The NPR Politics Podcast - How rising oil prices are foiling Trump’s energy policy

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Oil prices continue to climb as a result of the Iran war. We discuss how that has interfered with President Trump’s planned energy policy. Plus, will the Republican presidential ticket have Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the top in 2028?This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, business correspondent Camila Domonoske, and White House correspondents Danielle Kurtzleben and Franco Ordoñez.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Ashley. Before we get started today, I want to tell you about something. If the NPR Politics Podcast is a part of your weekly ritual, you can make it official on the NPR app. You'll hear about every episode the moment it's ready. Just turn on notifications and we'll handle the rest. See you there. Download the NPR app today. Okay, and here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I'm Ashley Lopez. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And a very happy Friday to us all, including NPR Politics. PR's Camila Dominovsky, who covers the auto industry. Hi, Camila.

Thanks for joining us. Hello. We want to start our weekly roundup this week with a look at what the war in Iran is doing with the energy markets and how that might run counter to what President Trump has said he wants for energy policy. Camila, let's start with oil. A lot of it comes through the Strait of Hormuz and ship traffic through there is way down since the war with Iran started. What is that doing to energy prices? Well, I mean, I think it's no surprise to anybody. It has pushed them up, right? It has also made prices quite volatile. So rent crude, which is the global benchmark for crude oil, it's right above $100 right now. But it was swinging around. It was $13 higher than that at the start of this week. So prices are really on a roller coaster. But more than $100 pretty consistently since not too long after the war began, which is up quite significantly from pre-war levels. And I will say they're still not as high as a lot of people would expect them to be given the scale of the unprecedented disruption in markets from that straight closure.

I mean, typically about 20% of global production passes through the straight. That's about ballpark 20 million barrels of oil every single day. Of that missing oil, some of it can get to market in a different way, Saudi Arabia and United States. Arab Emirates have redirected about 5 million barrels or so through pipelines. Everyone around the world is tapping into stockpiled oil. We're seeing some oil that was released from sanctions. All those things help bridge the gap. But we're still looking at, from all the estimates I've seen, more than 10 million barrels per day missing from global oil markets.

And that kind of supply shock just inevitably pushes prices up for all kinds of fuel. Yeah, let's talk about that because most of us don't deal with crude oil. What does this mean for gas prices, like what people are paying at the pump? What are we seeing throughout the country? Yeah. I mean, obviously, your local gas price varies, but wherever you are, you have seen that number go up in a big way, right, since the start of this conflict. The national average is now above $4.50 that's up from just about $3 pre-war. So we're talking a 50% price hike on something that's a really significant line item for household budgets, especially for. for lower-income families? And psychologically, it's a tremendously important figure. If you happen to listen to the president and you were living under a rock and you didn't see the gas prices anywhere else, you would think differently because the president has a tendency

to vastly understate the cost of gas and to cherry-picked numbers and to just, you know, get this all wrong. Yesterday, for example, he told reporters that gas prices were down very substantially. But regardless of day-to-day shifts, gas prices were up as of yesterday, according to AAA, by 25 cents week over week. But this is what he's been doing. He'll pick a number that he likes and just stick with it. He again told reporters yesterday that he was in Iowa recently and gas there was $1.85 a gallon. Well, that is a line he used in his State of the Union, which was at the end of February and was also before the Iran War started. By the way, it wasn't even $1.85 in Iowa at the time, but that's beside the point. He really has been leaning on that number and on any low number he can pull out because he is apparently trying to convince people that, no, no, no, gas prices are not as bad as you think.

I just pulled up the current gas prices in Iowa. The average is 424-ish right now. Yeah, absolutely. And I just keep thinking about a conversation I had with a Republican strategist weeks ago, still in the midst of this war, of course, who said, regardless of what Trump says, if you drive anywhere, you see a giant billboard saying the price of gas every few minutes. Like, you can't escape it. And the president should know that. Yeah. Another consequence of high prices could also be electric cars becoming more and more popular, which I think. we're seeing a little bit of what are you seeing? Let's break this up globally and in the U.S., right? So globally, absolutely, EV sales, they were down in January, February, but really in March saw a turnaround global EV sales were rising again. And, you know, there's a really obvious reason for that. Evis get a lot more compelling from a sheer economic standpoint the higher grass prices are. And that's true worldwide. In the U.S., we're seeing more interest.

