sky high. as of 1:00 p.m. eastern time, crude was trading above $107 a barrel today. that s up nearly a dollar from yesterday. investors worried that a prolonged civil war in libya could keep the nation s oil off the market longer than expected. tell us how libya is affecting these prices. a couple days agovernment looked like the rebels were getting a stronghold in libya, turns out they are not. qaddafi s forces have pushed the the rebels back. trairsd are look and saying this thing is going to drag out. libya, 1.6 million barrels of oil has come down to a trickle. a lot of libyan oil goes to europe. that means europe has to find other means for their oil so their buying worldwide oil, making demand go up.
moammar qaddafi, those talks in the united kingdom. but i was at a huge rally today in mukstar square. and there were 5,000,,000 people jamming that square, at least that many people, all of them shouting the most harsh assessment of their former brand leader, qaddafi must go, qaddafi is a war criminal. arrest qaddafi. you know, qaddafi kills libyan children it goes on and on. by it seems to me almost inconceivable that the rebels would agree to any kind of reconciliation that left qaddafi in power. megyn: are you getting any reaction from the folks there?
get to know the rebels any better. if the main opposition has been the muslim brotherhood and that al-qaeda has been operating in the eastern part of libya, then they would seem to make up the strongest element of the rebels. does that mean they make up all the rebels? no, of course not. i m sure there are real democratic reformers in there as well. but they re in the best position to grab the weapons. megyn: you are sayingngthat the worst thing that can happen is if qaddafi stays entrenched in power. so if it s al-qaeda, we should be helping the rebels? no. the worst-case scenario for the united states is if qaddafi is entrenched in power, that dissipates american credibility because we ve put it on the line. what could happen that could be worse than that is if qaddafi falls and you get a regime in there that s worse than qaddafi.
we can t answer if it s 2%, 20% or 80%? even hillary clinton saying, we re getting to know them. as if we re on a blind date. megyn: why would we be bombing on their behalf? why would we be considering giving them arms? exactly. why would we start down this road without having at least some fundamental answers to these questions. we don t know how this operation will turn out. we don t know if qaddafi will be deposed or entrench himself in power, which would be the worst-case scenario. we know that over his 40-year regime that his main opposition has been the muslim brotherhood. megyn: but we must be making a calculation that we ll take them over him. he is so bad, we don t need to
megyn: big hour on capitol hill right now. top members of the obama administration expected to take some tough questions from democrats and republicans on this crisis in libya. what happened to qaddafi? who are the rebels that we re helping? will we give them weapons? what happens if we do take over? monica crowley, fox news contributor and radio host. harry reid, even, has said, don t go easy on them. we need answers. apparently they re not satisfied with the answers they got from the commander in chief on monday night. what happens to qaddafi? it s still not answered. we said we want him gone but won t take them out militarily and the messages have been conflicting. on monday night, the commander-in-chief made a murky