Have you noticed that the left loves to forget inconvenient facts that undermine its narrative? You can be debating any issue, bring up something that blows up their entire argument, and leftists will tell you, “I don’t remember that,” and since they can’t “remember” it, they assume it’s not true. Oh, it’s happened to me many times. Well, it’s still happening, and it’s almost hilarious.
Can you believe that Democrats are now blaming Donald Trump for not using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep prices stable after bombing Iran?
The hosts of The View spent part of their Tuesday morning questioning why the government hasn’t tapped the nation’s oil reserves to lower gas prices, while also taking shots at President Donald Trump.
Whoopi Goldberg kicked off the discussion by insisting the government has a ready-made solution for high fuel costs. “Now, we have reserves for this,” she said. “We have reserves. Where are they? Yeah, for gas. When gas gets too much, they bust out the reserves, and it brings the price down.”
First of all, that’s not exactly what it’s for. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve exists to provide an emergency supply of crude oil in case of severe supply disruptions. Yes, that includes war, as well as natural disasters and other major disruptions to global oil markets. It’s a national security buffer to stabilize the oil supply during crises, not a means for managing gas prices for political purposes.
Be that as it may, Goldberg argued that Americans who supported Trump are feeling the pain. “Where is anything that he said other than a lot of misery… a lot of pain for people, his people in particular. The people who voted for him are feeling it.”
Joy Behar suggested those voters may be reconsidering. “I think they’re turning a little bit,” she said, without any evidence at all — pure projection.
🚨The View's Whoopi Goldberg shouts "Where are the reserves!?" as co-hosts Sunny Hostin and 'Lifelong Republican' Sheryl Underwood complain about gas prices in LA.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 10, 2026
Biden depleted them, Whoopi.
And average gas prices are still well below their peak in 2022 under Biden. pic.twitter.com/U7wge1sdVr
But the moronic ladies of The View weren’t the only ones talking about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
“Trump had total discretion over the timing of this war but somehow forgot to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) when oil was cheap before launching it,” Matthew Yglesias whined on X.
What Goldberg, Yglesias, and I’m sure plenty more on the left have conveniently forgotten is that Joe Biden depleted the reserves in March 2022, as part of an effort to bring prices down before the midterm elections that year.
Not a meme stock or a collapsing currency, this is America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and this is before today's record release of 8.4mb, the largest ever. pic.twitter.com/yodSXxdjoO
— James Lavish (@jameslavish) September 12, 2022
It didn’t stop gas prices from going over $4.50/gal in May of that year, though. Despite Biden’s raiding of the reserves, gas prices continued to rise, and reserve levels reached their lowest since 1987.
On top of that, Trump had actually attempted to stock up the SPR in March 2020, when COVID hit, and gas prices were low.
Democrats blocked him from doing it.
“Trump in March of 2020 was looking to stabilize the oil industry after Covid-19 hit in 2020 and crushed global petroleum demand. With oil at the time priced at about $24 a barrel, Republicans proposed spending $3 billion to fill up the reserve,” Bloomberg reported in September 2022. “But the idea became a political football in larger negotiations on trillions in coronavirus relief, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer proclaiming that his party had blocked a ‘bailout for big oil.’”
You forgot to mention that President Biden inherited 638 million barrels of crude oil in the SPR, then drained the reserves by 40% between 2021 and 2022 to combat rising gas prices.
— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) March 7, 2026
His SPR drawdown caused more than $100 million in structural damages to the storage facilities,… https://t.co/7WqSEEi0my pic.twitter.com/B4VpuAmVcT
Even if Trump wanted to tap the reserves — and it’s arguably not necessary at this point, especially since prices are going back down — doing so would be a mistake because the reserve levels are still low. Now, the thing with the SPR is that you can deplete it quickly, but it takes time to restock.
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If the situation actually merited tapping the reserves, which are still relatively low, it would be a risky move. That’s on Joe Biden. He politicized the SPR by using it to help the Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. Regardless of whether tapping the reserves now makes sense (and it doesn’t), the low level of the reserves is 100% Biden’s fault.