Really right away we saw search interest, people who were thinking about electric vehicles. You could observe that in the data from these sites where folks shop for cars. That's not the same as sales going up, and U.S. EV sales are still reeling from the really dramatic policy turnaround that has happened under the Trump administration, where a lot of support for electric vehicle manufacturing, electric vehicle charging, really conspicuously, the $7,500 consumer-facing tax credit got taken away. All those things have brought EV sales down. And so sales have not recovered from that even at the higher gasoline price level.

But again, there is data to show that a lot more people are thinking about it. I mean, Danielle has the president talked about this at all? Because, like, I mean, as Camilla just outlined, the Trump administration has like a pretty clear position on electric vehicles and, I mean, renewables in general. But, I mean, I wonder if this is something that they've talked about, whether they might rethink some of their policy on this. As far as telegraphing, we're going to change our policy or maybe we could on electric cars, I don't see that happening. Trump, when he has talked about electric cars, for example, he hasn't said, I don't like them or anything even approaching that. He's framed it as a personal choice thing. He tries to tell the story that the Biden administration was trying to force electric cars onto everybody.

And you shouldn't have to do that. You should just get one if you want. And by the way, he occasionally name checks Elon Musk and says, you know, Tesla, they make a good car. You just shouldn't have to buy it if you don't want. That is what Trump says. But he also has kind of insulted electric cars occasionally when he has talked about them, saying, do you really want to have to recharge your car every 200 miles? Something to that effect. So he's certainly not an electric car salesman while he's talking about any of this. similarly on other renewables, as our colleague Tamara Keith has reported on Trump, has a real being in his bonnet about windmills, for example. I don't foresee him doing a sudden 180 anytime soon and going, heck yeah, renewables, let's get them all going. But I'm just continually struck by how he does talk about gas prices when they come up because he has a few responses when it comes up. Well, yeah, maybe gas prices are high, but do you want Iran to have a nuclear?

bomb. Another of his responses is, well, the war is going to end soon and then prices will plummet. And one more response is to just get mad. It is a topic that can rattle him. And notably, what you're not hearing from him, though, is, I feel your pain. Or, yeah, I get it. You're squeezed. This is tough. That is a real problem, I think, for him, because gas prices affect everyone. It's not just about electric vehicles and renewables. Actually, even for old-fashioned gasoline vehicles, the Trump administration has brought this same idea of consumer choice above all else to fuel economy and has really rolled back the rules that push automakers to make more efficient vehicles, which saves money on gasoline for people who drive gas cars, right? It's so striking that this

happened right before the launch of the war in Iran and the run-up. prices because the last time the country had this severe or almost this severe of an oil crisis in the 70s, fuel economy standards were created as a result. The federal fuel economy standards exist because of the oil supply crisis in the 70s. And the White House rolled those back, eliminated requirements. Like, there's no penalties for noncompliance now, and they've proposed much weaker standards. And they did that immediately before we then had another oil supply crisis. At the same time, though, the White House has pushed for more domestic energy production, things like natural gas, even a return to coal mining. Those have been championed by the president.

