Exxon just posted record-breaking profits as Americans continue to get gouged at the gas pump. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Mike Papantonio:             Exxon just posted record breaking profits as Americans continue to get gouged at the gas pump. Wow. This story, I think we were doing it before it was a story. I think we were doing it before, you know, before corporate media even thought it was an important issue. Why? Because Exxon advertises in corporate media. BP advertises in corporate media. We were doing this story when we started seeing the very edge of it. Right. Corporate media held off as long as they could until it was inescapable. And these numbers are $18 billion in one quarter was the profit for Exxon. At last Truthout, who’s social media, they had to cover this story. I still haven’t seen it fully covered with corporate media, have you?

Farron Cousins:                  No, absolutely not. And it is, it’s price gouging.

Mike Papantonio:             Yeah.

Farron Cousins:                  You can’t make record profits during a time of record inflation if you are not artificially inflating your own prices. And that’s what we see here.

Mike Papantonio:             Mm.

Farron Cousins:                  Exxon with $18 billion over three months.

Mike Papantonio:             Shell.

Farron Cousins:                  Chevron, Chevron is 11.2. Shell almost 10 billion.

Mike Papantonio:             10 billion, $10 billion. Yeah.

Farron Cousins:                  It’s crazy what these companies are pulling in. And this is all just further proof of what Bernie Sanders told us almost a year ago, put a windfall profits tax in place.

Mike Papantonio:             Well, now we, we talked about that. I, we literally have been talking about it even before Bernie talked about it.

Farron Cousins:                  Yeah.

Mike Papantonio:             It’s an easy solution. The president has right to do it. Now, he’s talking about it now.

Farron Cousins:                  Finally.

Mike Papantonio:             But it’s too late. It’s too, it’s too late. I don’t know how to put it. Look, Con. Look, they, they, they created a bill that was going to address the potential for the windfall tax. It fizzled. Congress isn’t going to do it because they’re getting so much money from the oil industry. The president held off doing it as long as he can. I don’t, not even sure he’s still sold on the windfall tax. But that’s the solution here. I mean, it, it, it kind of comes down to the fact that you’ve gotten zero cooperation from Congress. Zero, zero cooperation from the Senate. I think it was Manchin and about three others that made the bill fizzle away.

Farron Cousins:                  Yeah.

Mike Papantonio:             That was gonna say we need to have some windfall tax punishment here. Right?

Farron Cousins:                  Right. But here’s the other thing too. On the other side, the bully pulpit side, Biden could be out there talking about these numbers every day. But instead what did he do? He went to Saudi Arabia to beg them, please, we need more oil. They laughed in his face and said, we’re gonna cut oil.

Mike Papantonio:             Made him look like an idiot.

Farron Cousins:                  Yeah.

Mike Papantonio:             I mean, made him look like a child idiot.

Farron Cousins:                  So he has to point out this corruption. He has to talk about it publicly.

Mike Papantonio:             Farron, you’ve, you and I have talked about this before, but the more money you put into the oil industry’s hands, the more money you put into the pharmaceutical industry’s hands, the more money you put into tech’s hands, simply they use that for affluence, influence. They take US, you know, they take Citizens United to the absolute max, spread out as much as they can. They buy gazillions of lobbyists. Their influence, watch, watch what happens here. They’re making so much money, it’s going to take a decade to, to slow the, to slow down the power that they’re gonna gain from all this money. $18 billion in one quarter, $10 billion in one quarter, $11 billion, that’s what these companies are making.

Farron Cousins:                  Yep.

Mike Papantonio:             And all they’re doing is saying, you know, we kind of got you. It’s kind of checkmate because we can buy the media, which they’ve already done. We can buy more lobbyists, which they’ve already done. It’s, it’s just something that the president months ago should have said, you can’t do that. And I’m gonna make, I’m gonna show you why you can’t because you’re gonna get taxed big time.