WH: We Didn’t try to Get OPEC to Delay until After Elections, We Raised them Waiting until December, but It Had Nothing to Do with Politics

During an interview aired on Thursday’s edition of NBC’s “Top Story,” White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby argued that the White House did not ask OPEC+ to delay cutting back oil production until after the midterms even though they, in addition to asking them to avoid any production cuts, “opened up the possibility that they would want to look at” the cut at future OPEC+ meetings, the next of which is scheduled for December 4, 2022, because the White House’s stance “had absolutely nothing to do with the election calendar.”

Host Tom Llamas asked, “The Saudi government is accusing the Biden administration of asking them to not cut back on oil production until after the midterm elections. Why did the White House do that?”

Kirby responded, “It’s not true. We did not ask them to [not] cut back until after the elections. The elections had absolutely nothing to do with the communication we had with the Saudis about our concerns with a cut in production at this particular time, at a time right now when supply is the predominant challenge in the oil — the global oil market, we did not believe, mathematically speaking, trying to match supply and demand and keep the prices down, that this was the time to cut production, and certainly not by two million barrels. So, it’s just a farce, it’s not true that this had anything to do with domestic politics.”

Llamas then asked, “So, to be clear, you’re saying the Saudis are lying to the world right now?”

Kirby answered, “I’m saying that our electoral calendar here in the United States had absolutely nothing to do with our communication with the Saudis about the timing, about any cut at all, but certainly about the timing. We asked them to, obviously, not cut production. And we certainly opened up the possibility that they would want to look at this at future OPEC+ meetings and there are a couple coming up here in the fall. But it had absolutely nothing to do with the election calendar. It’s just wrong.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett