Leading climate scientist accuses Trump Energy Dept. of misusing his research

Climate scientist who “proved” humanity is warming Earth says government report got it wrong

University of East Anglia

A pioneering climate scientist is challenging a U.S. government report that cited his research while reaching what he says is the exact opposite conclusion. 

Benjamin Santer and his colleagues say decades of satellite data clearly reveal the atmospheric “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change. Their new peer-reviewed analysis argues the report contains major scientific errors and should not be relied upon in climate policy decisions.

A leading climate scientist is pushing back against what he describes as "demonstrably incorrect" claims in a major US government climate report, arguing that it misrepresented his research and understated the role of human activity in global warming.

Trump's war on green energy is about as successful as his war on Iran

How US renewable-energy growth persists despite federal policy uncertainty 

This guest post is by:

Dhruv Modi, research analyst, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland

Alicia Zhao, research manager, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland

Tyler Stotland, research analyst, Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland

Prof Nate Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland, and professor in the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland

Despite recent shifts in federal energy policies, our analysis shows that the US transition to renewable energy is continuing. 

The current administration has enacted a range of changes to prioritize fossil-fuel energy and environmental deregulation in the US, while withdrawing support for renewables. 

Yet solar, wind and battery storage accounted for over 90% of new energy capacity in 2025.

This is thanks to the falling cost of renewable energy technologies, investments spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and local and state policies, according to our research at the Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland.  

Our analysis examines recent trends in the US energy landscape, focusing on rising electricity demand, new electricity capacity additions and generation, as well as fossil-fuel production and state-level case studies. 

Heat Wave Politics: GOP Leaders Deride Calls to Conserve

Heat doesn't care who you vote for

By Marianne Lavelle

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Seeking to sow unity amid a pending heat crisis, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani reaped a whirlwind of right-wing rage.

Mamdani’s post on X on Wednesday urged New Yorkers to turn their thermostats to 78 degrees F and turn off unneeded lights and electronics—nothing original. It echoed the advice of the state’s largest utility, ConEd, which also asked customers to limit air conditioning in a Tuesday press release. “Let’s ease demand — and get through the heat — together,” Mamdani wrote.

“Welcome to socialism,” shot back Nikki Haley, the former Republican governor, diplomat and presidential aspirant.

Reader-provided context beneath Haley’s post noted that she had made a similar plea for conservation during a 2015 cold snap when she was South Carolina’s chief executive. They also pointed out that former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, urged an identical 78-degree limit on AC during a 1999 heat wave.

Coal pollution is cutting solar power output, study finds

Will Trump look for ways to use coal to kill wind turbines?

University of Oxford

Trump's 2-for-1 obsession: promote coal, kill green energy

New research led by the University of Oxford and University College London (UCL) has revealed that pollution from coal-fired power plants is significantly reducing the energy output of solar photovoltaic (solar PV) installations, particularly where these are expanding side by side. The findings have been published today in Nature Sustainability.

The new study mapped and assessed more than 140,000 solar PV installations worldwide using satellite data.

By combining this with atmospheric data on air pollution, the researchers calculated how much sunlight is lost and how this reduces electricity generation. They found that aerosols - tiny particles suspended in the air - reduced global solar electricity output by 5.8% in 2023. This is equivalent to 111 terawatt-hours (TWh) of lost energy – the amount generated by 18 medium-sized coal-fired power plants. 

Crucially, these losses represent a significant and often overlooked constraint on the clean energy transition. 

For first time, Americans are getting more of their electricity from solar than coal

This is despite Trump's push for more coal use and his war on green energy

Tik Root, Senior Staff Writer

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Solar energy just provided more electricity in the United States than coal for the first time on record — marking a milestone for the rise of renewables in America. 

While gas and nuclear plants still lead the country’s energy mix, solar contributed 12.8 percent of the nation’s electrons in May, according to an analysis of government data by Ember, an energy think tank. Coal, meanwhile, provided just 12.2 percent. Just five years ago, solar was less than half of its current levels and coal was at 20 percent. 

The Non-Victory

Compared to where we were before February 28, it's a terrible failure

Robert Reich

Trump again claims victory in Iran. He’s claimed victory before, but now he has a so-called “agreement” with Iran.

