BUCK: There’s a huge cognitive dissonance in the Biden regime, Democrat position on all this. This is from the speech earlier today about domestic oil and gas production.

BIDEN: It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. That is simply not true. Even amid the pandemic, companies in the United States pump more oil during my first year in office than they did during my predecessor’s first year. We’re approaching record levels of oil and gas production in the United States, and we’re on track to set a record oil production next year!

BUCK: So, Clay, here’s the thing: They can’t have it both ways. Either we are in a “climate emergency,” as they say, either climate is an the existential threat as they — meaning Biden, Kamala, Obama, name a Democrat. You know, Hillary, Pelosi, Schumer. We’re either in a climate emergency and the actual fate of humanity is at stake and we have to have an all-of-the-above approach, which to be clear for everybody I think is abject lunacy, but they say this all the time, right?

That’s either true, or they’re lying to us and they’re not actually holding back domestic energy production in any way. It can’t be they’re doing everything they can to deal with the climate emergency. They want to pass the Green New Deal. They want to put coal out of business, as Hillary says. They canceled the Keystone XL pipeline first day in office.

They doing all these things, “But we’re not holding back domestic energy production, man! No way. Lots of shale…” No, shale is a technology. Shale gas comes from a technology improvement over the last 20 years. That’s what the revolution has been, from the private sector, by the way.

CLAY: Let’s listen to that clip one more time, ’cause I want you to pay attention to what he’s saying. Biden is comparing the amount of oil that was produced in his first year to the first year of Donald Trump, and I want to unpack why this is a lie. But let’s listen to that quick hit one more time.

BIDEN: It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. That is simply not true. Even amid the pandemic, companies in the United States pump more oil during my first year in office than they did during my predecessor’s first year. We’re approaching record levels of oil and gas production in the United States, and we’re on track to set a record oil production next year!

CLAY: His first year compared to Donald Trump’s first year. Trump had to build up from Barack Obama’s absolute decrease in the amount of oil and gas that were produced. But Joe Biden — this is important — produced less oil in his first year, his administration, than Trump produced in years two, three, and four of his presidency. Pay attention to what he’s doing there.

He didn’t compare his first year to Trump’s last year or even Trump’s second, third, and fourth year. He compared it to his first year. So Biden is trying to basically disseminate falsehoods there. It’s factually true, but it isn’t actually comparing the most recent year. The Biden administration, because of their fealty to all of the climate change zealots, did not produce as much oil and gas as this country was capable of producing.

As a result, we are less energy independent than we would be if Donald Trump were in office today. And that is why everybody out there — this is one thing Sarah Palin got right. “Drill, baby, drill.” That is 100% what we should be doing to provide the best security to America possible. I understand these long-term arguments, Buck, about energy independence coming from solar power and windmills and electricity and all those things, and that’s great. But I’m talking about right now. We need to be energy independent, and the way to do it is with oil and gas. It’s not with anything else.

BUCK: They’re just lying to everybody about their view of fossil fuels, their climate change ideology, their sense that domestic oil and gas — natural gas — production is icky, is gross, is bad, Big Oil is like Big Tobacco. They’re lying to everybody about this right now. You have two million barrels per day right now above the pandemic lows.

But it’s still — to your point, Clay, about which years is he comparing — a million barrels per day in terms of domestic U.S. oil production below where it was, before the pandemic obviously changed everything, because the pandemic obviously. All the sudden no one’s driving, no one’s on the road, totally changed the game —

CLAY: Price of oil went negative.

BUCK: — and producers weren’t producing because they didn’t have a market to sell it into the same way they had previously. So they’re just being dishonest about all this, and if Biden was serious about this, instead of Jen Psaki saying (impression), “Yeah, it’s gonna take, like, way too long to produce all this oil. So, like, let’s just all drive electric cars.” Instead of that happening… I know. It’s like Jen Psaki just took over the radio mic. Why doesn’t he gather together with oil…? They convene summits at the White House all the time.

Summit on gender equity and pay globally $2.6 billion — just lighting taxpayer money on fire — to improve global gender equity. Good luck with that. I’m sure it’s really gonna shake them to their foundations in China. But look at what’s actually happening now. They could say, instead of we’re not holding back domestic energy production, they could say, what could we do to make it better?

Why aren’t we hearing from any major CEOs of Exxon, some of the biggest energy producers in this country? What regulations stand in their way? How could the government be helpful in them producing more? They’re just trying to get away, Clay. They’re trying to have it both ways. Oh, we’re not standing in the way, but we’re fighting climate change. Can’t do both.

Remember when Trump warned us about $7.00 gas if Biden got in?

Well here we are. pic.twitter.com/LDecWc3Rhr

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 7, 2022

CLAY: Well, and look, af the choices are — and I think most Americans out there, regardless of political party if you couldn’t this argument to them, if the choices are, hey, guys, we can give money to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and potentially Venezuela, which is where we’re going to buy the oil that we don’t have, or we can do whatever it takes to produce more oil and gas here so that in the meantime we are more energy independent.

And, by the way, instead of sending our billions of dollars to countries that, by and large, don’t like us — Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and certainly Iran — instead of sending those billions of dollars to those countries, how about we invest those billions of dollars into the United States to increase our capacity for overall energy production? I can’t imagine that, given the world that we’re in right now.

Where we’re trying to bring as much possible manufacturing and production back to the United States after we’ve seen the global supply challenges and after we basically had China unleash a virus that killed millions of people on the world, and we haven’t really done anything to them, let’s actually bring manufacturing and oil and gas production all back to the United States, instead of sending billions of dollars overseas to countries that have our worst interests at heart.

That doesn’t even seem like a political argument to me, Buck. Again, it’s back to what I always try to focus on, sanity versus insanity. Giving billions of dollars to Iran, which is he trying to reportedly assassinate American political figures, yeah, I’m not in favor of that. Giving billions of dollars to Venezuela when, as recently as the last couple of years, we haven’t even been willing to acknowledge Maduro as the true leader of that country?

Yeah, I’m not in favor of that. Saudi Arabia, at least we’ve had a history of decent relationships with them, by and large, if I had to pick among those three, that’s who I’d want to partner with. But this is the definition of insanity because we’re doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, when the reality is, it’s all coming back time after time after time. And it’s infuriating to so many people out there, I know, Buck.

BUCK: They’re just lying to everybody all the time. You know, be real. You either think that the planet is gonna melt and we’re all gonna drown when the seas rise unless we all get fancy electric cars? You can’t say that every day until it’s politically a liability and say, “Oh, we don’t have a problem with fossil fuel. We’re not standing in your way.” Yeah, they are, and everyone knows it.

CLAY: And, by the way, who among the super celebrities with their beach houses has sold their beach house and said, “The reason why I’m selling my beach house is ’cause I’m afraid that the rising oceans are gonna overwhelm my home”? Have you seen a famous person with a beach house that said that?

BUCK: No. Obama just bought a $15 million home in Martha’s Vineyard a few years ago on the beach and is building a massive compound mansion in Hawaii on the beach. He’s clearly very concerned with the rise of the seas, folks.

CLAY: Yeah, I just… Text me. By “text me,” I mean tweet me ’cause most of you don’t have my phone number. But I would just love if… Buck, you can text me, and Ali could text me. But I would just love to hear a celebrity who is talking about how much they’re concerned about global warming that has said,” I am selling my beach house because I am convinced that this thing’s gonna be underwater or that I’m gonna lose all the value that I put in the beach house.” I’d just love to have one, just one.