President Biden and Democrats want to “punish” Americans via high gas prices, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said on Friday, noting that the administration is “totally out of touch, I think, with the realities that people are dealing with.”
DeSantis briefly walked through some of the issues that have surfaced since Biden took office, highlighting his “series of policy errors” which have “made life more difficult for the average American and the average Floridian.”
“They have an energy policy that is deliberately trying to suppress production here in the United States, even though they inherited a country that was energy independent for the first time in an awful long time,” he said, explaining that they have reduced supply, canceled leases, and made it abundantly more difficult to produce domestically. All the while, Biden is more than willing to run to dictators such as Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro for help.
“It’s a deliberate attempt to make prices higher, and you actually have people testifying in front of Congress saying, you know, is this, is this a problem with the high prices?” he said.
“They garble their words and the reason is they want higher prices, because their view is you need to be punished for using this carbon and you need to just go out and buy an electric car,” DeSantis said, likely referencing Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, who told Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on Thursday that Biden’s policies have not affected energy costs. Rather, she placed much of the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hawley dismissed her excuses as “utter nonsense.”
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“Gas is gonna hit $5.00 a gallon very soon, and their message from the Biden administration,” he said, “is to go spend $65,000 on an electric car.”
“That is totally out of touch, I think, with the realities that people are dealing with,” DeSantis said, noting that Biden’s bad policy decisions are affecting the entire economy and fueling inflation.
“If you look at the true inflation for people in terms of what they’re doing in their daily lives, it’s much higher than 8.5 percent,” he said, blasting Democrats for spending trillions of dollars.
“I think what’s gonna happen — you’re seeing interest rates go up, you’re gonna probably continue to see that. That’s gonna put a downward pressure on the growth of the economy and you very well could end up seeing this country plunged into a recession,” he said, expressing hope that it does not come to that.
“But I think our job … here in the state of Florida is to make sure that we’re positioned to deal with some of these things that are beyond our control and protect Floridians as best we can,” he added.