How important is the rising cost of gas to White House officials? It depends who you ask.
At a Friday afternoon rally at a police academy in Garden City, New York, President Donald Trump told the crowd the cost of gas — which currently averages more than $4 a gallon, according to AAA — was “OK” and not something he would apologize for.
“For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a [nuclear weapon],” Trump told the crowd at the Nassau County Police Academy Center for Training and Intelligence. “So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4. It’s OK.”
“I’ll never apologize,” the president continued. “I did the right thing.”
The remarks came as a stark reversal from Vice President JD Vance’s own comments on Fox News just one day earlier, when he said reducing the cost of oil and gas was “goal number one” for the Trump administration.
“That’s goal number one, keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country,” Vance told Fox News, adding that the second goal “is [to] ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.”
The president has repeatedly dismissed the rising cost of gas prices, calling the uptick “a very small price to pay” to ensure American military success in Iran.
But polling and voter surveys suggest gas prices are a big concern across party lines, including members of the MAGA base. A Politico poll of more than 2,000 adults conducted last month found that a majority of voters overall — and a majority of self-described MAGA voters — blame the war in Iran for rising gas prices. One in five Trump voters also said gas prices were rising more under Trump than they would have under a Democratic president.
As MS NOW first reported Thursday, gas prices and affordability were also top concerns among nearly 10,000 Democratic voters whom Democratic National Committee volunteers spoke to over the first half of the year as part of an effort to learn how to motivate “infrequent voters” to return to the polls this November.
Oil and gas prices have steadily increased since the start of the U.S. war in Iran at the end of February, driven largely by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. At his speech Friday, Trump also said he would soon “be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”
White House officials had previewed Friday’s speech at the police academy as focusing on “law and order.” While Trump did address crime and policing, he also spoke about the midterms and Republican Bruce Blakeman’s gubernatorial challenge to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Soorin Kim contributed reporting.
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