U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Tuesday accused President Donald Trump of forcing American families to bear the financial weight of an “illegal war in Iran,” pointing to newly released data showing that consumers are now losing roughly $1 million every two minutes in extra fuel costs since the conflict began. The senator’s remarks, posted to X on the morning of September 8, 2026, sharpened Democrats’ months-long campaign to tie the war’s mounting price tag directly to Trump’s own dismissive comments about the pain American drivers are feeling at the pump.
In his post, Van Hollen wrote in full:
“Every 2 minutes, American consumers pay $1 MILLION more in fuel costs, thanks to Trump’s illegal war in Iran.
Meanwhile, our billionaire president calls higher gas prices ‘peanuts’ & says they’re a ‘very small price to pay’ for his failed war.
This war needs to end NOW.”
The senator’s post linked directly to an Axios report published Monday, which found that the war in Iran has driven $100 billion in cumulative extra energy costs for U.S. consumers, with the bill climbing by roughly $1 million approximately every two minutes according to a real-time estimate maintained by Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs.
According to the Axios report, the Iran War Energy Cost Tracker calculates that higher gasoline and diesel prices have cost the average U.S. household more than $760 since the war began on February 28, 2026. The report noted that while gasoline accounts for most of that burden, diesel costs have been climbing even faster in recent weeks.
Diesel prices hit an all-time record high on Friday, September 4, and continued climbing through the following days, reaching $5.90 a gallon as of Monday morning, according to AAA data cited in the Axios article — a roughly 60 percent increase compared to a year earlier. Axios warned that the diesel spike threatens to have a dramatic impact on freight and travel costs in the weeks and months ahead.
The state-by-state breakdown cited by Axios showed Texas has absorbed the largest share of the war’s energy costs, with consumers there paying an estimated $11 billion in extra gas and diesel expenses since late February. California followed at roughly $8 billion and Florida at approximately $5 billion. The full, continuously updated tracker is maintained by Brown University’s Watson School.
Van Hollen’s post directly referenced two remarks the president has made in recent months minimizing the financial toll of the war on ordinary Americans. In one instance, widely reported in late May, Trump characterized rising gas prices as “peanuts” while defending the strikes on Iran, prompting swift criticism from multiple Democratic governors and lawmakers who argued the comment was tone-deaf given the strain households were facing at the pump.
In a separate comment made in March as oil prices surged past $100 a barrel following the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.” The remark came as Brent crude recorded its largest one-week spike since March 1983.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the financial burden of the war in public appearances throughout the summer. At a rally in Garden City, New York, on August 14, the president told supporters, “For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have a nuclear weapon,” adding, “So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you’re at $4. It’s OK. I mean, I’ll never apologize. I did the right thing.” At the time, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline stood at more than $4.07, according to AAA — nearly a dollar higher than when Trump began his second term in January 2025.
Tuesday’s post is the latest in a sustained series of public statements Van Hollen has made linking the war’s cost directly to Trump’s decision-making. On February 28, the day the strikes began, Van Hollen released a statement declaring that “Trump is lying to the American people as he launches an illegal, regime-change war against Iran,” adding that the conflict was “endangering American lives” and had “already resulted in mass civilian casualties.”
In April, Van Hollen joined a coalition of Senate Democrats — including Jeff Merkley, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, and Andy Kim — in filing War Powers resolutions aimed at forcing a Senate vote to end the war. In a joint statement announcing the effort, lawmakers argued that “the American people want lower costs, not more forever wars,” and that Trump had “dragged us into an unnecessary and costly war with Iran that has sent energy prices soaring and killed 13 U.S. servicemembers and thousands of civilians in Lebanon and Iran.”
That same month, Van Hollen also cited the war’s economic toll in a statement opposing a Senate Republican budget resolution, arguing that “Americans are struggling with skyrocketing gas prices because of Trump’s illegal war in Iran, steeper health care premiums after Republicans let ACA tax credits expire, and higher costs” tied to GOP spending priorities.
In May, Van Hollen joined Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with more than a dozen other Democratic senators, in urging the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to independently determine the true cost of the war in Iran, arguing that the Trump administration had provided “inaccurate and incomplete estimates” of the conflict’s price tag.
Van Hollen has also taken his criticism to television and podcast interviews in recent weeks. In a discussion on the Responsible Statecraft podcast “History As It Happens,” Van Hollen said Congress must use its power of the purse to rein in the conflict, stating, “I’ve been very clear: not one penny for this illegal war,” in response to what he described as a roughly $70 billion supplemental funding request from the administration. He also argued that the war “was an illegal war when Donald Trump started it and it is an illegal war now as he continues it in violation of the concurrent War Powers resolution.”
In an earlier April appearance on MS NOW, Van Hollen dismissed the administration’s stated justification for the war as a “complete and total lie,” telling host Ali Velshi that Iran was “nowhere near” possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States. He also said at the time that he would not “vote for one more dime for this illegal war of choice” if the administration sought additional funding.
Public polling has increasingly reflected the political risk the war’s economic fallout poses to the administration. An NBC News poll found Trump received his lowest marks on his handling of inflation and cost of living, with only 36 percent of registered voters approving and 62 percent disapproving, while a majority, 54 percent, disapproved of his handling of the Iran conflict overall. With the 2026 midterm elections less than two months away, Axios noted that anger over sustained higher fuel prices will be difficult for the administration to temper in the time remaining before voters head to the polls.