Trump Tells Fox’s Bartiromo Oil Prices Could Be ‘A Little Bit Higher’ Before Midterms

President Donald Trump was non-committal on what could happen to the price of oil ahead of November’s midterm elections — even floating the prospect that they could go “a little bit higher.”

In an interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo quizzed Trump on whether his newly-announced naval blockade on ships going in and out of the Strait of Hormuz.

“Is this all going to be enough, the blockade in the strait, the opening up capacity in the United States, is this going to enough to lower the price of oil and gas, sir?” Bartiromo said.

The president responded that oil prices will go down “eventually,” but his short-term forecast was less rosy.

“Well, it’s eventually going to be lower,” Trump replied. “No, it might not happen initially, but it’s gonna go down when this is all over.”

The president went to claim, “the gas hasn’t gone up as much as I thought.”

“But regardless, even if it did… we have to stop this group of people from having [a nuclear weapon],” Trump said. He added, “You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. So I just have the greatest economy ever, everything’s going along and … I tell my economic advisors, ‘I’m sorry, fellas, we’re in great shape. We have go and take a little journey down to Iran, and we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon.’ They all said, ‘we agree.'”

Bartiromo tried to press Trump on a timeline for when prices might come down.

“So do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections?” Bartiromo asked.

But Trump seemed far from optimistic a price reduction would happen in time for the fall.

“I hope so,” Trump said. “I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be. Or the same. Or maybe a little bit higher. But it should be around the same. I think this won’t be that much longer.”

Oil traded as high as $115 per barrel last week prior to the announcement of a two-week ceasefire. It ended the week just over $89 per barrel, but seems highly likely to spike on Monday following the announcement of the blockade.

Consumers have been seeing those higher prices reflected at the pump. GasBuddy, a website which tracks gas prices, currently has the national average at $4.10 per gallon, up from just over $2.90 in early March.

Watch above, via Fox News.

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