I don’t know who came up with the excuse for Joe Biden and his team that they should blame the high gas prices and inflation on Vladimir Putin, calling it “Putin’s Price Hike.” Because nobody believes it. When you do so, you’re not only being dishonest and deflecting from your own responsibility for the situation, you look incredibly weak and like Putin can push you around, if it were true. So, Joe Biden is saying that Putin is controlling the U.S. and he can’t do anything about it. How feeble does that sound? Not a good look, when Joe Biden already seems so feeble.

However, the Biden team hasn’t gotten that message yet, so they’re still pushing the talking points. But White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has made it even worse now, by referring to it as “Putin’s tax hike.”

KJP blames "Putin's tax hike" for gas prices. pic.twitter.com/hML1Etp0ts

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 21, 2022

So now, Putin is allowed to tax us into the poor house, too? How much of our government has Joe Biden ceded to Putin? Someone might make the mistake of thinking we have a Putin puppet in office, given how often Biden mentions him.

On Tuesday, the White House had John Kirby, the new National Security Council coordinator for Strategic Communications. helping out at the briefing as well. He claimed that Putin was “weaponizing food.”

Pentagon Press Sec. John Kirby: "President Putin is—no kidding—weaponizing food. Let's just call it what it is. He's weaponizing food." pic.twitter.com/47yD0Aldcq

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 21, 2022

Now, that’s more than a little troubling. Prepare for them to continue blaming Putin, when even more shelves go bare; that comment is the announcement that it’s coming. One more reason we need to make America as independent as possible, not just when it comes to energy, but everything else.

When Joe Biden spoke about the high prices from his beach vacation over the weekend, he made it clear the pain at the pump was the purpose; he said what an “opportunity” it was to meet their radical climate goals. Jean-Pierre must have been thinking along those lines, when she had a bit of a Freudian slip before she quickly tried to correct it.

KJP: "The president has been very clear in making sure that he does everything that he can to elevate—to alleviate the pain that American families are feeling when it comes to gas prices." pic.twitter.com/97eXtpCMWV

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 21, 2022

“The president has been very clear in making sure that he does everything that he can to elevate—to alleviate the pain that American families are feeling when it comes to gas prices,” Jean-Pierre said.

Both she and Biden let the quiet part they aren’t supposed to talk about out. What Biden has done has elevated prices.

I believe her first word because Biden hasn’t been doing anything that would alleviate it. The first thought should be encouraging domestic production, knowing that’s an important thing to support. But he’s never done that. He’s attacked the industry since his campaign, and has done everything in his power to hurt energy. Even now, the things he has done haven’t dropped the prices. Threatening the oil companies on the one hand to produce more, while on the other hand saying that you’re going to phase them out only makes the situation more unstable.

Jean-Pierre also tried to gaslight on a final point — the recession. Jean Pierre claimed, “We don’t see a recession right now.”

Karine Jean-Pierre: “We don’t see a recession” happening soon.

They said the same thing about inflation. pic.twitter.com/ISTc9HR1ZS

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 21, 2022

That’s trying to parse words. Save the video and mark it for history. This is the same thing they did when they refused to acknowledge (or prepare) for inflation. Even far into it last year, when the inflation was obvious, they kept claiming it was “transitory.” Now once again, you have Jean-Pierre using that “transition” language. Biden claimed most experts weren’t predicting that, and he snapped at a reporter for bringing it up on Monday. But he’d admitted that he had just spoken to former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who is one of the experts who does believe it is likely.

All this doesn’t inspire much confidence in these characters–that they’re going to do anything but continue to try to buffalo us.