Republicans silent over key issue they once obsessed over

In 2022, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Republicans attacked then-President Joe Biden relentlessly over gas prices. Biden was a vehement critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and many Republicans blamed his foreign policy when gas prices went up.

But two and one-half months into his war against Iran, President Donald Trump is arguing that higher gas prices are a small price to pay for preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. And according to NOTUS reporters Daniella Diaz and Al Weaver, many other Republicans avoiding the subject of gas prices altogether.

"Gas prices have surged nearly 50 percent amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran," Diaz and Weaver report. "The response from congressional Republicans has been a study in spin. Some Republicans pivoted to argue this wasn't as high as under the previous administration."

The NOTUS reporters note that in a 2024 campaign ad attacking Biden, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) complained that "the cost of everything has gone through the roof." But now, Lawler is saying that higher gas prices resulting from Trump's Iran war are "absolutely worth it."

"Not all Republicans have been so vocal in their reversal, with some just simply going silent," Diaz and Weaver observe. "Rep. Juan Ciscomani, who ran ads warning that 'food, gas, medicine, it all costs more,' in 2024, has said essentially nothing about gas prices since the war began. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, who held up an egg on camera and told voters in 2024 she felt the weight of rising gasoline and grocery costs, blamed Biden for gas prices in an X post in February, weeks before the current spike made that framing harder to sustain."

The NOTUS journalists add, "Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and David Valadao, both of whom ran promising 'lower gas prices' messaging in 2024, have offered little detail on the issue since."

A GOP operative, interviewed on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that higher gas prices are a problem for Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

The operative told NOTUS, "It affects our voters more than their voters. We live farther apart from each other.… You hope and pray it's temporary. I can't, with a straight face, come up with anything better."