if it' thursday, president biden prepares to deliver remarks this hour on the new wartime plan to tame soaring gas prices and rising inflation including a record-setting release of oil from the country's emergency supply. all of this as the white house and members of ukraine's parliament briefed senators on capitol hill about the situation on the ground in ukraine. we'll speak with senators about that they're learning and what it means for the u.s. response. more evidence that vladimir putin is in the dark as british intelligence says putin massively misjudged ukraine, the day after u.s. officials said u.s. intelligence indicated president putin was being misled by his own advisers.

welcome to "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. president biden is scheduled to speak this hour on new efforts to combat energy prices at home as americans continue to feel the pinch of inflation amid the latest impact on our problems, vladimir putin's war in ukraine. he'll force companies to boost domestic energy production. it will also call on congress to impose penalties on oil companies if they don't make full use of their current capacity and planning to release about a million barrels a day from the petroleum reserve. it would be the largest release in our history. this comes as the administration is facing massive political headwinds from rising gas prices. just our own most recent nbc news poll showed just how frustrated voters are and how much they blame biden for their

frustrations. a plurality, 38%, blame rising costs on the president rather than the pandemic, corporate greed, or the war. nearly 7 in 10 say they want the president to make reducing inflation his single top priority rather than working towards the end of the war in ukraine, if they had to pick between the two. this is where voters want the president's focus to be. as for the war in ukraine, which has significantly worsened inflation concerns, the conflict is entering its sixth week and there are no signs it's going to end anytime soon. ukrainian president zelenskyy said today thousands of citizens have died in mariupol, a figure nbc news can't confirm, no one can as yet. ukraine has also said that russia has blocked humanitarian corridors in kharkiv after shelling overnight. meanwhile, italy's prime minister said putin told him conditions are not right for a cease-fire and putin has no

immediate plans to meet with zelenskyy. just this morning, nato secretary-general jens stoltenberg said nato's intelligence confirmed the west's suspicions that russia was simply repositioning forces, not withdrawing them, and obviously putin's comments to the italian prime minister seem to reinforce that intelligence. president zelenskyy, meanwhile, has renewed his calls for the international community to cut off its purchases of russian oil as it fuels putin's war machine. we are seeing the ruble start to come back. why? because they're making money off of energy and oil contracts still. joining me is our chief white house correspondent peter alexander and our international correspondent hadley gamble. we'll talk to ali arouzi on the ground in ukraine. peter, the defense production act, it wasn't that long ago that i had folks at the white house going, i'm not sure we're going to invoke that for oil exploration, but that -- is that a 180?

>> well, this is obviously a pivot, for darn sure. the white house as now v you noted acknowledges the political headwinds they are facing right now, the fact that americans say their number-one issue is the rising cost of those high inflation figures. that's all seven months ahead of the midterms this fall. as it relates to the defense production act, white house officials say that the president will detail this as part of an effort to try to speed up america's transfer to a clean emergency economy effectively. specifically what he's going to do is support the processing of materials and minerals that are used in large capacity batteries, like those you would find in electric vehicles, minerals like lithium and like nickel to try to take it away from the reliance on china and put that back in the hands of americans. separately, what the president will do today is to call on congress, chuck, for what they describe as the use it or lose it policy where the white house -- and they've been making

this case far while now -- is basically going to try to tell congress they should impose penalties on companies that lease public lands right now but do not use those leases, those lands, to produce energy at this time. obviously he'll face stiff resistance from congress on that and those in the oil production community say that frankly a lot of those wells that aren't being used are dry and they don't have access to oil. the backdrop is the urgency the white house senses given the fact that gas prices right now are $4.22 a gallon, up 60 cents in the last month. >> i guess i'm a bit -- are they invoking the defense production act to push oil companies to speed up exploration, or is the defense production act only being for the other energy, the clean energy stuff they're pushing? >> reporter: as i understand it, and i want to let the president speak for himself, but the conversations from officials, it sounds like the defense

production act is being used to support the processing of those additional minerals and materials that would be used to help the clean energy-type economy, so more of those minerals that we noted that go into the production of electric vehicles and the like. as i understand it, and we'll hear from the president, as it relates to companies, they're not doing anything beyond these companies but trying to pressure them publicly, calling on congress to do more but sort of publicly pressure them, in some ways shame them, saying you guys should be doing more right now. we have 9,000 outstanding unused leases in effect. you should be doing more about this instead of making the money on the backs of americans who are struggling right now. >> so, peter, so the separate part of this is getting congress to see if they could pass a law that would essentially speed up an oil company, because, look, there's a report out of the dallas fed that indicates that one of the reasons for oil

