Secretary Wright Joins Fox News's Bret Baier – August 13, 2026

Prices are dropping fast. Iran is going fine, going just absolutely fine. We totally control the Strait of Hormuz. We have control over it. Nobody else, only us. We're in full control. We're not in full control. It's all nonsense. It's just market management, right? Secretary of Energy, 20 million barrels have gone through. Nobody can find those 20 million barrels. Well, we thought we'd go to the source. Let's talk about how the situation in the Straits are affecting energy costs and the economy. Joining us is Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Mr. Secretary, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Brad. So, obviously, the focus is the Strait of Hormuz. There's also, obviously, the second Strait as we look at the map, the Bab al-Mandeb, where some oil and natural gas goes through. We'll talk about that as well. But the main focus is the vessel crossings in the Strait of Hormuz. And there are a number of different agencies that track this, about a half dozen. Kepler is the one that a lot of the agencies, the wire agencies and other news organizations use or have used. They had this revised number for this week, 100-plus vessels per day before the conflict, 14 on Monday, 14 on Tuesday. You say those numbers are not correct. And I just want to Yeah, you bet, Brad. And, of course, for the commercial satellite players, these are great businesses. But this is a conflict zone right now. And to see exactly what's happening, as we're seeing in the data, that's difficult. We're talking and coordinating with every ship. We know every day exactly how many ships transit the Strait of Hormuz in and out. We know if they're going the southern route, the U.S. route through Omani waters, we know exactly what they're carrying. And so every day I get a report of transits in the north and the south and the exact product count and details of what goes through in the south. So, yeah, I sent those tweets out and have been speaking out a little bit because the public understanding of what's happening is just too far away from the reality. So you're saying So you're saying that because of the U.S. military escorts and because some of these ships go dark going through the strait, that those numbers of these tracking agencies are not accurate? Exactly, exactly. They're trying the best they can. But almost all of these ships have their AIS, their transponders are off. So they're dark. They're under escort. And so it's a different shipping operation than we had before the conflict. But it's eight or nine million barrels a day on a running average are going through the strait. Plus, you've got to add the six million barrels a day that are being diverted via pipelines. And those pipelines are being expanded as well. But so in round numbers today, 14, 15 million barrels a day are leaving the Arabian Gulf region versus the 20 million barrels a day pre-conflict. So we're short five or six million barrels a day from this region, but it's a much smaller hole than people think it is. But Mr. Secretary, you can concede, can't you, that the U.S. doesn't have total control over the Strait of Hormuz? Look, Iran is attempting to hold the world economy hostage and to terrorize their neighbors. They've built up a giant arsenal. So are they causing difficulties in the region? Absolutely. But they have a losing strategy. At the end, that will lead to the collapse of this regime in Iran as their economy gets strangled. But are they causing some difficulties for their neighbors and the world economy? Absolutely. But their ability to cause difficulties are declining. Our ability to escort and bring products out of that region is growing. They have sort of one card and it's shrinking in size. I mean, that does not sound like total control, but you have live crude oil prices tonight that seem to be down at 81, a little bit down today. Gas prices, national averages here, we put them up 407 last week, 406. So you're seeing a little bit. What are we going to see if this continues at this back and forth with Iran? What does that price look like as we head into the fall? So I have no clairvoyance, but we sit here today, as you just showed, Brett, about $4 a gallon gasoline. In the first year of the Trump administration, we had more like $3 a gallon gasoline. So it is elevated. But we had, four years ago under the Biden administration, we had $5 a gallon gasoline. So the goal of the Trump administration is to get this back down towards $3. And we absolutely will get there. The question is just the timing of that. And I think we will continue to see increased flows of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. We've got to get the refining infrastructure around the world back up running. The pinch right now is more in the refining of oil and gas than it's in crude oil delivery itself. And so there's a lot of factors in play there. The Ukrainian attacks on the Russian refining system, which are taking massive tolls on Russia, they are reducing the supply of refined products to the world. And that's nudging up the price of refined products as well. Let me take you back to November 2025. I asked you about prices overall on energy. Take a listen. Will people feel a different energy cost into the new year, quarter one, quarter two, do you think? I think you'll soon see a stop in the rise of electricity prices. We're going to achieve that, I think, hopefully, in the first half of 2026, the stop of the rises. But during the Trump administration, you will see a downward trend before the administration's over. So energy inflation, according to CPI energy, four point fourteen point seven percent up gasoline. And obviously, we talked before the Iran conflict had started. And that's largely gasoline and fuel. But electricity and energy overall is up significantly. Yeah, look, as you can see in that electricity price number, that's just a hair over the rate of inflation. And of course, electricity is a battleship. All of the new capacity that's coming online right now was permitted during the Biden administration. And they only essentially only permitted wind and solar that are mostly forces to drive up electricity prices. But we have all sorts of massive amounts of new natural gas generation capacity online. We have up rates on nuclear power plants. We have restarts of nuclear power plants. All of the things that need to that need to happen to stop the rise of electricity prices. They're underway. And you've seen announcements across many states of multiyear freezes on electricity prices. A few even announced declines. So absolutely, things are going in the right direction. A ton of communities have already seen the end of electricity price rises. And we want to bring that across the whole country. And we will. Well, Mr. Secretary, we appreciate you coming on and answering the questions. Thanks, Brett.