Donald Trump has a new deadline for cheaper gas, and it lands, conveniently, right after Americans finish voting. On his way to the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas on September 9, the president conceded that cheaper gas will wait, admitting prices are “going to take a little bit longer than the midterm” while insisting Iran will fold and oil will tumble once the war ends. And when will the war end? The AP reports he now says that happens “immediately after the election” too.
The prices he keeps promising to fix are the worst they have ever been for this point on the calendar. The national average climbed to $4.48 a gallon this week, the highest AAA has ever logged for late September, and this month is on pace to shatter the September record with a $4.30 monthly average against the old mark of $3.83. One year ago, drivers were paying $3.16.
This is the same man who launched the strikes that set off the largest oil supply shock ever recorded, according to ABC News, and who has spent the seven months since replacing one dead deadline with another while blaming a president who left office 20 months ago. He told you the dates. The dates came and went. The prices went up. That is the whole story, and the receipts run all the way back to 2024.
The Promises Started Long Before The War
In August of 2024, Trump stood at a rally in Bozeman, Montana and promised inflation would end starting on day one. Days later in North Carolina, he pledged to slash energy and electricity prices in half within 12 months, 18 at the absolute maximum. By late September in Wilmington, he was telling the crowd to mark it down because “you can get very angry at me if we don’t do it.”
The newsletter Popular Information ran the math on that pledge after the war began. Gas averaged $3.12 the day Trump was sworn in, so keeping his word meant $1.57 gas. FactCheck.org documented the same promise in Detroit that October, where he vowed gasoline would be 50% cheaper within 12 months of taking office.
Both deadlines are now dead. The 12 month version passed in January with gas around $2.80, a dip of roughly 10% against a promised 50%. The fallback version expired in July with electricity up 18% since his inauguration, as MS NOW documented. And all of that was the state of play before he lit the match himself.
He Lit The Match With Gas At $2.98
As late as his February 24 address to Congress, Trump was bragging that gas had collapsed under his leadership, claiming prices sat below $2.30 in most states and near $1.99 in some. Three days later in Corpus Christi, he told a crowd that cutting energy costs cuts the cost of everything. Gas stood at $2.98 that day, per AAA.
Twenty four hours after that, the United States and Israel launched a full scale attack on Iran. Tehran answered by strangling the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that carried roughly 20% of the world’s petroleum, and ABC News reports the resulting shock rippled outward into groceries and everyday goods. Oil rose nearly 50% from its prewar price. The cheap gas Trump inherited and bragged about became the first casualty of his own war.
A Carousel Of Deadlines, All Of Them Dead
The early promises came fast. Trump told reporters the United States would be leaving Iran “very soon,” a claim Mediaite captured as he signed an executive order cracking down on voting by mail, and the AP reports he framed the entire conflict as a matter of weeks. Ten days in, with gas at $3.47, he told ABC’s Mary Bruce, “It’s a little glitch. We had to take this detour.”
His energy secretary went further. On CNN, Chris Wright promised the pain would last weeks, telling Jake Tapper, “In the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing.” The White House put the same fantasy in a formal statement, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt promising prices would “plummet back to the multi-year lows” the moment Operation Epic Fury wrapped up, per Asia Times. Pete Hegseth stood at the Pentagon podium on March 31 declaring the coming days decisive and the negotiations strong, even as he refused to rule out ground troops and thousands of tankers sat trapped in the Gulf.
They knew better while they said it. Fortune reported on March 18 that Trump’s own Energy Department was projecting elevated prices into 2027 at the very moment officials were publicly promising a few more weeks. When Wright later stretched his own timeline toward next year, Mediaite reports Trump called his energy secretary “totally wrong” for saying so. Gas crossed $4 that spring for the first time since 2022, then kept climbing.
They Told You They Do Not Care
In May, asked about the financial squeeze on ordinary Americans, Trump said it plainly: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” ABC News recorded the moment. Gas peaked at $4.56 that month.
When Congressman Ro Khanna pressed the administration on family costs during a hearing, Hegseth responded, “I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” per CBS News. That answer came from a man who has personally testified the war cost $37.5 billion, a figure CBS reports is closer to $50 billion in internal assessments.
Then came June. Federal data showed inflation at 4.2%, the highest in three years, driven largely by war fueled energy costs, and with cameras rolling in the Oval Office, Trump said he loves the inflation out loud. His staff spent the next day insisting he meant something else. NBC News polling around the same period found just 36% of registered voters approved of his handling of inflation and the cost of living, with 62% disapproving.
The Deal That Proved The Point, Then Died
June also accidentally proved how fixable this is. The day after the United States and Iran signed an interim memorandum with a 60 day window to reach a peace deal, gas fell back below $4, and by late June oil touched its lowest price since before the war, according to ABC News’ timeline of the conflict. Markets believed in peace immediately. The administration just never delivered it.
The window closed on August 17 with nothing signed. That same day, Trump publicly overruled his own vice president after JD Vance called lower fuel prices the administration’s top priority, insisting Iran’s nuclear program outranks your fuel bill. By then even White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett was conceding to reporters that fuel prices remained higher, per The Hill, and AAA closed the books on the first August in history where the national average never dipped below $4.
New Deadline, Same Con
The fall deadlines died fastest of all. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS relief could come “maybe by Labor Day,” as MS NOW chronicled. Labor Day instead set the all time record at $4.15. Bessent had separately promised “gas with a three in front of it” by September 20. September 20 came and went one week ago with the average at $4.48. On September 7, Trump posted that oil would “drop precipitously” once the war is won, down to $3 a gallon and eventually under $2, per The Hill.
Two days later he moved the goalposts past Election Day entirely, with Brent crude back over $100 and diesel at a record $5.94. CNN notes the administration long ago blew past its own prediction of a four to six week war, and Trump now accuses Iran of being “desperate to try and affect the election,” which means the man who started the war is campaigning on the promise that his opponent, a foreign adversary, will quit right after you vote.
As for the claim that prices will fall below what Americans paid under Joe Biden, Newsweek pulled the pump price data covering both presidencies. Biden took office with gas at $2.38 and left it near $3. Trump inherited $3.10, promised under $2, and never got below roughly $2.80 before his war stacked another dollar and a half on top. He stood before the United Nations this month claiming energy costs are down anyway, a boast GOBankingRates noted is flatly contradicted by rising federal figures. His own energy secretary, the weeks not months man, now tells CNN he would rather not offer an opinion on where prices go next.
The pattern is the accountability story. Trump promises a date, the date dies at the pump, he promises a new date, and in between he blames the man who left office nearly two years ago. Most Americans disapprove of his handling of this war, according to AP NORC polling, and one Republican operative working on midterm races told Politico the party is preparing for the bottom to fall out. The public can see what the White House hopes it forgets, which is that every one of these promises came with a deadline, every deadline is on tape, and the only deadline Donald Trump cannot move is the one voters have circled in November.
