U.S. President Donald Trump points his finger during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 27, 2026.
President Donald Trump keeps insisting that gas prices aren’t especially high. What many Americans see at the pump tells a different story, and CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has the numbers to prove it.
As recently as Tuesday, Trump claimed that the price of gas is “not very high, relatively speaking. I mean, it’s lower than during the Biden administration.”
Trump was not especially specific, but Dale is.
According to AAA, today’s average gas price is $4.16. That is lower than the peak number during the Biden administration, $5.02, which occurred after Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022.
“But the current $4.16 per gallon national average is significantly higher than the national average when Biden left office in January 2025, which was $3.12 per gallon,” Dale explains. “And it’s higher than the national average was on 1,334 of Biden’s 1,460 full days as president, figures provided by AAA show.”
Dale reports that today’s price is higher than the price during 91 percent of the Biden presidency, and higher than any day during his final 29 months.
Today’s price is also “much higher” than it was one year ago: $3.12. It’s higher than on the day Trump launched his attack against Iran: $2.98.
The good news is today’s price is lower than the price from one month ago ($4.53) and lower than last week ($4.29).
Trump has repeatedly promised lower prices once the Iran war ends.
Just last week he told reporters, “when it’s all straightened out, you’re going to have oil prices drop down to maybe even lower than they were.”
During his explosive “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday, Trump claimed that as soon as the Iran war is settled, “gasoline prices are going to drop like a rock.”
In May, he claimed the price of gas was “peanuts.” And in mid-April, Trump declared that the price of gas “hasn’t gone up as much as I thought.”
Just weeks after the Iran war started, in March, Trump said that gas prices “are gonna come tumbling down along with everything else” once the war is over.
Dale also found Trump frequently claims he saw the price of gas in Iowa hit $1.85.
“I was in Iowa, another place I like a lot, and it was just before we started the excursion to Iran. And we passed gas stations; it was $1.85 a gallon. And we’re going to get them down to those numbers again very quickly,” Trump said.
That trip to Iowa was in January, Dale notes, when the average price in the state was $2.57. Only a niche blend that is not for use in all cars hit $1.85.
From Your Site Articles
- Trump voters enraged their '15 MPG' SUVs suddenly draining their budget ›
- Gas prices don't lie — and neither does the data on Trump's political future ›
Related Articles Around the Web