Obama said his poll numbers 'were almost perfectly correlated with the price of gasoline': FedEx CEO

Fred Smith looks ahead to the midterms

As the 2022 midterm elections approach, FedEx CEO Fred Smith said Wednesday that former President Barack Obama once remarked that his poll numbers "were almost perfectly correlated with the price of gasoline" on "Special Report."

Obama "one [time] told me in a small group that everybody thought his poll numbers went up on this, that and the other thing," Smith told host Bret Baier. "He said they were almost perfectly correlated with the price of gasoline."

BIDEN SAYS HE'S DOING 'EVERYTHING' IN HIS POWER TO REDUCE GAS PRICES

Smith added that gas prices are "a big issue, and previous decades show that when fuel prices run up, they act as a retardant or a tax on consumption. So we'll see this summer whether people are still buying goods to the same degree that they have been in the past. And of course, if they don't, a lot of the port problems … will go away because there'll be [fewer] goods moving through the ports."

Whether high gas prices will act as a tax also depends on OPEC and Saudi Arabia's course of action. With Russian fuel "largely embargoed" worldwide, "that could create its own set of problems."

WASHINGTON, DC: President Joe Biden meets with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (L), members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and combatant commanders in the Cabinet Room of the White House.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

West Hollywood, CA: Jesse Espersen from Topanga fills his SUV with 6.536 gallons of Super+ gas at 7.559 per gallon for $125 at a Mobil station at the corner of La Cienega Blvd. and Beverly Blvd. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Former President Barack Obama with children from Girls and Boys clubs of greater Washington.  (Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

A unique set of problems will also arise from China's lockdowns and lack of production, with its ports and factories being "a big thing."

The country has approximately 27% of the world's manufacturers within its borders. 

In the United States, "you're going to see a real increase in interest rates if inflation is going to be brought under control" in the next months.

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"We still have substantial growth, but … we have substantial inflation," he said earlier in the interview.

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