That agreement, which appears to be no more than a memo of understanding — that is, a set of principles to which Iran and the United States have agreed — stops the fighting and reopens the Strait of Hormuz but it does not deal with the issue that caused Trump to initiate the conflict: Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep that in mind as you hear various renditions of what’s been decided. Recall that the Strait of Hormuz was open before Trump began bombing Iran. 

At best, the agreement Trump is touting restores the status quo to where it was when he commenced hostilities. Remember also that Iran had agreed to limit its development of nuclear-grade materials in its treaty with the Obama administration, which Trump revoked in 2018.

So what has been accomplished? Iran now is under the control of a more extremist regime than when Trump started this war. 

Oil prices are far higher, and will take some time to return to where they were before it began (if they ever do). 

Meanwhile, Trump has caused the United States to be more dependent on fossil fuels than we were prior to his inauguration for a second time, and the high oil prices brought on by his war has enriched Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The war with Iran has cost the United States an estimated $90 billion, and that’s a conservative estimate. It has caused widespread suffering throughout the Middle East. 

It has put Israel in a more precarious situation than it was before — and much of that is due to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is not a party to, and has not approved, the agreement.

This doesn’t look like a victory. Compared to where the United States and the Middle East were on February 28, when Trump began this war, it’s a terrible failure.

It’s not just high gas prices – inflation is now spreading through the US economy

Trump's war-driven energy cost hikes affect the whole economy

D. Brian Blank, Mississippi State University and Brandy Hadley, Appalachian State University

Americans don’t need a press release to know that inflation is rising. Gasoline is above $4 per gallon amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the release of key price data on May 28, 2026, underscores why policymakers are worried these pressures could spread into the broader economy.

The report offered a mixed but still uncomfortable picture. The month-to-month rise was softer than expected, but the change year over year still points to concern: a 3.8% jump from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2021, and a less volatile index that excludes food and energy up 3.3%.

This increase suggests inflation isn’t limited to gasoline. Housing, utilities and recreational spending are also keeping underlying inflation elevated, even as other data shows a slowing economy and weaker income growth.

As finance and applied investments professors who study how businesses make decisions amid uncertainty, we have been watching this tension build. In our 2026 economic outlook, we warned that recession fears could persist alongside rising prices. Fresh inflation data now suggests the challenge may be deeper and longer lasting than many expected.

Are all prices rising?

The fresh inflation data comes from the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, or headline PCE, which is maintained and released by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. Headline PCE had already been getting hotter, rising to 3.5% year on year in March 2026, up from 2.8% in February. But an even more important metric for the Federal Reserve is core PCE, which excludes the more volatile categories of food and energy. Core PCE matters because it gives policymakers a clearer read on underlying inflation pressures and is generally considered a better predictor of where inflation is headed, the Fed’s chief concern. That has been rising this year as well.

The key question isn’t simply whether gas prices are rising, but whether those higher energy costs are spreading into the rest of the economy.

Why Trump’s $2 billion buyoff to cancel offshore wind farms is a bad deal for American taxpayers and the US energy supply

Who, other than the fossil fuel industry, benefits from Trump's jihad on offshore wind?

Christopher Niezrecki, UMass Lowell; Ben Link, Johns Hopkins University, and Zoe Getman-Pickering, UMass Amherst

The U.S. is in a bizarre situation in 2026: It’s facing a looming energy shortage, yet the Trump administration is making deals to pay offshore wind developers nearly US$2 billion in taxpayer money to walk away from energy projects.

These politically motivated moves are costing Americans far more than just the buyouts.

Communities have been laying the groundwork for offshore energy projects for years. Offshore wind development brings jobs and economic development that reshape regional economies, with the scale of public and private investment reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars over years. 

East Coast communities have built up ports to support the industry and launched job-training programs to prepare workers. Construction, maintenance and shipping businesses have sprung up, along with secondary businesses that support the industry.

Losing the projects, and the threat of losing other planned wind farms, will also likely mean higher energy prices. And while some offshore wind farms are moving ahead, developers must account for both lost momentum and increased uncertainty from the Trump administration.

