After leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines were reported off the coast of Denmark this week, Europe and the U.S. have been scrambling to address the issue while also trying to find who to blame. So far, most of the blame has been put on Russia.
But in the midst of people pointing fingers at Russia, another possibility emerged on Tuesday night’s installment of “Tucker Carlson Tonight:” perhaps President Joe Biden had something to do with the damaged pipelines.
“[I]f you were Vladimir Putin, you would have to be a suicidal moron to blow up your own energy pipeline. That’s the one thing you would never do,” Carlson said during the broadcast.
The Nord Stream pipelines carry gas from Russia to Europe through the Baltic Sea. Though neither pipeline was actively pumping gas, since Russia had cut off delivery to Europe, the underwater pipes were still filled with gas, NPR reported.
On Monday evening, officials from Germany and Denmark saw both pipelines suddenly lose significant pressure, which indicated large holes somewhere in the pipelines, NPR reported.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen then announced that officials suspected that these leaks may have been caused on purpose, the result of intentional sabotage.
“Denmark’s prime minister says it is ‘hard to imagine’ that the leaks detected on Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were “accidental,’” DW News tweeted.
Denmark’s prime minister says it is “hard to imagine” that the leaks detected on Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were “accidental.” pic.twitter.com/MSAxf7xq3X
— DW News (@dwnews) September 27, 2022
This suspicion seemed to be confirmed when Björn Lund, the director of the Swedish National Seismic Network told NPR that both the Swedish and Danish Seismic Networks picked up on possible explosions on Monday night.
Do you think Biden is behind the pipeline explosion?
“Preliminary estimates would say that this is at least equivalent to 100 kilograms of dynamite,” Lund said.
Those explosions appeared to be in the same areas where the leaks in the pipelines were found and there was no natural event that could explain what happened, Lund told NPR.
With this indication that these leaks seemed to come from purposeful sabotage, many immediately began to blame Russia, since Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy company, has a controlling interest in the pipelines, according to NPR.
Russia would also have reason to be unhappy with Europe, since it has pushed back against the war in Ukraine and sanctioned Russia, as the European Council outlined.
But Carlson offered a different explanation, pointing out that Russian President Vladimir Putin would probably not want to damage the very pipelines that gave him leverage in Europe and brought in a good deal of money.
“Natural gas pipelines are the main source of your power and your wealth and most critically, your leverage over other countries. Europe needs your energy now more than ever with winter approaching. If you can’t deliver that energy, then countries like Germany have no need to pay attention to what you want,” Carlson wrote. “You’re in the middle of a war, an all-hands-on-deck war, so you need all the leverage you can get. Under these circumstances, there is no chance you would blow up Nord Stream 1 or 2.”
Even Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that blowing up the pipelines would be “in no-one’s interest,” Reuters reported.
However, as Carlson pointed out, in the past, President Biden suggested taking the pipelines out to cripple Russia.
In February, Biden explicitly said that if Russia attacked Ukraine, he wanted to end Nord Stream 2.
“If Russia invades … again, then there will be longer the Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it,” Biden said in a press conference he held with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Reuters reported.
“I promise you we will be able to do it,” Biden added.
Carlson pointed out that these comments from Biden would seem to implicate him in the recent sabotage of the pipelines.
“Notice how he phrased it and he’s the president. He doesn’t phrase things by accident, particularly his reading off cards. He didn’t say, I will pause the delivery of gas from Russia to Germany. He said there won’t be a Nord Stream 2. We’ll put an end to it. We’ll take it out. We’ll blow it up,” Carlson paraphrased after showing the clip of the exchange.
Carlson did point out that it’s ironic that Biden would want to blow up the pipelines, seeing as it has created a serious problem for the environment, the very thing that Biden has said he wants to protect. The leak is sending millions of cubic meters of natural gas into the water, causing untold damage to marine life, Carlson reported. He labeled the event “one of the great environmental catastrophes of our time.”
“This is the president who has declared climate change the most pressing emergency in the history of the world. This is the man who lectures you about using a wood stove or driving an SUV because of its emissions. This is the guy who spent billions trying to mitigate cow flatulence because methane. Would that guy really blow up a methane pipeline in the middle of the Baltic Sea? It was hard to imagine,” Carlson wrote.
But Carlson is not the only person who is suspicious of Biden and his administration.
Poland’s former Defense Minister Radek Sikorski blamed the U.S. openly on Twitter, Forbes reported.
“Thank you, USA,” Sikorski tweeted.
Thank you, USA. pic.twitter.com/nALlYQ1Crb
— Radek Sikorski MEP (@radeksikorski) September 27, 2022
While there is no positive evidence, or even a really good reason, for Biden to have a hand in these pipeline shenanigans, Carlson did point out that at least it would be consistent with the principle of other actions.
“If they did this, this will be one of the craziest, most destructive things any American administration has ever done. But it would also be totally consistent with what they do. What do they do? They destroy. These people build nothing, not one thing. Instead, they tear down and they desecrate, from historic statues to the Constitution, to energy infrastructure, and no one in Congress is trying to stop any of it,” Carlson wrote.
However, there would also be massive consequences if the U.S. was indeed behind the pipeline sabotage.
“Blow up the Nord Stream pipelines? Okay, we’ve entered a new phase, one in which the United States is directly at war with the largest nuclear power in the world. It doesn’t mean we’ll go nuclear immediately, but it does suggest there could be consequences. If we actually blow up the Nord Stream pipelines, why wouldn’t Russia sever undersea internet cables?” Carlson questioned.
As Carlson noted, while Biden and his administration may have been thinking this would be a good way to punish Russia, the consequences could send the U.S. and the developed world into a tailspin.
“We can have an actual collapse. We could wind up very quickly in Third-World conditions. Those are the stakes,” Carlson wrote.