So is it all bad for the president's energy policy right now? Yeah, I mean, I think you can split this up into sort of short-term effects and long-term effects, right? So the president has made this big push for fossil fuel-based energy in the U.S. and worldwide. He wants greater reliance on these fuels that as he really likes to point out, the U.S. has in abundance, right? And so high prices and this global shortage where competitor suppliers are knocked out of commission, essentially, is a boost to U.S. oil production, right? American oil producers are getting more revenue in the door at these higher oil prices. Natural gas is a little more complicated because in the United States to export natural gas, you have to super cool it, liquefy it, put it on shire.

ships. And we're sort of, the country is doing that as much as it can already. There's not more capacity to do more of it. So natural gas prices haven't spiked in the U.S. in the same way that oil has. But the oil industry absolutely has gotten a near-term boost. This strengthens the argument for having U.S. domestic production of these resources at the same time that it makes it more profitable to do that. At the same time in the long term, to the extent that President Trump wants to see the rest of the world. continuing to rely on fossil fuels, which the U.S. supplies in large quantity, for longer and less inclined to turn toward renewables, where China dominates the supply chain, right?

Having prices spike really suddenly as the result of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy does not make other countries want to continue to rely on imported oil. It really strengthens the argument for investing in solar, wind, batteries. It's a very persuasive case. So I think that even if on the short term this looks like a real boost for the domestic abundance approach to energy, it undercuts the global argument that President Trump has been making to try to support the industry in the long term. All right. Well, Camila Dominovsky, a pleasure having you on the pod. Thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Let's take a quick break when we come back. Believe it or not, we're going to be talking about the presidential race in 2008. Welcome back and welcome to NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Hi, Franco. Hi there. Hi, all. And as we all know and have said multiple times, Donald Trump will not be on the ballot in 28. With that, Republicans are already sussing out who could be his heir apparent to possible choices, the current vice president, J.D. Vance and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Danielle, I want to tick through the bios for both these guys, even though, like, a lot of people know who they are. Can you give us the quick bio for Vance first? Remind us what he was up to before he became a heartbeat away from the presidency. Sure. So J.D. Vance was born and raised in and around Middletown, Ohio. Quite famously, he was raised by his grandparents, who he has lovingly referred to as his papaw and mamma. He gave a memorable speech at the Republican National Convention in 2024. talking about his mamma. And after that, he was in the Marine Corps. He was deployed to Iraq. Then he went to

college and he went to Yale Law School. So he, you know, was a kid from a pretty unprivileged background who made it to the Ivy League. And that story became very well known to many people due to the book he wrote called Hillbilly Elegie, which if you have not read it or do you not remember it, it was sort of part memoir of his childhood growing up in pretty hard, scrambling. travel part of Appalachia, but also part treatise on life in that area. And what he sees as both policy problems and problems among the people there and just how people could perhaps better get ahead. After that, he got into venture capital. And then he was elected a Republican senator from Ohio in 2022. So that was not long ago. And it was his first elected office.

which means that just two years after being elected senator, he was plucked from there to be Donald Trump's running mate. So he has had a pretty quick rise through the political ranks, which means he, compared to other people who might want to run for president, he has a pretty thin resume. Yeah. Okay, Franco, so give us the rundown on Rubio. Yeah, I guess in contrast to Vance, Rubio's had a more traditional route. obviously a longtime U.S. Senator served almost a decade and a half representing Florida. He grew up in Miami, born to Cuban immigrant parents. He also served in the Florida House of Representatives before running and winning a seat in the U.S. Senate. He was part of, you remember the Tea Party movement that took office in 2011. In 2016, he actually ran against Trump in

the Republican presidential primaries. People who are listeners will know, It was pretty ugly at times. Trump even nicknamed him Little Marco. You know, they had a lot of, you know, tete-a-tete's in those debates. But Rubio would eventually become a really trusted ally in that first administration. He was sometimes called, you know, Trump's shadow secretary of state, especially as it had to deal with Latin America and the Western Hemisphere. And this time, in Trump's second term, he was officially named the Secretary of State as well as National Security Advisor. Yeah, another quick note on his bio, we went to the same high school.

