President Donald Trump told a crowd of law enforcement officials on Long Island on Friday that he will “never apologize” for higher gas prices tied to the ongoing conflict with Iran, framing the added cost at the pump as a necessary step to stop the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Trump’s remarks came during a campaign event supporting Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for New York governor.
During the speech, Trump addressed broader economic concerns and criticism from political opponents. He targeted Democrats over consumer costs, stating that they “keep talking about affordability” and pointing out that the media questioned him about grocery prices immediately upon his return to office.
“The press had been screaming ‘what about eggs?’ on my first day in office,” Trump said, calling the affordability attacks a “hoax” and arguing that Democratic policies created the pricing challenges while his administration is “bringing the prices way down.”
Trump also discussed the military campaign against Iran, claiming significant operational success in the region.
“And after we finish defeating Iran — which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said, adding that a U.S. naval blockade ensures “no ships get through unless we want them to.”
He credited U.S. strikes with disabling Iran’s nuclear capabilities and defending the expanded use of the military.
“We’re doing really good — we’re doing good in every way. You know, I built the military and used it — a little more than I wanted to, frankly, but that’s okay, because we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “If we didn’t hit the B-2 bombers, if we didn’t hit them, you would have had a nuclear weapon, and it would have been a very sad day for this country and for the entire world.”
Addressing the direct impact on American drivers, Trump acknowledged that fuel prices had risen from previous lows, recounting recent visits to states where prices had hovered around $1.85 to $1.95 a gallon prior to escalating operations overseas.
“So, for you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have — a country, really, it’s the number one state sponsor of terror in the world, we don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “When you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4, it’s okay, I mean, it’s not — I’ll never apologize, I did the right thing.”
Trump concluded his remarks on the conflict by describing the naval blockade as “a wall of steel” and reiterating that the military actions serve both domestic security and global interests.
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