EDITORIAL NOTE
Gas prices have become one of Donald Trump’s favorite magic tricks. He points at a number, claims he created it, and moves along before anyone can look under the table. This time, we looked.
If somebody offers you gasoline well below the surrounding market price, there are a few reasonable questions you might ask. Where did it come from? Who absorbed the loss? How long can that price possibly last?
Donald Trump apparently skipped all of those and went directly to taking credit.
THE $3.47 MIRACLE
The Freedom Fuel Network appeared this summer at gas stations around Pennsylvania and New Jersey, wrapped itself in flags, and began selling gasoline for $3.47 a gallon. The number wasn’t subtle. Trump is the 47th president, so the stations turned his place in history into a pump price and waited for him to notice.
He noticed.
Trump called Freedom Fuel a “VERY smart Retailer” and promoted the discount shortly before the Fourth of July weekend. The White House followed with a video of customers holding cash and thanking Trump for lowering their gasoline prices. There was one small problem with that celebration: the Trump administration hadn’t lowered the price and admitted it hadn’t provided the company with any funding. Associated Press via WHYY
That should’ve prompted a fairly obvious question. If the government wasn’t subsidizing the gasoline and nobody else was covering the difference, how was Freedom Fuel selling it for roughly 40 cents below the surrounding market? Trump didn’t ask because Trump had already gotten what he wanted: a flattering number with his name attached to it.
SOMEBODY FORGOT THE $4 MILLION BILL
Mansfield Oil Company may have found the answer. In a federal lawsuit filed August 19, Mansfield alleges that KRSM Inc. and its president, Syed Kazmi, collected approximately 1.12 million gallons of gasoline from a Pennsylvania terminal between May 21 and July 7. The fuel was worth exactly $3,998,868.46, and Mansfield says it hasn’t been paid a dime.
This wasn’t somebody climbing a fence at midnight and driving away with a tanker. KRSM had a commercial credit arrangement that allowed it to collect fuel and pay later. Mansfield says a data problem delayed its invoices, but revised bills were eventually sent and attempts to withdraw payment were rejected by KRSM’s bank.
According to the lawsuit, some of that gasoline was sold to stations participating in the Freedom Fuel Network. Mansfield’s attorneys put the allegation rather plainly: KRSM could generate publicity with such low prices “because it never paid Plaintiff for such fuel.” That’s one hell of a discount program. The Guardian
KRSM disputes the allegations and calls the case an accounting disagreement involving incorrectly priced invoices. A source connected to Freedom Fuel says KRSM and Syed Kazmi aren’t affiliated with the network, although previous reporting connected companies tied to Syed and his brother Shamikh Kazmi to 14 of its original 25 locations. Mansfield’s claims remain allegations, and a federal court will decide whether nearly $4 million was stolen, withheld, or swallowed by one mother of a bookkeeping problem. Associated Press via WHYY
Trump and the White House aren’t accused of participating in any of it. They did something more familiar and considerably dumber. They saw an unsustainable price, assumed it existed because Trump is magnificent, and turned it into presidential propaganda without checking who was eating the loss.
The answer, according to Mansfield, was Mansfield.
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SIXTY-FIVE BILLION BARRELS OF SOMEDAY
Trump has already found his next cheap-gas miracle. He announced what he called the biggest oil deal in history, giving the United States majority participation in 17 Venezuelan oilfields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of recoverable crude. He immediately began selling those underground reserves as future relief for Americans paying more than $4 a gallon.
That sounds wonderful if you pretend an oil reserve is a pile of gasoline cans waiting beside the highway. It isn’t. A reserve is an estimate of oil that may be technically recoverable over many years if the money, machinery, contracts, infrastructure and politics all cooperate.
