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People who need diesel to make a living are feeling the pinch like never before, as record prices for the fuel are not coming down. It has some, even those in deep red states, questioning where the president is taking the economy. Wyoming Public Media's Jordan Uplinger reports from a gas station just off of Interstate 80.
JORDAN UPLINGER, BYLINE: Laramie, sitting in between two major highways, is a frequent pit stop for diesel vehicle drivers like Greg Baggerly. He's a big fella sporting a tan hat, a long beard and a small scooter for his injured leg.
GREG BAGGERLY: A lot of people get me mixed up with with Brad Pitt though (laughter).
UPLINGER: He drives a flatbed truck, which, of course, runs on diesel.
BAGGERLY: We built cement block buildings. It's the transportation and our equipment. And I've never seen it this high in my life. I'm getting about ready to get on welfare and hang out at the house if they don't do something.
UPLINGER: Baggerly says he's always been a Trump guy.
BAGGERLY: The things that he did was to make our country stronger until right now. Right now, he's bringing us to the brink. I mean, we can't survive much more than this.
UPLINGER: I asked Baggerly what a dollar increase in diesel prices would mean for him.
BAGGERLY: A dollar or more, we're talking about some J6 type action, you know? We're going to have to all get together and go raise some hell.
UPLINGER: Farther north in the tiny town of Aladdin, Wyoming, I reach Wilma Tope.
WILMA TOPE: Excuse me. I'm down here, watching the gate while my husband is feeding cows.
UPLINGER: Tope and her husband, Jay, have been ranching for 48 years. She says they've never experienced conditions quite like this.
TOPE: We had a piece of property up by Devil's Tower that - the dam has never been dry since the 1960s. And it is dry this year, so we were unable to use that land for grazing.
UPLINGER: Tope didn't put fertilizer down this year because it was too expensive. She and her husband have to just hope it works out.
TOPE: I know that there's a lot of people that are downsizing. I know our neighbors have already sold their calves, which normally they wouldn't sell until probably the middle of November. So people are selling their calves early because there just isn't - there isn't feed for them.
UPLINGER: That means they have to buy hay and truck it in on trucks that run on diesel.
TOPE: And to buy hay - hay, of course, the prices have gone up because of the drought and truckers have to pay a lot more to haul things.
UPLINGER: Ranchers use diesel for everything, from transportation to feeding to planting to harvesting.
TOPE: A year ago, I got back in my receipts and found that dyed diesel was 2.89 a gallon and stayed that pretty much until - about until the Iran war. So fuel is one of our largest operating expenses, and now it's more than doubled.
UPLINGER: Tope says she doesn't like oil companies profiting from high fuel prices. She says President Trump's tariffs have hurt farm exports, too. And she wants the agriculture community at large to reflect on past decisions.
TOPE: I think it's time for those of us that are engaged in family farming and ranching to start voting for policies that benefit the consumer, not the big corporations. Because when the consumer benefits, we all benefit. I guess you might say the ag community has gotten what it's voted for, and it's not pretty.
UPLINGER: Tope says she and her husband have had to reduce the size of their cattle herd significantly. She says her top wish is for the war to end.
For NPR News, I'm Jordan Uplinger in Laramie, Wyoming.
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