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Washington D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined America’s Newsroom to discuss soaring gas prices, the impact of rising inflation on Floridians, the Biden Administration’s decision to ease sanctions on Venezuela, and more. See below for highlights and watch the full interview here.
On the impact of inflation:
“[People] can’t drive less if they have to get to work, if they have to take their kids to school. So [you have to cut costs] somewhere else. It’s now become real for a lot of people. This is not one week of gas prices up. This is now eating away daily, weekly, [and] monthly at people’s budget at a time when everything else is up.
“It’s not just gas prices — it’s food prices, it’s shortages of things you just talked about [like] baby formula. It’s a combination of factors, and it’s really a parade of horribles [that are] all, in fact, due in many ways to the Biden Administration’s decisions….”
On how Floridians are reacting to rising costs:
“It’s always a supply and demand issue, and, obviously, there’s more demand in Florida. In terms of housing, we know that that’s a problem. Yesterday…, we announced this bill that we’re doing to help. It’s called the HELPER Act, and it’s to help firefighters, first responders, and teachers to be able to afford to buy a home in the community that they serve, modeled after what we do for veterans.
“Holistically, people say [inflation is] nine point something percent in Florida — it’s actually much higher, because on the things that people pay on a daily basis, on food, on gas, on energy prices, on all the things that we use constantly and that are really essential for working people, the rate is substantially higher. [It’s] sometimes in the thirty or thirty-five percent for some commodities, for some food products.
“This is a big problem. This is the problem the Biden Administration said didn’t exist a year ago and actually made worse by pumping one point nine trillion dollars [into the economy], by waging war on oil and gas and making it harder to produce American oil and gas. They’ve made it harder and continue to make it harder. They have no plan to address it. I think it’s just going to get worse. It’s a combination of incompetence and ideological stringency on the Far Left.”
On the Biden Administration’s decision to ease sanctions on the Maduro regime in Venezuela:
“[The Biden Administration is] trying to say that it’s about oil. It really isn’t. Venezuela has no oil to give us. Ninety percent of their oil goes to China to pay the interest on [Venezuela’s] debt. Ten percent automatically goes to Cuba, [which] provides all of their security, internal security, how they spy on their own people, their government, and how they repress the population.
“This has to do with the fact that we have far-left extremists inside of that White House who are sympathizers, not just of the Cuban regime, but the one in Nicaragua and the one in Venezuela. They sympathize with these people. They hated the sanctions and they just thought that oil was a good excuse that they could get people to support them on. But this has nothing to do with oil because Venezuela can’t provide us oil.
“The oil that we need, we have. It’s in America. [The Biden Administration needs] to allow us to explore it, and they’re not. They’re telling banks not to fund these projects. They’re canceling leases. They’re waging war on fossil fuels. They’re waging war on oil and natural gas. And it’s one of the reasons why supply is not as high as it needs to be.”
On the possibility of the Biden Administration changing its energy policies to alleviate costs on Americans:
“They’re absolutely not going to change. No, I think there are people in their party that actually like it. They’re not going to say it…. [But t]hey like the fact that there’s inflation and high prices. They believe the more expensive oil and gas gets, the more people are going to buy electric cars. Well, not everyone can afford an electric car right now. We don’t have enough electric cars, and the batteries for those electric cars are made in China.
“These guys want this. I’ve had people tell me to my face, ‘Well, that’s why we need more mass transit. Everyone should be riding a bus and getting rid of their cars.’ I think there are elements on the Left, a lot of elements on the Far Left, that will never admit it, but they like the fact that oil and natural gas is expensive.”