companies, at least in this country, not pushing for more exploration, is they don't want to make the capital expense -- translags, they don't want to spend the money it takes to tap these -- to use these leases. maybe it's dry, maybe it doesn't get the return that they want because they're having to deal with shareholders. >> reporter: i think you're right. what you're seeing politically at least is the republicans who are blaming vladimir putin -- excuse me, blaming joe biden for this right now, and frankly americas blame joe biden's policies more than the war overseas, democrats and the president himself trying to blame vladimir putin. that's why you keep hearing him saying this is putin's war, his price hike. you'll hear that later today. but in terms of what they can do to pressure companies, they can only go so far. they've tried to have americans sort of put that anger, that blame, that direction and say, hey, there are plenty of companies that can do this but they've been running up against

a brick wall trying to make that argument. >> there are a number of ways to interpret our poll. 38% blame biden. 62% blame covid or oil companies or putin. i think there's some people overreacting to that poll. it is not as binary as some have read it. peter alexander, thank you. let's go to our guru when it comes to the oil markets, at least who i turn to. hadley gamble, our friend at cnbc. hadley, 180 million -- i owe mitch mcconnell said it's a drop in the bucket, but this is the most we've ever done, which means we'll be spending money as a government to replenish it, obviously, as fast as we're emptying our reserves here. what is this going to do to the markets? >> okay. essentially what we know is that 20 million barrels per day is what americans generally consume. that's the number. this is going to add eventually 1 million barrels per day to that number.

that's going to basically be free oil. but eventually the united states will purchase back around $80 a barrel to replenish the spr. but this is the biggest release we've ever seen in u.s. history. 180 million barrels per day. that dwarfs the last two releases, around 40 million to 60 million barrels per day. those releases, remember, they moved the market just slightly, what we would call a blip. think about this more broadly. this is a president that is under severe political pressure. he's also attempting to put major pressure on u.s. oil producers. this is a bit of a double-edged sword. he hasn't been in favor really of backing the oil production lobby for a multitude of political and climate reasons. they have not been happy about this. i've been talking to them for the last two years, and i have never heard a positive message about the fact that, in spite of hearing from the biden team they were reaching across the aisle, i've had multiple leaders of these companies tay so me, we have never got an call from the white house. so already you have a

problematic relationship there. take a step back from that and think about what's happening in the global market at this point. we're talking about russia. it produces the most petroleum of any country in the world, right? they, of course, have been having a hard time selling those barrels in the last several wooks as a direct result of the invasion in ukraine. there's a political risk to that. buyers don't want to take it. they fear more sanctions. so they're not able to get out as much oil as they are in the past and they are a member of opec. may thai put the plus in opec-plus. that's another kettle of fish because opec has been under pressure to do more for the last several months and have been warning way before the invasion of ukraine that we were entering a period of energy crisis. a couple of reasons for that. the disconnect between policies and production, and at the same point major underinvestment for years. remember, opec, back in 2020, decided to put caps on production in the market. they did that because the prices rr falling through the floor as

a result of the pandemic. that production has yet to come fully back online. they made another decision this week essentially saying we'll stick to our original plan of only releasing 430,000 barrels per day in may. think about the market fundamentals. i was speaking to oil producers this week, also speaking to some of the big names in oil companies. i'm talk about patrick, the head of the italian producer, and they were saying is we're not just worried about the prices that are happening right now, over $100 per barrel. we're worried about this getting much worse as a result of underinvestment. why is there underinvestment? even though we know we'll have to use fossil fuels far long time to come? because the investors and the shareholders don't want it and we've seen that over the last several years as they've become much more attuned to climate change risk and policies. they don't want to put the money in there. when we talk about oil and shale production, it is a cost-intensive industry. you have to pay to play. >> and then, by the way, we're

about to hit a season in this country where we consume more oil in the summer as more people hit the roads. so is it possible that what the strategic oil reserve release is going to keep us at status quo? is that the best we can hope for? >> potentially. you know, when i was speaking to these oil ministers i was asking them, give me the real juice on this, because these are guys thatific speaking to, chuck, in vienna, saudi arabia, for ten years now. i said cut to the chase. what is this really about that? they said we can't get rid of russia as a member of opec plus. the reason why is over the last several decades we have included those even when they are under sanctions, starting wars. the hout thi structures, they have iran as a member. they say in order to stabilize the market they have to keep a dialogue going and they have to know how much oil is on the

