🚨NEW, thread: Biden stalled bipartisan bill to ban Russian oil.
A source close to the process tells me that the House Ways and Means Committee worked all weekend in a bipartisan manner to develop a bill to ban all Russian oil imports...— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) March 8, 2022
... and also remove PNTR (permanent normalized trade relations) from Russia, meaning that they would lose ‘most favored nation status’ on tariffs – but the President himself intervened to stop it.
Sunday night, Ways and Means Democrats put out a press release about the bipartisan bill they were putting forward – but it was pulled down 5 minutes later. Reuters reported on it, but the bill was still never introduced all day yesterday....
...because this source tells me the White House called Ways & Means Dems and told them NOT to move forward on it.
Ways & Means Dems wanted to push ahead anyway – so at about 6:30 last night, someone from the White House called Pelosi’s office to intervene.
She was “not moved by their arguments” and her office told the WH staff they would be pushing ahead – so around 9:30 last night President Biden himself called Pelosi and asked her not to do it.
Pelosi, I’m told, still did want to move ahead. So the White House then targeted Sen Wyden via Schumer, to get him to pull out on the Senate side so it would all fall apart.
They believe this is because the WH did not want to appear that they had been boxed in by Congress on this issue – but it’s a snapshot of the friction between the WH and House Dems beneath the surface.
Members from both parties expressed frustration that they spent the whole weekend working in a bipartisan fashion only to get rolled by the WH.
**and as I type this, Reuters reports a WH announcement to ban Russian oil is imminent.
John Ratcliffe? And of course Marc Short (traitor’s aide) is a co-chair.
I didn’t think I could despise Pence any more than I have for years.....surprise!
So, after all of this kabuki theater, over this Russia oil ban bill....PeLOUSY won?
Probably just trying to give XiDen cover, somehow?
So Brandon doesn't want to ban Russian oil, but will make an announcement today to ban Russian oil?
Biden to *speak* at 10:45 a.m. E on the Russian oil ban.
So the WH wants to take credit? So childish.