Trump: High Gas a 'Very Inexpensive Price'
Trump: High Gas a 'Very Inexpensive Price'
The News
President Trump told supporters at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday that surging gasoline prices are "a very inexpensive price to pay" for the U.S. war in Iran.
"It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that. It's a little more," Trump said, according to The Hill.
The national average hit $4.44 a gallon on Thursday, Newsweek reported — in line with analysts who predicted a spike this week, and against Trump's repeated claims that prices will "come tumbling down" soon.
The Numbers
Newsweek put the Thursday national average at $4.44 per gallon and mapped the states running above it. Cleveland.com reported that gas prices across the country have skyrocketed since Trump launched the war in Iran six months ago.
Timeline
Trump launches the war in Iran; gas and diesel prices begin climbing, according to Cleveland.com and Media Matters.
HuffPost reports that CNN's Harry Enten flagged a "killer" trend under Trump that could haunt Republicans in the midterms, calling it "a really, really large jump."
Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume says food and gas prices are "plaguing" Trump and "just killing this administration," per Mediaite.
At a rally in battleground North Carolina, Trump calls the higher pump prices "a very inexpensive price to pay."
The national average reaches $4.44 a gallon. The New York Post reports "I did that" stickers faulting Trump are appearing on pumps across the country.
Reactions
Hume, one of Fox News' most senior voices, rattled off what Mediaite called damning numbers on food and gasoline and said the prices are "plaguing" the president and "just killing this administration."
Media Matters, which tracks conservative outlets, wrote that right-wing media figures have tried to "downplay, dismiss, and deflect" from the pain at the pump, repeatedly promising elevated prices would be temporary and even predicting dates by which they would fall back to prewar levels.
Voters are answering with adhesive. The New York Post reported that Trump's detractors have slapped decals blaming him for high gas prices on pumps across the country as the war with Iran grinds on — the same treatment Joe Biden got four years ago. The stickers show Trump pointing at the price window.
Cleveland.com and PennLive summed up the gap between the president and the public in their headline: Trump calls gas a "very inexpensive" price to pay; Americans say otherwise.
What's Next
Analysts quoted by Newsweek expected prices to keep spiking this week, which makes the next round of pump averages the immediate test of Trump's prediction that costs will come "tumbling down."
The political test comes later: Enten's warning, as reported by HuffPost, is that the jump in prices under Trump could follow Republicans into the midterm elections.
More
The cluster's sources span the spectrum — Media Matters and HuffPost on the left, The Hill and Mediaite in the center, Newsweek and the New York Post on the right — and all of them describe the same thing: prices up, and the president telling voters to absorb it.
Poll
Are higher gas prices "a very inexpensive price to pay" for the Iran war?
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