We need to get rid of fossil fuels! scream the ecofascists of the Left. Also, President Donald Trump is causing a crisis of high gas prices!

Pick one.

Obviously, the Left is insane for saying we need to sacrifice oil on the altar of their “climate crisis” religion. Their desired policy is to make oil more expensive as we phase it out entirely. Yet if oil prices rise, it raises prices for everything. We could see that in yesterday’s terrible inflation report, in which the consumer price index (CPI) for May revealed a year-over-year inflation rate of 4.2%, the highest since early 2023.

Today, gas prices are exactly $1 per gallon higher than they were one year ago, though they’re down 40 cents since one month ago. All those “I did that” stickers with Joe Biden from a few years ago have been reincarnated with Trump on them. That’s not without reason; virtually all of the price increase is due to the war violent ceasefire with Iran — and the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz — disrupting world supplies.

So, how is President Trump handling the conflict with Iran and rising prices?

“You know what I really love? I love the inflation,” he explained. “When the war is over, it’s coming down.”

Facepalm.

It’s reminiscent of May, when he said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation” because he’s focused on winning in Iran.

Democrats could hardly believe their luck. For good reason, they and their Leftmedia propagandists will play up those comments, which Americans will interpret — also not without reason — as being tone-deaf, at best. The Bad Orange Billionaire and his party don’t care about average Americans struggling to make ends meet. Even when a cognitively disabled Joe Biden downplayed the inflation his policies created, he never said such a thing. The economy looms large in the 2026 midterms, too, so if President Trump wants to see Democrats gain control of Congress, he’ll keep saying dumb stuff like that.

But here’s the part where I try to suss out what he actually meant.

First of all, even Trump realized it. “I was talking about inflation numbers that will be so good as soon as the war ends. The numbers will come way down; that’s what I’m talking about,” Trump said later on Wednesday. “I’m always taken out of context.” While true, Trump also has a habit of not putting things in context.

More broadly, Trump is The Dealmaker™, and he seems to believe that any minute — aaaaannnnnnyyyyyyyy minute — he’s going to be able to sweet-talk the Iranians into a deal ending both the conflict and the mullahs’ nuclear weapons program. Even as more missile strikes were conducted yesterday in retaliation for Iranian strikes, the president is publicly conveying undaunted confidence that a deal can and will happen.

As for oil and the Strait, he very much tied the inflation report with Iran — we could call it “Iranflation.”

“We took out the other night 22 ships, late at night, with no lights, because they don’t have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of it,” the president boasted. “That’s why oil is at $85 a barrel.” (As opposed to its high of $126 in April.) He added, “We’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil, millions of barrels every night.” He boosted that message on Truth Social.

I’m a little skeptical about his specifics, but his point is strategic. He wants the world to know that Iran isn’t really stopping us. He could also highlight his moves with Venezuela and Cuba because he’s clearly calculating that the U.S. is in a much stronger position on oil than, say, China.

Indeed, Trump is a chess player, jokes about “4D chess” aside. He’s looking at a timeline before the election and thinking that, because a deal is imminent, inflation is “going to come down like a rock,” and he’ll get a lot of credit leading up to November’s elections. So, when he says, “No, I love it, the numbers were great,” he means it sets him up for big success.

Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, underscores this — that number was just 2.9% annually in May’s report, slowing from April. Prices even fell in several categories. In other words, energy is driving overall inflation to 4.2%, not more widespread underlying problems.

That’s what makes the present situation so different from the one created by Joe Biden and the Democrats running Congress. In April 2021, they dropped an inflation bomb on the country with grossly excessive government spending on “COVID relief” that was really just a list of left-wing boondoggles. The annual inflation rate reached a high of 9.1% in June 2022. Gas hit a high of $5.02 per gallon.

Much more importantly, during Biden’s four years, cumulative inflation was over 21%. Many items and services rose far more than that. For example, the average fast-food combo meal rose by roughly 50%. That was almost entirely because of Democrat spending, which goosed demand while their shutdowns limited supply. That’s why inflation under Biden was so persistent, not “transitory,” as he and his team insisted.

There’s no question that Trump’s moves with Iran, not to mention tariffs, have raised prices. Yes, it actually is “transitory” because it’ll decline quickly once the situation with Iran is resolved, but when he says, “I love the inflation,” it sticks. Maybe don’t say stuff like that anymore, Mr. President.

And maybe while you’re at it, do whatever it takes to win in Iran, fully open the Strait of Hormuz, and get back to the successful economic policies of your first term. On that note, job growth and the stock market are both very good these days, and that matters more than Democrats disingenuously focused on “affordability” want you to remember.

Follow Nate Jackson on X.