Donald Trump spent the 2024 campaign promising gasoline below $2 a gallon, mortgage rates around 2%, and electricity bills cut in half. As of October 9, the national average for a gallon of gas is $4.37, and inflation is forecast to be running at 3.6%. Less than a month before the midterms, the man who sold himself as the cure for high prices is now the proud owner of them.
The Promises Were Specific, Which Is Rude Of Him
Credit where it's due: Trump didn't traffic in vague vibes on this one. He gave numbers. In September 2024 at the Economic Club of New York, he vowed to get "gasoline below $2 a gallon." In August 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina, he promised to slash energy and electricity prices "by half, at least half." In Pittsburgh, days before the election, he told a crowd that "a vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper."
Those are checkable claims. Someone, somewhere, wrote them down, and CBS News went back and checked them against the receipts. The receipts are not flattering.
The promises also came with a 2% mortgage rate, which at this point reads like a bit that got out of hand.
Gas Is Up 47 Percent Since The Bombs Started Falling
On February 27, the day before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, the national average for a gallon of gas was $2.98. Not $2, but not a crisis either. As of October 9 it's $4.37. That's a 47% jump, and it has a very clear cause: the war Trump chose to start.
The conflict has dragged on and disrupted oil shipments, which sent the price of oil, gas and diesel soaring. Diesel hit a record $6.53 a gallon on September 22 and still hovers around $6.28. If you don't think diesel matters to you, congratulations on your imaginary life with no food, no packages and no buildings. Diesel runs the trucks, the farm equipment and the construction crews. It's baked into the price of nearly everything on a shelf.
And gas prices hit people's moods harder than almost any other number, according to Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco research. Voters don't need a chart. They have a gas station sign.
The Tariffs Are Doing Exactly What Economists Said They Would
Then there's the tariff regime, Trump's other signature contribution to your grocery bill. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found the tariffs added about 2.9 percentage points to inflation through February. Without them, researchers said, goods prices would have declined.
Read that again. Declined. The price of stuff would have gone down, and instead we got a policy that made it go up.
Greg Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, didn't dance around it. "It's undeniable that several of these supply shocks that the U.S. economy has been navigating through come from policy decisions made by the administration," he told CBS News, pointing to the Iran intervention and the tariffs. When the economist from an investment advisory firm is blaming the White House, you've lost the room.
Groceries, Electricity, And The Rest Of The Hit List
Food prepared at home has climbed 4% since November 2024, the month Trump told Pittsburgh a vote for him meant cheaper groceries. That's stacked on top of a 23% jump over the prior four years, which is why every trip to the supermarket feels like a jump scare. Higher diesel costs and the tariffs are both feeding it.
Electricity isn't going to half price either. The Energy Information Administration shows average monthly residential electricity costs rose 12.5% between December 2024 and July of this year. Utilities are paying to upgrade an aging grid while the data center buildout gobbles up demand. Natural gas is worse: the EIA data shows residential prices up 106% over a stretch beginning in December 2024.
Half off. At least half. That's what the man said.
The White House Would Like You To Look At The 401(k)s
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told CBS News that Trump's agenda "stopped Biden's inflation crisis." She cited the "largest working-class tax cuts in history," cheaper prescription drugs, more than a million private-sector jobs, nearly 20 trade deals, and 401(k)s at record highs.
Some of that may even be true! Growth is solid and unemployment is low. But nine in 10 Americans say prices are the most important factor shaping their view of the economy, per a recent CBS News poll. Nobody is checking their 401(k) at the pump.
To be fair, the pain predates Trump. Five years of post-pandemic inflation have cumulatively wrecked household budgets, and Cato Institute economist Ryan Bourne noted that people still judge today's prices against what they paid four or five years ago and are "still shocked by it." That's the hole Trump promised to dig people out of. Instead he handed them a shovel and a war.
The Dingo Take
$4.37. That's what a gallon of gas costs on the exact timeline in which Donald Trump promised sub-$2. Inflation is forecast at 3.6% and rising, with a Fed target of 2%. The man who campaigned as the guy who understood your grocery bill has bought you a record diesel price and a war with a country most voters couldn't find on a map.
Here's the part that should keep the White House up at night. Voters aren't confused about whose idea this was. The New York Fed put a number on the tariffs. An EY-Parthenon economist pointed straight at the Iran decision. You can blame Biden for the first four years of price spikes and some of it sticks, but you cannot blame Biden for a war that started in February 2026 or a tariff wall Trump built himself.
No one asked him to promise $2 gas. He picked the number, said it into a microphone, and left a paper trail. Now he gets to explain it to people who are paying more than double. Good luck with that one, champ. Maybe bring a calculator.
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