Video: Cramer Jabs At Heitkamp Over Oil Export Ban And Iran Vote
Varney noted that legislation to lift the oil export ban – something of immense economic importance to North DAkota – was pretty much on rails in the House, but then questioned Cramer about the status of the legislation the Senate.
“In the Senate they play a different game,” Cramer said. “Too many energy state Democrats gave away their Iran votes for free. So now Democrats are trying to extract things from us.”
[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]”Too many energy state Democrats gave away their Iran votes for free.”[/mks_pullquote]
Heitkamp, of course, was one energy state Democrat who voted for the Iran deal. Now she’s busy trying to get traction among Democrats for her own legislation to lift the ban. Previously Heitkamp had co-sponsored legislation introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, but switched support to her own bill ostensibly so that it would be easier for Democrats to sign on for it.
So far, that’s not going swimmingly. When the Senate Banking Committee voted to advance Heitkamp’s legislation, she was the only Democrat on the committee voting for it. And while Heitkamp has been making noises about getting Democrats on board, with Obama threatening a veto of the legislation it’s not to see lifting the ban as a longshot right now.
Cramer’s point, then, is that Heitkamp should have used the leverage she had as a key vote on the Iran deal to get the Obama administration to play ball on lifting the ban.
Meanwhile, Cramer now wants to use the Trans Pacific Partnership deal as leverage. “I think it’s time to play a little hard ball back,” he said. “If the President wants TPP we shouldn’t just give it to him.”
“Oil ought to be part of the discussion,” Cramer continued.
