BUCK: Clay, there’s something else that I think is interesting right now, and that is when it comes to the economy, people are starting to figure out, “Hey, hold a second!” When they said it was gonna be temporary inflation or a temporary worker shortage, what they mean by “temporary.”

Well, when we talk about oil and gas prices going up, they said it was just a cyclical thing that’s no big deal. But I think people are starting to figure out that they’ve got bigger problems here. Jen Psaki telling everybody, “Oh, I don’t want to actually get more oil out there.”

PSAKI: That wasn’t an ask we made. The point we have made in these — these communications is that we do have the… we’re not making a supply question here, or we’re not posing a supply question domestically. Obviously, OPEC has its own unique role on the global marketplace. We do also think that there should not be any price gouging at the pump when there is available oil. So that is what we are highlighting and marking out there.

BUCK: Price gouging at the pump. I don’t think Jen Psaki understands supply and demand.

CLAY: We were energy independent, Buck. For generations we have talked about not wanting to relying on OPEC and all the sudden Saudi Arabian oil producers and being able to create our own energy independence. And we were there. We were there, Buck. We had drilled, baby, drilled to the point where the United States, for the first time in most of our lives, was 100% energy independent.

BUCK: Have you seen the most recent data as well? First of all, inflation is real, it is here, it is growing, it’s going to get worse. No one wants to say it because it turns into a confidence game. “Oh, no, it’s not gonna be that bad.” You hope that that somehow will make the economy continue to function better and, right, this all turns into a fear versus greed situation.

But there were stats out today. I can find the exact numbers, but something like used cars are up 40% in cost. Oil, the price of gas per gallon, huge increases. Remember over Fourth of July, Clay, where they said that you were saving about four pennies on your barbecue or your beer — or your boozy Mountain Dew in your case?

CLAY: I gotta try that. I gotta try the boozy Mountain Dew. But, yes, this is a real drain. And this is where real people, right, who are driving around in their car looking at gas prices and recognizing how much they are surging. And it is a direct hit on the pocketbooks of the American consumer. This is where inflation becomes a default tax increase.

And this is also why I think the analogy of Joe Biden as Jimmy Carter 2.0 has some cogence for a lot of people out there because inflation the last time it ran roughshod over the American economy who was the president? Jimmy Carter. And I think we are in danger of going right back there all over again.