A customer pumps gas into their vehicle in Miami on October 24. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
President Donald Trump keeps trying to convince Americans that gas costs $2 a gallon. That’s a tall task when it costs $3.
“We’re a little bit above $2 right now for gasoline,” Trump said Friday. “We’re going to be approximately $2 very soon.”
Trump and his administration have made that false claim repeatedly over the course of the year.
- In April, Trump said, “You have gasoline that hit $1.98 yesterday in a couple of states.” The next day, Trump said gas was sub-$2 in “three states.”
- During a commencement address at the University of Alabama in May, Trump falsely asserted that gas cost just $1.88 in three states.
- In July, Trump claimed, “Gasoline just hit $1.99 today in five states,” and he later clarified, “$1.99, $1.98.”
- In August, Trump said gas cost $2 in some places and “broke $2” in some locations in the South.
- On Thursday, Trump said, “If you look at energy, we’re getting close to $2-a-gallon gasoline.”
The vast majority of Americans aren’t paying anything close to what Trump has been claiming. AAA says the national average price for a gallon of regular gas is $3.08. Gas is currently cheapest in Mississippi, where the average fill-up will cost $2.60 a gallon.
Making false claims about gas prices and trying to convince Americans that he has made fill-ups dramatically more affordable is a particularly bold choice for Trump: The price of gas is prominently advertised and plastered all over towns and cities across the United States. A gallon of gasoline may be the best-known price – for anything – among American consumers.
Don’t look up
Trump is asking Americans to ignore what they see – and pay for. It’s a “Don’t Look Up” strategy that’s proven ineffective: Most Americans remain fed up with the economy and blame Trump for the lack of affordability, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
The poll found that 72% of Americans say the economy is in poor shape, and 61% say Trump’s policies have worsened US economic conditions.
Democratic party victories in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia elections last week showed that affordability has become an American crisis that could ultimately threaten Republicans and Trump along with them.
Shoppers at a grocery store in Dayton, Ohio, on October 21. Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg/Getty Images
So Trump, post-election, has tried to take ownership of the affordability issue.
“The affordability is much better with the Republicans,” Trump said Thursday. “The problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it.”
Focusing on policies that promote affordability may move the needle in Republicans’ direction. But, at least so far, making false claims about falling prices has not proven a winning strategy.
What things really cost
If you really want to split hairs, there are a small handful of gas stations across America where you can get fuel at a price that approaches Trump-was-right territory.
The cheapest gas station in the country is the Murphy Express in Ardmore, Oklahoma, which sells regular gas for $2.14 a gallon, according to GasBuddy, which crowdsources gas prices across the country. Early last week, a Costco in Austin, Texas, was selling gas at $1.98 a gallon, but that station has since hiked prices back up to $2.18.
“Generally, we have seen about three to four stations below $2 in recent weeks, but none have held that level for more than a few days,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told CNN.
That’s three or four stations in the entire United States. GasBuddy tracks 150,000 stations across the country. Those outliers are far from the prices that the vast majority of Americans are paying.
Gas prices have fallen a bit over the past year, and grocery prices are rising more slowly than overall inflation and are a far cry from the 11.4% price hikes they faced when inflation peaked under former President Joe Biden.
But Trump is not even in the ballpark on some his false statements about prices.
“Our energy costs are way down, our groceries are way down, everything is way down,” Trump said Thursday.
“Inflation is at a perfect number,” he added on Friday.
Energy prices are higher under Trump – up 2.8% in September over the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Residential electricity prices have surged more than 6% over the past year – twice the overall pace of inflation. according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Electrical transmission towers and lines are shown in the early morning of a hot summer day in Commerce, California, on August 7. Mike Blake/Reuters
Grocery prices have risen 1.4% during Trump’s second term. Trump has correctly noted that beef prices are surging because of unique challenges in the market, but grocery bills are up across the board – all six categories tracked by the US government are more expensive now than they were at the end of 2024.
Inflation has been on the rise again, and prices rose 3% in September over the past 12 months – the fastest pace since January. Although that’s far from the crisis-level 9% inflation rate during the summer of 2022, it’s well above the 2% inflation rate that the Federal Reserve targets over the long term.
The reality-denial of millions of Americans’ lived experiences is what plagued Biden and helped cost the Democrats the White House in the 2024 election. Trump seemed to understand that during his campaign, making a constant issue of rising prices. But now that he’s in charge of the economy, he’s trying to persuade Americans that the problem has been solved.
The issue is that Americans can’t be convinced that gas costs $2, food prices are falling or inflation doesn’t exist when they can’t make ends meet.
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