Trump convenes secret meeting as ‘voter backlash’ surges over key issue: report

In a “private meeting” on Tuesday, President Donald Trump met with several of his top officials to discuss ways to address a growing vulnerability that may prove politically toxic for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

"Gas prices are surging, voter backlash is building, and inside the White House, the options to lower prices at the pump are dwindling," the Post reported.

Attending the secret meeting was Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and multiple “energy executives,” with the purpose of the gathering being to discuss potential steps to combat soaring gas prices, sparked by the president’s war against Iran, according to an anonymous White House official.

Options available to the Trump administration to lower gas prices, however, appear to be “dwindling,” the Post reported.

“As the conflict stretches into its 10th week, the White House has exhausted many of the policy levers the federal government can use to mitigate surging gas prices, and the options that remain carry other economic and political risks for the president,” the Post’s Cat Zakrzewski wrote.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently warned that his own party was on track to lose the midterm elections this year due in large part to surging gas prices, which this week reached an average of $4.30 a gallon, the highest per-gallon cost since 2022.

The Trump administration has already “cobbled together piecemeal policy tweaks that have lowered prices on the margins,” Zakrzewski wrote, such as its decision to waive the Jones Act, a 1920 shipping law that mandates goods transported between U.S. ports be carried only on U.S.-built ships. The Jones Act waiver has only marginally impacted gas prices, and in some cases, may end up increasing gas prices in certain parts of the country, analysts have warned.