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Sep 16, 2026· Updated

Gas Has Never Cost More on Labor Day — $4.14 a Gallon, With Diesel at a Record $5.85 — and Asked on CNN Where Prices Go Next, the Energy Secretary Says "I Don't Want to Have an Opinion on That"

Americans paid more for gasoline over Labor Day weekend 2026 than on any Labor Day on record. AAA put the national average at $4.14 a gallon heading into the holiday — nearly a dollar above a year earlier and well past the previous Labor Day record of $3.82 set in 2012 — and diesel hit an all-time high of $5.85 on Friday, September 4. Before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, gas was $2.98. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed since, U.S. refineries are running at 98 percent of capacity, and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries have tightened the world diesel market. Energy Secretary Chris Wright made the rounds of all four major Sunday shows on September 6 to argue that relief is coming. On CNN's "State of the Union," Dana Bash reminded him he had said five months earlier that prices had peaked and asked whether they could rise further; Wright answered, "Well, I don't want to have an opinion on that," before allowing that "if I had to guess, they're more likely to go down than go up." On ABC he said, "Yes, they're higher today, but we're doing everything we can to push them down," pointing to November futures about 35 cents below the pump price. On CBS he called prices "headed downward" a "not unreasonable expectation," and on Fox he blamed California's fuel standards and said the Navy "is winning that battle" in the strait. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox on Saturday that diesel prices were about "Russia and Ukraine" and that "it's only President Trump who's trying to drive these prices down." Democrats spent the weekend pinning the record on the war. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted that "$5.84 a gallon for diesel is a new all-time high. Donald Trump and JD Vance own this." Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said New Yorkers "will be paying record high prices this Labor Day weekend" because of "Trump's reckless war in Iran" while "all this administration is focused on is bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires." Trump himself, in August, had asked Americans to accept paying "a tiny, little bit more" so that "a very evil country" could not get a nuclear weapon. The midterms are nine weeks away, and polling puts approval of the president's handling of inflation in the mid-20s.

“It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that. It's a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more. But that's going to come tumbling down.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 16, 2026

Trump Tells the Fed to Cut Rates or He Will "Stop Trading" With Every Country the U.S. Runs a Deficit With — Ten Days Before a Meeting His Own Fed Chair Is Signaling Will Raise Them

On Friday, September 4, 2026, hours after a jobs report showed employers added 162,000 jobs in August, President Trump posted a Truth Social ultimatum telling the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates or he would cut off trade with every country that runs a surplus with the United States: "LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT." He told the Fed Board it "must get smart — BE PATRIOTS for a change." The threat capped an unusually broad week-long pressure campaign: Vice President JD Vance told a White House briefing on September 3 that it was "proper and responsible" for the Fed to lower rates; National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said on September 4 that the administration "respect[s] their independence" but that the case for holding steady was "pretty strong"; and senior economic counselor Peter Navarro, in a Friday interview with Steve Bannon, called members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee "clowns" and said a hike would be "careless." The target of the campaign is Trump's own hand-picked Fed chair. Kevin Warsh, confirmed in May 2026 in the closest vote in modern history, used his Jackson Hole speech in late August to say the Fed's focus needed to be squarely on inflation, and markets put the odds of a quarter-point hike at the September 15-16 meeting at roughly 60 percent. The meeting falls eight weeks before midterm elections in which polling shows widespread voter anger over prices — a frustration Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described on "Meet the Press" on September 6 as inflation "gutting people like a fish," while conceding his own party was unlikely to do anything about it before November.

“Except for inflation, which as I said, sucks, the economy’s solid.”
John Kennedy (R-LA) · Sep 6, 2026

Trump Waives Tariffs on 300,000 Metric Tons of Foreign Ground Beef to Cut Grocery Prices — and Nearly Every Republican From Cattle Country Turns on Him, With One Calling It "Worse Than Socialism"

On Friday, August 21, 2026, President Trump announced that for the next 90 days the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings for ground beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff. He said foreign exporters had committed that "this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices," and framed it as relief for grocery bills eleven weeks before the midterms: "This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again." An executive order was expected within two weeks. The USDA touted the move as proof of Trump's commitment to "lowering the cost of everyday goods for the American people." The backlash came the same afternoon, and it came almost entirely from his own party. Both Nebraska senators, all three Nebraska House Republicans, Montana's Republican senator, Iowa's senior Republican senator and two of the House GOP's most vocal backbenchers went on the record against it within hours. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) said he had privately advised Trump against the policy "for a year" and warned that the ranchers it would hurt are "most of whom are MAGA Republicans." Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) called it "Worse than socialism!" Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) said she was "extremely disappointed by this decision from the White House." The substantive objection was consistent across party lines: the U.S. cattle herd is at historically low levels, and ranchers argue that suppressing prices with imported product removes the incentive to rebuild it. National Cattlemen's Beef Association CEO Colin Woodall said the move "sacrifices long-term stability for short term messaging." Democrats attacked from a different angle — Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) tied it to the administration's earlier expansion of the Argentine beef quota. Trump, asked about the rancher complaints, said: "I love the ranchers; they've done a fantastic job. But they admit that we need a little help, and, in order to get the prices down, so that's what we're doing."

“For the first time ever, we’re going to give farmers and ranchers the right to process their own food. They’ll have inspectors. They’ll have everything, just like these big plants. I would be willing to say that our ranches will be more sanitary than those plants.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 4, 2026