Politics

EXCLUSIVE: We Asked RNC Chair About Price Hikes During Iran War. He Said Blame Democrats.

Screenshot/YouTube/Joe Gruters

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters claimed that his party is “working overtime” to improve affordability in the U.S. although prices have been soaring under President Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, Gruters consistently blamed Democrats and praised Republicans when pressed about mounting affordability concerns during Trump’s second term. When asked about recent reports that some of the major tax breaks from the president’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act are effectively being wiped out due to skyrocketing gas prices as a result of the Iran war, the RNC chair told the DCNF he thinks the conflict will result in a “long-term gain for the country.”

“I hate to keep on beating the Democrats up, but … the fact that when [former President Joe] Biden was in office, we had the highest gas prices in the history of the country, and how soon people forget the fact that that was the case, and it was the president who worked on bringing those gas prices down,” Gruters said. “And, yes, we are experiencing some short-term [economic] pain, but I think at the end, it’s gonna be long-term gain for the country.”

“And I expect that once this conflict is over, the president will work overtime to lower these prices again,” he continued. “But, when I look at the Iran situation, I look at the fact that it’s a high risk with almost no political reward, and that’s why nobody’s ever done it.”

“But, you know, the president has the knowledge. He knows what’s happening … and although he was dealing with all these, you know, these risks, he did it because he knew it was the right thing to do,” he claimed. “And at the end of the day, we’re gonna have a safer world, and we will end up having lower gas prices.”

Affordability remains a top concern for Americans ahead of November’s midterm elections. One anonymous Republican strategist told The Hill on Wednesday that “voters were already telling us they were concerned about affordability, and that was even before the conflict [in Iran].”

U.S. wholesale prices jumped in March, partly driven by rising energy costs related to the war in Iran and the effective closing of the Strait of Hormuz, The Associated Press (AP) reported on Tuesday.

The Labor Department’s producer price index — a measure of inflation — increased 0.5% from February and 4% from March 2025, according to the AP. The year-over-year increase was the largest in over three years, the outlet reported.

U.S. gas prices continued to decline on Thursday despite lingering uncertainty over conflict in Iran, ABC10 reported. As of Thursday, the national average gas price was $4.093 per gallon, according to data from the American Automobile Association.

As of mid-December 2023, the average gas price during Biden’s sole term was over a full 50 cents lower — $3.54 per gallon, The Dallas Morning News reported, also noting that those figures were not adjusted for inflation. While Biden was still in office, the average price of gasoline in Michigan notably climbed to a record high of $5.22 per gallon in 2022, The Detroit Free Press reported in March.

When asked about whether Republicans have plans to help ease Americans’ tax affordability concerns this year, Gruters emphasized that many Democrats want Americans’ taxes “to be even higher” than they presently are, while Republicans are “fighting” to lower taxes.

Gruters also claimed to the DCNF that the GOP has “empathy” for any Americans struggling under the nation’s ongoing affordability crisis, using a word the media regularly employed to describe Biden during his presidency.

“Well, listen, we [Republicans] have empathy for everybody,” he said. “You know, anybody that feels pain that grew from going to the gas pump, coming to go and buy groceries, we have empathy with them. 
But the only party that’s gonna try to get this under control is the Republican Party.”

Moreover, Trump’s approval rating among voters stood at 41% during the 64th week of his second term, while his approval rating was 41.8% at the same point during his first presidency, Ballotpedia reported on Monday. By comparison, Biden’s approval rating at the same point in his sole term was 40.6%, according to Ballotpedia.

A Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday found that 65% of U.S. voters blame Trump either a lot (51%) or some (14%) for the recent hike in gasoline prices across the nation, compared to 34% who blame Trump either not much (11%) or not at all (23%).

A Gallup poll published on April 11 shows that 59% of Americans believe they are currently paying too much in taxes. Meanwhile, 37% of respondents said their taxes were “about right” and 3% thought they were too low, per the survey.

Gruters also asserted that he does not think affordability concerns will negatively impact the GOP’s chances in the November midterms. This comes despite the fact that Democrats have been consistently ahead in midterm polling and a string of Democratic candidates flipped solidly red state legislative seats in special elections, largely running campaigns centered on addressing the affordability crisis.

“Just like what the president proved before, all we have to do is … remind them of the Bidenflation and how terrible it was under Joe Biden’s administration,” he stated. “The fact that the president did, and has gotten prices under control. I mean, look at the price of eggs, gas is still down from where it was under Biden. 
And people forget [that]. I think that we can remind them, and I’m sure [that] this [Iran] conflict is temporary, and once we get past this … I fully expect the president to re-engage, and go after these [high] prices, because he’s been focused on affordability since day one.”

Under Biden’s watch, inflation in the U.S. hit a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022, which was largely driven by soaring energy and food costs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By comparison, the annual inflation rate hit 3.3% in March, marking an increase from 2.4% in February, CNN reported on Friday.