Oh, wow. Go cobras. So what is it about those two that stands out as possible contenders for the Republican nomination in 2020? Besides the fact that they both had run-ins with Trump before they became one of his allies, they both, from what it looks like, represent two very different paths forward for the party. Yeah, I mean, I see this as kind of emblematic of the debate that's going on now about the future of the Republican. party and what is it going to look like after Trump? And is it going to be a different party after Trump? Or is it just going to be a different version of Trumpism? And I think these two represent a different version of Trumpism. Vance obviously represents kind of like the populist working class,

more traditional, kind of more authentic populism that Trump represents. Ruby, on the other hand, some may say more polish and potentially more traditional, but also more broadly electable candidate. You know, someone who could potentially expand the party's appeal beyond the MAGA base. I find it interesting that Rubio's actually tried to tamp down that rivalry, even saying publicly that he would back Vance as a nominee if he runs. But he caught a lot of attention just this week when his team kind of released this campaign-style video. That really sounded a lot like an opening message for a presidential run. And this video, which was posted on social media, had all this kind of imagery jets flying over the White House. Rubio watching as the U.S. flag is kind of raised. You know, music in the background as Rubio's talking about, you know, common aspirations of Americans from all walks of life, you know, very theatrical, you know, all the things that you expect in the beginning of a presidential run.

Those presidential ambitions are hard to quit. Indeed they are. I would agree with Franco that, yeah, J.D. Vance and Rubio, it's hard to. to quite say that they do represent two very different paths forward because they are two high-profile people in the Trump White House. And Trump demands loyalty. It is hard for them to get very different from each other. What they have different right now is not so much a difference in substance. It's a difference in style. J.D. Vance is like is really seeming to be self-consciously cultivating this, you know, the guy who has the fight in words, the guy who is pugilistic, who goes out and, you know, takes on fraud and really tries to stick it to blue states as the head of this White House fraud task force that he is ahead of.

I remember after the killing of Renee Maclin Good in Minneapolis, he came out and did a White House press briefing and got really, really heated with the reporters. In contrast, yes, it is a different circumstance, but Marco Rubio came out and did a White House press briefing this week. And, you know, he really seems to be trying to cultivate the cool-headed statesman. I am trying to, you know, navigate this Iran situation persona. And I can see those two being two very, yes, different styles. I'm very curious to what degree either of them attempts to find some distance from each other, some distance from Trump especially as 2028 approaches. I mean, I think what Danielle just kind of pointed out two major differences in the fact that

Vance is trying to focus on the domestic issues and really being that voice of the working class, where Rubio is, you know, kind of more internationally centric. He is talking about Iran. He is talking about the Middle East. Obviously, Rubio is very focused on China and the threats that he is described about China. And obviously, Cuba and Latin American, and he really represents kind of this new push by Trump to kind of this Monroe doctrine or Trump doctrine of kind of the U.S. having a more influence in its own hemisphere. I guess this isn't totally surprising, but Trump has intentionally not weighed in yet,

right? I mean, we are also two years away from that election. Do you think eventually he'll anoint someone as his successor, or do you think he's going to leave this up to the voters and let these candidates potentially do get out amongst themselves? I am going to be a smart person here and just not try to predict what Trump is going to do because that, at least for me, always ends up being wrong. But I think that this is a fascinating question in that this is unlike someone like, you know, Joe Biden passing the torch to someone. Trump has his own movement, a personalist movement. That is all him.

MAGA is Trump and Trump is MAGA. So to the degree that the Republican Party is mega and that that is going to be what wins the nomination in 2020. like, can he pass the torch or is Maga Trump? I mean, is there really anyone who can be his successor? I don't see Rubio or Vance in particular as having the big bombastic mega Trump personality. So unless there's a dark horse that we haven't thought of yet, which is very, very possible slash likely, it's impossible for me to even think about that question. It kind of breaks my brain. I mean, I definitely think Trump's going to want to have some influence. It's very hard to imagine Trump. Trump. kind of pulling away. He has been the central force of the Republican Party for the last decade. I sincerely doubt that going away. I mean, I do find it interesting that over the last few months, Trump's been very careful not to weigh in one way or the other. He's talked about both of them being on the same ticket. He's lavished praise on each of them. And I think he probably will, at least publicly kind of keep his powder dry. I wouldn't be surprised, I guess, if he privately kind of

