Trump Turns to Russia as Diesel Prices Continue to Rise

Gonna drill down on diesel here. As Lisa just mentioned, president Trump thanking president Vladimir Putin for the release of substantial amount of diesel. You heard about the oil deal with Russia. That is a big deal. That is massive amounts of oil coming into our country, and I wanna thank president president Putin, Putin, to be honest with you. We have massive amounts of oil being coming into our country, and it's diesel, which is what we want. So thank you. The aim of the president there is to lower prices and quickly three weeks to go until election day. He posted on truth social this, lower prices for Americans, especially our great farmers, ranchers, and truckers is my greatest priority. This is a very big and important announcement. It's a move that comes along as a new, Reuters Ipsos poll says that nearly eight in 10 Americans blame president Trump for the rising cost of living. Joining us now, we have Bloomberg News congressional reporter Caitlin Reilly and ABC News state department reporter Shannon Kingston. Thank you both for being up with us this morning. Shannon, I do wanna start with you because we have this strange moment where president Trump's domestic policy and his foreign policy are really colliding here. How much do you think, members of his own administration were taken by surprise with this Russia announcement given that, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkow were in Miami negotiating with Ukrainian officials when this came out, over over Exxon, and we heard the comments from the president. Right, Christina. Well, this certainly was a sharp turn for the Trump administration, which has been working to broker some kind of energy truce between Ukraine and Russia and making some progress in recent weeks. So this is likely to make some kind of deal, a limited short term deal like that even rather difficult to achieve now because this is just a pact between The US and Russia. And, of course, we know Ukraine's president Zelensky very unhappy with this. He's calling it a birthday present for Vladimir Putin, and many are predicting that this will set the stage for further cooperation between US and Russia even before this war comes to an end. So that's something that the Ukrainians are very unhappy about. But as we look to your point on making, some kind of compromise here between domestic needs and foreign policy as we head into the midterm elections, I think Trump administration officials are privately... You know, they know that they're up against a wall here. They are anxious to create any kind of perception at least that there's going to be something in the offing to bring down energy costs for American consumers as voters head to the polls. So we've seen time and again that the president is willing to pay a higher price when it comes to global issues than he is here in the country. Caitlin, great to have you with us. Welcome to the show. Your first time, on it. Glad to have you with us. And and I wanted to ask you just about the resonance of what the president's doing here for Republicans and for for Democrats. We got new consumer sentiment data yesterday. We're gonna talk to Joanne Shu in just a little bit, the woman who oversees that survey that the University of Michigan does. But what's so clear is how big a driving force these energy prices are in the lives of of Americans. They're worried about them. They're making spending and purchasing decisions based on them. I'm curious sort of how that issue is resonating among Republicans in the house and senate in particular as they spend this recess in many cases trying to to win reelection. Is something like president Trump announced yesterday likely to give them enough grist to make the case to Americans that, in fact, lawmakers in Washington are are doing something about this ongoing crisis? I mean, I think it... Well, time will tell, but I think it's a tough sell. We've seen Republicans sort of cast about for an economic message that will resonate with voters. The latest tax seems to be to blame rising prices on the Biden administration, even though it's been, almost two years since Biden has been president. Energy costs are obviously a huge concern, and we're starting to see some Republicans break with Trump around the edges, around the, on the war, on tariffs. There was a bit of Republican criticism of this deal with Russia, yesterday, but it, it Republicans do seem to be grasping for a coherent message they can bring to voters on the economy. And for a while, it was that prices will go down when the war in Iran ends and the Strait Of Rimuz reopens, but, they've seemed to have dropped that message as well as the war drags on. Caitlin, there are also several, debates in some high stakes senate races, and we've got some sound for you. Here at Georgia, senator John Ossoff and representative Mike Collins talking about, what else, Affordability. Ground beef and coffee are up 30%. These tariffs have crushed families and small businesses and Georgia agriculture. The war in Iran has sent gas prices near their all time high. Unleaded, $4. In Georgia, diesel, $6. My opponent voted for those Bidenomics that caused this historic inflation. Not just on gas, and gas is too high, and we're bringing that down. But on everything that you purchase out there, he's the one who voted for that green new deal. He doesn't want your gas to go down. So, I mean, Republicans are trying to find a closing message on the economy, but Democrats need to get on step or in step as well. What are we hearing? What are some of the overarching themes we're hearing, as we, oh my goodness, get so close to these midterms that I feel like it's all we talk about at the moment? Well, Democrats have just consistently hit Republicans on cost of living, on affordability. It's a message that seems to resonate with voters. We've seen a lot of economic anxiety show up in the poll. President, Trump's approval ratings are as low as they've ever been, particularly on the economy with... Which was actually a strong point during his first term. And so Democrats have been able to just hit Republicans again and again on cost of living and point directly to policies they say have contributed to higher costs, including tariffs, which you heard there, and, of course, the war. Shannon, you were traveling with secretary of state Marco Rubio this week. He was in Greece. He went to Portugal as well. He talked about western civilization. Yeah. I saw her Instagram. It looks like a really, really hardship trend, but probably bad for you. Sorry for to visit. Let me play a bit of sound here from secretary of state Marco Rubio talking about kind of The US's place in the global economy. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future. I have incredible backdrop for those who are Some good advance work there, I will say. Populism work. Studying. Shannon, talk a bit about the the message that we heard from secretary of Marco Rubio there. And, of course, this was unfolding as this scandal erupted surrounding The US ambassador to Greece, as well. Oh, that's right. And this speech was, very atypical for secretary of state because while they do talk a lot on these foreign trips, you know, typically, they're with their counterpart in the host country, you know, maybe a foreign leader. They don't usually get solo billing, and they do not usually get a backdrop like that, the Acropolis at sunset golden hour. So this was something that turned a lot of heads because it did feel somewhat presidential, of course, as secretary of state Marco Rubio does stay out of domestic politics. So he's not so entrenched in this midterm fight, but we know that there had been presidential intentions in the past, and many say that he plans to run for higher office again. So that was something that caught attention. This was a, a defense of Western civilization was how the state department build it. So getting more into, you know, a bit of the global culture wars, if you will. But, yes, there have been, some allegations about the ambassador in Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, you know, seeking to use what should be a position for a public servant to privately enrich herself, something that we've seen has been a theme, that has, impacted this second Trump administration certainly. So he did try to, you know, to step away from those allegations, say he wasn't going to address them while he was on the trip. But we do know now that the state department's office of the inspector general is investigating those allegations that were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. So that is something that he's going to have to deal with even as he tries to set up, you know, his other priorities here and perhaps looks towards, an office for himself in the future. Shannon, you're putting that very diplomatically. His his response to questions about this was a... It was it was rather extraordinary. He shut it down. I mean, there was a kind of feisty exchange between him and the press corps. He really doesn't wanna engage with with this issue, does he? That's right. And I'm sorry. I've been hanging out with diplomats too much, recently perhaps after this week of travel. So I'll I'll say, yes. He he was a combative. He did spar with us a little bit as we tried to press him at least to say what he was going to do about it, if he was going to look into the allegations. And we did hear similar comments from the president where he said on Friday that he just heard about, the allegations against Guilfoyle that, of course, have been in the media all week. He said it was too bad, but really didn't indicate that there was going to be, you know, a very deep inquiry into what was going on there. He said, quote, she's always been so nice to me. So that's something, of course, that we'll be watching and we'll keep pressing on. I think the the most, on point comments we got were actually from vice president, Vance, who said he didn't love the idea of these allegations that it was a pay for play scheme where she was asking a a MAGA donor to help pay off her Amex bill, which, you know, I didn't know was an option, but I should ask more men. To be clear, not an option. Help pay Okay. That's right. Caitlin, let's focus. Closer to home, we've got the Michigan senate race. This is, of course, one of the most watched races. You've got republican Mike Rogers and democrat Abdulah Syed. They were kind of tussling this week, about Canadian tariffs. Take a listen. Are you saying that we need to eliminate all tariffs for Canada? You have sixty seconds. I would like to see the deal made. I have actually called, the White House this week, talked to the sec... Secretary of commerce about getting the deal done. Canada still has some high tariffs for US goods, and they did it before this started. Those should be eliminated. There are tariffs that I think are too high and not helpful for us. We ought to get rid of those. He's doing an ad drinking a lot bats and talking about the red wings pretending like he was not for this the entire time. Be serious, my guy. Like, just be serious. People deserve to know that have a leader who's gonna be serious about policy. I mean, you've got Rogers now breaking with Trump on this and the war in Iran. Does this kind of illustrate the difficult position some of these policies have put Republicans in, in states that could swing one direction or the other? Absolutely. And he's not the first Republican we've seen break with the Trump... The president on this. We saw, congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who is now in a, very competitive race, in the... In Iowa for the senate, also called for an end to the war. Of course, that was after she took a vote in the house to allow it to continue. In Florida, we saw congresswoman Salazar who, has a Miami district, very directly criticized the president's immigration policies. And so we are starting to see Republicans try to distance themselves in some cases from the president and his most unpopular policies. But a huge, challenge they face is that Trump has made these midterms about him and has told voters to vote as if he's on the ballot. And in many cases, these Republicans have cleaved so closely to the president for so long. It it, time will tell whether or not, they've they've broken with him early enough or if, some of these results are already kind of baked in in voters' minds. Sharon, before we let you go, we have a new Nobel Priest... Peace Prize laureate. That's, Navi Pellet, who's a South African jurist, has worked with the ICC, got that recognition yesterday from from the Norwegians. The the president unhappy about that, posting on Truth Social about it, bringing up it in a speech last night. He feels like the the award should have gone to him as a proxy for for The United States. Putting that aside, we did get this announcement yesterday, The US kinda withdrawing... Or or putting new sanctions here on the ICC, not withdrawing from it. It hasn't been party to it. But what is the implication of it? How do you read the timing of the state department making that announcement on the heels of this announcement from the Nobel Committee? Right. There've been a lot of questions about that, but we do know that the Trump administration's campaign against that international tribunal has been going on for several months, and they've been threatening to roll out these suite being sanctions for really weeks now. So this has been in the works. Of course, the timing there, a big question mark because the, person who was ultimately awarded, the Nobel Peace Prize is someone who is linked very closely to the ICC. But for president Trump's argument overall, it is a difficult case to make given that The US is seen as starting the conflict in Iran this year. So it would be, one would think, a tough hill to climb for the president to win that award. But when it comes to the ICC, secretary of state Marco Rubio has been very clear that he's going to continue pushing back and, trying to also get US allies to turn against the court. So a lot going on there still.