market. listen quickly to what his excellency had to say to me this week in dubai. >> and we're not taking the side today or saying this is right or this is wrong. when we are inside the organization, we have one mission, which is stabilizing the market. >> so stabilizing the market is what they're sticking to. one of the things that kept coming up again and again in an hour and a half i had can with these guys, they're very worried about inflation, just like president biden is, and they're worried about the humanitarian aspect of this, not just, you know, the millions of refugees flooding into europe but also worried about energy supplies into europe, what that does to the global economy and right here in the middle east, because we're talking about food inflation. just as an fyi, we've seen in the last several days not only saudi arabia but qatar making major pledges to egypt because they're worrying about the idea that people are going to be hungry and not going to be able to afford bread. and where is the bread coming

from? ukraine. >> that's right. ukraine and russia. huge wheat exporters. it's also causing increase in the price of wheat. that's another kettle of fish. hadley, always appreciate the education we get on the markets. thank you very much. >> let me check in with ali arouzi. he is on the ground in lviv for us. so, ali, let's go to war footing itself. we are -- it feels like we're a long way away from 72 hours ago when the russians claimed that they maybe, might, kind of, sort of will start pulling back from their military escalation near kyiv, near the suburbs of kyiv. that's clearly not the case. what have you observed? and are we still seeing occasional shelling of lviv still? >> reporter: hi, chuck. that's right.

i mean, jens stoltenberg, the u.s. officials, volodymyr zelenskiy himself, and all his generals have confirmed there hasn't been any military withdrawal from areas they said they would come out of. there are still a lot of russian troops around kyiv, around chernihiv, and even though they said they were going to scale back the number of troops they had there to build mutual trust, they continued to hit kyiv, fight in the suburbs of kyiv since they said they were going to draw back. right after they announced they're going to pull troop ace way from chernihiv, they bombed chernihiv all night and all through the day. what russia says and does are go -- two completely different things. part of the offensive is they don't want to leave kyiv. that's still an objective for them. even though they say the emphasis has shifted to the donbas region where they've

recruited a thousand mercenaries to fight along with russian troops. there may be a concerted effort to take the donbas region and that's because the assault on kyiv has been such a disaster. they're probably regrouping, rotating some troops, giving them a rest to then concentrate at later point on kyiv and then so the donbas region is probably going to get hammered pretty badly in the coming days and the coming weeks. so they can refocus all their strategy back on the kyiv area and the eastern parts of ukraine. so, whatever russia has said, they certainly haven't done, and you see that clearly on the ground here because they haven't left any of the areas alone that they claimed they were going to. it also underscores that the russian military might is much weaker than moscow had anticipated before they invaded this country. they are taking heavy losses not just of troops but of machines,

and that's having to make them restrategize. so even though there's been a change of emphasis looking at the donbas region, the overall plan probably hasn't changed. they will probably refocus on these areas. as u.s. officials say, there probably will be in the coming days and weeks a huge offensive, again, on those key locations that are so strategic for them. as we've seen here, they haven't left places like mariupol alone. they've pounded that city. 90% of it is gone because it is so strategic for them. it will connect russia to the crimea, and it will also choke off ukraine's economy because they export so much of that wheat and corn and coal that you mentioned from the port of mariupol to the middle east and further away. >> ali arouzi, a lot of the fallout from this war and how this is going to only become

worse in a lot of regions of the world. ali arouzi, thank you. we do expect to hear from the president this hour as he announces what we have been reporting on this new war-time plan to try to combat the rise of gas prices here at home. when those remarks begin, we'll take you there live. first, how the former president is messaging is complicating the gop position in congress. senator kevin kramer joins me next. he's also got a briefing on the latest out of ukraine. once upon a time, at the magical everly estate, landscaper larry and his trusty crew... were delayed when the new kid totaled his truck. timber... fortunately, they were covered by progressive, so it was a happy ending... for almost everyone. inner voice (design studio owner): i'm over here waiting... ... looking intensely for a print that i never actually printed... ... so i don't have to deal with that terrifying pile of invoices. intuit quickbooks helps you easily send your first invoice in 3 steps. simple.

