'Just Run This as an Ad': Trump Dismisses Pump Pain to Boast of Oil and Gas Profits

If there was any doubt, President Donald Trump made it very clear Saturday evening that he cares more about wealthy oil and gas executives than ordinary people.

During a midterm campaign rally in Perry, Georgia, Trump acknowledged the high price of oil and gas, but said that the US fossil fuel industry was "making hundreds of billions of dollars."

His advisers, he told the crowd, had instructed him not to mention this "because people are paying a little higher," he said in a condescending voice. "That number's going to come way down," he continued, "but what we've done for this country, we're making money like this country has never made before," seemingly conflating the fortunes of wealthy oil and gas companies with the US as a whole.

"Trump to people who want lower gas prices: 'Fuck you, I’m making money!'" Melanie D'Arrigo, the executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, posted on social media. "Just run this as an ad."

Nation writer Jeet Heer made a similar point, saying that Trump's remarks were an "amazing closing argument—for the Democrats. They just need to run this clip."

Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim noted the tone of Trump's voice.

"Trump here does a widdle baby voice to mock people who are complaining about high gas prices, explaining that the oil and gas industry is making 'hundreds of billions, trillions,'" Grim wrote on social media. "It’s never been clearer how much he hates the people who voted for him."

"Like the epigraph for the entire Trump 2.0 presidency: 'I don’t give a damn. We’re making a fortune.'"

Trump seemed to anticipate a negative reaction to his statement, which echoed similar points he had made at a rally in Arizona over a week before.

"I can just see the fake headlines," he said. "President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. That will be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it: We're making a freaking fortune."

Yet his supposedly fake headline is just a factual restatement of his own words.

It is true that major oil companies have made a killing from the Iran War, with ExxonMobil and Chevron reporting combined second-quarter profits for 2026 of $26.5 billion. This has been good for Trump, who owns stock in oil companies that has made him between $1.5 million and $4.4 million richer since the illegal war he started. However, this windfall has not reached ordinary Americans, who have spent around $1,100 per household in additional gas and diesel costs since the war began, according to the running Iran War Energy Cost Tracker maintained by the Watson School of International and Public Affairs and the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University.

In fact, and in contradiction to Trump's boasting of shared American prosperity, Big Oil's windfall exists because of consumer suffering, as Climate Solutions Lab director Jeff Colgan pointed out.

“The profits for Big Oil are huge, and they are coming straight out of the pockets of American consumers at a time when many people are feeling the pinch,” Colgan told HuffPost on Tuesday.

Ron Filipkowski, editor in chief at MediasTouch, also noted the divide between the wealthy few benefiting from Trump's policies and everyone else when responding to Trump's remarks on Saturday.

"We are making the oil oligarchs rich. We are making Trump and his cronies rich. It is literally at our expense every day. There’s no trickling down happening. And Trump is bragging about it knowing nobody in the Republican Party will stand up to him and say enough," he wrote on social media.

New Yorker writer Susan Glasser said Saturday's statement was "like the epigraph for the entire Trump 2.0 presidency: 'I don’t give a damn. We’re making a fortune.'"

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also weighed in on Sunday:

"Trump just said the quiet part out loud: He doesn’t “give a damn” about higher gas prices, as long as his billionaire friends are making a fortune," Sanders wrote on social media. "Trump doesn’t tell the truth very often, but he did last night!"

The Young Turks executive producer and host Ana Kasparian summed it up on Saturday: "The government tells us they hate us every single day."

Update: This piece has been updated with a quote from Sen. Bernie Sanders.