U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) on Monday renewed his monthslong attack on the Trump administration’s handling of the war with Iran, telling his constituents in a post on X that they are now paying more than 20 cents per gallon above the national average for gasoline because of a conflict he says was launched “without a plan or exit strategy.” Kelly’s post arrived alongside newly released data showing Arizona diesel prices at a record high, deepening a line of criticism the Arizona Democrat has pressed consistently since the war began in late February.
Kelly’s full post, published at 9:23 a.m. on September 14, 2026, read:
“Arizonans are paying over 20 cents per gallon of gas above the national average because Trump started a war without a plan or exit strategy. Who’s paying for it? Working families.” In the replies to the post, Kelly linked to AAA’s Arizona gas price tracker, directing followers to the underlying data behind his claim.
Arizona’s Gas Prices, By the Numbers
According to the AAA data Kelly linked, Arizona’s average price for regular unleaded stood at $4.5773 per gallon, mid-grade at $4.9190, premium at $5.2558, and diesel at $6.2094. Each of those figures marked an increase over the prior month, when regular gasoline averaged $4.4032 — a jump of more than 17 cents in four weeks. Year-over-year, the increase is far steeper: regular gasoline in Arizona averaged just $3.5756 a gallon in September 2025, meaning current prices sit roughly $1.00 higher than they did before the war began.
The diesel figure is particularly notable. At $6.2094 per gallon, Arizona diesel set a new all-time high on the same day Kelly’s post went out, surpassing the state’s previous record of $5.3878 for regular unleaded, set on June 17, 2022, during the fuel-price spike that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Diesel prices carry outsized economic weight because the fuel powers the freight trucks, farm equipment, and supply chains that move goods across the country, meaning increases tend to filter into the broader cost of groceries and consumer goods rather than staying confined to the price at the pump.
A War Kelly Says Was Launched Without an Exit Strategy
The war Kelly references began on February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran following the breakdown of nuclear negotiations. Six and a half months later, the conflict remains active. A brief ceasefire brokered by Pakistan held from early April through early July before fighting resumed, and as of early September, Iranian forces were still exchanging fire with U.S. and allied positions in the Gulf, including missile and drone strikes on bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The Strait of Hormuz has remained effectively closed to Western-allied commercial shipping since early May, with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operating a toll regime charging vessels as much as $2 million per transit.
The Trump administration has consistently pushed back on the “war” framing Kelly and other Democrats have used. President Trump has described the operations as “very intermittent” and said in comments reported by Fox News that he prefers to call it a “military conflict” rather than a war, adding, “It’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing.” Trump has also pointed to Iranian military assets destroyed near the Strait of Hormuz as evidence the campaign is succeeding, even as commercial shipping through the waterway has yet to resume.
A Running Line of Attack Since the War Began
Monday’s post is the latest in a sustained campaign Kelly has waged against the administration’s economic and military conduct since the war’s early weeks. In March 2026, as Arizona gas prices rose an average of 54 cents in a single week, Kelly joined Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Representative Chris Pappas (D-NH) to introduce the Gas Prices Relief Act, which would temporarily suspend the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax through October 1, 2026. “Arizona families shouldn’t pay the price for Donald Trump’s bad decisions. Suspending the federal gas tax would help bring prices down and give families some much-needed relief,” Kelly said at the time.
That same release noted Arizona had climbed into the ten most expensive gasoline markets in the country, a shift AAA attributed to instability in global energy markets tied directly to the war. Kelly has repeated variations of that argument in nearly every public statement on the subject since, tying rising costs at the pump directly back to the administration’s decision to enter the conflict rather than to broader market forces.
In late April, Kelly escalated his criticism further, stating in a video posted to social media that the administration was “flailing from the top down” — from the president to the secretary of defense — because it lacked “a strategic goal, plan, timeline, or exit strategy” for the war. He argued the administration’s stated goal should include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which he noted had been open as recently as February, and said rising gasoline, diesel, and food prices meant Americans “can’t afford their lives.”
By late July, Kelly’s warnings had grown more pointed still. Speaking as Phoenix-area gas prices climbed as high as $4.49 a gallon, Kelly called the war “a disaster” and accused Trump of launching it “without a strategic objective and without thinking about the consequences for the American people.” He also criticized the Pentagon’s operational handling of the conflict and the growth of the defense budget to $1.5 trillion — roughly double what it was five and a half years earlier — while noting that, according to Pentagon figures at the time, 18 American service members had been killed and more than 600 wounded in the conflict.
National Diesel Prices Hit Record Levels
Kelly’s Monday post follows a broader national pattern that AAA data has tracked for weeks. On September 4, 2026, AAA reported that the national average price for diesel had broken its own all-time record, reaching $5.85 per gallon and surpassing the previous high of $5.8159 set in June 2022. National regular gasoline prices, meanwhile, stood at $4.1474 per gallon that week, up nearly 30 percent from a year earlier, though still below the all-time regular-gas record of $5.0165 also set in 2022. Kelly separately posted about the diesel figures at the time, writing that the fuel “powers our farms and food production” and that “even if you don’t use diesel, those higher costs get passed on to you, making the food on your table more expensive.”
Legislative Efforts Have Stalled
Despite Kelly’s repeated public pressure, the Gas Prices Relief Act has not advanced. Passage requires support from the Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, along with the president’s signature, and neither chamber has scheduled a vote on the measure as of this writing. Trump has left the door open to a federal gas tax suspension in general terms, telling reporters earlier this year that “the gas tax, it’s something we have in our pocket if we think it’s necessary,” but he has not endorsed Kelly’s specific bill or moved to bring it to the floor.
Political Stakes Ahead of the Midterms
The dispute over gas prices has become one of several economic flashpoints Democrats are using to challenge the administration heading into the 2026 midterm elections, alongside rising grocery costs, a national debt that has crossed $40 trillion, and ongoing tariff disputes with trading partners. For Kelly, who represents a state AAA has repeatedly flagged among the nation’s most expensive gasoline markets, the war’s fuel-price fallout has become a central and recurring argument against the administration’s economic stewardship, one he has now made in nearly identical terms across seven months of public statements.
As of Monday afternoon, neither the White House nor the Trump campaign had issued a public response to Kelly’s latest post. The senator’s message nonetheless extends a pattern that has defined his public messaging since February: pairing hard fuel-price data with a direct, personal attribution of the cost to the president’s decision to go to war without, in Kelly’s words, a plan or an exit strategy.