welcome back. we're waiting to hear from the president on energy prices. let's turn to capitol hill where both the house and senate received classified briefings yesterday with the latest intelligence on the war in ukraine. both democrat and republican lawmakers left the briefing feeling more frustration, that

the administration could be doing more to deliver aid to ukraine and to it faster. senator chris murphy warned congress needs to pass supplemental help. and some bizarre comments from former president trump calling vladimir putin to release information he may or may not have under biden. senator kevin cramer from north dakota, start about your briefing from administration officials on ukraine. everybody wants to do more. what is the more you think is reasonable we should be doing that we're not? >> great question. the first "more" is the request by president zelenskyy for migs or fighter jets. that's always at the top of the list. setting that aside for a moment, i think most americans believe that what they really need are better surface-to-air missile systems. they agree with that, they being the ukrainians. they want more advanced systems. we talked about the s-300s and

soviet-era defense system, which is pretty effective but it's quite old. and then, you know, more long-range systems as well, because as you know, the stingers that we've provided to this point are really short range. they're for the missiles when they're close to you. they want to hit the missiles further away and hiker in the air and i don't blame them. we need to do that for them. a lot of the urgency is how fast. you heard senator murphy. that's being expressed by the ukrainians and a number of us prior to the briefing yesterday, those on the ukraine caucus, met with members of the parliament in ukraine and they said the same thing. it's like we need these things yesterday. if you can't get them to us yesterday, please today or tomorrow at the latest. and that's the real frustration, the lack of certainty of how, you know, soon they can get these things and how effective they can be. but that's met with all kinds of other complications, chuck. >> right. i was going to say, the ce

section s-300 issue, only one nato nation is ready to do it, i believe, slovakia. a couple other nations seem to have it but don't want to do it out of fear of irritating the russians. how much of this is a booid issue and how much a nato issue? >> i think the number of nations willing to do sit growing. i got that sense yesterday. they have to get their stockpiles, find them, see if they even work. these are old systems. the united states has some as well. so without revealing too much information, there are a lot of them out there, but let's also remember these aren't the latest and greatest, although they would be welcome. then up the additional challenge of restocking those stocks wherever they might be, and we're looking at biden budget that -- you know, the defense budget, which grows at a rate about half of what inflation is growing at. we have a lot of complications. we have technology transfer challenges with the newer

systems. >> right. >> obviously we have to deal with those. i think one of the take-aways for me, at least, was we're not very well prepared for war. we're prepared to maybe slow down defeat for the ukrainians, but i don't see that we have a policy to help them win right now. >> so, what kind of impression do you have of what the negotiations are about these day s, what's in play, and what's realistic? is there any sense of how -- did you get any sense of how this could end? >> i think you've been reporting as i've been listening -- and by the way, i could spend an hour listening to hadley talk about the oil markets -- but i think you've been reporting pretty accurately what the state of play is, and that is it's not very realistic at least at this point. vladimir putin says one thing, he does something different. you can't rely on it. and understandably so. i mean, the guy hasn't really been shooting straight with us for a very long time, obviously.

so that's a frustration. evidently he's not feeling enough incentive yet to negotiate in good faith. obviously, he needs to come out of this looking like he won something, and i think right now if he got out of it he would look like he did not. we have to make sure he doesn't ever leave this war looking like he won something. i think we're a long ways from a truly negotiated favorable outcome. >> i want to hitch on that last statement because how does this end with him in power and him as a loser, right? like that's the -- >> right. >> that's the part that's hard -- and i may be asking you an impossible question, but it's understandable what the president said last week. everybody wants power. should that be a policy? should we pursue this? there are foots on his throat. >> yeah. so, it's interesting you say that, chuck, because when he said what he said, the president said what he said last week,

that implied a regime change, i'm going, i think he just said what a whole bunch of people are thinking, but of course he's the president, when he says mikel iturria has ramifications. first of all, i don't personally believe our allies and adversaries took it as seriously as we seemed to. and second of all, you don't need to do anything to torque up vladimir putin to be dumb. hes there. i get your point. at the same time, is there an outcome where he loses and this ends well without him being taken out? all i would say is that i think that a revolution in russia would be pretty welcome right now, but i don't want to oversimplify what a revolution in russia would look like, which means we need to continue to apply enough pressure and provide enough tools both in the sanctions side as well as on the military side to make sure that ukraine wins this war and that we don't just have a policy of

