CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Maggie Haberman Roast Trump For Cheering Higher Oil Prices: ‘I Got a Lot of Texts Today’

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman roasted President Donald Trump’s post cheering on the bright side of spiking oil prices amid the war in Iran.

Among the myriad problems the U.S. faces almost two weeks into the Iran war are the attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz that have exacerbated surging prices and roiled the stock market.

But Trump saw a silver lining Thursday when he wrote “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money” in a social media post.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins read Trump’s statement aloud and cracked, “Maybe wealthy oil investors will.”

Minutes later, she asked Haberman about the post, telling her “I got a lot of texts today” from alarmed acquaintances. Haberman agreed this is a vulnerability for Trump — especially with a trove of video receipts of Trump bashing high gas prices:

COLLINS: But just on the gas prices. It was just a month ago, in his State of the Union, where he was talking about they were 200 or — $2.30 a gallon. That number has jumped now.

And I got a lot of texts today from people — I don’t know if you — I’m sure you did as well — about his post suggesting that higher oil prices are a good thing.

HABERMAN: Yes.

COLLINS: I mean, I think a lot of his own political advisers who typically talk about how savvy he is, would say, “That’s a tough message to sell.”

HABERMAN: This is not something that most of the people in his orbit right now are having an easy time messaging or solving, and you can see that every day. But also, you and I both know it from our own reporting.

And it’s very — look, they are trying to push the White House a message in various news outlets that members of — aspects of the MAGA base, aspects of the Republican base, the President’s base, are not as upset about an incursion against Iran as people who are opposed to this might say.

There is some validity to that. If you talk to voters at individual events or in states, it is true that there are a lot of Republicans who have long-believed that Iran is a threat to U.S. interests. And it is because Iran has been threatening the U.S. for a very long time.

That’s different than whether voters are going to tolerate $4 gas over many weeks, especially when there’s ample video of the President criticizing President Biden for gas prices, and that will be shown in various states.

COLLINS: Yes, I think that’s a good point.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

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