Former President Donald Trump got a fired-up crowd during a campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday night to boo electric vehicles when he mentioned high gas prices and the failures of Bidenomics.
Trump was the keynote speaker for the South Carolina Republican Party’s annual Silver Elephant Gala in the state capital of Columbia, the longest-standing Republican event in state history.
Trump spent a good portion of his speech thrashing Biden’s energy policy, saying the U.S. is no longer the world’s No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas like it was during his administration.
“Gas prices are again nearing $4 a gallon,” Trump said. “Do you see what’s happening? The gas is going up, everybody. The cars are going to have to get smaller, and then they’re forcing you into all-electric.
“Does everybody like the idea of all-electric and you can drive for one hour?”
The audience booed loudly.
“These people are crazy,” Trump said. “But gas prices are again nearing four dollars a gallon and for much of Biden’s term, you have to remember, Americans have paid $5, $6, $7 a gallon. And you’re coming up and you’re coming back to those prices again.”
Trump also criticized the Biden administration for draining the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Shortly before last year's midterm elections, the administration sold 180 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve to keep gas prices from rising because of the war in Ukraine.
“You know, we did a great job in filling up the strategic reserves, and now he’s just decimating. We have the lowest, the lowest level, I think, ever recorded,” Trump said, although according to the U.S. Energy Information Association, the level of 354,366 barrels as of May was the lowest in 40 years. According to the Department of Energy, the reserve had about 346 million barrels as of July 31.
The Biden administration recently postponed an attempt to purchase 6 million barrels of oil to add to the reserve because of high prices, the result of increasing demand globally amid a cut in output by Saudi Arabia.
“That’s not meant to keep gasoline prices down for an election,” Trump said. “That’s meant for war, that’s meant for military, that’s meant for a major emergency. And they use it just to try and keep it down.
“But they’re almost out. It’s almost down right to the bottom. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. And if you look at your energy costs and your gasoline prices, they’re going up and they’re going up very fast. And inflation has reached the highest level in a half-century and mortgage rates are now pushing a brutal 7%, and they are going much higher.”
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