At the NRCC dinner on March 25, 2026, Trump admitted he anticipated the Iran war would raise oil prices and hurt the stock market — and did it anyway because the economic pain to Americans “didn't matter” to him.
Trump told the room: “I thought that the energy prices, oil price, would go up higher. I thought the stock market would go somewhat lower, but it didn't matter to me.” He described the war as an “excursion into hell, excursion into a terrible place” and said he “thought it was to be much worse.”
This is not a president downplaying consequences after the fact — this is a president admitting he had foreknowledge that his decision would cause economic harm and made it with explicit indifference to the impact on the people he serves.
At the time of the admission: gas prices had surged over $1 per gallon since the war began, oil was up over 40%, the S&P 500 was off 4.8% in March (6.5% from its record high), Brent Crude had spiked to nearly $120 per barrel, and Wall Street economists were raising recession odds. Americans were paying more for gas, groceries, and everything else — and the president said it “didn't matter” to him.