Biden says Putin ‘failed to divide us’ and caused gas hike

President Joe Biden said Thursday that the US was taking steps to ease what he called “Putin’s price hike at the pump” and said the country stood united against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Biden told supporters in a speech at the Democratic National Convention Winter Meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin miscalculated how much international resistance his invasion would face,

“Putin failed to divide us … Putin was counting on a divided NATO, a divided West and quite frankly a divided America — but he got none of that,” Biden told the cheering crowd at the Washington Hilton Hotel in DC.

“In fact, he’s now facing a more united, energized, resolute NATO and the West than he ever imagined,” Biden said.

“He’s failed to divide Democrats and Republicans, but we need to be honest with the American people; the battle for freedom has its cost here at home as well,” Biden said, referencing record gas prices amid disrupted global shipments.

CEOs of domestic oil companies had agreed to ramp up oil production to record levels by the end of the year, which was expected to mitigate the prices, Biden said.

“In this time of war, it’s not a time for profit. It’s time for reinvesting in America,” he said of the executives.

Without mentioning specifics, the Democrat told supporters the US needed to “act now to deal with this tyrant” before prices got worse.

The remarks came as the White House Thursday continued to maintain it had “no intention” of directly intervening in the two-week-old war. Two days earlier, the administration did an about-face after it said it would help provide Ukraine with fighter jets. High-ranking members of Congress on both sides of the aisle had criticized Biden’s refusal to facilitate the shipment of planes to Ukraine’s embattled air force.

The president also claimed “bankers on Wall Street” were impeding US oil production, and said the country needed to “get off fossil fuels.”

Most of Biden’s 23-minute stump speech was focused on touting his domestic agenda ahead of the midterm elections.