Trump vows to win the war spiking U.S. pump prices, then floats renaming the strait after himself.

…(cont) The administration books both numbers to the war it is running against Iran, specifically to the closure and now the contested control of the Strait of Hormuz, the channel a top Iranian official says Tehran will surround with an "exclusion zone" for tanker traffic. President Trump has said oil prices will come down "when we WIN the war." He has also floated renaming the strait after himself, posting that it is "under USA control" and musing whether to call it "TRUMP STRAIT," then adding, "Like America itself, it would be 'hotter' than ever before!"

Republican pollsters are watching the same ledger from a different desk. Axios reported this month that the party's own internal polling shows voters placing the blame for the price increases on the president heading into the midterms.

Tehran is running its version of the same math, in the other currency. State media reported Tuesday that Iran raised the price of gasoline for its heaviest domestic users, the latest in a string of adjustments the government has made to keep its economy funded through the war. Iran does not call this a war tax any more than Washington calls $4.14 a war tax. Both governments call it something else and let the pump do the talking.

Line the two up. Washington's price moved thirty-two cents past a fourteen-year-old record, spread across every driver who filled a tank this weekend. Tehran's moved on its heaviest users specifically, a targeted hike aimed at the biggest accounts rather than a broad one across the whole country. Neither government has entered "cost of the war" as a line item on any public budget. The receipts are keeping that ledger instead, one gallon and one exclusion zone at a time, hon.