delaying their defeat. >> i want to talk about what the president is likely to unveil here in a few minutes on an energy strategy here to try to speed up, get more oil into the market. it's the issue of trying to incentivize -- and i think issuing penalties, if you don't use a lease on government lands is one way, i guess, of incentivizing, but do you think that is at this point -- could you support something like that to essentially incentivize oil companies, hey, make these capital investments? we know your shareholders don't want it, but your country does. democracy does. this is -- not everything should be for shareholder profit. >> first of all, chuck, there are 2,200 leases that have been granted that are in litigation right now, litigation. the biggest problem is 75% of the leases are being used. the problem is they also have to speed up the permitting process. the applications for permits to drill has doubled since just a

couple of years ago, maybe even tripled. so you can't say we're going to punish you if you don't use it but at the same time not issue the permits that you need to be able to drill. that's just one of many regulationings that provide a lack of certainty for this investment. i thought hadley made a great point saying these are capital intensive industries. you don't just turn a valve in the middle of the federal grasslands and oil comes out. it takes years. you don't need 20, 30 years but you need five to ten years of certainty to track that investment to, you know, do whatever is necessary. >> in all honesty, forget -- it feels like some people are looking far political excuse not to do this. on some of these oil companies. but it's pretty obvious the next five to ten years will be plenty of people consuming fossil fuels. why isn't it seen as a good investment? >> again, because the regulatory side of it is to unpredictable. when you have -- >> you don't think that pipeline

is looking for an excuse to not have to spend the money? that's what it feels like to me. or are they using it to get rid of it? >> no, i've never met an oil man that doesn't want to produce more. they overproduce as soon as the price gets high if they can do it, which brings the price back down. the problem is under this administration, the market signals have been so negative that there's not a relationship as hadley talked about. there are these signals like blaming them, i mean, blaming the oil companies for the rising prices of gas. they don't benefit on the rising prices of gas. they do benefit on the rising price of oil but only if they can produce it. the natural incentive is to get out of the wayened let them produce more, and you can go that responsibly. in fact, it's irresponsible to put this on other countries that are bigger polluters than we are, whether venezuela, russia, african countries, enemies like

iran. the last thing we want do is empower them. we can do it in the united states, but the president has to change his tone as much as his policies. >> i feel like us and canada are the only, quote, good actors around the world that have an oil supply. senator cramer, i wanted to ask you about this response you gave to a reporter about former president trump's decision yesterday to call on vladimir putin to release information, whatever information he might have on hunter biden. why would you want that information? why would you trust propaganda from somebody who is, you know, right now based on the conversation i had earlier, president biden called for him to be removed from power? why would you want to trust anything? why would we want to have putin at all, and why would you want to trust anything putin had to say about hunter biden? >> sort of interesting because russian collusion, if we were to believe everything out of russia, a few years ago, it was donald trump. but that said, my answer to the question was more sarcastic than

it was anything because i said, this is a war criminal that he's suggest progress advisers evidence that there's been a crime committed by hunter biden and by the biden. >> you're saying that was sarcasm, you believe the former president shouldn't be -- i mean, i'm sorry, it comes across as almost a bit unpatriotic to ask literally the enemy of the free world right now for propaganda for a political opponent. i mean, it just seemed like a horrendous thing to do by the former president. no? >> chuck, hear's the reality. the hunter biden's name was donald trump jr., eric trump, they'd be treating the war in ukraine like -- >> senator, that is the laziest attack. it's not about the media. >> it's also honest. >> it doesn't matter about the media. is it right for the former president of the united states to is ask an enemy of the free world to do this? >> what the former president is doing is not being compared to

what the current president is doing in this circumstance. that's the bigger issue. donald trump is donald trump. he hasn't changed. he's not going to change. it's more interesting to the washington press corps than it is to the general public. was it the wisest thing in the world to say? perhaps not, but he's donald trump and he says these things. the reality is that vladimir putin is a war criminal. i wouldn't trust anything that came out of it. if he had actual evidence that a crime was committed, if any of us had evidence, we ought to present it, that's obvious. the problem is to your point the source would not be a trustworthy source, obviously, but once again donald trump baited you all and you all took the bait. now we're having to, you know, discuss this. >> i'm not going to debate you about whether trump gets too much coverage or not enough. but he is the leader of your party, sir. at the end of the day, whether you like it or not, he's the leader of your party. are you comfortable with leader of your party playing footsie with vladimir putin? >> here's what i know.

