The energy crisis that may be coming for the U.S.

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of Matlab and Simulink software to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. It's such a, you know, as they would say in soccer terms, an own goal on the part of the U.S. here. The president, in advance of the midterm elections, has spiked the main price that all of America sees on a daily basis, you know, gas. The Iran war oil crisis is coming for the U.S.

0:52It's Thursday, April 2nd. This is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBWR. I'm Chris Bentley.

1:01A little later on the show, we'll hear about the handpicked panel reviewing President Trump's ideas for a new White House ballroom, even though construction was put on hold by a federal judge. Before we get to that story, though, almost five weeks into his war with Iran, President Trump gave his first speech to the nation intended to explain what the U.S. and Israel are trying to achieve with the war they launched and how much longer it might last. But Trump did not commit to a timeline, and instead vowed to continue attacking civilian infrastructure. He even threatened to bomb Iran, quote, back to the Stone Age.

1:39Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy. And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally. They're going to want to be able to... Despite the president's suggestion that his military objectives would be met, quote, very shortly, traders are pricing in a longer-term blow to the global economy. The price of oil is up and the stock market is down. Some economists are even starting to compare the global economic shock to what happened at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Rana Faruhar has been looking into this for the Financial Times, and she tells Scott Tong, it's not like COVID yet.

2:23I don't think that you're going to see it happen quite as quickly as you did during that COVID shock when we were all locked down. But for sure, we're seeing, you know, the highest consumer stress readings that we have in a few years. You know, those readings are based on food at home prices, mortgage rates, gas prices that are rising to their highest levels in several years. And we are going to see disruptions. I mean, this is the thing. You know, markets hate an oil shock. It's just it's the worst because oil, even though it's a global market, it's it's it's very fragmented. You know, you're seeing really already supply shortages in Asia.

3:02Those are going to be coming to Europe in the next few weeks. Markets hate this because markets get, you know, 40 percent of their revenue, the big U.S. companies from overseas. So, you know, they're already starting to feel the shock and they're going to be, I think, slowing down any hiring that was planned. Yeah, well, at the center of a lot of these fears is this fancy phrase, demand destruction, that if energy prices go high enough, will people stop doing things? Is this a sequence that is first at the household level, me, the driver, I stop eating out, and then I don't buy a home, and then businesses stop investing, they stop hiring people, jobs go down.

3:39Is that the idea here? That's the idea. And I think most people have already had a felt experience of that. You know, I was out getting my hair cut the other day and my hairdresser said, you know, things are slowing down. Restaurants say things are slowing down. You start to feel it first with small businesses, main street, local shops, and then you start to feel it with larger businesses, global businesses. And yeah, I do think that that's what's happening. Yeah. Now, the president last night suggested the U.S. is immune to this, that the U.S. produces more oil than any other country. Let's take a listen.

4:09We're in great shape for the future. The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormo Strait and won't be taking any in the future. We don't need it. We haven't needed it, and we don't need it. So we don't need it, Ronna. I'm paying 408 for gas. What's going on here? Well, you just named it. I mean, you know, this is the thing. It's such a, you know, as they would say in soccer terms, an own goal on the part of the U.S. here. that we have, the president in advance of the midterm elections has spiked the price of the main price that all of America sees on a daily basis right in front of them.

4:52You know, gas, that's what we see. And yes, it is going up because oil is a global market. Is the U.S. more insulated than Europe and Asia? Yes, it is. Are we still going to feel the price is going up? Yes, we are. Yeah, right. And interestingly, in the business pages, in the Financial Times, There's talk that the bond market, and I don't want to get into the specifics, but that last few days has been pricing and not inflation, but recession. But I guess I want to ask about important things you're watching that could happen next. You mentioned Asia. Already buyers of oil are fighting over scarce supplies.

5:26If we get into these bidding wars, if we see a kind of energy hunger games, what happens then? God, energy hunger games. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Well, what it makes me think is that there are a lot of things when we talk about oil that you don't think about. Let's talk about ships for a minute. The U.S. has about 190 or so ocean-going vessels. China has 5 ,500. You know, if China wanted to do some interesting things in shipping lanes and, you know, maritime security, it could. I could keep going on. But boy, you know, there's shrapnel everywhere. Economic shrapnel, not just real shrapnel.

6:06It's going to continue. Rana Faroohar, associate editor at the Financial Times, that we would end on something positive. Rana, thank you as always. Not today.

6:20Happy endings are overrated anyway, huh? Lots more to follow on that story. but also in his speech last night, Trump complained about a federal judge blocking construction on the giant ballroom he's trying to build at the White House. He mocked the anti-Trump, no-kings protests and joked, I'm such a king, I can't get a ballroom. Coming up next, what is going on with that ballroom anyway?

7:00This Earth Day, a one-and-a-kind adventure begins. From WBUR, the creators of Circle Round and Endless Thread. Do you prefer your fruit hot or not? Comes a new interactive story. A hundred years into our flooded future, the Midnight Rebellion is coming. April 22nd, wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from Warby Parker. Prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Glasses designed in-house from premium materials starting at just$95, including prescription lenses. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. The President's Ballroom Project went before a federal planning agency today, after a federal judge ordered the White House to stop construction.

7:52That federal planning agency, the National Capital Planning Commission, is led by Trump's former personal attorney. Earlier today, Scott Tong talked to Dan Diamond of the Washington Post about the ongoing saga. Today's meeting is being held by the National Capital Planning Commission. What is this commission? What authority does it have over this project? The commission focuses on urban planning around Washington, D.C. So they work on big projects, small projects, all manner of projects related to building here in the city. And the ballroom has fallen under its purview because the White House is part of the federal land here.

