American motorists already straining under the weight of rising fuel costs received little reassurance Sunday when President Donald Trump sat down with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo and delivered a blunt forecast: relief is not guaranteed before November.
Bartiromo, hosting her program “Sunday Morning Futures,” asked Trump point-blank whether pump prices would ease heading into midterm season. His answer landed with enough weight to visibly catch her off guard — her eyebrows climbing as the words left his mouth.
“It could be the same, or maybe a little bit higher,” the president said.
The average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline has surged from roughly $3.60 a month ago to approximately $4.13 currently, according to figures from the American Automobile Association. That jump has carved into household budgets from coast to coast, and Trump’s remarks offered no promise of a quick reversal.
Seconds after delivering the sobering price outlook, the president shifted his tone toward confidence. “I think this won’t be that much longer. They’re wiped out, Maria. They’re wiped out,” Trump declared, referring to Iranian military capabilities degraded during what is now a 45-day-old conflict.
The driving force behind the fuel spike, Trump explained, is the Strait of Hormuz — a narrow chokepoint responsible for moving roughly one-fifth of the global oil supply. Iranian forces have held effective control over who passes through the waterway since the conflict began, sending crude markets into a sustained upward spiral.
Sunday brought a significant escalation. Trump revealed that U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks had collapsed over the weekend, and announced that the United States Navy would move to seal off the strait entirely — blocking all inbound and outbound vessel traffic.
The blockade launched Monday at 10 a.m. Eastern, precisely when Trump said it would.
Bartiromo pressed the president on whether the naval action would aggravate an already wounded global energy market. Trump did not sidestep the question. “I think so,” he said. “I think so.”
He expressed long-term optimism even while acknowledging short-term turbulence. “Eventually it’s going to be lower,” Trump said at one point, and at another: “It might not happen initially, but it’s going down.”
Trump also outlined the scope of damage already dealt to Iran in stark and specific language. Iranian naval forces in the region had been decimated, he said, leaving the country with little remaining infrastructure of military consequence.
“We’ve wiped out their whole country, essentially,” Trump said. “The only thing left really is their water, their desalinization plants, their electric generating plants which are very easy to hit.”
He was direct about the consequences of striking such targets. “We could have them all done-down. And I mean, down like you couldn’t have electricity for ten years because it takes you ten years to build those plants from scratch.”
Trump added that he would be reluctant to order such strikes, but made clear the option remains on the table.
The conversation moved to the broader military alliance that the United States has historically anchored. Trump expressed sharp frustration with NATO partners who declined to open their bases or airspace to American forces during the conflict.
“I’m very disappointed in NATO. They weren’t there for us. We pay trillions of dollars for NATO, and they weren’t there for us,” Trump told Bartiromo.
He went further, warning that Washington’s financial participation in the alliance would face scrutiny. “I think that’s going to be under very serious examination,” he said.
Responsibility for the current state of affairs, in Trump’s telling, rests entirely with the man he defeated. He described former President Joe Biden as “grossly incompetent,” pointing to Biden-era decisions as the foundation of the country’s present entanglements.
Trump also returned to territory he has revisited frequently since 2020. “Look, the election was rigged. You know that? I know that. Everybody knows that now,” he told Bartiromo, who replied simply: “Yep.” Trump followed with: “And it’s all come out, and it’s coming out.”
Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress as the 2026 midterm cycle begins to take shape. Trump’s approval numbers have continued sliding downward amid financial pressures linked to the conflict — a trend that historically carries significant weight in forecasting congressional outcomes.
