Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, angered many Americans feeling the crunch of high gas prices after he, in a dig at President Joe Biden, asked his followers if they remembered "how cheap gas was" when former President Donald Trump was in office.
Remember how cheap gas was during the Trump Administration?— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Rep. Jim Jordan) 1646701791
Jordan's claim is incorrect.
In recent weeks, Trump and prominent Republicans have blamed President Biden for spiking gas prices, an issue that continues to be touched upon in daily press briefings. The implication, of course, is that gas prices remained low during the Trump administration but that is not necessarily true.
In recent months, for example, Trump has repeatedly exaggerated the size of the price increase, telling stories on Fox News in which the price of gas when he left office is off by "more than 50 cents per gallon," according to one fact check.
According to price data collected by the federal Energy Information Administration, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline for the week of Jan. 18, 2021, the week Trump left office, was $2.38, which is 28 percent higher than Trump has previously claimed.
Jordan was swiftly criticized, with many taking him to task for his support for Trump, including throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and his failed efforts to litigate an election he continues to falsely assert he won.
We remember how cheap and traitorous Trump was.\n\n Do us a favor though and STFU!https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— Dennis JD, B.S.E.E. Committed to turn TX & US Blue (@Dennis JD, B.S.E.E. Committed to turn TX & US Blue) 1646777674
Remember how cheap gas was before Katrina?\nRemember how cheap gas was was during the Clinton Admin?https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— Churp (@Churp) 1646777123
You mean when 100s of thousands of Americans died from COVID the nation was locked down?\n\nYeah, good times, I guess? The @GOP is weird.https://twitter.com/jim_jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— Jeff Alerman (@Jeff Alerman) 1646769738
About as cheap as national secrets were under the Trump administration.https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— The Trump Crisis (@The Trump Crisis) 1646752575
No, but I do remember how cheap the presidency was during the Trump administrationhttps://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— rethe craig (@rethe craig) 1646753125
No, but I remember you being a traitorous rape enabling trunk monkey during the Trump Administration, because you still are #GymJordanhttps://twitter.com/jim_jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— Tara Dublin \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\udf3b (@Tara Dublin \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6\ud83c\udf3b) 1646754549
Hey @Jim_Jordan, remember how you and your @GOP buddies ignored a pandemic & let it overtake the US & shutdown the economy so nobody could travel anywhere so gas supplies skyrocketed and prices dropped? Remember how supply & demand works?https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— Roger Lansing (@Roger Lansing) 1646759066
Remember how if Republicans stood together against a fraudulent election, none of this would be happening?https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— NoToNaziJoe (@NoToNaziJoe) 1646768619
I don\u2019t, I couldn\u2019t leave my house because of the raging pandemic he was doing nothing abouthttps://twitter.com/jim_jordan/status/1501002220606824454\u00a0\u2026— Patrick (@Patrick) 1646776525
This isn't the first time Jordan has sparked controversy for historical revisionism in regard to the Trumpist economy.
Last year, Jordan received heavy criticism after he claimed that groceries "weren't expensive during the Trump administration" at a time when news outlets were reporting that many Americans were feeling the impacts of inflation at the grocery store.
However, rising grocery prices are not necessarily new and were, in fact observed during former President Donald Trump's time in office.
Trump generated significant controversy in 2018 after he initiated a trade war, raising taxes on aluminum and steel. Ultimately, the agriculture industry and farmers in particular ended up paying the price when countries leveled retaliatory tariffs.
In 2018, at the height of the trade war, CNBC interviewed Matt Gold, a former deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative for North America under former President Barack Obama, who said that:
"With Chinese retaliatory tariffs, we've imposed those on $34 billion of different goods coming from China. It's a very broad array of consumer products, industrial products."
"So everything from the person who walks into Walmart is going to pay higher prices as well as the manufacturer buying material imports for their manufacturing processes."
Indeed, the ripple effects of these tariffs have been felt across numerous sections of the food industry, including beef, beer, cheese, pork, soybeans, and even whiskey and bourbon.
