Ted Cruz Went on Hannity and Reminded Democrats What Gas Price They Once Wanted

Joe Biden stood beside Japan's prime minister and called record gas prices an incredible transition.

Now the Democrats who cheered that transition are standing at Texas gas pumps begging for your vote.

And the number Cruz threw back at them should follow every one of those Democrats to November.

Cruz Put a Price Tag on the Democrat Gas Agenda

Cruz sat down with Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel on September 30, 2026, and went straight at the issue Democrats think will save them.

"When Joe Biden was president, gas prices were five bucks a gallon," Cruz said.

He said prices dropped to $3 a gallon nationally once Trump took office.

AAA backs him up – the national average hit $2.99 in December 2025, the first time below $3 in four years.

Cruz admitted prices aren't as low as they were in that first year, and AAA put the national average at $4.41 on October 1, 2026.

But in his words, they're "still substantially less than they were under Joe Biden."

Then he dropped the hammer.

"Remember, these are the same Democrats who said they wanted $10-a-gallon gas."

Cruz rounded up, but not by much.

In 2008, Steven Chu told The Wall Street Journal, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

At the time, Europeans were paying more than $8 a gallon.

Days after that interview ran, Barack Obama named him Secretary of Energy.

Once in office, Chu started backing away from it, and by 2012 – with prices climbing and Obama's reelection on the line – he was telling Congress, "I no longer share that view."

Biden picked up right where Chu left off.

On May 23, 2022, standing next to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden explained what Americans were going through at the pump.

"We're going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it's over, we'll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over," he said.

A few weeks later, the national average topped $5 a gallon for the first time in American history.

The Texas Democrat Who Compared Oil to Cassette Tapes

Cruz aimed his sharpest shot at James Talarico, the Democrat running for the Senate in Texas against Ken Paxton.

He said Talarico "wants oil and gas to go the way of the cassette tape, that he wants to dismantle capitalism."

Talarico gave him the material.

At a virtual forum hosted by the Austin chapter of the Sierra Club in September 2020, the then-state representative said of the oil and gas industry, "That industry is not gonna last."

He compared Texas leading the world in oil to "being the leader in cassette tapes in the 1980s."

He lumped capitalism together with white supremacy and climate change as "oppressive systems" and talked about "dismantling them."

CNN dug up the recording, and Republicans have made sure every Texan hears it.

Then, on September 26, 2026, Talarico showed up at a gas station in Carrollton.

His big idea was suspending the federal gas tax of about 18 cents a gallon and the diesel tax of about 24 cents.

Paxton didn't let it slide.

"Standing next to a gas pump doesn't make Talarico the authority on affordability or a friend of Texas drivers," Paxton said. "It makes him a hypocrite."

Paxton went further and called for repealing the tax permanently, funding roads by "cutting waste, not by taxing Texans at the pump."

The Gas Tax Stunt Democrats Already Tried in 2022

Talarico isn't the first Democrat to pull this move.

In June 2022, with gas prices at record highs, Biden begged Congress for a federal gas tax holiday.

Congress never passed it, prices stayed sky-high, and Biden kept pushing his war on oil and gas that drove them up.

An 18-cent tax break means nothing to a family in Odessa or Midland if the man offering it believes the industry that pays their mortgage is a cassette tape.

The Permian Basin doesn't need a candidate who poses for photos at a pump.

It needs one who won't treat the paychecks of Texas roughnecks as an oppressive system to dismantle.

The party that once wanted European gas prices now wants Texans to believe it cares what they pay at the pump, and the receipts go back nearly two decades.

Sources:

• Jeff Poor, "Cruz: Same Democrats Campaigning on Gas Prices 'Said They Wanted $10-a-Gallon Gas,'" Breitbart News, October 1, 2026.
• Robert Farley, "Obama Wanted Higher Gasoline Prices?," FactCheck.org, March 23, 2012.
• The Hill, "Obama Energy Chief Disavows 2008 Remark in Favor of Raising Gas Prices," The Hill, 2012.
• Adam Sabes, "President Biden Seems to Praise High Gas Prices as 'Incredible Transition' Americans Must Go Through," Fox News, May 23, 2022.
• AAA, "National Average Dips Below $3 a Gallon for First Time in 4 Years," AAA, December 4, 2025.
• ROI-NJ, "AAA Reports National Average Gasoline Price Eased After Record-Setting September," ROI-NJ, October 1, 2026.
• National Republican Senatorial Committee, "CNN: In 2020 Forum, James Talarico Said Texas Oil Was 'Not Gonna Last,' Called Capitalism 'Oppressive,'" National Republican Senatorial Committee, September 1, 2026.
• Stephan Kapustka, "Paxton, Talarico Trade Jabs Over Gas Tax," The Texan, September 28, 2026.