson about this exact issue, whether it'll be the push needed to transition to renewables, and how Trump would have reacted to this whole Russia-Ukraine conflict if he were in office. And then Alex will take the reins and interview me about my trip to the White House and what it was like behind the scenes. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So this past week, we've watched as almost everyone in the world of politics is united against Putin. And I say almost because Tucker Carlson has come out parroting yet another Russian conspiracy theory that Ukraine is creating bio-weapons. And then you've got the Madison Cothorns of the Republican Party saying stuff like this.

Remember that Zelensky is a thub. Remember the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil. and it has been pushing woke ideologies and it really does the new woke world. That Zelensky is a thug who's pushing woke ideology. Yeah, no, Zelensky is just out there in Ukraine promoting, what, critical race theory? So yes, you will, of course, have the totalitarian wing of the Republican Party, and that should surprise exactly no one. But aside from the most depraved fringes of the GOP,

just about everyone else has been an agreement that the U.S. should be supporting Ukraine and that the U.S. shouldn't be funding Putin's war machine. and that's including by importing Russian oil and gas. In fact, the House just voted 414 to 17 in favor of banning Russian oil and gas imports. And Americans are also largely united on that point. According to a Quinnipiac poll, 71% of Americans support a ban on Russian oil,

even if it means higher gas prices. And that includes 82% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 66% of Republicans. So vast majorities across the board. But what's happening? now is that you have those Republicans demanding we cut off Russian oil and then immediately criticizing Biden for high gas

prices that are in part the result of cutting off Russian oil. In other words they get all the credit for espousing a virtuous position and none of the blame for the consequences that come as the result of that position. Marsha Blackburn, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, I mean the list goes on

but there's just a steady stream of Republicans falling over themselves to exploit the position that they themselves ostensibly support just to attack the Democrat in charge, which is infuriating because the hypocrisy is so obvious, right? Like, it's like we're in a drought and Jim Jordan is calling to conserve water and then running campaign ads against water conservation. Like, it's not even like these are old positions, like they're being hypocritical about something from last year. It's hypocrisy in real time. I would be offended if these people were my

elected officials and treated me like I was that stupid. But look, that, That's nothing new. Of course these hacks are going to go out there and see gas prices rise and pretend that somehow the world's third biggest oil supplier launching a war isn't the reason for it just so they can blame it on Joe Biden. Of course. So the hypocrisy is absurd and it's infuriating. But honestly, that's not the worst part.

That part is expected. The part that I can't get over is that there are people fighting for their lives in Ukraine. Democracy is under attack around the world. This is like the prototypical fight for good versus evil. And what we're talking about is gas prices because we're always talking about gas prices. And I'm just so tired of talking about gas prices. For my entire lifetime, the story of this country has been oil and gas prices. I grew up watching American kids on the news dying in wars fought for oil.

Presidencies live or die because of gas prices. Like, we're the greatest superpower in the world. The most advanced and innovative and prosperous country on earth. And yet if the cost of a gallon of fuel goes up by like 60 cents, we just crumble, we're paralyzed. We can't do anything. We are so reliant on this one fossil fuel that decades, centuries of American history are shaped by oil. And it doesn't even have to be this way. We have the majority of Americans pleading to transition renewables so that we can have

cleaner energy and cheaper energy and safer energy, energy that isn't relying on cowtowing to warm-hungering tyrants on the other side of the world. Energy that does involve funding Putin while he seeks to rebuild a defunct Soviet Union. Energy that doesn't involve funding Saudi Arabia and Muhammad bin Salman who just got done chopping up a journalist with a bone saw. Why we insist on not only killing the planet, but rewarding the worst people in existence while doing so is just dead wrong. And granted, I know why it happened is because the fossil fuel industry is kept afloat by buying up elected officials. No Americans are walking around cheering on Exxon mobile, right? But these companies donate tens of millions of dollars every cycle to politicians on both sides of the aisle, to be

fair, even though the vast, vast majority of those donations go to Republicans. And then those politicians turn around and defend our alliance on fossil fuels. And they pretend that the Green New Deal is somehow what's dangerous. They pretend that a transition to renewables is dangerous, while our energy right now in the U.S. is predicated on places like Russia and Saudi Arabia. But sure, solar and wind power generated right here at home is what's going to put us at risk. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. Look, this doesn't have to be a partisan thing.

