Gavin Newsom wants to hand Donald Trump his gasoline price problem

The war in Iran has given the governor an opportunity to shift focus away from refineries idling. He’s taking it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has fought for years to stabilize his state's gasoline prices. | Joshua A. Bickel/AP

Republicans have spent years hammering Gavin Newsom for California’s high gas prices. Now, the Democratic governor is seizing a sudden opening to shift the blame to Donald Trump as the war in Iran sends oil costs skyward.

“Look at your cost at the pump the last few days: That was an act of the Trump administration,” Newsom told reporters two days after the first U.S. strikes in Iran.

Then on Monday, after California gasoline prices surged 12 percent in a week to $5.20 a gallon — 57 cents higher than Washington state, the nation’s second-priciest state — Newsom doubled down on social media. He called Trump a “con man with no plan” after the president said that oil prices would drop rapidly once the “Iran nuclear threat is over.”

© Politico