Marjorie Taylor Greene Mocked for Saying the Gas Prices for Electric Cars Are Too High

Maggie Harrison Dupré
·2-min read

Bad Math

At a Sunday rally for former reality TV star and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene attempted to dunk on electric vehicles, arguing that — well, it's hard to say what she was arguing, exactly. But rest assured, she doesn't like 'em!

"If you think gas prices are high now, just wait until you're forced to drive an electric vehicle," Greene told rally-goers, who, after a brief pause, began to boo in agreement.

"America is sick of it," she added.

Of course, as electric cars are powered by electricity and not by gasoline, it's unclear what her point is or what Americans are sick of. Is she confusing EVs with hybrids, which use gasoline to generate electricity? Is she claiming that powering electric cars is more expensive than fueling up a gas-guzzler, which it definitely isn't?

Or — as the congresswoman is no stranger to transportation-related conspiracies — is the language that EVs are being "forced" upon Americans a dog whistle to an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claiming the Biden administration is artificially jacking up gas prices as a means to push Americans towards the electric market, where the government is offering certain tax credits to facilitate a national shift to clean energy?

Unclear. But at the end of the day, the audience seemed to like the buzzword-loaded soundbite salad.

Gas Guzzlers

We weren't the only ones with questions about the Georgia rep's statement.

"You can't make this crap up," famed novelist and anti-Trump poster Stephen King responded on X-formerly-Twitter.

"Not an economist," added another X user, "but I believe she has supply/demand backwards."

But while many mocked Greene's words, we should note that a sizeable amount of the internet referenced that aforementioned conspiracy as they flocked to support the congresswoman.

"Of course they're raising gas prices as an 'incentive' to buy a shitty EV," another netizen wrote in response to King's denouncement, further claiming that the alleged incentivization plot is connected to a still-in-pilot-testing California effort to tax gas and electric drivers on miles driven, as opposed to a tax on fuel usage.

Our heads hurt, so in sum: electric cars are powered by electricity. The current presidential administration is offering tax credits to American consumers looking to purchase greener, American-made electric vehicles, but that's because global warming is real and burning fossil fuels contributes to most of it. Much of the electric grid is still powered by fossil fuels, but there are state and federal efforts to reduce those dependencies, too.

Anyway. Be skeptical, not conspiratorial. And please, touch grass.

More on non-conspiratorial EV concerns: Electric Cars Are Twice as Likely to Hit Pedestrians, Researchers Find

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • CNN Data Reporter 'Speechless' By New Donald Trump-Joe Biden Poll: 'Holy Cow, Folks!'

    Harry Enten said it could point to "a historic moment" in American politics.

  • China's Xi accused the US of trying to trick him into invading Taiwan, but said he won't take the bait, report says

    Xi Jinping told an EU leader that the US was trying to trick China into invading Taiwan, per the Financial Times, amid increasing tensions.

  • China is almost ready for its war with the West

    While Russian forces continued their thrust towards Kharkiv over the weekend, world leaders descended on the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock in attempts to work out what a peace deal should look like. Vladimir Putin, predictably, had no interest in attending, but the absence of another world leader was more significant. Even as the US gears up to pivot its military attention to the Indo-Pacific to confront an increasingly assertive China, Xi Jinping chose not to attend.

  • Disappointing end to Ukraine summit as allies agree to watered-down peace declaration

    Kyiv and its allies agreed on a watered-down declaration at a peace summit in Switzerland that backed Ukraine’s territorial integrity but failed to lay out steps to end the war.

  • ‘This country gave me a lot’: the Vietnamese people staying in Ukraine

    People across Ukraine have united in the face of the Russian threat and its Vietnamese community is no exception

  • Philippine, Chinese ships collide near hotspot reef

    Philippine and Chinese vessels collided near the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on Monday, with both sides accusing the other of being to blame for the incident.It has in recent months stepped up moves against Philippine vessels in the area around Second Thomas Shoal.

  • The British Army trains in Kenya. Many women say soldiers raped them and abandoned children they fathered

    Seventeen-year-old Marian Pannalossy cuts a striking figure wherever she goes in Archer’s Post, a small town 200 miles north of Nairobi. She lives alone and is light-skinned in a place where mixed-race people are a rarity and therefore ostracized.

