The Daily Signal - Biden’s Liquefied Natural Gas Pause Empowers Putin, Trump Abruptly Leaves Court, Biden Not Interested in Long Israeli War | Jan. 26

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: President Joe Biden tells Israel’s prime minister he is not in it for a year of war, according to reporting from Axios.  The Biden administration temporarily pushes pause on approvals of liquefied natural gas exports.  Trump abruptly gets up and leaves the courtroom during closing arguments in the  E. Jean Carroll defamation case.  Findings are released from an investigation into “domestic violent extremism” in the U.S. military. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, January 26th. Here are today's headlines. When it comes to Israel, President Joe Biden says he is not in it for a year of war. That's according to reporting from Axios. One week ago, President Biden had a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During that call, Biden told Netanyahu that the Israeli military needs to scale down its operations. in Gaza. So why the pressure from Biden and why now? Well, a Biden advisor told Axios that the White House is very concerned about losing young voters in the 2024 presidential election if the

civilian deaths in Gaza continue. Netanyahu said that the war will continue for many more months, because if it stops now, Hamas would rebuild its strength and poses again a serious threat. to Israel's safety. Axios reports that Netanyahu told Biden that the transition to low-intensity fighting has already happened in northern Gaza, but Israel needs more time before that transition can happen in southern Gaza. The two leaders also discussed the release of the roughly 130 hostages who still remain in Gaza.

U.S. officials see a new hostage deal as perhaps the only clear path to ceasefire. negotiators are reportedly working on a deal that would include a two-month pause in the fighting and the release of all the remaining hostages. The Biden administration is temporarily pushing pause on approvals of liquefied natural gas exports. Biden says he is taking the action to protect the planet from the threat of climate change. Joining us now to explain more is the director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, Diana Furch got Roth. Diana, thank you so much for being with us to explain this situation a little bit further.

It's great to be with you, Virginia. Thank you so much for having me on. Well, first, can you just explain what exactly is liquefied natural gas used for and how much of it does the U.S. export? Well, so liquefied natural gas is the way that you ship natural gas long distances because as everybody knows, gas comes out of the ground and comes out of your stove as a gas, and you cannot see it. And so it's difficult to ship. So what they do is they liquefy it in order to ship it abroad or ship at long distances.

And then when it arrives, it is reconverted to the kind of gas that we use in our homes. Okay, fascinating. The United States in 2022, which was the... last whole year we have available of data, produced 36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, of which we exported 4 trillion.

And it could have been more. There are plans to export 5 trillion, 6 trillion because with Russia cutting off natural gas, Europe and our other allies, such as Japan, wanted to buy more of our natural gas. They used to get it from Russia. They can't

get it anymore and we have stepped into the breach. That's why what President Biden wants to do, which is poor's new export of liquefied natural gas, is so dangerous because not only has our Congress not allocated more funding for Ukraine, which is engaged in a war with Russia, this is a giant gift to Russia and a giant slap in the face at Ukraine. Because if we don't export the gas, then the gas that's that Russia has gets more valuable. The price of it rises and he gets more for his natural gas.

Do you see what I'm saying? I see. Yes, that makes sense. Now, the reason why President Biden says he's pushing this pause is for the climate. Is there any reason to believe that the climate is harmed when America exports natural gas? Well, natural gas is very clean. One reason that the United States has lower carbon emissions than 15 years ago by about a million metric tons is because we have substituted natural gas for coal. We're using a lot more natural gas.

We can get to this through hydrofracturing. we are fortunate to be the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas. So, yes, natural gas does have some emissions, but it has fewer emissions than coal. And if we stop exporting to Europe, they're going to have to draw on their stocks of coal or wood, which creates more carbon and particulate pollution than natural gas. Natural gas is a very clean fuel. the European Union has said it's a clean fuel and after nuclear,

it's the cleanest fuel that we have. But there are environmentalists who do not like the use of natural gas. They were not happy when President Biden said that drilling for oil could happen in Willow Creek, Alaska. So people say that this is the SOP to these environmentalists. This is the exchange.

