California – California Senator Adam Schiff warned few days ago that gas prices in the state could soon reach $7 per gallon, linking the potential spike to the ongoing conflict with Iran initiated by President Trump.
In a post on X, Schiff criticized the administration’s military campaign, arguing that it lacks clear strategic objectives and has contributed to sky-high gas prices and California and nationwide.
His warning comes as drivers in California and across the country face higher prices at the pump than before the conflict began. The increase has intensified political criticism of the Trump administration, with many Democrats pointing to the Iran war as a key factor behind rising energy costs.
As households contend with higher expenses for commuting, shipping, and everyday goods, fuel prices have quickly become a flashpoint in the broader national debate over foreign policy and its domestic economic consequences.
But it’s not just the left and the Democratic lawmakers who accuse Trump about the Iran war. Every day, Americans feel the pressure at the pump regardless of their political affiliation or the party the support. And growing number of people are becoming extremely vocal.
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President Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party may once have looked like an advantage, but former GOP operative Rick Wilson is now warning that the party has walked itself into a political trap of its own making.
Wilson, co-founder of The Lincoln Project, said in a recent podcast episode that Republicans are facing the 2026 midterm cycle with a weakened president, a damaged economic message and fewer ways to separate themselves from Trump’s record.
In his view, the party’s loyalty to the Trump brand has moved from political armor to political liability.
“Donald Trump is in an absolutely unprecedented position of political weakness right now,” Wilson said.
“We are looking at a map that has already been profoundly influenced by the catastrophic, horrible, terrible, no-good decisions Trump has made on the economy, and Americans have had enough.”
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The warning comes as Republicans look toward a difficult midterm environment, where control of Congress could depend on whether voters see the GOP as a party offering stability or as one tied tightly to Trump’s most unpopular decisions.
Wilson argued that GOP efforts to redraw election maps in several states are not a sign of strength, but a signal that party leaders know the political ground beneath them is shifting.
At the center of that shift, Wilson said, is the economy. Trump’s return to power was built in part on promises of renewed prosperity and a “golden age” for American families.
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But Wilson argued that those claims have been undercut by the consequences of Trump’s own policies, including the war in Iran, which he said has pushed consumer prices higher and weakened the practical benefit voters might have expected from Trump’s tax cuts.
The result, he suggested, is a political landscape where Republicans no longer have the easy message they once relied on. I
n the past, GOP candidates could tolerate Trump’s scandals, insults and chaos because the broader economy gave them something simple to sell. Voters might not have liked every Trump outburst, but Republicans could still point to economic performance as a shield.
Wilson said that shield is now gone.
Citing recent polling, he pointed to numbers showing deep public concern about the direction of the country. According to Wilson, 7 in 10 Americans now expect a recession within the next year because of Trump’s policies. He also cited polling showing that more than 62% of Americans believe the U.S. economy is worse off under Trump, while 55% say his policies have hurt their own financial situation.
“That is not the golden age,” Wilson said. “That is not the thing that won Trump the 2024 election.”
For Republicans, the deeper problem is not only Trump’s current weakness, Wilson argued, but their own decision to remain fused to him even as the political cost grows. Rather than build distance or create a separate governing identity, he said, the party has continued to attach itself to Trump’s name, style and agenda.
Wilson described that loyalty in striking terms, saying Republicans continue to “epoxy” themselves to the Trump brand. The image is blunt: a party stuck in place, unable to move even as conditions around it change.
That, Wilson suggested, may become one of the defining mistakes of the 2026 cycle. If voters enter the midterms angry about prices, fearful of recession and unconvinced by Trump’s economic promises, Republican candidates may find themselves defending not only the president’s record, but their own refusal to break away from it.
“Everything about that was a tactical and strategic mistake,” Wilson said.
“Everything about that was a trap.”
The trap, as Wilson sees it, is simple but severe.
Republicans embraced Trump when he appeared politically useful. Now, with his economic message weakened and public anxiety rising, they may be forced to carry the weight of that alliance into an election year where voters are already looking for someone to blame.
