Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on a possible U.S. ban on Russian oil, Trump and the GOP base

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• Judy Woodruff:

  Here in Washington, mounting pressure to ban Russian oil imports is raising questions for President Biden. And former Republican Attorney General Bill Barr is back in the headlines with an upcoming memoir on his time in the Trump administration.

  Lisa Desjardins has more on the week in politics.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That's right, Judy.

  And I'm joined here in studio by our Politics Monday duo. That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

  Deja vu all over again. I am happy to see you in person.

• Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

  Good to be back again.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Good to be back again, again.

  Let's start with the energy prices. Two things are happening at once here. Ukraine is fighting for its existence. At the same time, it is also true that, in this country, gas prices are reaching potentially a record average nationally.

  Amy, how do those two things live side by side politically in this country right now?

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Can I add a third thing?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes.

• Amy Walter:

  We are at a 40-year high with inflation.

  Every president, when gas prices have spiked during their administration, has felt that pressure, right? What can we do about this? Is there a short-term solution? There never is.

  But now, you're right, you put on top of it we're in the middle of this geopolitical crisis and we have inflation. That puts so much more pressure on the administration. And, finally, the other piece of this that is separate, but also important to remember, is you have an administration that came into office with a very aggressive climate policy.

  They wanted to reduce carbon emissions by 2050 to zero. There is a tremendous call among Republicans right now for rolling back those expectations and blaming the administration for some of its previous decisions, whether it was the Keystone XL pipeline or the decision by the administration to no longer allow leases on public lands.

  Now, we know that those two things alone when it suddenly have solved the gas problem. Gas wouldn't come flowing from those two places today. But it definitely raises the question for Democrats, who wanted to use the issue of climate change, of a global crisis on this, as something — as a positive thing to be able to talk about in upcoming campaigns.

  Now they're really on the defensive here, because to make the claim that we got to fix the climate, a lot of voters saying, I don't know, given the costs that are already coming to me.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  President Biden's under pressure to try and stop bringing in oil. But how does he reckon all of this?

• Tamara Keith:

  Right. And it's bipartisan pressure in Congress, at the same time that, when gas prices go up, Republicans are hitting him and blaming him.

  So it's a very difficult position to be in. The White House also appears to want to work with other global leaders. They have moved in lockstep on everything else. Now, this isn't sanctions. It doesn't require them to move in lockstep, but they are still trying to move with other European countries.

  And it is — the effort to stabilize global energy markets with a big huge question mark over Russia is sending them into the arms of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and potentially Iran, if Iran deal can be reached, and…

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Not good friends of America.

• Tamara Keith:

  Not typically great friends of America, certainly not recently, pariah states. Saudi Arabia is a somewhat different relationship. But, certainly, Iran and Venezuela are not great friends of the United States, and are not people who have been supplying oil to the United States.

  But it is — the effort to stabilize the global market is leading to all kinds of unusual things that you wouldn't expect.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  The former Attorney General Bill Barr has a book coming out tomorrow. You might have heard about it, oh, because he's done not just one, but two interviews on NBC News about it.

  And, in that, among the revelations in this book getting the largest headline is his recounting of his words to former President Trump while he was president as President Trump was pushing the idea of election fraud.

  Here is what he told Lester Holt, Attorney General Barr, what he told the president, President Trump.

• William Barr, Former U.S. Attorney General:

  And I told him that all this stuff was bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED) and — about election fraud, and it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  We're family program. I think everyone knows what that word was.

  Amy, what do you take from this for Republicans and for former President Trump, who's still trying to be viable as a candidate next time around?

• Amy Walter:

  You have many members of his Cabinet, former members of his Cabinet who have come out and since renounced either the president's actions during January 6, the president's actions, as Bill Barr did, leading up to this moment about the election fraud.

  Look, we have a party on the Republican — the Republican Party that is still very much Donald Trump's party. They still like Donald Trump. At the same time, there was a recent poll out, this was a FOX News poll, that showed only 68 percent of Republicans want him to run again.

  So I think what you have right now is a party that is not moving away necessarily from Donald Trump, but they would like to see something different.

  Bill Barr was also on "The Today Show" this morning. When asked, would he support Trump in 2024, he said, I'm going to support a different candidate. Well, what if that candidate doesn't win the nomination? He said, well, I would support Trump, which is the — this is where I think what you're seeing is that, that they're looking for somebody else, but not necessarily…

  (CROSSTALK)

• Tamara Keith:

  Yes.

  And this is truly the crux of it, that there are any number of Republicans who say, I wish it wasn't Trump, but if it is Trump, we will vote for Trump.

• Amy Walter:

  They have no choice.

• Tamara Keith:

  And that gives him incredible power.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Speaking of different candidates who are ready to serve, Governor DeSantis in Florida, where we see the Republican legislature pushing through more conservative bills on abortion, also a bill dealing with how sexuality is taught in schools.

  Opponents say that that's a bill that would make it so you couldn't even say if someone was gay or not.

  Tam, politically, what do you think is happening here? Is this just a flash in the pan? Or is this something more long term, a return to culture wars?

• Tamara Keith:

  One would argue that the culture wars never really went away.

  And DeSantis has — is very good at this. He is very good at picking up on these hot button issues, on these things that are discussed on the panels on FOX News, and that make Republicans angry. And anger is motivating. And what Republican voters in particular are particularly — are concerned about is that their way of life is changing, that the country that they knew is changing.

  And this sort of grievance politics, this, like, stick-it-to-the-liberals politics works incredibly well with the Republican base, which is why Governor DeSantis is the number two person behind Donald Trump in terms of people — in terms of potential candidates for 2024 among Republican voters.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yet not long ago, Florida was a purple state.

• Amy Walter:

  Well, this is what I wanted to get to.

  Part of the reason you're seeing — and it's not just in Florida. We have seen some of these anti-transgender bills make their way through some of the red states prohibiting those folks in sports, participating in sports.

  We have fewer legislatures now that are divided between Democrat and Republican. We have more, we call it trifecta control, right, the legislature, plus the governor of one party. When that happens, it looks a lot like what happens in Washington too.

  The legislatures used to be that place, remember, they were the — what did we call them? They're the place where things started, like the laboratory. And they would maybe move their way up to the federal government.

  What's happening now is, they are just as polarized as the federal government, where what you're going to see then is Democratic states, blue states pushing on their version of what the American culture should be, and red states pushing their version of what they think the American cultural identity should be.

  And you're not seeing much pushback, because you only have one party in control of those states. You have very little dissent.

• Tamara Keith:

  And what's national is local, and what's local is national, and it's all mixed together.

  And it's just a whole lot of outrage.

• Amy Walter:

  Right.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  And all of it will always get covered here on Politics Monday.

• Amy Walter:

  Very well done.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You do a lot in eight minutes, ladies.

  Thank you so much, Amy Walter, Tamara Keith.

• Tamara Keith:

  Thanks.