Vance says gas prices could have been "much higher were it not for our efforts," as the Iran war pushes pump prices to expected Labor Day weekend records.
Page F2From§Eachthe noon edition — 4 September 2026
THE RECORD
Vance credits Iran war with keeping diesel from an all-time high it just hit.
As it ran on the front
In late August the war in Iran crossed six months old, and the monthly average for gas had already ticked up from July, the Washington Examiner noted, a housekeeping detail in a summer when prices are supposed to be coming down. By the last week of the month, diesel was running near $5.60 a gallon, and NPR found school districts opening the year against that number — buses fueled at a price nobody had in the spring budget. A district in the Philadelphia suburbs told CBS it was absorbing tens of thousands of dollars in fuel costs it had not planned for, money that has to be found somewhere in a budget that does not expand to meet it. The same week, gas closed out August above $4 a gallon every single day for the first time on record, according to the AAA figures Common Dreams cited.
Also filed that week: financial disclosures with the Office of Government Ethics showed the president made more than 1,000 stock transactions in June, including positions in energy companies posting record profits off the same war pushing the diesel number up. The disclosure covers a quarter in which the war continued, paused for a ceasefire, and restarted — the trading log and the war log keeping the same schedule.…
…(cont) Then on Friday the average hit $5.85 a gallon, AAA reported, clearing the $5.81 record set in May 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Daily Caller, filing from the right, ran the plainest version of the number available to anyone: diesel is now higher than it was under the previous administration. Vice President Vance had an answer ready before the ink dried anyway, telling reporters prices could have been "much higher were it not for our efforts" — the efforts being the war, offered up as the reason its own bill isn't worse.
Reconciling the disclosure against the pump: the war has produced one all-time high in diesel, one first-of-its-kind monthly streak above $4, one round of record profits at the energy companies the president holds stock in, and one vice president crediting that same war with a discount that appears nowhere in the AAA data, the OGE filing, or anyone's receipt. The discount is not on this ledger, hon. The school district's bill is. The $5.85 is. Whatever got kept from being "much higher" was never itemized, and a number that is never itemized is not a number — it's a talking point standing in for one, and talking points don't fill a diesel tank.
“They tell you the war kept the price down, and then they hand you the receipt where the price went up — that's not an explanation, that's a magic trick where they show you the empty hat after the rabbit's already gone. Meanwhile the guy running the war is trading energy stocks while your school district is short buses money. You don't need to know who started what over there to know whose tank this is coming out of, and it ain't the guy on TV telling you it could've been worse.”
“Look, "record" is doing a lot of work in these headlines when you don't mention this is also the most secure the region's been in years — sorry, that's not the line I was given, forget I said that. The Vice President's point stands on its own: he said prices could've been much higher, and they weren't as high as that number he didn't specify, so. Also the Daily Caller ran this and they're hardly cheerleaders for the last guy, so if anything this proves both sides think diesel is expensive, which is just called inflation, which is a global phenomenon, which — I need a minute.”
The receipts
The average price for a gallon of diesel fuel in the United States hit an all-time high average price of $5.85 on Friday as the Trump administration's war on Iran and its resulting disruptions to the global energy market showed no signs of ending. "Trump did it! Diesel hits a new record high!" economist Dean Baker wrote sardonically on…
Diesel prices have hit an all-time high as the wars in Iran and Ukraine disrupt global fuel supplies. On Friday, the average price of diesel in the United States reached $5.85, surpassing the previous all-time high of $5.81 per gallon set in May 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The national average was $5.29 per […]
Diesel Prices Now Higher Than They Were Under Biden
The average price of diesel hit an all-time high Friday in the U.S., as the conflict with Iran puts more strain on the global energy supply. The average cost of a gallon of diesel in the U.S. was up to around $5.85 on Friday morning, according to AAA.
Because of the war in Iran, the cost has climbed past the record it reached in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
· Trump Hammered Over Iran War That Drove Gas Prices Above $4 Per Gallon Every Day in August for First Time Ever from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Trump vows response to Iran's retaliatory strikes: 'We're going to hit them hard' from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Gas prices’ monthly average crept back up in August compared to July from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
· School districts face a back-to-school math problem: The high price of diesel from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
· Big Oil Stocks Surged Due to Iran War—and New Filings Show How President Trump Cashed In from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
· Iran appeals to China and India at summit while Trump threatens bombings and economic war from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· School district faces tens of thousands of dollars in extra fuel costs as diesel price soars from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.