Around this time in 2012, Donald Trump published a brief item to the social media platform then known as Twitter. “Gas prices are about to hit a record high during the Labor Day weekend,” he wrote at the time. “[Barack Obama] could have stopped this.”
That missive has not aged well. Fourteen years later, The Hill reported:
The average price of gas going into this Labor Day weekend reached a record holiday high compared with past years at $4.14 a gallon, according to a national tracking average from AAA. The previous record for Labor Day was $3.82 in 2012.
The high price for fuel comes as diesel hit its highest price ever on Friday, at an average of $5.85 a gallon. Both are surging because the war in Iran has reduced the supply of oil and gasoline around the world as the Strait of Hormuz, a key thoroughfare for tankers, remains closed.
At a certain level, the price hike is not surprising. It should have been obvious before Trump launched the war with Iran that this was likely, and more than six months into the conflict, it’s easy to draw a straight line connecting the president’s misguided decision and the pain consumers are feeling at the pump.
But it’s also worth appreciating just how badly the Republican administration has managed public expectations.
As recently as July, for example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent boasted about the inevitable decline in fuel prices. When CBS News asked when consumers should expect to see some relief while filling up, he replied, “Maybe by Labor Day.”
Oops.
In March, CNN asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright a similar question, and the Cabinet secretary said at the time, “In the worst case, this is a weeks, not a months, thing.”
Sixth months later, Wright returned to CNN and was asked whether prices might get even worse. “Look, I don’t want to have an opinion on that,” he replied.
One can imagine a hypothetical political environment in which a president and his team told the public in advance to expect some financial hardships and sacrifice, while assuring Americans that the mission was necessary, worthwhile and unavoidable. In the case of the war with Iran, these claims wouldn’t have been true, but it’s possible to imagine the White House at least trying to make such a pitch.
Members of Team Trump made no such effort. On the contrary, they repeatedly told the public the war would wrap up quickly and consumers should expect cheap gas very soon.
Some Americans believed them, making a painful situation that much worse.
Nearly four weeks ago, JD Vance appeared on Fox News, where he falsely claimed that oil prices are “way down from the highs in the early days” of the war. The vice president quickly added, “That’s goal No. 1 — keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country.”
The latest data leaves little doubt that the Republican administration has failed entirely with “goal No. 1.”
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