The proposed agreement is expected to run for at least 25 years and attract roughly $100 billion in investment. The full contract hasn’t been released, the companies operating several fields haven’t been publicly identified, and lawyers are already questioning whether the agreement can survive future legal challenges. Trump is presenting the finish line before everyone else has agreed where to build the track. Reuters
Some mature fields included in the deal are producing oil now, and the United States can gain access to an existing base of exportable crude. That part is real and shouldn’t be dismissed. The giant production increases Trump is promising require repairs around Lake Maracaibo, new development in the Orinoco Belt, and years of work in an industry gutted by neglect, political interference and underinvestment. Reuters
THIS ISN’T EASY OIL
Most Venezuelan crude is heavy or extra-heavy and sour, meaning it’s thick, high in sulfur and packed with contaminants that make it more expensive to transport and refine. Some of it has to be diluted before it can even move through a pipeline. You don’t pour this stuff into the neighborhood refinery and watch regular unleaded come out the other side.
Several large Gulf Coast refineries can process it because they were specifically built with cokers, crackers, and hydrocrackers designed for heavy crude. Valero says Venezuelan oil can supply a substantial share of its heavy-crude needs, while Phillips 66 says it can process approximately 250,000 barrels a day. Before sanctions, Gulf Coast refineries handled as much as 800,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan heavy oil, producing gasoline along with diesel, jet fuel, asphalt and petrochemical products. Reuters on Valero, Reuters on Phillips 66
So yes, Venezuelan oil can become gasoline. It simply requires specialized refineries, more processing and considerably more expense than Trump’s rhetoric suggests. Those facts matter because his sales pitch makes 65 billion barrels of difficult crude sound like 65 billion barrels of finished gasoline scheduled to arrive next Tuesday.
REPLACEMENT ISN’T RELIEF
American refiners were already receiving Venezuelan oil before Trump announced this agreement. Phillips 66 has said additional Venezuelan barrels could replace heavy crude it currently buys from Canada. Replacing one foreign supplier with another may improve refinery margins, but it doesn’t automatically create a massive new supply of gasoline.
There is another bottleneck Trump rarely mentions. The White House says American refineries are operating at nearly 100 percent of existing capacity. Adding more crude to a system already close to its processing limit doesn’t produce a matching increase in finished fuel, no matter how many times the president says “65 billion.” Reuters
Trump now says Venezuelan oil will also refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1982. The reserve stores crude oil, not finished gasoline, and replenishing it removes barrels from immediate commercial use. Analysts say a full refill could take years, assuming the money, infrastructure and political commitment survive that long. Reuters
Could increased Venezuelan production eventually put some downward pressure on crude prices? Certainly. Could access to discounted heavy oil reduce costs for Gulf Coast refiners? Absolutely.
Neither answer puts cheap gasoline in your tank tomorrow morning.
THE SAME TRICK TWICE
Freedom Fuel gave Trump a gasoline price he liked, so he promoted it without asking how it was possible. Mansfield now alleges that part of the answer was nearly $4 million worth of fuel that somebody never paid for. Trump got the video while somebody else got the invoice.
Venezuela gives him an enormous reserve number, so he’s promoting that before the contracts are public, the infrastructure is repaired, or most of the oil is produced. He’s counting barrels that could take decades to recover and claiming the political credit today. Once again, Trump gets the announcement while somebody else gets the bill.
I’ve been around long enough to know presidents don’t personally set the number on the gas-station sign. Markets, wars, refineries, transportation costs, taxes, seasonal blends, and local competition all have a hand in it. Anyone claiming sole credit when prices fall and blaming everybody else when they rise is selling you a children’s version of the oil business.
Trump isn’t lowering gasoline prices through force of personality. He’s finding cheap gasoline wherever it appears, putting his name on the pump and leaving before anyone checks the receipt. Sometimes the fuel hasn’t been paid for, and sometimes it hasn’t been pulled out of the ground.
Either way, he wants his credit up front.
THE RECORD
Freedom Fuel really did sell gasoline for $3.47, and Trump really did promote it as evidence that prices were coming down. Mansfield now alleges that the distributor supplying some participating stations failed to pay nearly $4 million for 1.12 million gallons, while KRSM disputes that account. Venezuela possesses enormous oil reserves, but the newly announced agreement requires massive investment, specialized refining, and years of development before its promised production can fully arrive.
Those facts don’t prove Trump arranged anything improper at Freedom Fuel, and the article doesn’t accuse him of doing so. They prove something more basic about the way he governs. If the number looks good, Trump takes the credit first and asks questions never.