playing footsie with vladimir putin, the evidence that's come out of the recent investigation shows that there's evidence the democrats fed information into the white house to plant false -- colluded with -- you're never interested in those things. >> how does that make what donald trump is doing somehow better? >> well, first of all, it doesn't necessarily make it better, but let's a former president. we have a current president who's called for regime changes in russia. that's dangerous. we have a current president who says that sanctions are never intended or would never deter vladimir putin. we're all going why did we issue sanctions then? i'm way for concerned and i think the american people are with the current president and his behavior and really the lack of scrutiny compared to a former president who has a long history of saying sort of outrageous things, whether seriously or not seriously, and being taken way, way, way too seriously, frankly, by a press corps that's all too

anxious to jump on an interesting personality to say the least. i'll add when donald trump was president, russia didn't invade ukraine. russia's invaded ukraine only when the bidens have either been vice president or president. so, you know, i kind of like that style of leadership. by the way, he brought the price of oil and gas down by unleashing american innovation in energy. >> again, look, rationalize on that stuff, that's a political argument. that's fair. again, working with the enemy seems to be a bridge too far. senator kevin cramer, republican from north dakota, appreciate you coming on. you always take my questions. i appreciate it. >> thanks, chuck. as we await remarks from president biden, the latest u.s. tell that suggests putin has no real idea how russia is really performing in ukraine right now, the chairman of the senate intelligence committee will be with us. but no. he's currently checkin' his investments. you gotta have a plan outside the band, man.

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investments, you get it, you know, your costs go up, share prices go down. we understand they're worried about their shareholderish shouse and many a ceo gets fired faster than they should because of shareholder revolt. but what is the best way to incentivize these oil companies? is this idea of penalizing them for not using leases a good idea? >> chuck, i want to address that, but i just can't bite my tongue about what happened in the segment before the break. i any it is despicable and pathetic that donald trump is out appealing to a war criminal, vladimir putin, when he is a war criminal against not only the people of ukraine but against democracies around the world. his behavior is despicable and, again parks thetic. this is the same donald trump i remember when we brought together countries who had been

attacked by russia and misinformation, and we all gathered in washington on the very day that donald trump met with vladimir putin in 2018 in helsinki and was a total lap dog to putin and basically sided with putin over all of our american intelligence agencies. and it's the same donald trump that basically would not provide ukraine with defensive weapons for years because he wanted to extract a political promise from zelenskyy to help him on his -- getting dirt on biden. so, you know, anyone that is defending trump's recent activities of appealing to putin, i don't know where you get off on that. i just -- my blood boils when i think about what trump has done and a pattern that has continued literally for years.

>> senator, stay on this topic a minute. do you think it's been a mistake to overly sensor donald trump and the stuff he's been saying? you know, earlier this week, he also came out and admitted that, yeah, i don't like nato much, even now, where you're sitting here and it hit me like a ton of bricks. nato has been -- this is the most effective nato has looked in a decade or more. and to just also trash nato, a form e u.s. president doing it literally in the last 96 hours, you know, deplatforming him has sort of protected the public, right, allows people to say no one cares about it, because i understand people have compartmentalized him. there's this idea he can be insend yair. but sometimes, this is what happens when you try to sensor. if you try to sensor even the good stuff and you think it's a good idea, are we inadvertently

de-escalating the threat that he really presents? >> chuck, it's a very fair question. i've got to tell you, nato a year ago when biden came in, was broken. and the ability to put this coalition back together again in a united way when you have the germans actually paying their fair share and taking on nord stream 2, that took work. i don't know the answer to the question. i don't want trump out there being able to violate the very standards of twitter or facebook, and i think they need some standards, and clearly we're not silencing -- he has an outlet on some of these far-right wing media where he's speaking to people that believe this garbage, but when the ukrainian people are literally, as i believe, not just fighting for their freedom, but they're fighting on behalf of

democracies across the world, and you have a former president of the united states once again kowtowing to putin and asking for, you know, political dirt and undermining nato, i never thought -- i never thought i'd see this behavior. how you regulate or deal with that i wish i had a better answer for you. i don't. >> there's a lot of people in this country that are rightly outraged about a former german chancellor playing footsie with putin. it's outrageous then and now when a former u.s. president does it as well. the first question i asked you, is this the proper way to incentivize the oil industry to increase production, which is what the president's going to ask you guys to do, to essentially put a time stamp on these leases, if you don't use them, you get fined? >> let me give you two or three things he's going to do. one, the million barrels a day released from the strategic

