Like a good neighbor, The New York Times is there... to aid the Democrats in spreading anxiety about our war effort. The lefty newspaper is trying to whip out — get this — economics to lambast President Donald Trump and Israel’s historic military toppling of arguably the most murderous regime in the Middle East.
Instead of celebrating the long overdue elimination of the sadistic Ayatollah Khamenei and liberation of the Iranian people, Times energy reporter Rebecca Elliott whipped out this overly pedantic headline March 1: “Oil Prices Jump After Iran Attack, Pointing to Economic Risks.”
Elliott, alarmed that “Oil prices rose nearly 10 percent on Monday, underscoring the economic risks of the widening conflict in the Middle East.” This is the same gimmick the newspaper tried following Trump’s successful use of B-2 bombers to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities with 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs last year, when it kvetched over the possibility of spiking oil prices... just before they plunged later.
Apparently, The Times’s latest economic Armageddon prophecy had a similar shelf life in this case too. The S&P 500 stock index (which includes major oil and gas firms) completed a dramatic comeback on Monday, as “U.S. oil prices traded off their highest levels of the session, easing concerns about the war’s impact on the U.S. economy,” according to CNBC. Economist Daniel Lacalle shared a Bloomberg graph to that effect on X March 2, noting that “Oil price cools off as global supply is proven to be ample and there is no risk of disruptions.”
Oil price cools off as global supply is proven to be ample and there is no risk of disruptions.
— Daniel Lacalle (@dlacalle_IA) March 2, 2026
via Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/3DJAQUpfLZ
Reading Elliott’s propaganda-charged item in retrospect makes her original thesis look ridiculous:
The longer that the war disrupts the energy trade, the bigger the risk that consumers will face higher prices, not just at the gas pump but in a broad array of products, at a time when many people are already worried about the economy. That could cause domestic political blowback for President Trump, whose approval ratings have tumbled in part because many Americans are concerned about inflation.
This is exactly parallel to what Times policy reporter Tony Romm spewed June 23, 2025, where he snorted that Trump had to “confront the potential economic blowback from his military strikes on Iran, which threatened to send oil and gas prices soaring at a moment when U.S. consumers are already facing significant financial strains.” It’s as if Elliot just recycled the same talking point again and hoped it would stick this time.
What makes Elliott’s whining even more humorous is that she kneecapped her own argument in the 14th paragraph, where she buried a quote by Columbia University’s Jason Bordoff that upended her whole piece. “‘Americans will see some impact at the gasoline pump,’” Bordoff told Elliot. However, reasoned Bordoff, “‘even with a massive strike on Iran that killed the leader of the country, at this point we’re still talking about oil prices that are well within historical norms — and much less than one would have ever expected with a strike of this magnitude.’” To be clear, the expert Elliott quoted says explicitly that the market reaction is surprisingly milquetoast relative to the event's scale. So why bury it and lead with panic? Coincidence? We think not.
Looks like The Times may be set to go 0-2 on this front against Trump.
