Right-wing MAGA Pastor Lance Wallnau went on a rant against climate activists, claiming that they are controlled by “demons”.
“The environmentalists are crazy. They are more fanatical than al Qaeda. In Europe, they're the reason why Germany is dependent on Russia for its energy because they shut down energy,” he said on his show Flash Point this week, without providing evidence for his outlandish claims.
“We had full spectrum energy dominance under Donald Trump. The first thing Biden did is he shut it down,” he added. “We’ve got the ability to have our own gas and oil from Pennsylvania, to Texas to Alaska, but we're going with our hat in our hand to Saudi Arabia to ask for help, because the environmentalist people are crazy. They're under the control of demons. I'm telling you, and Biden and these politicians are under the control of them.”
The pastor was quickly slammed for his comments, an excerpt of which was tweeted by watchdog Right Wing Watch.
“These people seriously need help. If they think the people who care about the earth are worse than Al Qaeda, they need to take a good look in the mirror, because it’s likely themselves who are under demonic possession,” one Twitter user said.
“Dude... if you actually BELIEVED any of the bulls**t you sell the ignorant masses, you’d be totally fucked ‘cause Jesus has a very special place in hell for people who actively work to harm God’s planet and his creatures on it,” Paul Kowal tweeted.
“This is just hate speech. He does not know what he’s talking about, and there is nothing spiritual in what he is saying,” Michael Battle added.
In 2020, Russia supplied more than half of Germany’s natural gas and around a third of its oil. Around half of the country’s coal came from Russia, according to Reuters.
“Some blame a ... misjudgment stretching back 50 years, based on a fallacy that authoritarian countries can be transformed through trade,” The Guardian reported last month.
“Following the 1973 oil crisis, [German Chancellor Helmut] Schmidt became convinced that the Soviet Union represented a more reliable supplier of energy for Germany than the Gulf states,” reporter Patrick Wintour wrote.
The US is the top oil producer in the world, followed by Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Mr Biden told The Jerusalem Post that his trip to Saudi Arabia is about “stability in the Middle East. It is overwhelmingly in the interest of the US to have stability in the Middle East, and the interest of Israel and the US is for Israel to be more integrated in the Middle East”.
During his visit to Israel, Prime Minister Yair Lapid asked Mr Biden to deliver a message on behalf of Israel to the Arab leaders he’ll meet with in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: “Our hand is outstretched for peace.”
“Your visit to Saudi Arabia is important for Israel and for the region,” Mr Lapid added. “For our security and for the future prosperity of the Middle East.”
The president will visit Saudi Arabia after calling the kingdom a “pariah” nation as a presidential candidate and releasing a US intelligence finding last year that showed the kingdom’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, likely approved the 2018 killing of writer and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Mr Biden declined to commit to mentioning Mr Khashoggi’s murder when he meets with the crown prince.
“I always bring up human rights,” Mr Biden said at a news conference. “But my position on Khashoggi has been so clear. If anyone doesn’t understand it, in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, then they haven’t been around for a while.”
Mr Biden has previously called the plot to kill Mr Khashoggi “outrageous”.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