It shouldn't be a partisan thing. I refuse to believe that conservatives in the United States have some allegiance to Chevron. And I also refuse to believe that conservatives in the United States all things equal wouldn't opt to protect the planet. I do think everyone wants to pay less for energy, and they've been led to believe that anything other than the fossil fuels that are already in front of us would mean higher prices. I do believe that.

But the fact is that right now, we don't have a Green New Deal, and we do have fossil fuels, and gas prices sure as hell aren't low. Meaning that despite what we've been told, this isn't some surefire solution, clearly. We're at the mercy of warmongering tyrants all across the world. We're at the mercy of profit-grubbing oil companies, companies like ExxonMobil and Shell and Chevron and BP that profited 175. billion, with a B, last year alone. They profited that money off of all of us. Does that seem like a good system? Does that seem like a system worth protecting it at all costs?

Republicans will defend that system, not because it's good, it is not good. They defend it because those same companies use those windfall profits to donate to their campaigns. That's all. It's not rocket science. So if ever there was an excuse to transition renewables, this should be it. It's knowing our American dollars help fund people like Vladimir. Putin, who then turn around and use that money to slaughter civilians and bomb children's hospitals

in Ukraine. It's knowing that our American dollars pad the bottom lines of oil companies that had a gangbusters year while hiding under the pretense of inflation. Like, think about that. You've got Americans watching prices rise on everything, right, from milk to bread to meat. And instead of doing honest business, oil companies charged enough to ink some of the highest profits in years, knowing that they could just chalk it up to rising costs or inflation. These people are crooks, and I am so, so tired of watching them succeed and even more tired of pretending that we've got no other choice. We do.

And look, what could very well happen is that Americans will see gas prices rise and feel the squeeze and blame Biden because, let's face it, it's the president who gets blamed. And I get it. I get that this hurts and that gas is inelastic, and that this might mean you have to cut out food or something, right? My worry is that the backlash to Biden means Republicans get elected, who in turn continue to entrench the same exact system, a system that has royally screws, a system that is royally screwing us right now, a system that is profiting astronomically at our expense right this second. So my hope out of all of this is that we realize that the problem isn't the guy in charge, who frankly has little to no control over gas prices, but the system.

It is not high gas prices that are the problem. It's gas that's the problem. You know, I started off this monologue by kind of mocking the idea that, you know, we're supposed to be the greatest country in the world, and yet our entire identity lives or dies, depending on how many corridors gas rises by. But the fact is that we have an opportunity to be that leader that we fashion ourselves. We could lead in innovation and manufacturing. We could lead a clean energy revolution. Americans want it, and we are ready for it, and we have the technology to do it.

We can choose to elect the people who will get us there. We can do it this very November. It's in our hands. I just hope we recognize the power that we have and that we actually use it. Next up is my interview with Alex Michelson. Okay, today we have Fox L.A. host, Alex, thanks for coming back on. Great to be with you, Brian. I love that you go from a recent interview with the President of the United States in the White

House to a Zoom interview with me. So it's just keeping up the consistency. I love it. Hey, hey, give yourself credit. I'm still on that upward trajectory, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's what everybody said.

So let's jump into the most important issue, I think, that we're contending with at home right now, which is the issue of high gas prices as a result of the whole Russia-Ukraine situation. Now, Quinnipiac polling shows that 71% of Americans support banning Russian imports, even if gas prices go up. Republicans have been pushing to ban Russian oil imports, but then a number of them are turning around and slamming Biden for those resulting higher prices. Do you think that so many Americans opposing Putin and even coming out and saying that they

do support banning Russian imports at the risk of higher oil prices? Do you think that that's going to be enough to blunt the negative impact of high gas prices? No. I think that, look, the question was, do you support the country? concept of, you know, paying higher prices. It didn't say how much higher, right? So if they continue to go up and up and up and up and you're seeing these dramatic increases, I mean, that hits people every single day. That hits rich, poor, especially in places like California where we both live, which are so reliant on being in your car all day long. And for most people, there's not

really like an alternative. I mean, it's like a tax in your face every single day. So I do think that they're clearly, in polls show that there's some belief that it's going to have to be a little higher maybe for a little while. But the question is how much higher? How long does that go? And traditionally, unlike many things in politics, this is something that the average person sees and deals with and has to pay on a daily or weekly basis, which is why gas prices can be such a sort of important political tool. On that very point, you know, it has been the same issue over and over and over again years and presidential elections.

