As of yesterday, the national average for a gallon of gas was $4.47, while diesel prices officially hit record-breaking highs.
Inflation continues to rise and has only further plagued the president's disastrous second administration in the wake of his decision to launch an all-out war against Iran, with Bibi Netanyahu in the passenger seat earlier this year.
Regardless of what the DOW is sitting at right now, real, average, working Americans are suffering more, presently, than many of us have in our entire lives. People can't afford to put gas in their cars, food on their tables, keep the lights on, or pay the rent—and polls ahead of the impending November midterms have already shown exactly who the American people blame for that.
As it stands, Republicans are soon to be swept away in a Blue Wave next month, as multiple polls predict monumental Democratic victories. A recent generic congressional ballot showed Democrats leading Republicans, 51% to 43%, and Trump himself isn't doing any better. An August UMass survey put the president's approval rating at an embarrassing 32%.
Yet Donald Trump still had the audacity to stand before a crowd of Americans and tell this entire country that those crippling gas prices are a "very inexpensive price to pay" in exchange for achieving his agenda in Iran.
At a rally in North Carolina for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, Trump told the crowd and the rest of the nation, "It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done," referring to the skyrocketing gas prices in the US. "Remember that. It’s a little more. It’s even– if it was, frankly, even, it was a lot more. But that’s gonna come tumbling down. That’s gonna be like a rocket ship in reverse."
Trump on his Iran war: "You have a higher gas -- it's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that. It's a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more." pic.twitter.com/DwyU9zHlZ4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2026
Since first launching this war with Iran all the way back in February, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he initiated the conflict with Israel in an effort to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, even though he made the claim last year that, thanks to a series of US-Israeli strikes, Iran's nuclear program was "totally obliterated."
In March, just a month after Trump launched the war with Iran, citing the country's concerning nuclear program, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee in no uncertain terms that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program when President Trump made the call to begin the conflict.
Yet Trump continues to imply that we, as Americans, should all be proud to struggle to afford gas in our cars and food for our families in his name.
If that's what it means to be a proud American, I certainly want no part of it.
