‘That’s bulls—’: Velshi blasts White House’s blame game for diesel prices

MS NOW’s Ali Velshi tore into Marco Rubio, blasting the secretary of state for his “nonsense” claim that diesel prices would be three times their current price if not for Donald Trump’s war with Iran. The “11th Hour” host said Rubio’s remarks proved he wasn’t the “adult in the room” in the Trump administration, as some thought he would be.

During an interview with Fox News, Rubio was asked about the skyrocketing price of diesel, which on Tuesday hit a record high of $6.53 a gallon — up more than 75% from a year ago, according to AAA.

“Every American president says it. Every world leader you meet with tells the president, ‘We agree they can’t have a nuclear weapon,’” Rubio said on Tuesday. “Eventually someone has to do something about it, or it’s going to happen.”

“And then imagine North Korea, but in the Middle East; that would be catastrophic for the world,” he added. “And you wouldn’t be paying $6 or whatever diesel is this morning — you’d be paying triple that.”

But Velshi wasn’t buying it.

“Come on, man — come on,” he said in response to Rubio’s comments. “I used to like you. I used to think you were smart.”

“This nonsense about [how] diesel would have been $18 a gallon if we didn’t attack Iran — that’s not true,” Velshi said. “There was a way to get Iran to not have a nuclear weapon: It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal that was signed in 2015 under the Obama administration.”

The MS NOW host said the agreement “was demonstrated to be working” before “it was ripped up” by Trump in 2018.

“That’s why there is a threat of a nuclear weapon in Iran; its name is Donald Trump,” he said. “That’s why the price of diesel is higher; its name is Donald Trump. That’s the end of the story.”

Velshi also slammed another White House talking point on rising fuel prices. In recent weeks, Trump has publicly blamed Ukraine for the global diesel shortage, pointing to its attacks on Russian oil refineries.

“That’s bulls–––,” Velshi said, “because this war between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for four and a half years. How come diesel prices haven’t spiked for four and a half years?”

Citing Trump’s “war of choice” with Iran, Velshi said that “diesel prices spiked when petrol prices spiked because the Strait of Hormuz got closed.”

“It has precious little to do with Russia — not zero, because Russia is an oil producer and diesel is an oil product,” he added, saying the high diesel prices were “because of the war in Iran, beginning, middle and end.”

You can watch Velshi’s full comments in the clip below.