Days after publishing the strong June jobs report as “The jobs crisis in the United States”, Fox News is now concerned that the month-long drop in sky-high fuel costs could potentially be a bad thing for “mom and pop gas stations”.
As gas prices surged through the first half of the year, Fox News relentlessly blamed the White House for the increased pain at the pump, claiming it was due to President Joe Biden deliberately harms the oil industry and his decision to close the incomplete Keystone XL pipeline. (The real reasons for the sharp increase were, of course, a little more complicated.)
While the network was at all price increases, it was slow to recognize the steady drop in price at the pump over the past month. according to both GasBuddy Y the American Automobile AssociationThe national average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is down nearly 40 cents since peaking at $5.02.
During the Monday broadcast of America ReportsCo-anchor John Roberts finally broke the news to Fox News viewers that gas prices were “going back down” near his home. However, his colleague Sandra Smith suggested that this might not be all good.
“It is. It is,” he pointed out. “And the point was made over the weekend, I think it was the Wall Street Journalthat gasoline prices are actually going down faster than usual historically with the price of oil.”
Smith continued: “And it just goes to show you what an incredible risk-reward calculation has to happen on the part of those little independently owned gas stations, most of them, by mom and dad. It’s a fight for all of them!”
the WSJ article Smith referenced reported that rapidly falling gasoline prices are “creating new headaches for family-owned entrepreneurs and other independent operators who run roughly half of US gas stations.”
Roberts, for his part, noted that “we’re still a long way from $3.55 a gallon,” but that the nation may be starting to “move in that direction.”
Smith’s gas comment came just a week after she and fellow Fox host Charles Payne criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for apparently laughing at the “gas price crisis.”
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