reserve is a good effort. it is a bit of a band-aid but, you know, it's something we can do right now. >> and a gas tax holiday? >> i believe -- i'm very reluctant to go there. releasing the strategic -- this is a strategic time to release those barrels of oil. on the leases, they are basically acquired at a very cheap rate. these guys sit on these assets, waiting for a time to use them. so the idea that if you don't use them there's going to be a fee assessed to you i think makes sense. but i do agree with senator cramer that if we're going to put that fee, we've also got to have the biden administration to allow them to be permitted in a rapid enough fashion that they can actually move into production. you can't have it both ways. you can't put the fee up and then hold them up on the permits. one of the things i've been disappointed with the biden administration not making -- bringing more attention to, in the last two weeks, the biden

administration has issued two export liquefied natural gas permits for us to take some of our gas and get it to europe, to get them off russian oil and gas. i mean, the germans are paying seven times more for natural gas than it is in our country. getting them off russian gas and exporting some of that, i'm not sure why biden has it done that saying we're all in with europeans, and addresses some of the republican arguments. >> are you ready to make the investments in our ports in order to -- i mean, the process to essentially ship liquefied natural gas, it's my understanding that this is part of the holdup here, that not everybody is ecstatic about the amount of investment it would take to essentially make this viable to ship across the atlantic. >> we have one of these export facilities already, but when you've got a 7 to 1 arbitrage

between the same amount of cubic feet in gas price in germany versus america and we have a lot of gas, i think the markets, as long as you give the permits -- and they've issued these permits. they've done it. why not let everybody know? because long term, we want to get germany and all of the europeans off the russian oil and gas on a permanent basis. as you said before the break, there are for few democrats, america and canada, that have these resource, and frankly, you know -- >> we'll leave that. >> deal. i'd rather them use democratic energies. that doesn't mean slower movement in deal with climate change and greener energy. but there's going to be this transition. >> let me ask you this. we're about to hear from the president. the issue of more anti-aircraft

weaponry, let's set the mig issue aside, you were in this briefing, what is the delay here? >> well, first of all, we are literally at tens of thousands of anti-tank tools that have got on the ukrainians, not just from us but from others. thousands of stingers and other shoulder short range, we need to get more of these s-300s, but before european countries like slovakia gives up that weapon -- >> i have to cult you off. we have to go to president. thank you. >> -- here at home putin's decision to brutally and savpagely invade a sovereign nation. the fact is he's causing thousands of deaths and untold destruction. working with our nato allies an our european partners and beyond that, we're responding. we're aiding the ukrainian people both economically and

militarily while leaving the most punishing economic sanctions ever used against another nation in place and increasing them. thus far, these actions are crippling russia's economy, isolating putin from the world, and helping ukrainians fight for their country and ease their suffering. but as i've said from the start, putin's war is imposing a cost on america and allies and democracies around the world. today i want to talk about one aspect of putin's war that affects and has real effects on american people. putin's price hike at americans and allies are feeling at the pump. i know how much it hurts. i grew up in a family like many of you where the price of a gallon of gasoline went up, it was a discussion at the kitchen table. our family budgets, your family budgets, to fill a tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war. so today i'm laying out a

two-part plan, not only to ease the pain that families are feeling right now but to end this era of dependence and uncertainty and lay a new foundation for true and lasting american energy independence. parenthetically, just imagine if europe didn't have to count on russian oil. russian oil. if they were energy independent. it would change the face of the nation so much. first, the pandemic. when covid struck the demand for oil plummeted, so production slowed down worldwide. because of the strength and the speed of our recovery, demand for oil shot back up much faster than the supply. that's why the cost of gas began to rise last year. the second route is vladimir putin. at the start of the year gas was $3.30 a gallon. today it's averaging $4.20.