It's always gas prices. And like, I speak about this in my monologue just prior to this interview, but we're supposed to be the greatest country in the world. And yet the thing that seems to cripple us at every turn is just gas. prices. Americans can do everything where the most innovative people on the face of the earth, but raise the price of gas a few cents, you know, and I'm underselling it right now, but raise the price of gas and we're just completely crippled.

Like, will this be the push needed to finally ramp up pressure to transition to renewable energy? Like, doesn't this get tiring for people, and we have a solution on the horizon? It might be, and it may well be, you know, something that pushes a lot of people to try to drive teslas or other things like that if they can afford it obviously it's out of reach for a lot of people the problem is um that that's a long-term solution and there's no doubt no doubt based off the science that the long-term solution is we need more renewable energy to get off of fossil fuels we need to look potentially into nuclear we need you know we have self-driving cars which are probably

going to be a thing in the not so distant future which will be more efficient and obey traffic patterns in a different way and you don't need to park them and i mean there's like a lot of things coming down the road but the problem is like people need to drive today today and gas prices have gone up like a dollar uh you know per gallon in a week yeah that's crazy we've never seen things like that. So there should be two conversations happening at the same time. A long-term conversation, which is, this is crazy. We need to get off of this. We should accelerate, double down our efforts to get off of this. But that's not going to be done in time for the person that's listened to this podcast right now in their car and sees the E come up on their dashboard and

needs to go fill up. That's not going to help them right now. And so there also needs to be a conversation about short-term relief for people, including the poorest among us, who are really impacted by gas prices and are struggling to survive, and they can't necessarily afford that extra bump of a dollar, $1.50 per gallon. That makes a big impact for that. Totally. Totally. I mean, you know, I think that had we taken some of these solutions seriously instead of just seeing this constant opposition to renewables way back when we could have been moving over to it, then we wouldn't even be, we wouldn't even be contending with it right now because we would have actually, you know, finally taken some steps to mitigate some of these

impacts, but, you know, here we are constantly pushing the, kicking the can down the road. And so hopefully, hopefully 10 years down the line, or 20 or 30 years down the line, we will have, you know, we will be thanking ourselves for what we did today if we can finally, you know, wean ourselves off of oil and start taking the transition to renewable seriously. Well, and there are really aggressive efforts being made not only by the Biden administration, but by state leaders across the country, including Governor Newsom, and efforts being made by the auto companies that we're seeing across our country and around the world to move towards more electric vehicles, more renewable technology.

Look at the infrastructure package, which you've talked so much about, $7 billion. being invested in an electric vehicle charging station around the country, those are big investments that will look back on years from now and point to. But again, there's also the short-term challenge. Right. Now, more broadly, you know, Republicans generally do pull better on national security. What do you think the Western response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine would have looked like if Trump was still in office? Well, I mean, this suggestion by President Trump that Putin wouldn't have done this if he is in office doesn't really meet the smell test.

I mean, you remember that this is the guy that was impeached for literally trying to take military aid away from President Zelensky. That happened during our lifetime. Like, that wasn't that long ago. This was a guy who in Helsinki was citing with Vladimir Putin's version of the election interference story over the CIA and FBI. So, you know, he doesn't exactly have a long history of being super aggressive in trying to keep Vladimir Putin in check and saying to Vladimir Putin, no, dude, you're wrong. So what it would look like, we don't really know. I mean,

there's still a lot of questions about the nature of what's really going on between him and Vladimir Putin. So many of those conversations they had together, he wouldn't allow translators to keep notes. And there was nobody else in the room. So there's a lot we don't know about the two of them. We do know that President Trump had not been a big fan of NATO, didn't really believe in the idea of all coming together on things. His whole platform was America first. And so what Joe Biden has done in the last few weeks is kind of similar to what George H.W. Bush did during the, you know, Kuwait invasion back in the early 90s, which is bringing together this coalition of people from around the world based off of his 50 years of experience of working with these countries

and working with many of these leaders, just as President George H.W. Bush, for all of his years as vice president and all of his different years in government service, had built up relationships and built up allies and then was able to put that into use in a moment of crisis. Right. And the argument could be made that it is only because of this NATO alliance, this Western alliance, that Putin is enduring the crippling sanctions that he's enduring right now. Like if there's any reason that Putin will ultimately suffer, that Russia will ultimately suffer at the hands of Vladimir Putin, it's because every Western country, every major country has basically turned Russia into a pariah state, has isolated them away from the international

banking system and taking them out of, you know, people can't even use Google pay and Apple pay, and that's going to have, you know, a major devastating impact. Yeah, the sanctions are no joke. And they are slowly impacting him. Again, it comes to this theme that we now have of short term versus long term. The question is, will they impact him enough in a fast enough matter for Ukraine and those tough, brave, amazing people there to hold on to that country. Yeah, yeah, well said. So after 9-11, you know, there was this rally around the flag effect.

