this is not about ideology this is not
great power competition this is about
science and what the science is telling
us
climate change is about survival of the
planet every nation has a stake in the
outcome of the climate issue
that of course is john kerry president
biden's climate czar the man responsible
for
saving the planet now in that role it's
likely he'll maintain a pretty
significant influence over u.s energy
and environmental policy the new report
details
kerry's previous business ties to a
number of firms in the
environmental energy space following his
time as secretary of state
including consulting fees for the rise
fund a firm with a significant renewable
energy portfolio joining me now to
discuss this is former deputy security
advisor
national security adviser casey
mcfarland casey thanks for joining us
oh thanks jerry you know i'm going to
tell you this stinks to hi
kevin as the senior official of the
biden administration
john kerry should have to abide by the
white house
got ethics guidelines and you know
his argument is well he's complied he
stole the investments that he had
in it and or is going to in a timely
fashion
the problem is he's already made the
money you know by this huge
infrastructure bill
the stocks in all these companies have
already gone up
so by selling them after three months
six months eight months to comply
he's already made his fortune so you
know i think it just stinks to high
heaven i can tell you when i was a
member of the trump administration
we had to divest everything we could
only invest in government bonds
treasury bonds or in government approved
blind trust um so i think that
somebody's giving him a ride
yeah exactly the rules are aren't they
meant to be pretty clear that
these these divestitures are required
you know john kerry is a very wealthy
man and it's hard to imagine
that anything that anything that he does
everything that he does
uh as in his role as climate czar is
going to have some impact
positive or negative on on energy
companies particularly group positive on
green energy companies and
it's extraordinary as you say that even
if even if you want to divest now
that he's had these uh investments and
that he's had them at a time when
they they've already benefited from from
a lot of what the president's been
proposing
yeah and it's actually even worse than
this because he used to own
enter he used to own stocks and oil and
gas companies he stole
those he's built those in a very fashion
before those
went down look the whole thing is it's
up to the government ethics department
and they have a lot of discretion on
what they
say well this is allowed this isn't
allowed and for john kerry to say well
i'll recuse myself
they're going to spend six trillion
dollars yeah and she said there's very
little you can be invested in that isn't
going to somehow
benefit from this windfall
and you you mentioned his investment in
oil companies as you said it's
interesting it's a kind of
it's like he's been practicing a form of
arbitrage isn't it by
by selling by selling his oil stocks
while maintaining his green energy
stocks and then
his green energy investments rather and
then coming along uh
and you know recommending presumably to
the president a whole series of policies
that will favor
green energy and disfavor oil yeah he's
played both sides but the interesting
thing is the ones he's
divested himself of are the oil and
natural gas the ones he apparently is
still holding on to are the green energy
jobs so he not only is he doing
arbitrage but he's doing it pretty
successfully
and he's you know he's not automatically
unethically but
yeah i mean he's supposedly signing an
ethics pledge
to say that he won't participate in any
decisions but but that's
well we know that's not enough don't we
yeah of course it's not enough
and and you know six trillion dollars
there's an awful lot of money that's
going to go into a lot of different
places
and the other thing is he apparently is
has been allowed to keep his own
personal
um his own personal brag trust um
i know within the trump administration
people who have blind trust
even if they met all the requirements
the government ethics office says no no
no that's not good enough you have to
divest yourself of everything
look the other thing that makes me
obsessed though and this is something
that steve ratner
who was in the obama administration a
very successful multi-millionaire
investor
in the obama administration he's a
far-left guy
he was in charge of the government
bailouts of the automobile industries
where he was on
a news show yesterday morning and he
said what bothers him
about all the spending it's not just the
inflation
it's not just the deficit but government
how are they going to execute this
they've got to start to start from
scratch and they're going to spend six
trillion
dollars there's an opportunity not just
for john kerry making
some money on the side but a huge um
they won't be able to execute it and
there'll be an awful lot of money that's
wasted
and and in fraud and in every other way
and you know they're charging the
american people
every man woman and child in america is
going to have to pay 1500
per year for their government for their
green energy proposals
that's an awful lot of money katie it's
a good point because
you in these circumstances you can't
really get the money out the door fast
enough can you there's
uh there just aren't the investment
opportunities to spend that kind of
money efficiently so
anyway i do i wonder if um if john kerry
uh you know he does a lot of flying
around in private jets i don't know if
he's got any investments
any investments in any private private
jet companies but i'm but but
perhaps we should see whether he's going
to keep those as well katie mcfarland
thanks very much for joining us
thanks jerry very much