Republicans suddenly break with Trump as prices surge

David Pakman (0:00)

Coming up on today's show, there is an economic number exploding right now. And even if you've never bought a gallon of diesel in your life, I haven't. We are all going to feel this one. Then a bizarre viral image appears to show Donald Trump making out with Natalie Harp on a golf course, except one version is AI generated, the other is unverified. And this is exactly what I've been warning about. We also have Republicans unexpectedly breaking with Donald Trump on Iran. Seven House Republicans joined Democrats on a war powers resolution. And then a federal judge tells Trump no again in the increasingly bizarre battle over putting Trump's name on the Kennedy Center, plus extraordinary new posts from the mango menace about the Supreme Court and the Butler assassination attempt. Hunter Biden will join me unless that gets canceled between now and when it's scheduled. And I'm finally giving you my phone number. I will explain all of that and more today. I am back from Washington, DC and let's do a show today. Why not?

There's an economic number exploding right now. Most Americans are probably not watching it, but you should be. We all should, because this is going to really affect us. Diesel fuel has again hit a record all time high in the United States, not gasoline, diesel. And if you go to the triple AAA's highest recorded average price indicator, you see that once again, this was the case on Monday. This was the case last Thursday. Again, today, September 16th, 2026, is the day of the highest ever diesel price the United States has ever seen. Six dollars and thirty one cents on average. It is over seven dollars a gallon of diesel in many parts of the country. Now, many of you might be saying, David, I have an electric vehicle, David, I've got a gasoline powered vehicle, sweet, sweet gasoline, not diesel. I don't drive one of those coal rolling diesel trucks. Well, you are completely missing why this matters, because you might not be buying diesel directly, but just about everything you do buy has diesel somewhere in the price because the truck bringing food to your supermarket runs on diesel. The refrigerated trailer carrying your goat meat and goat milk and vegetables and frozen food and all of it, it's all running on diesel. The tractor harvesting the crops that the diesel truck bring to the grocery store is running on diesel. And the construction equipment building the farmhouse where the diesel tractor is stored, which then goes on to the diesel truck to get to the grocery store. The construction equipment that built the farm is running on diesel.

You get the point. The delivery trucks, although Amazon has a bunch of these electric ones, but in general delivery trucks and, you know, trains and diesel is everywhere. And it is as extraordinarily expensive as it has ever been in nominal terms. Remember, there was a brief period where in inflation adjusted terms, it was slightly higher.

A year ago, diesel was under four dollars a gallon. It is now six thirty one and three ten thousandth of a dollar.

And the Energy Information Administration's weekly survey indicates that this could go even higher. Now, if you're a trucker filling 200 gallon tanks, so two hundred dollars total, you are talking about more than an extra five hundred dollars for just a single fill up. They are not going to absorb that cost. That is not going to disappear. And so some combination they might absorb at the trucking company and maybe the farmer absorbs a little bit. And maybe the manufacturer or the retailer. But it all gets passed down to consumers. This is the real trickle down. And we're seeing the effects already because you've got railroad road fuel surcharges on grain shipments. They're up over one hundred and fifty percent in the last year. Fuel surcharges are now about 11 percent of rail transportation cost for corn and soybeans compared with just five percent last year. So that's more than doubled as a percentage of the total price.

And it's happening right as farmers are starting their corn harvest and their soybean harvest. So you have farmers paying more to operate their equipment and paying more to move the crop and the processors are paying more to move the product and supermarkets are paying more to receive it. And this is how the diesel crisis affects you.

Even if you go, I've got an EV and I walk to my grocery store. Now, the Atlantic is reporting that there is a gassed gas, a gas and diesel station in San Diego, California, selling diesel for nine ninety nine a gallon wheat. Now that's not the average, but it is almost so expensive in San Diego that if it goes up any higher, the little gas price sign that they have at the station is not going to have enough digits if it goes to ten dollars per gallon. And it probably will by tomorrow, to be quite frank.