pushed in one direction or another. But publicly, I think his MO is to kind of see how this horse race kind of, you know, materialize, who takes the lead and waiting to see until someone emerges before giving it that final push. So I don't think he'll forever be able to stay away, but I think clearly, you know, this is something that he's watching as closely, if not more, closely than the rest of us because he does bring it up every once in a while. Yeah. And besides that, like you said at the start of all of this, Ashley, two years. Yes, it is early. And, you know, if you're really into politics and you're looking at, for example, polls or most likely lists of who's going to be the Republican nominee in 2028, that to me is kind of a fool's errand. Yeah. And a lot can

change from one election cycle to the next. Yeah. Okay. Before we head to a break, though, there is some news that we've been following on the battle over partisan redistricting. Virginia's Supreme Court just throughout the results of the referendum that would have allowed the state to redraw its congressional maps. These would be Democrats redrawing the congressional maps to create potentially more seats for the party. Danielle, has the White House weighed in yet? Yeah. As a matter of fact, this morning, President Trump posted on truth social, quote, huge win for the Republican Party and America in Virginia. The Virginia's Supreme Court has just struck down the Democrats' horrible gerrymander. And then he concluded it with the Trumpian signoff,

make America great again, President Donald J. Trump. So yeah, he's very happy about this. Yeah, Franco, what do you see as the political implications here? I mean, this is quite a run in the courts for Republicans. They've gotten two big court cases now that have helped them sort of set themselves up for the midterms, it seems. You know, control of the House could shift by three or four seats. So it could have an impact. It also has, you know, bigger, you know, you know, you know, national redistricting fight kind of implications because both parties have really been trying to kind of redraw these maps. And in many ways, this was seen by Democrats as kind of the best chance to kind of counter all the gerrymandering efforts that Republicans have been doing in other parts of the country,

like Texas. I mean, Ashley, you cover this so closely. What are your thoughts? I mean, I worry about voters and all this. Because of the ruling that came down from the Supreme Court, like more states are reconsidering the maps that they're going to move forward with. So state legislatures are starting to call special session redrawing right before voters start casting ballots. In some cases, moving, filing deadlines. That is just a lot of chaos for voters. And it's also very expensive for states. So this is going to be, I think, a look into what the next, I don't know, several election cycles could be, which is just right before. big elections where things look like they're going to be close. People are going to change the rules, the stakes of the game. And more importantly, like who votes in what district and what those look like. But, you know, it's hard to tell right now. Is there another counter for Democrats? Because as I mentioned, filing deadlines make this hard.

It is hard to figure something out in the timeline, especially a lot of states have already voted in their primaries. This is more of a timing thing. Now, Democrats have said, we're preparing for 2028. We're going to do all out redraws, partisan. redraws for our party for 2028. Now the question is, depending on turnout, will that be enough for Democrats to close the gap from the edge that Republicans have gotten from redrawing ahead of the midterms? And that's, I mean, that's going to be something to watch for sure. All right. One more break. And then it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And it's time for

can't let it go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. And, I'm going to start. This might be too revealing about me, but there is a book series that is on my bucket list. It's the years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Carroll's monstrous collection of books. That is not where I thought this was going. Yeah, one day, I'm assuming either a high point or a low point in my life, I will sit through and read these books. It's supposed to be five, four have been written.

And I bring this up because my can't let it go this week is that. Robert Carroll talked to C-SPAN about how the book is going, and he has written 983 pages. And I don't know, this has made me, like, really, I don't know. I was already intimidated by this series, but it's like if you're about to climb a mountain and you're emotionally preparing for that, someone tells you, oh, by the way, there's a thousand more feet on that mountain now. I'm just, like, overwhelmed by how much, because all those books are incredibly, like, intimidatingly long. So now I'm like, should I take this off my bucket list because I'm lazy or am I just going to have to buck up and be prepared to read another thousand page book at the end of finishing that series? Listen, if you have a 900 page biography written about you that you've done some stuff in your life. If you have several, like that's, I feel like I know a fair bit about Lyndon B. Johnson, but I, that much stuff?