8:30And the White House has historically been reviewed by this commission. The big difference, as you alluded to in your introduction, the folks on the committee are now majority folks who are Trump allies, including people who don't have the normal credentials you would see on this commission. Hmm. So that is happening. May vote to approve. But here's the thing. Tuesday, we know a federal judge halted this project temporarily, said the president can only pursue it with congressional authority, which he does not yet have. How does all this fit together for what comes next? Well, the judge's ruling will take priority, but the Trump administration immediately appealed it.

9:08And we expect, my colleague and I, Jonathan Edwards, who have been covering this for some months, we expect this to go potentially all the way to the Supreme Court. The White House isn't giving up, and the critics, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, aren't either. So the judge's order said, essentially, the White House can still do construction related to national security. They can finish this underground work, it seems, that the president has said is very important to the military. But this large ballroom that he very much wants to build, that would appear to be on ice unless Congress authorizes the project or a different judge comes to a different conclusion.

9:42And Dan, just to back up a little bit, what do we know about the design plan here of this new ballroom? Well, Scott, we know less than we probably should. The ballroom project was only announced last year. The designs were only first made available some months ago. And normally for a project of this scope and size, it would go through months or even years of public debate and comment. That's part of the issue why today's hearing by the National Capital Planning Commission is being so closely scrutinized, that they're going to vote to approve almost certainly this big project where the final designs aren't yet apparent.

10:16But we know that it will be about twice the size of the executive mansion. The White House mansion is 55 ,000 square feet. The ballroom is going to be about 90 ,000 square feet. There's an expectation that it would seat 1 ,000 people, if not more. There will be offices for the First Lady. There will be this military complex underneath. There are lots of questions that still haven't been answered about the design and what it will be. Yeah, and what feedback has this design received so far from independent architects, designers, from the public? I understand some 30 ,000 people weighed in with public comments on this.

10:53The Washington Post did an analysis of those 35 ,000 public comments. We found that at least 97 % were against the project. The polling overall hasn't been quite that bad, but it's been pretty bad for the Trump administration. I've seen polls that about 60 % of people are opposed to the president's renovations of the White House and specifically the ballroom project. The idea is also politically not very popular here, Scott. I did a story with my colleague Jonathan on will Congress authorize the ballroom, and many Republicans just don't want to talk about it. It's polling so poorly. It is seen as a pet project of the president that it just does not feel like a priority politically for anyone but Donald Trump.

11:34Yeah. Dan, you're reporting today in The Washington Post that the White House reportedly influenced this commission, which softened its language describing the project or describing the process here. Tell me about that. Well, Scott, we've seen this across the government this past year where President Trump and his allies have taken these formerly independent commissions and put deputies of the president on these commissions, have told these commissions what to do. Historically, the National Capital Planning Commission would have these experts in urban planning. They might serve under a couple different presidents.

12:08President Trump got rid of the Biden appointees, put his staff secretary, Will Scharf, his top legislative aide, James Blair, some other folks on the committee now who are Trump allies. And there are people on this committee who appear to be not just directing what they want the committee to do, but in the case that Jonathan and I, in our story today, gave direction on an FAQ that went up on the website about what role the committee or the commission has over the White House. made it softer. So I think it's in keeping with what we've seen across the government where a theoretically independent commission is very much acting at the desire of the White House.

12:46Dan Diamond is White House reporter for The Washington Post. Dan, thanks very much. Thank you, Scott.

12:56We've got to take one more short break, but we'll be back in one minute.

13:08President Trump wants to deny citizenship to some kids born in the U.S. if their parents are not citizens too. This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in that case. A decision is expected in a few months. Trump himself attended the proceedings, a first for a sitting president, in case there was any doubt as to how much he's invested in this particular executive order. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution from 1868 says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. But the Trump administration has criticized what it calls birth tourism.

13:52Here's Solicitor General John Sauer yesterday in an exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts. We're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out to, where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who's a U.S. citizen. Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution. Well, the ACLU is one of the groups suing the government to stop the executive order. And its executive director, Anthony Romero, told us that that supposedly new world that John Sauer and Justice Alito were talking about is not all that new. There may not have been plane loads of individuals coming, but there were boatloads, literally, of immigrants coming to our shores.

14:31And I think there was a very notable colloquy between my colleague Cecilia Wong, the National Legal Director of the ACLU, and Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch, where she talked about the historical record at the time of the 14th Amendment, where clearly members of Congress were debating whether or not a burgeoning immigrant population needed to be capped by denying birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. And at that time, it was largely immigrants from Ireland and other countries. And the individuals, the legislatures, and the senators, rather, who debated birthright citizenship knew exactly what they were doing and making sure that they enshrined birthright citizenship as a right that could not be tinkered with, could not be watered down, could not be relegated by subsequent presidents or the executive branch.

15:30And I thought that colloquy was very instructive. And that's where I think we even might grab a person like Alito or Thomas in that process. We also spoke with someone who says Trump is right to want to revoke the Constitution's universal guarantee of birthright citizenship. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies. There's lots more to both of those conversations. If you want to hear them all, head over to hereandnow.org.

16:00But that'll do it for the show today. Here and Now Anytime comes from NPR and WBUR Boston. Today's stories were produced by Julia Corcoran, Wilder Fleming, Hafsa Qureshi, and Jill Ryan. Our editors were Todd Bunt, Mikaela Rodriguez, Michael Scotto, and Kat Welch. technical direction from Caleb Green and Matt Reed. Our theme music is by Mike Moschetto, Max Liebman, and me, Chris Bentley. Our digital producers are Alison Hagen and Grace Griffin. And here at now's executive producer is Alan Bryce. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you tomorrow.

16:45Thank you.