Oil just blew past $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the Democrats are doing what they always do when things get loud — sprinting to the nearest microphone to shriek about a problem they helped create.
Spare us the theatrics, Chuck.
Here’s the situation. The Iran conflict has gummed up the Strait of Hormuz, where about 20 million barrels of oil flow through every single day — roughly 20% of the world’s entire oil supply. Gas prices jumped 50 cents a gallon in a single week. Diesel already hit $4 a gallon. CNN is running countdown clocks to $5 gas like it’s New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told CNBC the quiet part out loud: “There are going to be some temporary effects on our domestic economy, but as soon as this is taken care of, those prices will tumble, and people will recognize that this was a short-term cost to pay for a major long-term gain in terms of peace and security.”
Trump was even more blunt on Truth Social: “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
He’s not wrong.
Now here comes Crying Chuck Schumer, demanding that Trump immediately release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists for moments exactly like this,” he said, apparently hoping nobody would check his receipts.
Chuck Schumer is demanding oil be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
But he voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill that refilled the reserve after Biden drained it.
You can’t make this stuff up. pic.twitter.com/fLEun7oV6G
— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) March 9, 2026
Too late, Chuck. We checked.
In 2020, oil had crashed to $29 a barrel. Trump wanted to spend $3 billion from a COVID stimulus package to fill the SPR while it was dirt cheap. Buy low — the kind of move even a kid running a lemonade stand would understand. Schumer killed it. Called it a “bailout for the oil industry.”
(Buy at $29? Absolutely not! Drain at $100? Right this way, sir!)
Joe Biden then went and drained a record amount from the SPR before the 2022 midterms just to keep gas prices manageable through election day. The Schumer investment philosophy in action: refuse to buy the dip, sell the rip, then panic when the cupboard is bare. Somebody give this man a hedge fund to destroy.
Ah yes… and remember they wouldn’t let Tump fill them up May of 2020 when barrels were $35pic.twitter.com/rVsDTNVBHn
— Jen B.Doll🌎❤️🗽🇺🇸 (@JenBDoll) March 9, 2026
Meanwhile — and this is the part the screaming Democrats conveniently leave out — the United States is producing a record 13.6 million barrels of oil per day. More than Russia. More than Saudi Arabia. More than both of them put together. “Drill, baby, drill” wasn’t a bumper sticker. It was a policy. And it’s working.
Sen. Mark Kelly from Arizona is introducing a bill to suspend the federal gas tax. The same Democrats who spent four years telling us fossil fuels are going to boil the oceans now want to make gas cheaper. These people have the consistency of a weather vane in a tornado.
Want to know how this ends? We’ve already lived through it.
When Saddam Hussein rolled into Kuwait in August 1990, oil doubled from $17 a barrel to $36 within weeks and spiked to $40 by October. Gas lines. Panic. Democrats screaming. (Some things never change.) Then Desert Storm kicked off in January 1991 and — poof — oil crashed back to $20 within weeks. Not months. Weeks. By 1994, crude was at its lowest price since 1973.
You know why? Because war-driven oil spikes are built on fear, not fundamentals. The second the shooting stops and the tankers start moving again, the panic premium evaporates like Chuck Schumer’s credibility on energy policy.
And here’s the number that should make every panicking Democrat shut their mouth: in 1990, the United States was producing about 7 million barrels of oil a day and importing over 7 million more. We were dependent on the Middle East. Today? We produce 13.6 million barrels a day and our net petroleum imports are down to 1.2 million. We’re not our parents’ America anymore. We’re an energy superpower, and this spike is a mosquito bite, not a mortal wound.
Mark my words: when this conflict wraps up and oil drops back to $65 or $70 — which it will — Trump walks into the midterms saying, “I told you so. I handled Iran. I kept America producing. And the prices came back down, just like I said they would.” The Democrats are betting their entire midterm playbook on sustained economic pain. The Gulf War says that bet loses. Every single war-driven oil spike in modern history has been temporary. Every one.
And the beautiful irony? If Schumer had let Trump fill the SPR at $29 a barrel back in 2020, the reserve would be topped off right now and we’d have even more cushion. Instead, Crying Chuck blocked the fill, Biden drained it for political theatre, and now Schumer is on TV demanding that Trump open the half-empty tank he personally prevented from being filled.
When the Iran situation is resolved — and it will be — gas prices are going to drop like a rock. Trump is going to take a victory lap. And Chuck Schumer is going to pretend he never said any of this.
We won’t forget, Chuck.
