The war in Iran has driven the average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the United States to nearly $4, forcing Republicans to field an onslaught of election season attacks from Democrats who say the Trump administration is crushing Americans at the pump.
President Trump has sought to downplay war-related cost increases, recently saying that oil prices had not risen as steeply as he expected and that they would soon moderate. “It’s not bad,” he told reporters on Thursday. “And it’s going to be over with pretty soon.”
But motorists are becoming frustrated, with public opinion polls indicating that most Americans do not believe they should have to accept the rising gasoline costs.
As gas prices have become a central topic in the midterms, Democrats and Republicans have responded with a spectrum of strategies. Here are five arguments advanced by figures in the parties.
Sean Duffy said the spike would be ‘short-lived.’
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday that the president was squarely focused on energy costs and that the rise in gas prices would be temporary.
“You’re going to see this as short-lived,” Mr. Duffy told ABC News, predicting a “very quick rebound in energy prices when this conflict is resolved.
Mr. Duffy added that “we’re at week three” of what the administration had forecast would be a “four-to-six-week operation.”
The comment echoed those of other administration officials, such as Vice President JD Vance, who recently said that the war and higher gas prices would not “last forever.”
Michele Tafoya suggested Americans ‘take one less trip to Starbucks.’
Michele Tafoya, the former N.F.L. sideline reporter who is running in the Republican primary for Senate in Minnesota, has urged Americans to embrace personal sacrifice for the war.
“Maybe you take one less trip to Starbucks and so that gas goes a little further,” Ms. Tafoya told KWAM-FM recently. “Let’s just try to be patriots about this.”
Democrats criticized the comment, portraying it as out of touch. Other Republican candidates have said little about gas prices, reflecting the caution in the party over an issue many see as politically hazardous.
Thomas Massie said some Republicans ‘quietly’ oppose the war.
Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, whose independent streak has made him a thorn in Mr. Trump’s side, has been a rare prominent voice in his party strongly opposing the war. He says his position is in line with Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign platform.
“If this causes the price of gasoline and diesel to go up 20 percent for the next year, that’s going to cost over $100 billion to American consumers,” Mr. Massie said in an interview this month.
He said some Republicans had told him “quietly” that they agreed with him on the war. “But they just don’t have the time or energy to fight on this,” he said.
Chuck Schumer said America has been ‘led into war by Marie Antoinette’
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, has accused the Trump administration of taking a tone-deaf posture by downplaying gas prices.
“America is being led into war by Marie Antoinette,” Mr. Schumer said Friday on the Senate floor, likening the president to an 18th-century French queen who was known for her extravagant lifestyle and indifference to the struggles of the poor.
“Trump and his acolytes are unbelievable,” Mr. Schumer said. “They are so clueless. They’re in a bubble.”
On Sunday, Mr. Schumer added that Americans do not “want to just have a knot in their stomach every time they pull up to the gas pump.”
“Even some Republicans are openly admitting they have no clue what the administration is trying to accomplish,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Marcy Kaptur said the war is ‘a tax.’
Representative Marcy Kaptur, a 22nd-term Democrat running for re-election in a swing northwest Ohio district, has likened the war to a levy on Americans, using an argument that has been deployed across the Democratic Party.
“It’s a tax,” Ms. Kaptur said in an interview Sunday from a gas station in Toledo, adding, “I represent the industrial and agricultural Midwest. We feel this directly.”
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