Byron Donalds said Sunday that he never heard Republicans blame Joe Biden for high gas prices, and Meet the Press host Kristen Welker corrected him right there on air.
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Welker played Donalds a clip of outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said the night before the midterms that some Republicans were gaslighting voters about why gas costs so much. Donalds, who won the race to replace DeSantis, brushed the criticism off.
“I didn’t really hear any Republicans try to blame gas prices on Biden,” Donalds said.
Welker didn’t let it slide. “We had a number of Republicans on this show who pointed the finger at Biden,” she told him.
DeSantis made his comments in an interview with Stephen A. Smith ahead of Election Day. He said Republicans needed to stop dancing around the cause of high prices and admit the war with Iran is driving them. “We just got to be honest. Gas is higher. It hurts people, working class people, and it’s higher because of this conflict. That’s just the fact,” DeSantis said. He made clear his message applied to Trump too, who told a reporter in April that gas prices were “not very high.”
Welker’s pushback has receipts behind it. On her October 18 show, she asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about voters who say they are struggling, and Bessent pointed back to Biden era policies. Welker responded that gas prices were up 44% since the war with Iran began. Other Republicans spent the year arguing Democrats want high gas prices because of their climate agenda.
Byron Donalds himself has not been one of them this cycle. Before the election, he told Fox News that gas prices were elevated because of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran where tanker attacks have disrupted the world’s oil supply. That puts him closer to DeSantis on the cause than his Sunday answer suggested, even as he waved off DeSantis’ warning about his own party.
The average price of gas sat at $4.11 a gallon on Election Day, and voter frustration over prices and the war helped fuel Republican losses across the country. DeSantis, who is term limited and was not on the ballot, followed up his gaslighting comments by saying the midterms came close to being an extinction level event for the Republican Party.
Byron Donalds ran on affordability in Florida, promising to tackle gas, groceries and property insurance costs once he takes office in January.
