# "We're making a freaking fortune" > [!quote] I wonder if I should say this … our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars because of what's happened in the Middle East. My people said, "Please don't mention that, sir," because people are paying a little higher. But what we've done for this country, we're making money like this country has never made before. I don't give a damn: I'm going to say it. We're making a freaking fortune. > — [[Donald Trump]], midterm campaign rally at the Guardian Centers, Perry, Georgia, **October 24, 2026** ## Context The remarks came nine days before the [[2026 Midterm Elections]], with the national average for regular gasoline at **$4.28 a gallon** — about **40% above** a year earlier — and diesel close to the record it set in September. Six days later, third-quarter results showed [[ExxonMobil]] earning **$15.4 billion**, [[Chevron]] **$9.9 billion** (up roughly 180% year over year), and BP its best quarter since 2008, on refining margins the companies attributed to the wars involving Iran and Russia. The same week, the federal [[Consumer Expenditure Survey]] showed housing and food taking the largest combined share of household budgets in about fifteen years. ## Why this one is unusual Politicians generally argue that a price shock is not their doing, or that it is temporary, or that it was inherited. This quote does none of those things. It accepts the causal chain — the [[Iran War 2026]] raised energy prices, higher energy prices produced an American windfall — and treats the windfall as the achievement. It also narrates its own suppression: the speaker reports that his advisers told him not to say it, gives their reason ("people are paying a little higher"), and says it anyway. That makes it a rare on-the-record statement of the trade the administration's critics allege. The [[Gas Prices]] page documents how fuel costs are normally weaponized through *misattribution* — blaming or crediting a president for a globally traded commodity. Here the president claims the credit directly, and the thing he claims credit for is the price going up. The word "we" is doing the load-bearing work. The hundreds of billions accrue to producers and refiners; the "little higher" is paid at the pump by households whose two largest expenses were already climbing. Both are described as one balance sheet. ## See Also - [[Gas Prices]] — the price series this refers to, and the timeline row for these remarks - [[Iran War 2026]] · [[Iran War 2026 Timeline]] — the war whose supply shock produced the windfall - [[Affordability]] — the midterm issue - [[ExxonMobil]] · [[Chevron]] — the quarter that followed - [[2026 Midterm Elections]] - [[Quotes Hub]]