Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued during an interview this week on CNN that “all-time high” energy production happened despite President Biden’s policies, not because of them.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN: Well, as a former businessman, I wonder, do you get calls from old friends and acquaintances asking for help with the President? INTERIOR SECRETARY DOUG BURGUM: Well, absolutely, I think that we — as someone who’s been involved in business my whole life, we’re hearing from a lot of different sectors. And of course, every sector depends on energy. President Trump has wisely kept energy out of all of these tariff discussions, because he knows that both, for us to be able to sell energy to our friends and allies, stop our adversaries from funding those wars against us, whether it’s Russia funding their war against Ukraine, or whether it’s Iran funding 24 terror groups, all of them doing that because the Biden administration was like, We’re going to shut down U.S. energy, we’re going to buy our energy from our adversaries. That was a policy that is, you know — any country that does not secure, have their own energy security, has no national security. President Trump is putting us back on a path, where part of the core affordability of any industry is we’ve got to have low-cost energy in this country, and one way you do that is increase supply. And whether it’s minerals, whether it’s electricity, whether it’s liquid fuels, we’re on the path right now. And what has been accomplished in the first 100 days permitting, taking two-year permitting, bringing it down to one month, bringing back base load electricity in this country. KAITLAN COLLINS: Yes, we did see oil production at an all-time high, under President Biden. He didn’t tout it that often. But Secretary Burgum– DOUG BURGUM: Well, he did because of the permitting that happened under President Trump. I mean, all-time record oil production under Biden was because of Trump. It was in spite of Biden. I was running a state that was a natural resources state, and we were fighting the federal government. The federal government wasn’t even holding the legally required lease sales during the Biden administration. The first president since Harry Truman was Biden that didn’t hold those lease sales. So for them to take credit, that was all because– KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, they didn’t take credit, because it wasn’t very popular with their voters. DOUG BURGUM: Well affordable electricity is popular with everyone, and America needs to make sure we don’t lose the thing. I mean, take a look what’s happening in Europe right now, with this 60 million people in a brownout, blackout. We came very close to that happening in America because we’ve — the Biden administration policy so dangerously eroded base load in favor of having unreliable, intermittent sources. And so, we’re just fortunate that we’re not where Europe is right now, and we don’t want to go there. Germany spent a half a trillion dollars to go chase a green path and they ended up with electricity that cost three times as much, and they’re producing 20 percent less.