  • Joe Biden appears to freeze again at fundraiser as Barack Obama helps him off stage

    It is the latest in a series of incidents that have sparked concerns about the president’s health

  • US renews warning it's obligated to defend the Philippines after its new clash with China at sea

    The United States renewed a warning Tuesday that it’s obligated to defend its close treaty ally a day after Filipino navy personnel were injured and their supply boats damaged in one of the most serious confrontations between the Philippines and China in a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, officials said. China and the Philippines blamed each other for instigating Monday’s hostilities in the Second Thomas Shoal, which has been occupied by a small Filipino navy contingent aboard a grounded warship that's been closely watched by Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships in a yearslong territorial standoff. There is fear the disputes, long regarded as an Asian flashpoint, could escalate and pit the United States and China in a larger conflict.

  • Britain shouldn’t wave the nuclear white flag. We could flatten Russia

    As Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour party move ever faster towards No 10, aided by the Conservative party’s penchant to fall on its sword with monotonous regularity, we will soon be forced to confront the nuclear-warhead-sized elephant in the room. Promises to grow the economy are all well and good, but the security of the country is of paramount importance, especially when our Russian enemy has made its hatred for us clear.

  • Putin sacks four deputy defence ministers and appoints relative

    Vladimir Putin has sacked four deputy defence ministers and appointed one of his relatives to the role as he carries out a sweeping purge of officials in charge during the botched invasion of Ukraine.

  • Spain seeks to avert trade war after China announces pork anti-dumping probe

    SANTANDER/MADRID (Reuters) -Leading EU pork exporter Spain on Monday said it was working with European Union officials to avoid damaging tariffs after Beijing said it would open an anti-dumping inquiry. China's investigation appears mainly targeted at Spain, the Netherlands, France and Denmark, the three biggest EU exporters of pork to China. Its announcement follows one from the European Commission last week that it would impose anti-subsidy duties on imported Chinese cars from July.

  • One-Two Punch From the Skies Is a Massive Blow to Putin

    Ukraine’s military has spent the last two years chronically short of planes. Its prewar stocks were already small in number and mostly dated from the Soviet era. When NATO and other countries sent help, they focused on either sending the same older models or keeping existing aircraft in the air through maintenance and spare parts. Russia, meanwhile, has a larger and often more advanced air force.However, new planes are on the way to help Ukraine. For nearly a year, countries like the Netherlands

  • New high-speed sleeper train service connects Hong Kong with Beijing and Shanghai

    Interested in capping off your trip to Hong Kong with a long weekend in Beijing or Shanghai? A new high-speed sleeper train service cuts the overnight travel time by half.

  • Seoul fires warning shots as N. Korean soldiers cross border again

    Dozens of North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the heavily fortified border Tuesday but retreated after warning shots were fired, Seoul said, the second such incident in two weeks as Pyongyang reinforces its frontiers with the South."Dozens of North Korean troops crossed the Military Demarcation Line today... (and) retreated northwards after warning shots" were fired, a JCS official said.

  • State Department rejects Xi’s claim that US wants China to invade Taiwan

    State spokesman says ‘One China’ policy unchanged after question from The Independent

  • Britain is already at war, and nobody wants to admit it

    There are fewer than three weeks to go until polling day and, amid all the desperate campaigning and counter-campaigning, there is a dog that hasn’t barked – even though it is perhaps the most vital of all for our long-term survival.

  • US blasts ‘aggressive’ China over South China Sea collision with Philippine ship

    The United States on Monday condemned China over a collision with the Philippines in the disputed South China Sea, the latest in a series of increasingly fraught confrontations that have raised the potential of a flashpoint for global conflict in the vital waterway.

  • Kellyanne Conway Massively Inflates Trump’s Church Crowd

    It appears crowdflation and alternative facts are once again tools in Trumpworld’s arsenal. Kellyanne Conway tried to draw some distinction between Donald Trump and Joe Biden during an appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures, noting that Trump was making outreaches to Black voters. “You got Donald Trump in Detroit talking to 8,000 people at a Black church,” she told Bartiromo. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your in

  • Putin visits Kim Jong Un in North Korea

    Vladimir Putin, looking for more arms and less ostracism, rewards Kim Jong Un with a statesman’s visit to Pyongyang. What else will he give Kim in return?