Trump Shares When He Expects Iran War To Finally End, And When Gas Will Drop Below $2 a Gallon

Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on September 9, 2026 before boarding Air Force One for Texas and the Republican National Midterm Convention, President Donald Trump predicted that the war with Iran will end “immediately after the election” and that gasoline will then fall below $2 per gallon. Asked why he was so certain, Trump said of the Iranians, “They can’t hold out any longer,” and framed the standoff as a nuclear question: “All you have to do is say, ‘Will you let Iran have a nuclear weapon?’ And the answer is no.”

Hedge Landed in the Same Breath

In the same remarks, Trump also said, “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm.” Because he tied relief to the period after the early November vote, CNBC characterized any price relief as at least eight weeks away, and described the exchange as a rare acknowledgement from Trump that neither the war nor the higher prices it has generated are likely to end in the near future. Trump also said of recent tanker strikes, “I would say that the attacks are caused by us,” adding, “you’re going to see a lot more.”

Seventh Month of a War Once Forecast in Weeks, according to CNBC

The conflict, which the administration calls Operation Epic Fury and which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes in late February 2026, is now in its seventh month, according to CNBC. Per the editor’s sourcing, Trump initially predicted the fighting would last only weeks and has since claimed dozens of times that a peace deal was nearly at hand.

Four Prior Gas-Price Predictions, in Order

In October 2025, Trump pledged gas would fall to $2 a gallon “pretty soon.” Later, he claimed gas had reached $1.98 a gallon and $1.88 a gallon in three states; CNN, PolitiFact, CBS News and GasBuddy reported the actual lowest state average was $2.66 a gallon in Mississippi against a $3.19 a gallon national average. At the February 24, 2026 State of the Union, he said gas was “now below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places $1.99 a gallon”; fact-checkers put the national average at $2.94 a gallon and identified roughly about 8 stations out of roughly 150,000 stations selling below $2. On March 31, 2026, when gas crossed $4 a gallon, then a four-year high, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said prices would “plummet back to the multiyear lows” once Operation Epic Fury was complete. Prices climbed instead.

Where Prices Actually Sit

The EIA weekly national average for regular gasoline was $4.157 per gallon for the week ending September 7, 2026. That is below the $4.50 per gallon reading recorded the week of May 11, 2026, and above the year-earlier weekly figure of $3.168 per gallon.

Oil is doing the driving. CNBC reported Brent crude futures traded above $101 per barrel Wednesday for the first time since July, while CNBC said U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures surpassed $96 per barrel at session highs. Iran’s disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for an estimated 20% of global crude exports, remains the immediate pressure point. The U.S. military, via CNBC, said Tuesday its forces destroyed 10 Iranian tankers in the previous week; Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has claimed credit for strikes on tankers in the Persian Gulf, according to U.S. military via CNBC.

Analysts Are Not Sold

GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan responded on X, “I don’t see any guarantees at all of that happening”. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene dismissed the prediction as a campaign-season promise rather than an energy forecast.

What was offered Wednesday is a specific, checkable prediction, made by a president with a documented track record of gas-price predictions that did not hold up, roughly two months before the election to which it is tied.

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