Trump Honcho Makes Wild Claim About Gas Prices When Confronted on Fox About Plunging Market
Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a wild claim about gas prices when Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo pressed him about roiling currency and bond markets.
Lowering prices was a key campaign promise from President Donald Trump — particularly gas prices. But the president has taken a lot of criticism from critics and economic journalists over policies that haven’t delivered, and even with lower crude oil prices, gasoline remains at over $3 a gallon nationwide — $3.18 as of Friday.
On Thursday morning’s edition of Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria, Bartiromo asked Bessent about “worries” in the bond market, and Bessent blurted out a claim of $1.93-a-gallon gas in Florida:
BARTIROMO: Secretary, what about interest rates? You look at the 10-year yield right now, all the way down to 4.1 percent. You look at the dollar recently. OK. So, it’s up now to a two-week high, but it’s been plummeting on worries about that. How would you assess those markets?
BESSENT: Sure. So, Maria, let’s go through them one by one. There has been a substantial decrease in the 10-year since the beginning of the year, but especially since January 20th, and President Trump and I are targeting that point on the curve. We are seeing that two-year rates are now below Fed funds rates. So, that’s a market signal that they think the Fed should be cutting. We’ve had some great inflation numbers. We had the biggest decrease in energy prices for a single month in years. Energy is down substantially. I am told that in parts of Florida, gasoline is $1.93, and that’s an automatic tax cut for the American people. So, we’re probably going to see a lot more car travel this summer.
And — so, I think things are in good shape. And as you said, the market — the interest rate market was moving around substantially in April. I think that was a lot of my former Wall Street brethren going through the occasional, what’s called a bar shock. They got too much leverage, and they have to de-lever.
And Maria, few weeks ago, when the 10-year was at 3.90 percent, all I heard was, well, Secretary Bessent got what he wanted. The 10-year is down, but it’s down for the wrong reason. Then it spiked up to 4.50 percent, 4.55 percent. Oh, we’re on the verge of a bond meltdown, and it just turned out that it was some overleveraged market players. Now, we’re continuing on the downward path, and I think our policies are going to bring down inflation —
BARTIROMO: Right.
BESSENT: — have very strong non-inflationary growth like President Trump had in his first term.
The average price for gasoline in Florida is $3.16 per gallon, and the lowest county average reported is $2.78 per gallon. Maybe this is some kind of Caddo Lake situation.
Watch above via Fox Business Network’s Mornings With Maria.
