On April 30, 2026, two prominent Republican lawmakers made false on-record claims about U.S. gas prices on the same day that AAA reported the national average had hit $4.30 a gallon. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) stated, 'Gas prices continue to come down.' House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) claimed, 'Two years ago, we were paying almost $6 a gallon for gasoline.' Both claims were rapidly fact-checked and shown to be the opposite of what the data shows.
Scott's claim is directly refuted by AAA's daily fuel-price tracker. The national average for regular gasoline has risen each week since Trump's March intervention in Iran. The week-over-week increase had been documented in administration-friendly outlets including Fox Business and CNBC. Scalise's claim is refuted by AAA's own historical record. The U.S. national average exactly two years prior to Scalise's statement — April 30, 2024 — was $3.66 a gallon, lower than the April 30, 2026 average. The peak national average during the Biden administration was approximately $5.02 a gallon in mid-June 2022 — and that peak lasted roughly three weeks before falling, never reaching the 'almost $6' figure Scalise asserted, and certainly not 'two years ago.'
MSNBC's Chris Hayes flagged both claims on All In: 'If your message going into the midterms is to lie about gas prices, voters are going to laugh you out of office.' CNN's fact-check called the GOP claims 'simply not true' and noted Scott in particular had repeated the falsehood across multiple appearances over two days. The pattern fits a broader administration messaging effort: Trump told donors at a March 25 NRCC dinner he had expected oil prices to rise from the war but 'it didn't matter to me'; the FCC threatened broadcasters covering Iran-war price impacts as 'defeatist'; and Hegseth told Congress that Americans concerned about the war's costs are the 'biggest adversary' the country faces.