Wall Street is ‘funding’ Russia’s war machine: Hedge fund manager

Biden needs to ‘cut off' and sanction Putin in economic war, Kyle Bass said

Hayman Capital Management founder and CIO Kyle Bass joined "Mornings with Maria," Wednesday and warned that Wall Street is "funding" Russia’s war machine. He also suggested that the Biden administration "needs to get serious" about sanctioning Vladimir Putin during his invasion of Ukraine. 

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KYLE BASS: When you look at what we've done so far, we've sanctioned some oligarchs… we're running down their jets and their yachts, they're very upset. We're sanctioning some banks in Russia, but Europe hasn't followed through on those sanctions either, and if we don't sanction Putin's energy business… he makes $800 million a day exporting crude. The blood flow to Putin's tumor, the global capital that flows into Putin's war machine and funding his war machine, happens on a daily basis. We are too afraid of taking 8 million barrels a day, or some fraction of the 8 million off the global markets… look, crude oil will go up $50 to $100 a barrel if we were to take the full 8 million off. 

vladimir putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a flag raising ceremony via a video link at a state residence outside Moscow. (ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Every $50 on crude means about one and a half percent to US GDP… yes, it's a difficult decision, but yes, it has to be done, in my opinion. If we aren't going to send troops in to help Zelenskyy avoid the massacre of his people, then we're going to be fighting an economic war. If we're going to fight the economic war, we actually have to fight it. We have to cut off the money to Putin, and we have to be willing to secondarily sanction anyone that does business with the entities and individuals that we primarily sanction. Until now, we've just pressed the easy buttons, and we continue to watch this massacre. We need to get serious about this. 

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