Trump Admin’s Gas Price Gaslighting Reaches New Heights

Contact: Seth Nelson

Yesterday, during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Energy Secretary Chris Wright flatly denied making a comment he made on camera just three days earlier, claiming, “I never said gas prices wouldn’t go down until next year. Never, never said such a thing.” In fact, Wright said exactly that on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, telling a national audience that gasoline prices might not fall below $3 a gallon “until next year.” Wright’s on-camera denial is the latest twist in two dizzying weeks of contradictory statements from the Trump administration about the energy crisis the president single-handedly created with his illegal, immoral war in Iran:

• Sunday, April 12: President Donald Trump himself admitted prices may not fall at all before the midterms, telling reporters they “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher.”
• Wednesday, April 15: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters last week he’s “optimistic” prices would drop below $3 per gallon by this summer.
  
• Sunday, April 19: Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN that sub-$3 gallon gasoline “might not happen until next year.”
  
• Monday, April 20: When asked about Wright’s comments, Trump told The Hill his forecast was “totally wrong” and that gas prices would drop “as soon as this [war] ends.”
  
• Tuesday, April 21: Pressed in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing on whether he stood by his original remarks, Wright backtracked, saying, “I don’t know the future of energy prices.” He later claimed the administration “knew exactly what would happen” to energy prices before launching the war.
  
• Wednesday, April 22: Wright denied ever making the original comment at all, telling a Senate Appropriations panel, “I never said gas prices wouldn’t go down until next year. Never, never said such a thing.”

In response, Evergreen Action Executive Director Lena Moffitt released the following statement:

“Families paying over $4 a gallon don’t need to be gaslit by the administration that got them into this mess. They need a functioning government that considers the consequences before starting an illegal war. Here’s what’s not contradictory: every day Trump’s war drags on, Big Oil makes another fortune. Since he started this war, the oil and gas companies that bankrolled Trump’s campaign have banked more than $30 million in additional profit every hour while American households shelled out an average of $129 more at the pump. 

“Whether prices fall below $3 this summer, next year, or never, Trump’s fossil fuel buddies win—and that’s the point. Every piece of his energy agenda, from handing Big Oil billions in new tax giveaways to blocking deployment of the cheapest, fastest-to-build new energy sources, was designed to lock families into the very fossil fuel dependency now draining their wallets. Trump and his yes men aren’t confused about gas prices. They’re just hoping you won’t notice who’s cashing in.”

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