Dr. Judy Shelton Breaks Down Rising U.S. Gas Prices with Bill O'Reilly

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Joining us now from Washington is Dr. Judy Shelton, the former economic adviser to Donald Trump in his first term. She's a senior fellow at the Independent Institute.

[00:00:12]So, um, putting politics aside and just getting into the effectiveness of the Iranian war, you'd have to say it's undefined right now, doctor, or would I be wrong?

[00:00:27]No, it's it's somewhat undefined. It in some aspects you could claim a certain amount of of victory, but we see things heating up today and our markets are responding to that. The price of oil is responding to that. So um nothing has been decided in the end >> and that is uh angering a lot of non ideological voters. people who aren't committed to the MAGO are not committed to the liberal progressive side because they walk out every day and got to pay more money to the essentials of life and so they're going to take it out on the administration or is there a way they wouldn't take it out on the administration?

[00:01:13]>> Well, part of it as as you brought up is the way those polls are worded. If you ask people if they think it would be a good thing to take away the power from Iran to threaten us with with nuclear weapons, they would be very much in favor of that. That's that's popular in a broad in a broad way. But but it's true uh people don't like to see the price of gasoline go up and they do respond to that. I probably am in that group of of mega supporters who thinks that um this is all going to work out. I applaud the president for showing leadership. Uh no one said it would be easy, which is why other presidents haven't attempted to confront Iran. I think we're well situated as far as being oil producers ourselves, largely thanks to things that were done under the Trump administration. And I think the price of oil will come down once it's resolved. And um meanwhile, companies are doing well. Consumer demand is good. People are getting refunds from their taxes. So there's all kinds of indications that we'll be we'll be doing well once we get through it.

[00:02:25]But um some people are less inclined to uh get through it and there's a lot of murmuring going on now.

[00:02:32]>> Okay. But you say that uh it was uh not in the beginning defined that it would be uh this difficult. President Trump made some statements that said, "Hey, we're going to wax him pretty hard and it's not going to be a long situation."

[00:02:50]So he raised the expectations of victory in Iran and now it's coming back to haunt him. Or am I wrong?

[00:02:59]>> Well, expectations were high. Um, no doubt because it looks so easy in Venezuela. Not only not only need and minimal loss of life, but the people of Venezuela were grateful and we're saying thank you for getting rid of this guy and now oil revenues are going to start to flow to those citizens and it helps us and it helps Venezuela.

[00:03:25]So, it wasn't so easy in Iran. We're dealing with a much more entrenched power. Um I think more ideologically driven, maybe somewhat irrational as far as when we try to put together military strategy. And they have these little mosquito boats as you say, where we take them out, but they're also attacking, for example, what used to be their own allies in the region, the United Arab Emirates. So they're they're taking it out on their allies and maybe that's we weren't expecting. So now we're going to have to help the allies and all of that is dragging us in and making the whole thing take a lot longer and the more the potential for action by our Navy. Uh the more potential for expenses if we're trying to somehow ensure the safe passage of cargo ships to the trade war boost. between all of those risks, treasure, life itself, um, were paying a higher price than I think people had been.

[00:04:31]>> Yeah. And I think that the president also uh I don't think he was misled. I It's just the way war is, the fog of war.

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[00:05:41]Feel confident in your Medicare coverage. Final question. You are an economic advisor to Donald Trump. I get hundreds of letters saying, "Look, America is self-sufficient in energy, oil, got plenty of it here.

[00:05:58]Why why are gasoline prices going up a buck and a half at the uh at the pump?

[00:06:04]If we have all this oil here in the boundaries of our country, why are they going up so much? How do you answer that?

[00:06:14]>> Well, it's it is a global market. Yes, we're the largest supplier, but but the price is pretty much governed by global demand. And so even our biggest producers are in competition with the other major producers in the world. And um and they even respond when the price goes up then they tend to produce more.

[00:06:38]It's not like we're like OPEC but our own producers do respond to price signals that are generated by by demand.

[00:06:46]Yeah, we don't have any oil shortages here, but we have higher prices and we shouldn't have higher prices if we have enough oil to service our population.

[00:06:59]Whereas places like China don't. They have to import all their oil. We don't have to import any of our oil. So, people are starting to say, you know, the American oil company's taking advantage of the situation. And I'm kind of in that group. Last word.

[00:07:16]Well, I I guess we could be the way the old Soviet Union was and say we're totally self-sufficient and we don't want to trade with the rest of the world and we just kind of close up shop. And then in economics, you're called anarchctic country, so you don't need to to trade.

[00:07:36]But the US has never been that way. Uh we've been hurt by globalization in many respects, but we're still pretty much um we have an attitude of it's it's an open global market and I think when it comes to energy, those forces are still going to dominate. I don't think we could ask our producers to only produce for the United States.

[00:07:58]>> All right, doctor. Thanks very much. We appreciate it and I hope we can talk again soon.