‘Is That Realistic?’ Fox Anchor Pushes Trump Econ Chief on Promise to Lower Gas Prices Amid Iran Bombings

President Donald Trump has promised Americans that gas will drop to $3 a gallon for months. On a day when the average price-per-gallon is sitting at $3.86, Fox News’ congressional correspondent Bill Melugin asked Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett if Trump’s promise is actually “realistic.”

“It’s absolutely realistic. We are headed pretty much there on a straight line, but now there’s a hiccup again, because the Iranians, again, it’s so obvious that this was the right policy,” Hassett answered.

He continued, “The Iranians were dead set on destroying America. ‘Death to America’ was one of the things they were saying. Every time they had a rally, and even at a somber event like a funeral, they were screaming and putting up signs, ‘Death to Trump’. These are people that are very dangerous. President Trump wouldn’t let them have a nuclear weapon. And so in the long run, the world will be safer, gas prices will be lower, and it’ll be worth the short-run costs.”

Earlier in the segment, Hassett cited lower per-barrel prices to support the idea that gas prices will fall. He put that number at $150-per-barrel “at the peak of the conflict,” and said it is closer to $80-per-barrel now.

The reason those prices have dropped is “that our Navy has made so much progress making it so that oil can get through the Strait,” Hassett added. “We get reports every day of what boats have made it through the straits, and oil is getting to the global markets in a way that it wasn’t before. And so I think there will be disruption, but the disruption is going to be much smaller than people expected, much smaller than 67 economists at Bloomberg expected, and that’s because of the great work of President Trump and the U.S. Navy.”

But others have warned the renewed conflict with Iran is the beginning of a “forever war” the United States won’t find an easy way out of. “The options don’t look very good. It’s either continuing this kind of forever war. [Or] It’s trying to arrive at some kind of ceasefire, but ceasefires have been very weak in terms of maintaining them, largely because, frankly, we don’t have a clear position on the Strait of Hormuz,” former CIA Director Leon Panetta said last week. “That’s our greatest leverage right now, and it continues to be probably the primary element that is upsetting almost every approach to trying to resolve these issues.”

Watch the above on Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!