David Pakman

We've seen how it plays out when people's budgets get blown up.

by rising prices.

But what happens when this is taking place, not during a Democratic president,

Republicans don't like and they can say, well, of course, Democrats, communists, whatever.

This is happening during a Republican president.

When prices went up before Trump, it was treated as a failure of leadership, something voters were told to take personally to respond to when you go and you vote the way Americans will do in just under seven months now.

And you can imagine if you can imagine

There wasn't any nuance or hesitation or patience with the leader.

It was just prices are up.

Leadership failed.

It's time to punish them.

So is the same standard going to apply now?

Are Republicans going to look at 61 percent increase in gas prices and say it's unacceptable and it's the fault of the president?

It's a broken promise.

We must respond to it by voting these Republicans out.

Or is the explanation going to suddenly change?

Is it going to be, well, global markets and geopolitical tensions and we had to do the Iran thing and some of these factors are outside of Trump's control and we've got to be patient.

If that's the argument this time, then it raises a bigger issue, which I know you understand.

Was it ever really about gas prices in the sense of policy and leadership?

Or were gas prices and other prices just used as a politically convenient weapon, depending on who was in power?