As a result, Americans will bear the economic brunt of these decisions for decades ahead.

Trump’s Epic Stupidity Could Kill Millions of People

Worldwide economic disruption could lead to famine and pestilence. We're going to need a bigger ballroom

Dean Baker in Beat the Press   

Trump is both an incredibly ignorant person and incredibly dishonest person. As a result, when he claims ignorance of an obvious fact it is difficult to tell whether he really is as ignorant as he claims or he’s just lying.

Such is the case with Trump’s claim that he didn’t know Iran might attack its neighbors and close the Strait of Hormuz in response to his joint attack with Israel. Trump insisted that none of the experts thought this possible when in effect just about every expert thought it was both possible and likely.

Given Trump’s ignorance and propensity to lie, it is not easy to know whether Trump actually went to war totally unaware of the most likely consequences, or instead went to war anyhow, deciding that he didn’t care about the damage it would cause. Whatever the real story, the consequences are enormous and sure to get worse as the Strait remains closed longer.

The most immediate and obvious consequence is the higher price for oil and natural gas. People in the United States see this at the gas station every time they fill their tank. Paying a dollar or so more for a gallon of gas is an annoyance for everyone. It is very bad news for low- and moderate-income households, especially those who need a car for work.

But this is just the beginning of the story. Diesel prices are up by close to $2.00 a gallon. Diesel fuel prices have risen by far more than regular gas because there is more limited refining capacity. This means when some refiners lose access to their supply of oil, their production cannot be easily replaced. Also, there is less ability for users to cut back their demand.

Trump Wants to Put His War “in Perspective” by Recalling Vietnam and Iraq. Comforted?

If Trump cannot admit error, how can America be extracted from his war?

Mitchell Zimmerman

As Trump’s War shambles on with no end in sight, President Trump asks us to put his “little excursion” “in perspective.” Compared to Vietnam and Iraq, Trump says, the Iran conflict has lasted “not very long at all.”

Does anyone find comfort in comparing the Iran disaster with two of America’s previous catastrophic wars?

Once, U.S. forces had been in Vietnam for only two months. Then our involvement became unlimited and the war did not end until millions were dead, over ten years later.

The Iraq war was just a few days shy of two months old when Bush proclaimed: “Mission Accomplished!” Years of chaos, mass death and wasted trillions of dollars followed.

But neither the Vietnam war nor the Iraq war revealed its calamitous stupidity as swiftly as Trump’s war. Two months in, the American people and our standard of living, along with the entire world economy, have taken body blows.

Gasoline costs half again as much. Diesel has risen even more. Aviation gas has doubled. Food prices will soon follow because of shortages of key fertilizer ingredients – on top of Trump’s tariffs and the shortage of farm workers because of deportations.

Trump insists, however, that all will soon be well. Gas prices will “drop like a rock” after the war ends, says the president.

Can there be anyone left in America who believes Donald Trump’s promises on prices? This is the man who vowed in 2024 that if he were elected, “prices will come down and they’ll come down fast, with everything.” “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down.”

The same man who last year kept saying prices were down when everyone knew from their own experience that prices were up.

Two problems with his latest promise: First, Trump has no plan to end the war other than demanding Iran “cry uncle” and “give up.” But the Iranians are not convinced they lost, and few owners of $100 million dollar oil tankers, carrying up to $200 million worth of petroleum, are prepared to rely on Trump’s assurances of safety.

Second, the previous level of oil exports from the Persian Gulf will not resume when hostilities do end, and prices will not promptly drop. As economists say, oil prices “go up like a rocket and fall like a feather.”

What’s in the price of a gallon of gas?

Biggest factor is the price of crude oil

Robert I. Harris, Georgia Institute of Technology

The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects nationwide retail gasoline prices to average near US$4.30 a gallon for April 2026 – the highest monthly average of the year. The political response has been familiar. Georgia has suspended its state gas tax, other states are weighing their own tax holidays, and the White House has issued a temporary waiver of a law known as the Jones Act in hopes of moving more domestic fuel to East Coast ports.

As an energy economist, I am often asked about what contributes to gas prices and what different policies can do to affect them.

