High gas prices continue to weigh on wallets as voters list affordability as a top concern ahead of early November's midterm elections.
Page F125From§Eachthe morning edition — 23 October 2026
Trump's fourth fuel rescue of the fall ships via tanker that arrives after Americans already voted
As it ran on the front
September 8: gas hits $4.14 a gallon, a Labor Day record, with diesel at its highest price ever the same week. October 6: the Defense Production Act funds a $6.6 billion shipyard in Baltimore, owned by the firm of Palmer Luckey, a major Republican fundraiser. October 11: the Guardian reports analysts expect Trump's deal with Vladimir Putin lifting sanctions on Russian diesel will have little "meaningful" effect on prices — the shipments too small, too slow. October 12: Patrick De Haan tells The Hill he is "skeptical" the diesel deal "will deliver significant relief." October 14: the Guardian reports refiners telling investors their diesel business has gone "from liabilities to goldmines" on record margins, the same week the Washington Examiner's final pre-election inflation report puts prices up 5.4% since Trump took office. October 15: at an Arizona rally, Trump calls the high oil price a boon — "we're making a fortune" — for Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, hours after that inflation data lands. October 19: the Energy Department applies the DPA a third time, to a Constitution Pipeline project once scrapped. October 22: at a Sioux City rally, Trump invokes the statute a fourth time — $150 million by presidential memorandum for diesel and gas refining.
Friday, the receipts catch up to the memo. Brent crude trades at $116 a barrel Friday morning, its highest since May, on track for a weekly rise above 10 percent. ABC reports experts calling it unlikely gas drops below $4 a gallon before the midterms. The DPA money flows to refiners before it reaches a pump, and the refiners post record profits; the tanker meant to prove the deal can lower prices is still crossing an ocean on Election Day.…
…(cont) Four invocations, one statute, zero amendments to it. A shipyard, a refinery, a pipeline once scrapped, and now $150 million for fuel — all under an authority written for wartime. The memorandum's stated purpose is to bring down prices that have sat above $4 since Labor Day and climbed again since. The receipts the administration itself produced — De Haan's skepticism, the refiners' margins, the tanker's own calendar — don't reconcile against that purpose. They reconcile against each other, hon.
“Four times this fall they reached for the same wartime law, and this time it's not a shipyard or a pipeline — it's diesel and gas, the stuff everybody actually pays for every week at the pump. The refiners are posting record profits off the shortage while the tanker that's supposed to fix it is still weeks from the dock — the fix arrives after the vote, not before it. That's not bad timing, that's the only timing that works for them.”
“Look, the Defense Production Act built the shipyard, it's building the pipeline, now it's building refining capacity — that's supply-side policy, that's not a handout. Sure the tanker lands after the midterms, but shipping takes time, you can't just — wait, did I just say the fix doesn't arrive until after people vote? That's not — that's just logistics.”
Earlier in this story
- Trump's fourth wartime-statute invocation this fall: $150 million for diesel, after a donor's $6.6 billion shipyard By Sterling · the evening edition, 23 October 2026
- Musk's Starlink block survives the president's announcement that it was lifted By Mort · the evening edition, 23 October 2026
- Trump invokes wartime powers twice for one gas pipeline: $200 billion from Seoul, $42 million from you By Sterling · the afternoon edition, 20 October 2026
- Musk to give every American child SpaceX stock; parental consent optional under the Trump Accounts program By Sterling · the afternoon edition, 19 October 2026
- The contribution limit died this week of natural causes, survived by a record $276 million, a $400 million party edge, and the 100 mph ceiling on Ukraine's air defense that the contractor spent three days attributing to the government that funds the terminals. By Mort · the evening edition, 18 October 2026
The receipts
The first shipment of Russian diesel bound for the US, as part of a deal brokered with Moscow by President Trump, is aboard a tanker bound for New York.
Oil prices on Friday hit their highest point since May as the war in Iran drags on. As of Friday morning, futures for international benchmark Brent crude were trading at $116 per barrel, while U.S benchmark West Texas Intermediate traded at about $102. The high prices come as the war in Iran nears the eight-month...
The Trump administration said using the DPA funding will increase refining output and lower fuel prices for Americans. Experts are skeptical.
A tanker loaded with diesel fuel set sail Friday from Russia for the United States, the first shipment since President Donald Trump agreed to a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to release more fuel into the global market.
Brent crude oil futures jumped 2.7% to $116.26 a barrel – their highest level since early May and on track for a weekly rise of more than 10%.
· 'We're Making a Fortune,' Trump Says of High Oil Prices as Working Class Pays from the morgue, 15 Oct 2026
· ‘From liabilities to goldmines’: refineries eye record profits from diesel shortage from the morgue, 14 Oct 2026
· Oil analyst 'skeptical' that Trump's diesel deal with Russia will lower prices from the morgue, 12 Oct 2026
· Here is how much prices for groceries, gas, utilities, and shelter are up under Trump from the morgue, 14 Oct 2026
· Trump’s deal with Putin will have little impact on US diesel prices, experts say from the morgue, 11 Oct 2026
· Gas prices reach Labor Day high amid Iran war from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.