Secretary Wright Joins The National News Desk's Angela Brown - July 14, 2026

Well, President Trump's energy agenda is facing new tests this morning. We're following, of course, escalating tensions with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, but also protecting Americans from rising electricity costs as the AI boom accelerates. Joining me now to discuss this and so much more is U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. So happy to have you on the show this morning. First, let's talk about- Angela, thanks for having me. We have so much to get to. We're going to talk about Iran. We're going to talk about data centers. There's some breaking news on that. But first, let's talk about what's going on in Iran, Mr. Secretary. Yet President Trump says in so many words that the U.S. is now the guardian of the Strait, while announcing this 20 percent fee on cargo moving through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway, and, of course, this renewed blockade. From an energy standpoint, strategic standpoint, what is the goal here of this fee? So the goal of controlling the Straits is to allow energy to flow from all of the nations, all of the nations in the Arabian Gulf, except Iran. Iran is the problem. The problem is not the United States or anybody else. It's just Iran. So the U.S. military is going to control the flow of that traffic, let it all to flow except for the Iranian traffic. And I think you'll see more news breaking later today on how the United States is going to be compensated or rewarded from this. But think about President Trump. He's a businessman. He likes deals. He likes investments in the United States of America. And he likes to create American jobs. That's his focus. I think you're going to see news on that front before too long. And I guess that's what we're trying to figure out. You know, who's going to assess this 20 percent? What does this 20 percent mean? Who's going to assess the value? Is the cargo value? Is the market value? And who's going to collect it? How will you even collect this fee on top of all that? Well, we've had an active dialogue about what's the right thing to do here. And I think you're going to see a little bit, you're going to see some news on a little bit different way to make the straits free flowing, make job creation in the United States boom and drive wages up. It may be different. It may be different than the original idea. You know, we have some breaking news that came into the newsroom just a few minutes ago regarding data centers, a topic that's very important to so many Americans. You have New York Governor, Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul is set to sign. Basically, we're learning an executive order today imposing the country's very first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers for up to a year at this point. The governor says it's so the state can create rules to protect the environment and the energy grid. Some are already pushing back on this, including some people in her own party. We have this right here from Senator John Fetterman saying, you can see it right there. China wins. That's coming from Democrat Senator John Fetterman. What is your reaction to hearing this this morning? Well, Senator Fetterman is right. If the United States backs away, drags our feet on data centers, China wins. Nobody wants that. Look, the green energy mandates, those are what drive up energy costs. New York has expensive electricity and they produce less electricity today than they did 10 years ago. That's the problem. That's a New York State energy policy problem. It's not a data center problem. With President Trump's ratepayer protection pledge, data center development, that's the way to get your electricity prices down, your job opportunities and your wages up. Now, that seems to be kind of like the fault line here. You have some people on one side saying, yes, we have to have these data centers to keep up with China. But you have folks in many communities worried about their electricity bill going up. What is the Trump administration doing to try to hold some of these companies accountable to make sure they maybe absorb some of these costs? What are you doing? Look, the Trump administration ratepayer protection pledge, we were implementing it before we even released the pledge. But it's to get the developers of these data centers to bring money up front into communities to invest in the electrical infrastructure, to grow the capacity to produce electricity. And all of them have come with multi-year freezes on electricity prices. They're actually been used as a mechanism to stop the rise in electricity, create just enormous local tax revenues, job opportunities, and higher wages. If you visit the communities where a modern data center is being developed today, they are thrilled. Their electricity prices are locked in for three or four years. The rises are over. New job opportunities are there. Local businesses are booming. Local restaurants and shops and stores are seeing increased activity. Look, done right, of course, they can cause problems. If you've got green energy mandates that doesn't allow your state to produce any more electricity, well, a data center development there is not going to work so well. But the problem is those state green energy mandates, it's not the data center development. They're a force to drive prices down. Do you know how many people or a ballpark, how many people have signed up for this pledge? And it's voluntary at this point, right? It is, but it's all the large developers, all of the large data center developers have said, yes, we want to do that. They understand they're behind the eight ball. The same forces, and again, they're American forces, but of course they're funded and supported by the Chinese and Russians. The same groups opposed fracking 15 years ago. They wanted to stop America to become the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world. Unfortunately, they didn't win that battle, but they went out and tried to scare everyone about fracking and the shale revolution. Those same people are doing the same thing about data centers, and they're wrong this time too. They want to drive energy prices up and export American jobs overseas. And that's just not the Trump administration agenda. No, we talked about what's happening in New York right now with that moratorium. Did you hear about this national day of protests against data centers that is actually planned for this Saturday? These folks are concerned about everything from power use to water consumption to higher utility bills. There's also a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to what's going to happen when these data centers are built or in the process of being built. How are you trying to combat some of this information? And what is some of the stuff that you think that is kind of falling through the cracks that people are hearing that may not be accurate? Yeah, these groups are very effective at scaring people. And this is large new investments in communities. I get people's concerns about it. They should be met and addressed head on. They should have all their questions answered before decisions are made. So there's a real issue here. But this spreading of fear and falsehoods is just destructive. Water is one example. All the new data centers being built use a thing called closed loop. They don't evaporate water away. They use precious little water. They bring large investments. They do not increase electricity prices. In fact, they're the easiest tool I have at the Department of Energy to stop the rise of electricity prices is to get a data center developer to come into your community. In Indiana, we've had filings to reduce electricity rates for local consumers. The worst case is freezing rates at where they are today. These are big wins for communities. But again, there's groups out there that want to scare Americans, that want to preach fear and doom. And of course, in states that have been 20 years of just driving up the electricity prices in their states, no wonder people are upset about rising energy prices and they want that to stop. But what they need to stop is the green energy mandates that have been driving up the prices. They're the problem, not the data centers. And finally, just tell our viewers, how important is this when it comes to data centers, AI technology, beating China? It's super important. The country that leads in artificial intelligence in the coming years and decades ahead will be the global superpower. The United States has been the global superpower my whole life. We don't want to change that. America is a great global leader. We don't want China to be the global leader. Nobody would win by that in the United States. In fact, Chinese citizens wouldn't win by that either. We want those jobs, that innovation, these new job opportunities and rising wages right here in the United States of America. And I'm confident we will have it happen. It's just a matter of where these data centers are. But if you push them out of your community and into someone else's community, all the benefits of reduced prices, increased wages and more jobs, all those are going to go with that. Don't push data centers and let others win by it. Negotiate to have your community be the big winner. That's my advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us this morning, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Great having you here. Great for your insight. Great to be with you, Angela.