Gas prices surged this week amid oil scarcity and investors’ realization that the Strait of Hormuz is not close to reopening.
“If it feels like gas prices are suddenly jumping everywhere, you’re not imagining it—and in parts of the country, the increases have been nothing short of explosive,” Patrick De Haan, a gas price expert with Gas Buddy, wrote in a post on X. “As of Friday, the national average price of gasoline has surged to $4.42 per gallon, the highest level since summer 2022. Diesel prices are climbing even faster, now at $5.56 per gallon, within striking distance of their all-time high.”
Republicans are panicked, knowing that high gas prices will sink them in November’s midterm elections. And those prices rest solely at the feet of President Donald Trump. He launched a war of choice that led Iran to close the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway, which has shocked oil markets and continues to threaten the global economy.
Yet, rather than push Trump to fix the problem he started, they made an embarrassing attempt to gaslight America about high fuel prices and to concoct far-fetched scapegoats, including former President Joe Biden, oil companies, and Democrats.
Republican Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia, who is running for his party’s Senate nomination and auditioning for Trump’s endorsement, blamed the nebulous “Democrats” for surging gas prices, even though Democrats are against the war causing those price hikes.
“Remember, President Trump promised he’d make us safer and more prosperous. … Now yes, we’ve seen some gas prices fluctuation. Gas prices will go back down. Remember—high gas prices are the work of the Democrats,” Carter told Fox Business, reminding viewers of high gas prices during 2022, which were falling until Trump’s war.
That talking point was obviously sent around to Republicans. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise made a similarly ridiculous plea for voters to remember 2022.
“People will remember, you go back two years ago, we were paying almost $6 a gallon for gasoline,” Scalise said Thursday. “Right now, it’s in the 3s.”
Even conservative CNBC host Joe Kernen pointed out that Scalise was making up numbers. Gas was not $6 a gallon when Biden left office in January 2025, and on the day Scalise made that comment, AAA reported the national average was $4.30 a gallon.
Other Republicans came up with dumber scapegoats.
“It has to do with the greed of the oil companies,” Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told reporters on Capitol Hill. “And I blame Congress because every dadgum time we do this, ‘Oh, we’re going to bring the oil executives down here,’ and they shake the money tree, and every time I say this, my contributions from the oil distributors goes down.”
Rep. Burchett (R-TN) refuses to put any blame on Trump for high gas prices.Burchett: It has to do with the greed of the oil companies. We buy zero oil from Iran. 90% of their oil they sell to China. They're just gouging us. And I blame Congress.
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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) April 30, 2026 at 11:04 AM
De Haan said Burchett fundamentally doesn’t understand the laws of supply and demand with that comment.
“That’s not how oil markets work,” De Haan said of Burchett’s assertion. “Prices are driven by global supply and demand—not just what we import or who we buy from. comments like this ignore basic economics. the rep badly badly needs an economics refresher class.”
Rep. Rich McCormick, Republican of Georgia, made a similarly dumb statement, claiming that the U.S. doesn’t get oil from the Strait of Hormuz. But McCormick added a bonus scapegoat, blaming the price jump on Biden for not building a pipeline.
“Remember, the United States is not as dependent on foreign oil as everybody else,” he said. “We do it just because it’s a quicker track, but we don’t have to do that. If we had the pipeline that we didn’t complete thanks to the Biden administration for so long, we’d be in a much better position.”
Rep. McCormick (R-GA) says he doesn’t worry about high gas prices because we don’t rely on oil from the Strait of Hormuz, and blames Biden.McCormick: If we had the pipeline that we didn't complete thanks to the Biden administration for so long, we'd be in a much better position
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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) April 30, 2026 at 11:38 AM
Of course, the Keystone XL Pipeline would have little to alleviate the situation we are in. That’s because about a third of global oil supply goes through the Strait of Hormuz, and that traffic has plummeted since the start of the Iran war. That has created a shortage and driven up prices. And the Keystone XL Pipeline would have merely transported oil from Canada to the United States, not increased supply.
Ultimately, gas prices are high because of the war Trump started. Full stop.
The majority of voters are well aware of that, too.
Republicans can try to gaslight all they want. But they are to blame for this mess, and they will pay the price for it at the ballot box in November.
- Rising Gas Prices Enraged Republicans Under Biden, But Not Any More ›
- Did America's Enemies Write Trump's Backward Energy Policy? ›
- Here's How Gas Prices Will Spike This Year (And Eat Your Tax Refund) ›
- The Energy Future We Could Have Had, If Only Trump Hadn't Trashed It ›
- Republicans face gas pump problem at the polls ›
- High gas prices become another midterm warning sign for Republicans | CNN Politics ›
- Tables turn as Republicans face gas-price attacks they once used on Democrats | Reuters ›
- As gas prices squeeze voters, Republican midterm challenges deepen - CSMonitor.com ›
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