Kansas Senator Roger Marshall dismissed rising gas prices as a “sacrifice” Americans needed to make for their freedom. During an interview Tuesday night, Marshall became extremely defensive when CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed back on his claim that soaring gas prices were simply “a little bit of a hiccup.”“If they’re lifting sanctions on Russia, clearly they’re worried it could last longer than a brief period, don’t you think?” Collins asked. “I don’t, Kaitlan, I think you’re really reaching here. I think just as quickly as we took those sanctions away, we could put them back on,” Marshall said. “You live in this little, little ivory tower here, I don’t think that you’re dealing with the real world that the President Trump has. We don’t know when the war is gonna be over. We don’t know when these sanctions should go back on. But I think the president on a day-to-day basis—”“But how is that an ivory tower?” Collins pressed. “I’m asking you about gas prices that Americans are paying that are extremely high, and having wild swings, in part because of the war with Iran that the president started.”“Again, freedom is not free. Americans are gonna have to make some sacrifices,” he said, insisting that the U.S. was “operating from a point of strength.”But Americans aren’t feeling that strength at the gas pump. While Marshall ranted about ivory towers, Americans were paying the highest gas prices since 2024 at about $3.54 per gallon, a 21 percent increase from just a month earlier. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced last week that the U.S. would issue 30-day waivers to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil that was “already stranded at sea,” promising doing so would “not provide significant financial benefit” to the Kremlin. Experts have pushed back on that claim.And it doesn’t appear that prices will change anytime soon. “Unfortunately, prices are going to be up for awhile,” Senator Rick Scott warned Wednesday.