Issa on Biden Sanctioning Putin: ‘You Have to Stop Buying His Oil,’ and Sanctions Don’t Undo Slaughter

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Fox Business Tonight,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) reacted to the White House’s announcement that they will impose personal sanctions on Putin by stating that “sanctions don’t work after somebody’s done something. You can’t un-sanction the slaughter of Ukrainians.” And that the best solution is to stop buying and block the sale of Russian oil.

Issa stated, [relevant remarks begin around 00:50] “Well, first of all, sanctions don’t work after somebody’s done something. You can’t un-sanction the slaughter of Ukrainians. So, that’s one of the challenges is, we had to prevent this, not collect some money afterwards. Only today is the president talking about actually freezing Putin’s personal assets. Ultimately, Putin is the war criminal who took a country that was at peace and took it over — is taking it over. So, yes, those are good things to do, but the real answer is, if you want to stop Putin, you have to stop buying his oil, you have to stop letting him sell his oil. That’s 40% of his economy and it’s what really would hurt. And right now, the president and his people, as of this morning, don’t even intend to stop buying it in the U.S.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett