Trump Energy Secretary Promises Gas Prices Will Only Stay Up for ‘Weeks’ — Even in the ‘Worst Case’ Scenario
The secretary of energy is promising that even in the “worst case” scenario, Americans will only feel pain at the pump for “weeks,” not “months.”
In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright made a bold vow on gas prices which — if it were broken — would be all-but-certain to come back to bite President Donald Trump and the GOP in the midterm elections.
“The head of GasBuddy’s petroleum analysis told me a few days ago that two of the 10 largest single-day price increases in history happened this week,” CNN’s Jake Tapper told Wright. “The price of oil jumped 36 percent, the largest one-week spike since 1983. President Trump told Reuters about gas prices — quote — ‘If they rise, they rise.’ Is that really the message of the Trump administration to consumers, who are already struggling?
“The Trump administration has been all in on lowering energy prices, and I would say quite successfully,” Wright argued. “We have seen a dramatic decline in gasoline prices, in diesel prices. Soon, you will see it in electricity prices as well. So the Trump administration, in stark contrast to the Biden administration, his goal has been to lower energy prices, the Biden administration quite successful in raising energy prices. Gasoline today is still $1.50 a gallon cheaper than it was in the middle of the Biden administration. But you’re right. We want it back below $3 a gallon. And it will be again before too long.”
“What do you mean by too long?” Tapper said. “How much longer?”
“Look, you never know exactly the time frame of this, but, in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing,” Wright said.
The comments put the administration squarely on the hot seat about an issue they have regularly (and often erroneously) boasted about. Crude oil prices have spiked by more than 35 percent over the past week to more than $90 per barrel. U.S. gas prices have gone up by 14 percent in that span. Some analysts fear gas could soon top $5 per gallon.
But Wright dismissed the doomsday prognostications — saying that while “we’re nowhere near normal traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20 percent of global oil shipments pass, it will soon return to regular levels.
“That’ll take some time,” Wright said. “But, again, worst case, that’s a few weeks. That’s not months.”
Watch above, via CNN.
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