more than a dollar more in less than three months. the reason for that is because of putin's war. and now i banned the import of russian oil here, and the democrats and republicans called for it and supported it. it was the right thing to do. i said at the time it would come with a cost. as russian oil comes off the global market, supply of oil drops and prices are rising. now putin's price hike is hitting americans at the pump, which brings me to the first part of my plan. to immediately increase the supply of oil, our prices are rising because of putin's actions, there isn't enough supply. the bottom line is if we want lower gas prices we need to have more oil supply right now. for u.s. oil companies recording

their largest profits in years. they have a choice, they can put those profits to productive use, by producing more oils, or restarting idle wells, and giving the american people a break by passing the savings on to their customers or they can, as some are doing, exploit the situation and sit back by american families are finding it aurd. companies have already announced they are increasing immediate production. they are investing money to produce more oil. clean technology, we need to reduce our independence on oil in the future. they have everything they need. nothing is standing in their way. they indicated they will be

producing next to 1 million barrels of oil per day starting as early as this fall. that's progress. some companies have been pretty blunt. they don't want to increase supply because putin's price hike means higher profits. and one ceo acknowledged they don't care if the price of oil goes to $200 a barrel, they are not going to step up the production. i say enough. enough of lavish excessive profits while the american people and the world is watching. oil companies made $80 billion in profits last year, and this is the time -- not the time to sit on record profits, it's time to step up for the good of your country and the good of the world to invest in the immediate production that we need to respond to vladimir putin, to provide some relief for your

customers and not investors and executives. i am a capitalists, and companies have a obligation that goes beyond their shareholders, to their customers, their communities and country. no american country should take advantage of a pandemic or putin's actions. they should invest in their customers. it's not the patriotic view, but it's good for your business as well. right now oil and gas industries are sitting on nearly 9,000 unused but approved permits for production on federal lands. more than 1 million unused acres, they have a right to pump on. families can't afford to let companies sit on their hands, so to help execute this first part of my plan i am calling for a use it or lose it policy.

congress should make companies pay fees on wells on federal leases they have not used in years, and acres of federal land, and they will have to either start producing or pay the price for their inaction. look, the action i am calling for will make a real difference over time. the truth is it takes months and not days for companies to increase production. that's why the next part of my plan is so important. today i am authorizing the release of 1 million barrels per day for the next six months over 180 million barrels for the strategic -- from the strategic petroleum reserve. this is a war-time bridge, to increase oil supply until production ramps up this year, and it's going to provide a

historic amount of supply for a historic amount of time. a six-month bridge to the fall. and will use the revenue from selling the oil now to restock the strategic preserve of oil so we will be ready for future emergencies. folks, i coordinated this release is partners and allies appeared the world. already we have commitments from other countries to release tens of millions of additional barrels to the market, and it will supply well over 1 million barrels a day. nations coming together to stop putin from weaponize his energy. the second part is about declaring real energy independent long-term so we never have to deal with this problem again.

ultimately, we and the whole world need to reduce our dependance on fossil fuel altogether. we can do that by passing my plan that is literally before the senate right now, the united states congress right now, it has been there for well over a month, to speed the transition to a clean energy future. that's made in america, with american products and american values. we need to embrace all the tools and technologies to help us free us from our dependance from fossil fuels and move towards on homegrown energy. technologies made by american companies and american workers, so we can bolster domestic supply chains here at home and export those technologies around the world to reduce greenhouse

gases. that's why today i am issuing a directive to strengthen our clean energy economy. i am going to use a defense production act to secure american supply chains for the critical restorable of renewable energy. we need to end our long-term reliance on china and other countries for inputs that willpower the future. i will use every tool i have to make that happen. yes, i am building a made in america future will help safeguard america's security, and yes, tackle climate change, and yes, it will create millions of good-paying jobs for generations to come. the most important thing my plan will do right away is save your family money. here's what i mean. under my plan, which is before the congress now, we can take advantage of the next generation of electric vehicles that a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to

pay gas at the pump. if your home is powered by safer, cheaper, cleaner electricity like solar or heat pumps, you can save $500 a month on -- $5 on average. costs will come down even more as we innovate and develop cutting edge energy storage technologies, and advanced nuclear technologies and carbon and sequestration technologies. by the way, this week, the benefit i included in the infrastructure law to help families weatherize their home will be delivered. $3.2 billion will be available from this legislation to provide up to $6,500 direct payment for

working class families to be able to weatherize their homes, to save them money to, keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. it's a direct grant. this program has been around for a while, and in the past it has delivered to average families another $327 in savings when they weatherize, and now they have the ability to reach ten times as many families because of the legislation already passed in the legislation. in addition to that we are also setting new standards to boost fuel economies to new vehicles sold in america. within five years we will travel ten miles more on every single gallon we have because the average fuel economy of 49 miles to the gallon will be required. that means hundreds of dollars in savings for families at the pump. we're setting similar standards fo