Do you think that the political polarization that we're seeing right now in the country outweighs any common ground these days? Or do you think that Biden would be able to take advantage of some iteration, some degree of a rally around the flag effect? Look, I don't think it's going to be like it was after 910. 11 because it wasn't a direct attack on our country and the media landscape has changed so much. But I do think you are seeing bipartisan consensus in a way on this that you haven't seen on a lot of other issues. You have seen Republicans and Democrats kind of come together to argue against this

idea of a no-fly zone, the threats about World War III. You have seen even Mitch McConnell back President Biden on some aspects of this. So you are not, you saw outstanding ovations during the state of a union on the issue of Ukraine. So there is not the typical partisan stuff. You're even seeing now on Fox News channel, Sean Hannity, trying to get former President Trump to say that Vladimir Putin is evil, something that Trump didn't say. But the tone among, um, Even the conservative elite, the conservative media echo chamber has dramatically changed on the issue of Russia. And that is different than what we were seeing. So look, are we going to have the stars and stripes forever and everybody waving flags together like we have at other points in our country?

Probably not. But are we a little more unified than we were a month ago? I think we are. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. Now, with that said, Alex, I know you wanted to turn the tables a little bit on this. So I'll give you the floor right now.

As a longtime listener, not first time caller, I enjoyed the experience of watching you at the White House with President Biden. But like many of your listeners, we have questions. So I thought it would be fun to sort of have you walk us through what happened. We heard the interview. We heard the substance. Now let's do the fun part. What's it like a day at the White House? You get to D.C. What happens?

Yeah. So I get to, and I hope I'm able to say all the things I'm about to say, but I guess I'll find out. So the first thing is, obviously, COVID test in the morning, the morning that I'm going to go interview Biden. Do the COVID test first thing, get the results back. We're all good. And from there went and got all of our camera gear and equipment swept by the Secret Service. From there, because then our car was clean, we got an escort by the Secret Service to the White House, drove directly up to the front door of the residence of the White House.

What are you thinking at that point? You're driving in, that's happening. Are you like, am I alive right now? What's going through your mind? You know, I didn't know, I wasn't sure that it was even going to happen until the very moment that he walked in. I was constantly skeptical that the night before we left for D.C., Russia invaded Ukraine. So this whole time I'm thinking like, okay, you know, there's a diminishing possibility that this thing is actually going to happen. I woke up first thing and contacted the White House and was like, are we still a go?

And they're like, yeah. So I was like, okay, and got on the plane expecting full well to get that text saying like, It's just gotten too busy. It's not going to happen. So I drove up to the White House with like 50% expectation that it's not even going to ultimately pan out. But got there, started unloading the equipment. And, you know, every minute we got closer to it happening, I'm like, oh, my God, this might actually be happening. And so I had a great little crew.

I had Nick, my cinematographer, who this weekend, by the way, is getting married to his fiancé Katie. So use this opportunity to say congratulations to Nick and Katie. We also had Aaron, our sound guy, and that's it. Super lean crew, got everything set up, and until the very moment that he, that President Biden walked in. And I didn't even realize until after, but I had checked the audio when I was putting the entire thing together. And the first thing that he said when he walked in was like, hey, Brian, good to see you. And it sounded so weird in retrospect listening to that, because this is the president of the United States, like the leader of the free world. And just to hear kind of my name leave his lips was so bizarre to me.

But, yeah, so it was like little things like that that were especially cool, that were like especially memorable about that whole process. Okay. So then he walks in and he says your name and you go through the interview and I'm sure you're nervous as you're doing it. And then the interview ends and then what happens? Yeah. I mean, he was so kind.

