GASTONIA, N.C. — President Donald Trump told a Sept. 16 campaign rally that Americans were paying “a little higher” for gasoline and that it was “a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” as he argued the war with Iran was destroying that country’s capacity to continue fighting and would “end soon.”
The remarks were delivered at Gastonia Municipal Airport during an open-air “Making America Safe Again” event for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley. The White House travel pool recorded Trump walking on stage at 7:27 p.m. and the rally ending at 8:30 p.m., in a September 16 pool file archived by the American Presidency Project.
C-SPAN carried the event in full as a White House event, program 558174-1, under the title President Trump Holds Rally with U.S. Senate Candidate Michael Whatley (R-NC) in Gastonia, NC. The same stream was logged by the pool at C-SPAN event 447154.
And to be hon- and it’s, it’s gonna end soon but because they can’t go on, they can’t go on. They, their nation’s destroyed. But, uh, I have to say, you have a little higher, you have a higher ga- it’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done. Remember that. It’s a little more. It’s, even if it was, frankly, even if it was a lot more-
The White House pool’s contemporaneous notes of the same stretch of the speech recorded Trump saying, “Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” followed by a “USA” chant, then: “It’s a very small price to pay for what we have done.” The pool also recorded him saying the war would have “a really good conclusion,” “probably after the election but maybe before,” and that Iran “absolutely would have used” a nuclear weapon.
Official record of the day’s travel and gaggle
The in-town pool reported that morning that the president was scheduled to depart the White House for Gastonia and deliver remarks at 7 p.m. Marine One was wheels-up from the Ellipse at 4:51 p.m. Air Force One left Joint Base Andrews at 5:17 p.m. and landed in Charlotte at 6:03 p.m., according to the same pool file.
On the Charlotte tarmac, Trump took questions. On Iran he said, “Hopefully we’re towards the end of the war. They want to make a deal, and we’ll see how that works out. They’re very much wanting to make — Iran is very much wanting to make a deal.” The White House posted official video of that arrival gaggle as President Trump Gaggles with Press Upon Arrival at Charlotte, NC, Sep. 16, 2026.
The motorcade reached Gastonia Municipal Airport at 7:04 p.m. The pool described an outdoor stage behind protective glass, a “Making America safe again” banner, and a giant U.S. flag hung from a crane. Trump departed the airport at 8:35 p.m. and returned to the White House after Marine One landed on the Ellipse at 10:47 p.m.
The same day, the White House issued a written release, Safer, Stronger, Built in America: President Trump’s Record in North Carolina, stating that the president was returning to the state “with a simple message: North Carolinians are better off with Republican leadership.”
Government energy data at the time of the speech
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly retail gasoline series, released Sept. 15, 2026, put the U.S. regular gasoline average at $4.319 a gallon for the week ending Sept. 14. The Lower Atlantic region, which includes North Carolina, averaged $4.041, according to the EIA weekly retail price table.
Two days after the rally, EIA’s Today in Energy daily prices page for Sept. 18 republished AAA Fuel Gauge figures dated Sept. 17: a U.S. regular gasoline average of $4.47 a gallon and a U.S. diesel average of $6.45 a gallon. The same page listed WTI crude at $103.21 a barrel and Brent at $121.18 at the Sept. 17 close.
EIA’s monthly series shows the U.S. regular retail average rising from $3.065 in February 2026 to $3.988 in March, after the Iran campaign began, and remaining above $4 through the summer on the agency’s monthly retail gasoline table.
Official record of the Iran campaign
U.S. Central Command states that it commenced Operation Epic Fury “at the direction of the President of the United States.” A Department of Defense fact sheet on the first 10 days lists the launch as 1:15 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2026, in Iran.
A March 3 CENTCOM article quotes Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine describing a three-part mission: target Iran’s ballistic missile systems, destroy the Iranian navy, and prevent reconstitution of combat power, “including ensuring the country never obtains nuclear weapons.” The command’s public releases through September 2026 continued to report strikes on IRGC air defense, radar, naval, and mine-laying targets, including listings on the CENTCOM media page.
From the Gastonia stage, the pool recorded Trump saying he had “ended eight wars” and that “the one that’s toughest is Russia-Ukraine,” which he said was “driving up diesel prices.”
What the White House cited on North Carolina crime
The Sept. 16 White House release on North Carolina linked its crime claims to state and federal datasets. It said North Carolina crime “fell across all four major categories” in the first half of 2026 versus the same period in 2025, including a 12.4 percent drop in murders, and pointed to the N.C. Department of Public Safety compilation, Trends in Reported Crime in N.C., January–June 2026.
For 2025 versus 2024, the release cited the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer, UCR crime-trend tool, for an 18 percent drop in homicides, a 20 percent drop in robberies, and a 14 percent drop in aggravated assaults. Charlotte figures in the same release were sourced to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department crime statistics page.
On stage, the pool recorded Trump calling Whatley’s opponent, former Gov. Roy Cooper, a “murderer protector,” citing the 2025 killing of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train, and displaying mug shots on a video screen. Those characterizations are Trump’s rally language, not findings in the DPS or FBI tables cited above.
The official audiovisual record of the speech remains the C-SPAN recording. No separate White House verbatim transcript of the Gastonia remarks had been posted in the Briefings & Statements stream as of Sept. 20.