Trump Tells Voters $4 Gas Is 'OK' as Iran War Drags On With No End in Sight

President Trump has a blunt message for Americans watching gas prices climb past $4 a gallon: deal with it.

Speaking Friday at a rally at the Nassau County Police Academy in Garden City, New York, alongside Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Trump told the crowd the higher prices are worth it.

"For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a nuclear weapon," Trump said, according to Reuters coverage carried by the Colorado Springs Gazette and separately reported by Newsweek and uPolitics. "So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4. It's OK."

He added: "I'll never apologize. I did the right thing."

The average U.S. gas price hit $4.06 to $4.08 a gallon this past week, according to the American Automobile Association, cited across multiple outlets including Newsweek and the Gazette. That's up 29 percent from a year ago, and more than a dollar higher than the $2.98 average recorded before the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on February 28.

GasBuddy's head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, put a dollar figure on it in a post on X cited by Newsweek: Americans are now spending $338 million more per day on gasoline than a year ago, or $2.35 billion more per week.

The Strait of Hormuz problem

The price spike traces directly to the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that normally carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil. Channel NewsAsia, cited by List25, reported that only two vessels passed through the strait Friday based on Kpler ship-tracking data, with no visible crude oil shipments. Before the war, more than 130 ships crossed daily.

Iran isn't hiding its intentions. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi posted on X, quoted by the Gazette via Reuters, that "this strait will be opened and closed only under Iran's command," and that the blockade continues until the U.S. "accept[s] the reality of defeat." Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Iranian outlet Shahrara News that Tehran hasn't decided to resume talks with Washington.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax's Rob Schmitt that more financial pressure on Iran is coming. Whether that unlocks the strait or hardens Tehran's position remains unclear based on current reporting.

A promise Trump made and hasn't kept

Trump campaigned on bringing energy costs down, at one point promising gas below $2 a gallon. That tension has driven Democratic attacks heading into the November midterms, as both the Gazette and List25 note. Nobody disputes the current price is roughly double that target.

At the same Friday rally, Trump also claimed, "We're bringing the prices way down. Look at what's happening. Coming way down," according to Yahoo's reporting. That claim doesn't square with AAA's own numbers showing prices climbing, not falling, over the past month, from $3.94 to $4.06 to $4.08 depending on the day cited.

Yahoo's report also raises a substantive point: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had testified that the intelligence community's prior assessment was that Iran's supreme leader had not authorized resuming the nuclear weapons program suspended in 2003. Trump has publicly rejected that assessment and pushed ahead regardless. Whether Iran's program posed the imminent threat Trump describes, or whether the strikes provoked Iran into the Hormuz standoff that's now driving prices up, are legitimate open disputes.

Mixed signals from the top

uPolitics flagged a genuine contradiction inside the administration's own messaging. One day before Trump's "it's OK" comment, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that keeping oil and gas prices low is "goal number one" for the administration, with stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions as goal number two.

That's a different order of priorities than what Trump delivered less than 24 hours later, standing in front of a crowd telling them record prices are simply the acceptable cost of the war. Both men tie the increase to the same conflict. They're not selling the same trade-off.

What's unresolved

No ceasefire or peace talks are currently underway, according to the Gazette's reporting on Iranian officials' public statements. Bessent's promised new sanctions haven't yet been detailed publicly. Trump's suggestion that the U.S. might declare the Strait of Hormuz "a territory of the United States" was described by CBC News, per List25, as unclear whether it reflects actual policy or campaign rhetoric. Nobody in the administration has clarified which it is.