EXCLUSIVE — Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is urging Americans to endure bloated gas prices from the Iran war a little longer after costs at the pump have skyrocketed nearly $1 per gallon over the past month alone.
But just how long drivers may face the inflated prices remains to be seen. Republicans are growing increasingly anxious by the day as gas prices approach $4 per gallon, undermining their affordability messaging ahead of the November midterm elections.
“That’s challenging, obviously, because that’s where people feel a very immediate impact,” Thune told the Washington Examiner in a sit-down interview Thursday. “It’s a pocketbook impact, and it has real-world consequences out there.”
The dilemma for Republicans is that, short of bucking Trump to halt his military operations with a war powers resolution that the party has already rejected, they are at the whims of the president’s timetable. Trump has 60 days from the start of the operation, which began Feb. 28, under the War Powers Act to conduct operations before he must obtain Congress’s approval to continue.
Thune, echoing broader party rhetoric, framed his economic pitch as: “This is short-term.” But he acknowledged his message was likely not what Americans want to hear.
“Obviously, the best answer is when the job is done. But I understand that doesn’t probably satisfy a lot of people who are frustrated with high gas prices,” Thune said. “But I think that the president is very aware of gas prices. It’s something he pays a lot of attention to, and I think he recognizes that the objective in Iran has to be quickly and decisively.”
Other Republicans, from Capitol Hill to the campaign trail, have at times offered bungled responses.
Michele Tafoya, the Senate GOP’s preferred candidate in Minnesota, told radio station KWAM that Americans should “try to be patriots” and “maybe take one less trip to Starbucks.” Trump’s head of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, told CNBC’s Squawk Box that economic fallout was “the last of our concerns right now.” Trump himself has called increased oil and gasoline prices a “very small price to pay” for “safety and peace.”
The Trump administration is still scrambling for ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. The strait, which Iran has effectively shut down, is used to transport 20% of the globe’s daily oil usage. Until the passage is reopened, worldwide oil prices will remain higher and could climb even further in the U.S. during busier spring and summer travel months, as gas stations transition to a more expensive summer blend.
The economic fallout, which includes inflated diesel prices that could raise transportation costs for food and household goods, comes as the administration will seek tens of billions of dollars in additional funding from Congress to fund the war. The funding request, known as a supplemental, will only further complicate the GOP’s messaging strategy. The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion, but Republican lawmakers expect a White House request to be closer to $50 billion.
Some Democrats are open to doling out more money in the interest of national security, but most are not. Republicans will need at least seven Democrats in the Senate to break a filibuster on any spending legislation.
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The GOP-controlled Congress could seek to approve the money through a Republican-only process known as budget reconciliation, which would require only a simple majority. Yet, the GOP remains split on whether to pursue that avenue for an array of conservative policies that could be divisive ahead of the midterm elections. In the same vein, Thune offered some of his sharpish rebuke to-date of Democrats over the war, accusing critics of “cheering against the country.”
“I think that’s an option,” Thune said of reconciliation. “It’d be nice — in the old days — to get Democrats working together, especially when our national security interests are at stake. But this is a different era, and it doesn’t seem like the Democrats are — in fact, in a lot of ways, it seems like Democrats are cheering against the country there, which is unfortunate.”
