By Bo Erickson
HEBRON, Kentucky, March 11 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump sought to assure Americans on Wednesday that rising gas prices because of the Iran war are a temporary phenomenon, as he traveled to Kentucky and Ohio to refocus on domestic issues with fellow Republicans urging him to address rising concerns among Americans over the cost of living.
Trump’s campaign trip is his first since the start of the U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran on February 28. It offers him a chance to sharpen his economic message ahead of the November midterm elections, when his fellow Republicans will be defending narrow majorities in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.
On his first stop, at a plant in Cincinnati, Ohio, Trump’s initial remarks were dominated by the Iran war in a sign of how foreign policy is consuming his presidency.
Gas prices are up 61 cents on average in both Kentucky and nationwide compared to last month, according to travel organization AAA.
“Oil will be coming down,” Trump said on Wednesday. “It’s going to come down more than we, than anybody understands.”
Trump also touted his efforts to lower drug prices, one of the key selling points for Republicans in the elections.
The president was due to deliver remarks on the economy at an event later in northern Kentucky. It is the latest in a series of speeches Trump has delivered around the country to sell the American public on his economic policies.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt could not say why Trump had chosen to go to those places in particular, but the Kentucky district is also home to Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Massie, a critic of the president who has frequently broken with his party.
Massie led the high-profile push for more transparency from Trump’s Justice Department in its handling of files connected to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump has endorsed the Republican candidate who will face off against Massie in the party’s primary in May.
Hours before his trip, Trump singled out Massie for criticism in a social media post.
“I predict that ‘Representative’ Thomas Massie will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress,” Trump wrote.
Massie said in an interview before Trump posted the comments that he welcomes the president to his district as they share a lot of the same supporters.
“I’ve taken care to never insult the president, to never call him names. If I have a policy disagreement with him, I articulate it and keep it to that,” Massie said.
Bill Kunkel, a 67-year-old retired welder in Union, Kentucky, told Reuters he is concerned about how the Iran war and Trump’s tariff program will continue to affect an area known for logistics and manufacturing.
“I voted for Trump because he was going to get us out of all of these wars. That is one of the reasons why I agree with Massie – it can’t just be a forever war,” Kunkel added, referring to Massie’s criticism of Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson; additional reporting by Costas Pitas and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Ross Colvin, Will Dunham and Howard Goller)