So he said, okay, you know, you lost on Willow Creek in Alaska. Here's a win for you. Let's stop exports of natural gas. Because by stopping exports of natural gas, we also stopped the production here in the United States. Because a lot of our production, new production, expected production, is to go abroad to make up for the natural gas that Russia stopped selling to Europe. This is catastrophic for Europe. It will mean their natural gas prices go up. That means higher prices for heating, higher prices for manufacturing, higher prices for everything.

And what are the implications for Americans? Well, to the extent that you can wall off prices in America from prices abroad, to the extent that if new gas is not exported, it will be used in the United States, the prices could be somewhat lower in the United States, because if we can't export it, then we use more of it here. But this is a very dangerous trade-off to make. We don't want to be protectionist. We want to help our allies.

We want to grow a lot more by exporting what we have abroad with our pipeline system, our LNG export terminals. and we want to be the leader, the global leader in oil and natural gas exports and production, because that gives us geopolitical power. Diana, we're going to continue to watch this closely as it unfolds and see exactly how long the White House and our president continues to pause these new exports. But we appreciate your expertise on this. I want to direct all of our listeners to the Heritage Foundation website.

that's heritage.org to find all of your work. But Diana Furchcott Roth of the Heritage Foundation, thank you for being with us today. I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much, Virginia. Former President Donald Trump's legal woes were again making headlines today. The former president was in court

for the final day of the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. Trump abruptly got up and left the courtroom today while the attorney representing Carol was delivering closing arguments. Carol's attorney said that during the trial, Trump engaged in defamation against Carol by claiming that her sexual assault allegations against him are a con job. After Trump walked out, the judge said the record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom. Trump did return to the courtroom about an hour later when his attorneys were giving their closing argument. A jury already found Trump liable last year for sexual abuse against Carol in a department store in the 1990s. Trump has claimed the allegations are politically motivated and has said that Carol is not his type.

She is now seeking millions for injury to her reputation, humiliation, and mental anguish in her public and private life. The jury began deliberation a little after 1 p.m. today, and we should have the jury's decision soon. We have the findings of an investigation into the U.S. military. The investigation sought to learn whether domestic violent extremism is an issue within our military. The Institute for Defense Analysis conducted the study for the Department of Defense and found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole. In other words, violent extremism is not a concern within the U.S. military more than in any other square of society.

The investigation was launched following the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021. One month after January 6th, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, directed the military to observe a one-day stand-down to discuss and address extremism based on reports that some service members took part in the Capitol riot on January. 6th. And shortly after that, this investigation began. The report finds that few active duty personnel took part in the events on January 6th, according to the report of the more than 700 federal cases in which charges were publicly available a year after these events, fewer than 10 were for individuals who were serving in the military at the time. The corporate media has been pretty quiet on this report, which you have to ask why?

Well, the Daily Signals, Tyler O'Neill argues that the silence is because the report is inconvenient for the narrative that the military harbors high levels of right-wing extremism. You can check out the relevant links in today's show notes for the Daily Signals' full report on this piece, or you can visit the Daily Signal website to find Tyler's reporting. Before we head into the weekend, And here's what to watch for next week. On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Committee will be marking up articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his failure to secure America's border.

On Wednesday, the CEOs of big tech companies will testify in the U.S. Senate and the Heritage Foundation will host an event afterwards. We're also still waiting to see if the Senate produces a border bill that is expected to include some border security measures, along with aid for Ukraine and Israel. We expect to hear more next week. But with that, enjoy your weekend. And thank you so much for being with us here on the Daily Signal podcast this Friday evening. And if you have not done so, make sure that you check out our morning show. Every weekday morning, we bring you interviews with experts, lawmakers, and conservative voices.

And on Monday morning, Rob Bluey is going to be sitting down with Matt Cole, who serves as CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Strive. Also, take a minute this weekend if you haven't done so already to give the Daily Signal a five-star rating and review. And also make sure that you hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform so that you never miss out on brand new shows. With that, have a wonderful weekend. We will see you right back here Monday morning.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.