Donald Trump is promising to drive gas prices back down to “record lows” even as his own energy secretary tempers expectations amid the spiraling impact of the war in the Middle East.
Trump, speaking with NBC News over the weekend, downplayed concerns that his ongoing strikes against Iran will lead to a sustained rise in fuel costs in the U.S.
“I think they’ll go lower than they were before, and I had them at record lows,” he said.
“There’s so much oil, gas—there’s so much out there,” he went on. “but you know, it’s being clogged up a little bit. It’ll be unclogged very soon.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright later told the network that while there’s a “very good chance that’ll be true,” there are also “no guarantees in war,” and that the president’s “time frame’s still not entirely clear.”
Wright reiterated those comments in a separate interview with ABC. “There’s no guarantees in wars at all,” he said. “This is short-term pain to get through to a much better place.”
The last time Trump oversaw “record lows” in gas prices was in early 2020, when pandemic lockdowns caused demand for fuel to virtually collapse overnight.
Global costs have soared amid closures to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which roughly one fifth of the world’s supply passes each year, with average U.S. prices now up to $3.70 per gallon from $2.94 at the beginning of March.
Voters have repeatedly cited rising unaffordability across the U.S. as a chief concern ahead of November’s race for control of the House and Senate, with Trump’s approval ratings already hovering below 40 percent amid multiple controversies going into the midterms.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