And I think this is where, like, Joe Biden as a person really thrives. Like, this is why he's been so successful. He, he sat there and, you know, just spoke to us for almost as long as the interview itself. And I think there was a part of me that was like, well, could I ask another question or two. But just, like, to have that experience, to have that, like, off-camera experience, nothing, the cameras weren't rolling. We weren't recording on anything. And it was just, like, one of those moments that was, like, really special, especially

in the days of social media where it's kind of like, you know, picks or it didn't happen, right? Like to have that moment where no cameras were rolling and it was just a moment to be present and just to be shooting the shit with him and, you know, I'm from the East Coast. So we talked about New Jersey

and the Northeast and Delaware and my sister is a graduate of Delaware as well. So, you know, we talked about that. And just like, just kind of just having a conversation with this guy as a person. And that was like a really special moment. And I have, again, like, no video evidence of any of it.

It was just, it was just like a nice moment just to have. And, you know, I'll remember it forever. But it was, yeah, it was just, I mean, he spent, he just spent time talking to us and just getting. And I think that's where, I think that's who he is. I think, you know, he didn't have to. Again, the cameras weren't rolling. We weren't getting evidence of any of it. But it was just like him having a moment to just connect with other people.

And I think, I think that was, that was just a really memorable element. of all of this. And then lastly, pick or it didn't happen. You did get a pick with the dog, commander. You're a huge dog person. For people that don't know, Brian, he actually likes dogs a lot more than he likes people. What was it, yeah, Brian's dog, by the way, is the most spoiled dog on the entire planet, probably more spoiled than the White House dog.

What was the commander experience like? What happened there? So I was actually, there was a few minutes where Nick and Aaron, my videographer and audio guy, were setting up and I had a little bit of downtime and was asked if I wanted to check out the Rose Garden. And so walked over to the Rose Garden and I see Commander getting a walk in the Rose Garden. I mean, I just have, I have a, like you had mentioned, like you had alluded to, I have a compulsion to pet dogs when I see them. So I saw him and I was like, can we, can we go, can we go see him? Can I go pet that dog? And they're like, no, you can't, you can't run into the Rose Garden.

That's just not a thing you're able to do. And I was like, okay. And then a little while later, I saw him while we were continuing to set up out on the south lawn, which was the lawn just outside of the room that we were doing the interview in. And again, I had just missed him. And I had like run outside and he was just too far away. And again, you can't really just jog around the White House complex. So I was over to and then finally just like made it my mission while I had a little bit of downtime before the interview started to see him and he just came around a corner and finally got to see that dog and he was great and super friendly and it was great because like I know the White House hasn't had a ton of good press when it comes to dogs but commander was wonderful and super friendly and yeah finally finally got to see him and kind of

satisfy my compulsion to pet the first dog. And the dog literally has a tag on it that says good boy. He does, yeah, yeah, and he is a good boy. So all checks out. Very nice. And lastly, sort of, you know, we all have seen the White House on TV. Most people don't ever get a chance to be there, don't have a chance to see it. You know, what was sort of the biggest difference in person versus, you know, on TV?

What was the biggest surprise or what's it actually like being there? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, it's not so much what it looks like, although it is smaller. It is more condensed. Like you walk from the residence and you're in the West Wing within like 30 seconds. Like it's not this big sprawling municipal complex. Like it is, it's more intimate. But more than that, more than the physical structure, there's just a feeling of being in the building, like a feeling of gravitas that isn't conveyed just because I guess we're so accustomed. to pictures and videos of the White House, we've just adapted to it so much. But there's just a feeling that's kind of hard to explain where you just feel the weight and the importance of that space. And it's unlike any other place I've been before.

I've been into cathedrals and venues and just like really special places all around the world. I lived in France for a couple of years, so I was able to travel most of Western Europe. I was super lucky to be able to do that. But nowhere I've ever been had this kind of like importance, like gravitas, like I said before. I mean, it's just, it's unlike any other place I've ever been. So I don't know that any other place I will ever be will have that feeling.

But that was, I think, the most striking thing for me. Well, Brian Tyler Cohen, thanks so much for joining me on your show. Well, thank you. Thank you for taking the reins. And Alex, always great talking to you. And you're welcome back anytime. Yeah, and people can check out the issue is podcast if they're. want to hear some of my stuff as well.

Thank you. Thanks, Brian. Thanks again to Alex. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review and check out Brian Tyler Cohen.com for links to all of my other channels. Thank you.