MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' on political impact of OPEC+ announcement: 'Spit in Biden's face,' 'not great' for Dems

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Steve Rattner says OPEC+ announcement 'not great for Democrats'

Steve Rattner said Thursday that the OPEC+ announcement was "not great for Democrats" as gas prices are expected to spike again. 

On Thursday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough discussed the political impact of the OPEC+ announcement that it would cut oil production by two million barrels a day with Steve Rattner, who said it was "not great for Democrats."

Scarborough asked Rattner, a former counselor to the Treasury secretary during the Obama administration, about the timing of the OPEC+ announcement, as it came a month before the midterm elections. 

"You look at the timing of this, one month before an election. You look at the fact that Joe Biden caught a lot of grief for going over and visiting the Saudi leader, a guy, of course, accused of murdering a Washington Post columnist, a Virginia resident, and this is what he gets a month before the election. This is what he gets when Vladimir Putin is on his back heels. What's your thought about Biden’s overtures in Saudi Arabia, and how basically, Biden's, he just spit in Biden’s face?" Scarborough wondered. 

Rattner noted that the Saudis have always been "frenemies" of the U.S. 

Steve Rattner joins the hosts of "Morning Joe" to talk about the OPEC+ announcement. 

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"In general, in terms of how they try to manage oil, they do it based on their interests and trying to maximize the long-term value of oil and make sure current prices aren’t too low," Rattner said. "They had absolutely no interest in accommodating anything Biden was trying to do. They did what they thought they needed to do for themselves and for the other members of OPEC."

Rattner added that it would "always be this way" until the U.S. changes "our energy situation." 

"What tools are left in the tool box for the White House to try to offset any price hike at the petrol pump between now and November, because the timing of this could hit just, you know, it couldn’t hit worse for the Democrats as they head into those midterms," BBC U.S. special correspondent and MSNBC contributor Katty Kay asked Rattner. 

Rattner said it was "not great for Democrats" and that the price at the pump had already started to go up. 

Participants attend the opening session of the 15th International Energy Forum in Algiers on September 27, 2016.  (RYAD KRAMDI/AFP via Getty Images)

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"So the unfortunate news for the White House is there really isn’t much else they can do between now and the election. As I said, the only good news is that oil prices have jumped about $8 a barrel. But they are nowhere near where they were at the worst of Ukraine, when they were well over up to as much as $130 a barrel. So you won’t see gas prices going back to where they were in the worst of it, they are just going to continue to edge up over the next couple of months, and there is as I said, I'll say it one more time, unfortunately, there isn’t much else the White House can do about that," Rattner said. 

Scarborough said the move was about the Saudis getting involved in American politics. 

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a rally hosted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at Richard Montgomery High School on August 25, 2022 in Rockville, Maryland. Biden rallied supporters for Democratic candidates running in Maryland and to encourage Democratic voters nationwide to turn out in the November midterm elections.  (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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Biden responded to the move by OPEC+ and said he would release 10 million more barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in November. 

The president announced in March that he would release 1 million barrels of oil from the SPR per day in an effort to bring down gas prices.