U.S. President Donald Trump with U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) in Miami, Florida, U.S., March 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
When Donald Trump was on the campaign trail in 2024, he relentlessly attacked then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris over inflation and promised to lower prices "on Day 1" if he won the election. These days, however, President Trump often complains that he is sick of hearing Democrats talk about "affordability" — a word that, he claims, is a "hoax" designed to deceive voters about his economic policies.
The word "affordability" was being heard a lot before Trump went to war with Iran, but now, with energy prices soaring, inflation is being discussed even more.
In an opinion column published on March 11, MS NOW's Hayes Brown argues that thanks to the war in Iran, inflation has become an even bigger problem for Trump and other Republicans — one that could really hurt them in the 2026 midterms.
Trump, Brown writes, made the midterms worse for Republicans by "starting a needless war against one of the world's major oil suppliers."
"Since last week's start of the U.S. and Israeli-led military campaign against Iran," Brown observes, "energy prices have surged. As CNBC noted Monday, (March 9), the war nobody — well, almost nobody — asked for has caused 'the largest oil supply disruption in history, more than double the previous record set during the Middle East crisis of the 1950s, according to an analysis by consulting firm Rapidan Energy.' The sudden staunching of the flow of oil is multicausal. Israeli forces struck 30 fuel depots in Tehran over the weekend; more attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure could mean a further drop in the global oil supply."
Brown continues, "Meanwhile, fears about reprisals against vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most critical choke points for maritime shipping, caused a major backlog of tankers unwilling to take the risk of crossing the narrow stretch of ocean separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula. That backlog caused Iran's Arab neighbors in the Gulf to cut production, further stressing supplies worldwide.
Oil prices, Brown notes, "went soaring beyond the roughly $70 a barrel that was the norm before the war started," increasing to $119.50 per barrel for Brent crude on March 9.
"There's plenty of room for things to get worse, despite Trump's sweaty claim Sunday that a gain in 'short term oil prices' was a 'very small price to pay' for 'safety and peace,'" Brown warns. "Because while Trump's claim that the war was very complete may have caught investors' eyes, in the same conversation with CBS News, he also said he was 'thinking about taking it over' — it being the Strait of Hormuz. That may be why CNN reported Tuesday that, according to unnamed U.S. intelligence sources, Iran was beginning to seed the strait with mines, sure to further hamper oil tankers' transit…. So far, Republicans have tried to claim that there's nothing to worry about politically from the climbing prices. But we're in an era where the U.S. is a net exporter of oil and domestic drilling pushing to its full capacity."
Brown continues, "Without their plea to just drill more to fall back on, and Trump's general denial of a problem, the pain at the pump could soon translate into pain for the GOP at the ballot box."