Former President Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden for releasing 1 million barrels of gas reserves Tuesday to bring down prices.
"He's unable to drill properly," Trump said outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is on trial. "He's destroyed everything we had. We were energy independent. We were shortly going to be energy dominant, and now we have to go into what's called the strategic reserves."
Trump said if Biden is reelected, gas prices would increase to more than $10 a gallon.
"You better hope he doesn't get reelected," Trump said. "He's trying to stop that because, I guess, high prices are not good for elections but nothing he's done has been good for elections."
Under Biden, energy costs, especially the price of electricity, are up nearly 30%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Electricity prices are up 29.4% since January 2021 and have risen 13 times faster than the previous seven years, the analysis found. Electricity prices rose a mere 5% in the seven years before Biden took office.
Gasoline prices in the United States have soared to a six-month high, reaching an average of $3.60 per gallon, marking a more than 50% increase since President Joe Biden took office, Breitbart reported.
Over the past month alone, pump prices have surged by more than 20 cents a gallon, leaving consumers feeling the pinch. The current average price is over $1 higher than when former President Donald Trump left office, at $2.38 per gallon.
Various factors contribute to the escalating costs, with industry experts warning that prices could continue to climb.