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Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, fresh off his own reelection victory in the state’s 2nd District, did not sugarcoat what happened to the broader Republican Party in the 2026 midterms.

In a blunt post-election video, the plain-spoken congressman thanked his volunteers and staff for their ground game, then immediately turned the spotlight on why the GOP lost control of Congress: affordability crushed by sky-high diesel prices and a Congress Americans correctly view as corrupt on stock trading.

“Why did the Republicans lose? Two reasons, really. One’s affordability. It’s the economy, stupid, as we’ve said many times. Affordability. And that led right at the diesel fuel prices that are—again, we’re being gouged by the oil companies who are posting record profits, record profits. And they did it on the backs of the American people, primarily your farmers who run their equipment off diesel. Your truck drivers who haul everything, including your gasoline,” Burchett stated.

Burchett has been sounding this alarm for months. In September he introduced two targeted bills, H.R. 10423 (a temporary diesel export ban through January 2027) and H.R. 10422 (the Diesel Price Reduction Act, which would trigger export controls if the national average hit $5 per gallon until it stayed at or below $4.50 for 30 straight days).

He argued refiners were enjoying margins near $117 per barrel (roughly $2.78 per gallon) versus historical levels around $15 per barrel (about 35 cents), an approximately 800% jump, while shipping American diesel overseas and leaving U.S. farmers, truckers, and consumers to absorb the pain.

Experts he consulted indicated the measures could have dropped fuel prices by up to $1 a gallon overnight, cascading through the broader economy. Leadership never advanced them.

“We get zero oil out of the Straits of Hormuz, and we’re getting ripped off. The oil companies are using that as an excuse,” Burchett added in the video, tying the pain directly to the failure to act.

The second reason, he said, is the total collapse of public trust in Congress.

“You don’t trust Congress, and it’s for good reason, because it’s infinitely broken and crooked, both parties. The stock trading bill, the bill that myself and Representative Luna put forward, never got any traction. It was a real ban on stock trading, the one we passed, in my opinion, was very weak. It wouldn’t go anywhere in the Senate anyway. And we touted it as if it was going to do something, and it didn’t.”

Burchett and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna had pushed a genuine prohibition on members, spouses, and dependents trading individual stocks. A weaker version advanced instead. Polls have long shown voters view congressional stock trading as insider enrichment; Burchett has repeatedly described the institution as “crooked as a dog’s leg.”

In the video he noted members posting outsized returns “day in, day out” while ordinary Americans struggle.

“We are crooked as a dog’s leg. And those are the 2 things. If we’d have done that, we would have walked in, but we refused to do that.”

Even as Republicans head into the minority, Burchett said he will continue pressing leadership on these exact issues. “And again, I’m going to keep hitting leadership with those things, although we’ll be in the minority, but those are going to be the issues. It’s always going to be those, couple around those 2 things. And we just didn’t keep our word, and that’s what got us.”

The post “WE ARE CROOKED AS A DOG’S LEG!” Rep. Tim Burchett TORCHES Congress After GOP Midterm Disaster, Blames Diesel Price Gouging by Oil Giants and Fake Stock Trading “Ban” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.