The price of a retail gallon of gas is the sum of four things: the cost of crude oil, refining, distribution and marketing, and taxes.

In nationwide figures from January 2026, crude oil accounted for about 51% of the pump price, refining roughly 20%, distribution and marketing about 11% and taxes about 18%. That mix shifts with conditions: When crude oil prices spike, that can drive more than 60% of the price; when the price drops, taxes and logistics are larger shares of the cost.

Brown University researchers launch energy tracker to measure increased fuel costs tied to war in Iran

Donald Trump's war on Iran has already cost you $200 in fuel price increases alone

Brown University 

A Brown University research team is making it easier to track pain at the pump.

A new digital tracker aims to quantify in real time the financial impact of the war in Iran on energy costs for American consumers. As of mid-April, the average American household has spent more than $150 in increased energy costs from rising gasoline and diesel prices since the start of the conflict, according to the tracker.

The project, led by Brown University political scientist and energy researcher Jeff Colgan, highlights a growing U.S. consumer burden of about $20 billion (as of mid-April) in increased energy costs from gasoline and diesel since the start of the war with Iran on Feb. 28, 2026.

“This is an expense coming directly out of the pockets of American consumers, and consumers can use the tracker to help plan for the extra costs that might come with road trips or summer vacations,” said Colgan, director of the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs.

Trump Joins the War on Cancer... on the Side of Cancer

Virtually every initiative to stop, treat or cure cancer has been defunded by Trump

Dylan Gyauch-Lewis for the Revolving Door Project

Last week marked one year of me being cancer free. I’ve shared parts of the story of my excruciating recovery on a couple occasions. Still, it’s been truly surreal to embark on this journey back to health while being inundated with report after report of Trump administration policies that seem intent on increasing the suffering caused by cancer. 

Where normal governments seek to protect people through research, medical innovation, and funding for early treatment and prevention, this administration has slashed research into cancer, cut funding for medical care, and moved to relax standards on how much exposure to carcinogens companies are allowed to inflict on surrounding communities. This is, in short, a pro-cancer government.

Every administration has been guilty of taking actions that jeopardized public health, but there is simply nothing that can compare to the scale and breadth of Trump 2.0’s across-the-board evisceration of every part of the government that helps with cancer prevention and treatment. For half a century, the United States waged a War on Cancer. Since January 2025, it has instead waged war on cancer’s victims.

Cutting Cancer Research

The most obvious part of the Trump administration’s war on cancer patients is the frontal assault on research seeking to develop new screenings, treatments, and, hopefully, cures for an array of cancers.

On January 21, 2025, his first full day back in office, Donald Trump imposed a bevy of restrictions on the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including functionally freezing external communications, grant review, and employee travel. 

By executive fiat, Trump and his right-hand man-domestic policy puppet master Russell Vought delayed the disbursement of the NIH’s $47 billion in research funds, including $7 billion under the aegis of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). 

This consequently forced a pause on the review and approval of new clinical oncology trials. At the end of his second week in office, Trump mandated an instant 15% cap on NIH grant overhead, effectively demanding that the agency spend $4 billion less than planned. 

After freezing funding until the start of February, the NIH then began ruthlessly, frequently illegally (according to multiple federal court decisions) terminating grants; more than 1,800 were ended between February and June. And while courts have restored many of the improperly terminated grants, there’s a lot less recourse for new grants that are not being issued, leaving many research labs across the country, “running on fumes,” as The Washington Post described it. According to the Post’s analysis, NIH grants this year have fallen by over 50%.

From the start of this term, the administration has also censored the production and dissemination of federal health research from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the NIH. This includes illegally scrubbing swathes of publicly available data and web resources and requiring approval from the administration for CDC scientists to publish in external journals. 

Thanks to Trump’s Iran War, Big Oil Raking in $30 Million Per Hour in Windfall Profits

Making Trump's friends richer

Brad Reed

Donald Trump’s unprovoked war of choice in Iran has been a goldmine for the fossil fuels industry, which is earning massive windfall profits thanks to the rise in the price of petroleum.

