Kevin Hassett: The Reason Oil Prices Are Down Is Because Our ‘Excellent’ U.S. Navy Has Been Escorting Ships Out of the Gulf

RUSH EXCERPT:
HASSETT: "Well, it‘s happening already, Jake. And first of all, I don‘t negotiate with the Iranians, and I don‘t think I‘D be very good at it. But the fact is that right in the peak of the conflict early on, you saw that oil prices were going way north of $100 a barrel. Right now, there were like high 70s late in the week. I think they‘re running about 80 over the weekend. And so the reason oil prices have come down is that our excellent U.S. Navy has been escorting ships out of the gulf. But also we‘ve taken a whole number of steps, including including increasing production in the U.S., waiving the Jones act, so that right now, 100 million barrels of gulf of America produced oil are now shipping to the east and West Coast because we waive the Jones act. That‘s put downward pressure on prices. Now, prices are still higher than we would like, but we‘ve taken a lot of steps so that when the gulf situation is resolved, then we can expect prices to go way, way down because of all these new measures that we‘ve taken."