The supply solution is to import diesel from the Russian refineries the president said must not be struck, and the ally that objected to it has been advised to get a new president.

…(cont) On September thirteenth, at Doonbeg, the president identified the cause. Zelensky has to do one thing: stop knocking out the refineries. Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy, paid for at an American pump. It is a tight chain and it explains the record of September fourth, which was set before the explanation was offered, so the explanation covers the period going forward. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me. The outlet that reported the record booked the cause as the administration's war on Iran. The New York Post, filing from the other side of the aisle, booked the same cause in softer language.

September fourteenth, the president posts the result: Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, comma, likewise. Two agreements, one post, one comma. A comma can be read a number of ways.

September twenty-first, Truth Social: Russia has lost control of its own diesel industry, a large share of it knocked offline by the war Russia started. I read that as a diagnosis. It is a diagnosis. It is also, reading my own talking point back to myself, a description of the strikes working, which is not an endorsement of the strikes, which is — it is a diagnosis. Moving on.

October first, the Guardian reports Kyiv hit a refinery in the Samara region overnight. So the agreement held in one direction, which is one more direction than we get credit for.

October ninth. The president announces that he and President Putin have agreed on a deal, and the deal is that we import the diesel. I understand the optics. Since the thirteenth of September the position has been that the Russian refineries must not be struck because the American consumer pays for it, and we are now buying out of the industry we said had lost control, which is the same industry, which is precisely why — it is a supply solution. Supply is apolitical.

October tenth, the president blamed Kyiv for the price, lifted the Russian sanctions, and thanked President Putin by name at the campaign rally. Thanking a counterparty at a rally is called closing.

On the new-president remark I have one prepared sentence and I am going to read it: an ally that cannot accept an energy arrangement has a leadership problem. That is me talking. Nobody handed me that.

The other number, since you will ask. Moody's Analytics puts extra consumer energy spending at $121 billion, an average of $1,760 per household, in under eight months of a war launched in February without congressional authorization. Every Senate Democrat except Fetterman signed a letter asking Secretary Hegseth for a cost breakdown. A letter is not an audit.

We have a deal with the people who have the diesel, and the people who objected to the deal have been advised to get a new president.