An analysis published by The Guardian estimated that the 100 biggest oil and gas companies have collectively raked in an extra $30 million per hour since Trump launched his war with Iran without any congressional authorization in late February.

In just the first month of the conflict, The Guardian reported, Big Oil made $23 billion in windfall profits, and the industry is projected to haul in an additional $234 billion in windfall profits by the end of the year if the price of oil stays in the $100 range.

The top beneficiaries of the Iran conflict are Saudi Aramco, which is projected to earn $25.5 billion in windfall profits by the end of the year; Kuwait Petroleum Corp., which is projected to earn $12.1 billion; and ExxonMobil, which is projected to earn $11 billion.

Tax the Corporations Cashing in on War

The least war profiteers can do is pay taxes

By Meghan Schneider, Cass DiPaola

Our dependence on fossil fuels does more than pollute our air. It destabilizes the world and empowers the ultra-wealthy to profit off of that volatility, leaving working families to pay the price.

This dynamic has been on full display since Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.

Trump’s invasion of one of the world’s most oil-rich regions jolted energy markets, sending gas prices soaring to the highest level in either of his terms. In 2024 he campaigned on cutting them in half. Instead, Americans are now on track to pay roughly $720 more for gasoline this year.

The full cost to working families will be much steeper as high gas prices drive up prices on consumer goods across the board. We’re already seeing that ripple effect take hold, as the U.S. Postal Service has proposed a temporary 8 percent fuel surcharge on package deliveries to offset rising transportation costs tied directly to the war-driven spike in oil prices.

At the same time, the oil and gas companies that invested at least $75 million in Trump’s reelection are cashing in on this instability. A recent Financial Times analysis estimates that U.S. oil companies could collect an additional $63 billion in revenue this year if crude prices remain at these wartime levels. In March alone, the industry is expected to generate $5 billion in extra cash flow.

This type of windfall isn’t a fluke. We’ve seen this pattern for decades.

Oil has a way of appearing in the background of every chapter of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and beyond. Iran nationalized its oil industry in the 1950s and a CIA-backed coup followed. Iraq, sitting on some of the world’s largest reserves, was invaded in 2003. And earlier this year, the U.S. invaded Venezuela and immediately began plans for a taxpayer-backed oil industry takeover.

THANK YOU!

 

Gov. McKee, Statehouse MAGAs At War With Renewable Energy

Rightwing attacks on our best solution to our energy crisis

By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist

An illegal war started by a Monster caused the price of gasoline and other fossil fuels to explode. The human-caused climate crisis, fueled by the burning of said fossil fuels, is both frying and flooding great swaths of the planet and changing the ocean’s chemical composition.

But have no fear, Gov. Dan McKee and MAGA asshats are here.

To address this dual-threat emergency — war and the climate crisis, not gasoline prices — the underwater governor and the MAGA faction within the General Assembly believe blowing up Rhode Island’s support for renewable energy and retreating on the state’s climate initiatives are solutions.

Elections certainly do have consequences. We’ll be paying for them for generations.

House Minority Leader Rep. Michael Chippendale, MAGA-Foster, recently introduced a package of legislation designed to eliminate many of the state-mandated charges on utility bills that fund renewable energy and climate programs. He denied the legislation was meant to end renewable energy programs in Rhode Island, but it would essentially do just that.

His five irresponsible bills would: require all changes to the Renewable Energy Growth Program be approved by the General Assembly, instead of the Public Utilities Commission (the corporate-friendly PUC apparently isn’t corporate enough) or just eliminate the program altogether; terminate the energy efficiency charge, which funds the program that allows Rhode Island Energy to offer rebates, free weatherization services, and other initiatives that help ratepayers use less energy; end the net metering program used to finance solar arrays and prohibit any state subsidies for consumer heat pump purchases; and place a five-year moratorium on the Renewable Energy Growth and energy efficiency program charges.

Rhode Island Republicans introduce legislation to wipe out renewable energy programs

The Rhode Island GOP's anti-green agenda

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

There’s a debate in the General Assembly this year on how best to tackle electricity prices.

It’s no secret energy prices in Rhode Island have been high for years; state officials have little power over the price of natural gas used to run power plants and heat homes.

