Oil prices have reached their highest since the aftermath of other member of the Axis of Evil, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine in 2022. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading near $106 per barrel, up 14%, before the opening bell.
West Texas Intermediate, the light, sweet crude oil produced in the United States, soared above $119.48 per barrel but fell back closer to $103.
Of course, the possible child rapist dismissed concerns about the economic blowback of the conflict Sunday night, arguing that only “fools” would think the costs of toppling the Iranian regime were not worth it.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 843 points, or 1.8%. The 30-stock index is coming off its biggest weekly slide in nearly a year. The S&P 500 lost 1.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 1.2%. The Cboe Volatility index — Wall Street’s fear gauge measuring investors seeking protection in the options market — topped 30 for the first time since the market’s tariff driven sell-off in April 2025.
Trump Sends Message to Tankers as Oil Prices Spike: ‘Show Some Guts!’
The possible child rapist called into Fox ‘News’ and demanded tanker crews sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, south of Iran, “show some guts” as oil prices spike, claiming in an interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that there was “nothing to be afraid of” after the U.S.-Israeli joint operation against the regime.
He says, ‘Tell these tankers to get themselves, get to it, we have wiped out most of their launchers.’ Here is exactly what he said: ‘These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts, there’s nothing to be afraid of. [The Iranians] have no navy, we sunk all their ships.’
He went on to say: ‘Look, there is risk in the region, the region is volatile, their launchers, there’s just about 150 left, that’s just about 20% of totals, they can’t regenerate, they can’t make any more. We are in the region and need to act quickly on all these type of attacks.’
As oil tops $100 a barrel, Schumer demands Trump tap Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Average gas prices climb nearly 50 cents per gallon in a week nationwide
Just hours before oil prices hit $100 per barrel amid the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, the Senate’s top Democrat called on President Trump to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
“The instability created by Trump in this war is already hitting families in their wallets,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said Sunday. “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is for moments just like this.”
The U.S. has only authorized emergency releases from the SPR on four occasions. The last one was in 2022 under the Biden administration, to address supply disruptions after Russia invaded Ukraine. It was also the last time oil and gas prices topped the $100 mark.
Trump’s Iran War Is As Unpopular As He Is
It’s now been a week since Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu began their war of destruction and regime change in Iran, a conflict that has gone regional as Iran retaliated. Polls taken before the bombs started dropping showed there was far from any national consensus favoring an attack on Iran or any other foreign military adventure. While it takes some time to conduct public-opinion surveys, it seemed Americans really would prefer their leaders focus on the economy and the cost of living.
Now there’s enough postattack polling to make it clear this is a war that is very unpopular, much like its commander-in-chief in the White House. G. Elliott Morris collected eight polls taken since last weekend and found just one (from Fox News) showing net approval of the war at zero. The rest were negative, ranging from YouGov at minus-10 percent to CNN-SSRS at minus-18 percent. The polling is roughly at the same levels of Trump’s net job-approval ratings (currently at minus-11.2 percent at RealClearPolitics, minus-12.8 percent at Silver Bulletin, and minus-13 percent at Decision Desk HQ). As Morris points out, this is really a historical anomaly: