Trump said he has called for a diesel export ban.

NEW YORK — President Trump told reporters on Tuesday he has called for a ban on U.S. diesel exports. The New York Times’ DealBook filed it Wednesday morning as the fight that now splits Republicans: keep the barrels at home, or keep selling them. AAA’s national average on Wednesday was $6.52 a gallon, about half a penny under Tuesday’s record. The Politics desk files the ban, not the sticker.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has been the loudest. High diesel, he wrote, is killing farmers’ income. Majority Leader John Thune has sided with an embargo. Members from farm districts want the 1970s remedy: stop the exports. Trump, asked at the United Nations, said he had called for it too. “We make a lot of diesel.” He added that holding the fuel could nudge gasoline, “because when you do that, it’s sort of a flow.”

I’ve called for that too. I’ve said, let’s not send out the diesel.

The midterm is six weeks out. Trump’s approval, a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week, is 32 percent, and the cost of living is what his own party is souring on. He has also blamed Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries. The Politics desk files Wednesday as it is: a president who says he has already called for the embargo, a pump a half-penny off the record, and a Republican argument that is no longer quiet.