But a conservative faction within the General Assembly has been arguing that it’s time to roll back the state’s climate and renewable energy programs, which are funded via charges collected every month on residents’ electricity bills.

House Minority Leader Rep. Michael Chippendale, R-Foster, has introduced a package of legislation designed to eliminate many of the state-mandated charges on utility bills to deliver relief to ratepayers. He denied the legislation was meant to end renewable energy programs in Rhode Island.

“Each of these may have been created with good intentions,” Chippendale said during a House Corporation Committee bill hearing Thursday. “But each and every legislator in this building is hearing from our constituents that they cannot afford to pay their increasing electricity bills with good intentions. It requires money, and a lot of it.”

Smith Hill Republicans aren’t the only elected officials backing rollbacks to renewable energy and climate programs. Gov. Dan McKee proposed rollbacks to the programs as part of his budget, although the most optimistic savings Rhode Island households can expect is $15 a month, according to estimates from the state Office of Management and Budget.

McKee proposed capping the state’s energy efficiency programs to $75 million per year, capping net metering program costs, and pushing back the deadlines for Renewable Energy Standard requirements out to 2050. The governor in his budget announcement said it would save ratepayers $1 billion over five years.

Here’s a breakdown of rollback legislation:

H7139 would require all changes to the Renewable Energy Growth Program (sometimes referred to as RE Growth) be approved by the General Assembly, instead of the Public Utilities Commission.

H7174 would repeal the energy efficiency charge, which funds the program that allows Rhode Island Energy to offer rebates, free weatherization services, and other initiatives that help ratepayers use less energy, in its entirety.

H7176 would repeal the Renewable Energy Growth Program entirely.

H7177 would end the net metering program, used to finance solar arrays, and prohibit any state subsidies for consumer heat pump purchases.

H7523 would place a five-year moratorium on the Renewable Energy Growth and energy efficiency program charges.

Big Oil has moved on from ‘greenwashing.’

Here’s industry's new playbook.

Kate Yoder, Senior Staff Writer

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Remember when the fossil fuel industry couldn’t stop talking about climate change? In 2020, when oil prices plunged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Big Oil promoted efforts to cut carbon emissions and trumpeted various energy “innovations”: transforming algae into fuel (Exxon Mobil), capturing carbon (Chevron), and producing green hydrogen (BP). 

Critics deemed it “greenwashing” — highlighting small sustainable investments to distract people from the pollution at the core of their business.

It didn’t take long for oil companies to move on from those old talking points. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, supply disruptions drove oil prices up, and oil giants switched to a new message: Fossil fuels are essential to “energy security,” and they’re here to stay. 

That’s according to a new report from Clean Creatives, an initiative pressuring PR companies and advertisers to stop working with fossil fuel clients, that analyzed more than 1,800 advertisements, press releases, and social media campaigns from BP, Shell, Exxon, and Chevron between 2020 and 2024. 

Trump's whoppers about oil and gas prices

Big Oil wins. You lose.

Noah Berlatsky

“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Donald Trump boasted on Truth Social.

Oil prices are, of course, going up because Trump launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran without considering the (incredibly obvious) possibility that Iran might retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices have spiked 60 cents this month as oil hit $100 a barrel, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright refused to rule out the possibility oil might even rise to $200 a barrel.

Trump’s blasé trumpeting of the virtues of rising prices is in part simple fecklessness — he’s a liar who insists everything he does is brilliant and awesome.

But Trump’s decision to attack Iran and put upward pressure on prices at home puts him a political pickle, since he excoriated Biden for the high cost of gas during the 2024 campaign. In fact, the day before he launched his war, Trump preened about how far prices had fallen. But suddenly high prices are good, because as long as Trump is shuffling gaseously from Mar-a-Lago to the White House, it’s always an orange utopia in America.

To some degree, though, Trump’s love of high prices is sincere. Our current fascist president is a crony capitalist and loves the idea of screwing consumers, who he sees as suckers and marks. He identifies with the wealthy and likes it when the rich get richer. His populist mouth noises have always been a put on — as an instinctual oligarch, he gets a little shiver of pleasure whenever he can harm the little guy.