FROM OFF SCRIPT: THE BULLSHIT DETECTOR
The Bullshit Detector checks the stories people are being asked to swallow while everyone’s attention is somewhere else. Today’s batch includes synthetic warfare, deliberately thirstier cars and a president insulting communities that would prefer to keep their electricity and water. For a deeper guide to recognizing the tricks, the expanded Bullshit Detector is available through Tom Hicks Media.
The claim: Trump said Iran’s Kharg Island was being “blown to smithereens” and attached dramatic footage of explosions as evidence.
Bullshit.
Why: Reuters found no independent evidence that Kharg was under attack, and neither the White House nor the Pentagon provided confirmation. Detection software indicated the footage was most likely artificially generated. Trump used an unverified, likely synthetic video to announce a military attack that nobody could confirm. That’s geopolitical fan fiction with missiles attached. Reuters
The claim: The Trump administration says sharply weaker fuel-economy requirements are “common sense” because they’ll let Detroit build the vehicles Americans want.
Bullshit.
Why: The proposed standard would lower the required 2031 fleetwide average from 50.4 miles per gallon to 34.5. People can debate vehicle prices and consumer choice, but fewer miles per gallon means buying more gasoline. The administration is selling thirstier cars as consumer freedom while ignoring what drivers will spend keeping them on the road. Reuters
The claim: Trump says communities resisting new data centers want to remain “backwards and poor” and will have only themselves to blame when the projects go elsewhere.
Bullshit.
Why: Residents have raised legitimate concerns about utility costs, water consumption, noise, lost farmland, and enormous tax incentives. Even JD Vance acknowledged that much of the backlash happens when data centers raise electricity prices for nearby residents. Apparently, listening to your own vice president is now another sign of backwardness. The Guardian
FROM OFF SCRIPT: THE BULLSHIT DETECTOR
The world doesn’t need more information. It needs better filters. The full Off Script Bullshit Detector helps you separate facts from spin, statistics from manipulation, and honest arguments from complete bullshit.
The guide is free to all Off Script subscribers. Everyone else can get it for $4.95 through the Tom Hicks Media Store. No talking points. No team jerseys. Just the claim, the evidence, and the verdict.
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ELSEWHERE ACROSS TOM HICKS MEDIA
LOTUS PURRSPECTIVE
Lotus has determined that every closed cabinet is an admission of guilt. Her human insists there’s nothing inside for her, which is exactly what someone concealing evidence would say. The investigation continues until every door is opened or somebody produces tuna.
TOM’S NUMBER ONES
Today’s musical time machine lands on September 1, 1943, when Bing Crosby, Louis Jordan and the biggest records in America were fighting a world war with rhythm, romance and an excellent suit. Six charts tell the story of one day in music without pretending modern genre boundaries had already been invented. The photographs alone are worth the trip.
PANIC ROOM SPORTS
Panic Room Sports drops today with the NFL’s roster picture coming into focus and fantasy managers already trying to trade half-eaten bags of Skittles for somebody’s best player. The new and improved fantasy draft guide is included for anyone who would rather enter draft night with a board than a prayer. Everyone reacts, but we’ll check the tape first.
RABBIT EARS CLASSIC TV
Rabbit Ears Classic TV returns Thursday with another trip into the stories television left behind. The shows are familiar, but the production battles, strange decisions, and cultural afterlives usually aren’t. We remember what aired, then look for what happened when the cameras stopped.
THE BACKLOT GHOST
The Backlot Ghost returns Wednesday for another walk through classic Hollywood after the studio lights go dark. Every famous movie leaves something behind, and some of those stories are considerably less comfortable than the commemorative Blu-ray would have you believe. Bring a flashlight if it makes you feel better.
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ONE QUESTION BEFORE YOU GO
Trump’s gasoline pitch works because people see a low number and desperately want it to be true. Most of us don’t have time to investigate refineries and commercial fuel contracts while standing beside a pump. When a politician claims credit for lowering prices, what proof would you need before believing him?
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