Like, I'm just curious. How do you fill all of them? I might have to report back. I need you to report back. I will say reading those books might take up all of my 50s. I don't know, like, at what point I will bring myself to start them. But I know I want to, but it just, I don't know. This news makes me think, like, I'm going to really have to be, like, emotionally prepared for that. I think you should do it.

I think you should do it. And I think you should tell us all, everything that's said in the books. Oh, my goodness. Another thousand pages. Anyways. All right. Danielle, what can't you let go of this week? I have a story from Reuters that I've been thinking about.

It is, let me read you the headline, Diet Coke parties. Iran War, Cans Crisis fuels thirst for cola events in India. So thing I didn't know until I read this. Diet Coke is only sold in cans in India. So the Iran War has limited supplies of aluminum, which makes it harder to get cans into the world, which means it's harder to get Diet Coke in Canada. in India. So here is a paragraph from the story. Indian pubs and social media influencers have spotted a chance to profit from the scarcity organizing parties that come with a $10 to $16 entry fee and offer

access to Diet Coke as well as music and alcoholic activities like hand decoration and themed t-shirt painting, et cetera, et cetera. I used to be a Diet Coke addict. That is a monkey I've gotten off of my back. And the thing is, I hear this and I understand the poll to pay a $16 cover charge just so you can get your precious Diet Coke. I get it. But I heard someone on social media call Diet Coke refrigerator cigarettes. I have never stopped thinking of them in that way. I'm pretty sure it's Trump's thing too. Oh, yeah. There's a story from years ago that said he drinks 12 cans a day, or at least at some point did. But like, personally, maybe I need some soft music behind me here. I just want people to have hope. You can kick this habit if you really want to. You can do it. I'm here. I offer you my support and empathy. Yeah, I think more than like two coax in a day would like send me into orbit or something.

That's just like way too much caffeine. All right, Franco, what can't you let go of? What I can't let go is the Tampa International Airport announced on social media that they are going to ban pajamas from the airport. And I am all for it. They posted online. They said the madness stops today and said after the success of banning crocs or going crock free that the Tampa International Airport had seen enough of pajamas. I loved this so much and my heart just broke because it was a joke. What?

Yeah. I mean, Tampa's a weird place to try this. I mean, I could understand like an airport in Milan, but like you have a lot of people traveling to central. Florida ostensibly for things like Disney and other like, well, I guess whatever's in Tampa. I mean, it was so tongue in cheek. I mean, they did this just to mess. What the spokesperson said that this joke that they made was, you know, kind of the persona that Twitter had. But I think there are people like me who want this to be true. They want to not sit next to the person on the airplane in their pajamas.

Wait, why? Why do I not want to sit next to? No, snooty. Don't you want to sit next to someone who's happy and comfortable? Man, I remember, it probably shows my age, but I remember the days, I remember the old days, when people would wear like their finest clothes on the airport. And I really like that. And you can smoke your cigarettes on board the plane. And we all had martinis the whole time. But now, you know, I don't want to, you know, not people not wearing pants and you're touching, well, I don't. Listen, listen, I hear you, I do. I personally, I am neither a Crox person nor a pajamas at the airport person, but I will dress nicer for a flight when you give me room and comfort on the flight. If you're just going to pack me in like I'm in steerage, no, I'm going to be comfortable. That's fine. I understand that. And I get that as well. I'm, I guess I'm more thinking about fellow passengers. We're all in this together. Yeah. Yeah. But you're like, I don't want the eye. You stick it to the man. I get that also. Okay. All right. That's it for today. Our executive producer is

Mathony, Maturi. Our producers are Casey Morel and Brea Suggs. Our editor is Rachel Bay. Special thanks to Krishna Dave Kalimer. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Frank O'Donias. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I also cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.