Secretary Wright Joins Laura Ingraham on Fox News - March 4, 2026

According to Bloomberg, not a single vessel entered the Persian Gulf yesterday after Iran vowed to sink any ship coming through. About 20 percent of the world's oil flows through there. So what does that mean for us? We've already seen a spike in gas prices. According to the AAA, the average price per gallon is now $3.19 today. That's up more than 20 cents from a week ago. Here to respond is Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who had a very busy day in Washington. Mr. Secretary, I know you were doing a lot of cool AI stuff today, but this is a major concern for Americans. And should Republicans head into the midterms, they want to say, obviously, that gas prices are down and things are going in the right direction. Will this be temporary? And how long do you believe this will last? Oh, this will definitely be temporary. This will definitely be temporary. The Trump administration's energy addition, energy dominance agenda have just massively grown global supplies of oil, natural gas. Gasoline prices today are still $2 per gallon lower than they were at the peak during the Biden administration. Now, we want them to be lower. We want them back under $3 a gallon. And I think you'll see them back under $3 a gallon before too long. But yeah, are we going to have a transient bump up as we've seen in gasoline prices? We do a little bit, but I think a very small price to pay to remove the nation that's killed more American soldiers in the last 20 years than any nation on earth and was rapidly building up its ability to kill more Americans, to menace the Middle East, and ultimately interfere with commerce and prosperity in that part of the world and the world as a whole. I'm very proud of our troops and our president's leadership to fix this problem. How important is it that the president, Mr. Secretary, offered insurance, commercial insurance for vessels traveling through the Gulf region, given the hostilities in the area and the danger in the area? Yeah, the commercial markets do that. They'll still do that today. But we've offered to backstop, sort of be a reinsurer of the movement of these vessels. And even bigger will be when the time is right and it won't be that far away when we'll use the U.S. Navy to escort ships through the Straits of Hormuz. As you said, Laura, there's not traffic going through it today, but that's temporary event. And fortunately, we have a world just massively well supplied, abundant oil around the world and American production at record highs. So we'll get through this. It'll be a bump on the road, but it will change the trajectory of history to remove the menace that Iran has been for 47 years. Have any ships taken or any vessels taken us up on our offer, that U.S. Navy escort through the Gulf? No, not yet. We say we'll do that as soon as we can. Right now, our Navy and, of course, our military is focused on other things, which is disarming this Iranian regime that's been striking out at all of its neighbors and Americans in every way it can. So right now we got to focus on defanging Iran. But in the not too distant future, we'll be able to use the Navy to get energy flowing again. But in the meantime, markets are very well supplied. And Mr. Secretary, it was fascinating to watch what was happening today at the White House, the president listening to the people who are very concerned about the cost of energy prices here at home, given these massive buildouts of A.I. data centers putting a crunch on the grid. And it looks like from everything I could gather, and it was quite an array of top tech CEOs, that they're going to be responsible for producing their own supply of energy so as not to squeeze the people. Are you confident that they will actually come through? I know they signed that agreement, but are you confident they're going to live up to that agreement? I am confident they're going to live up to that agreement. The president called all the leaders of these tech companies to the White House right after he took office and he chartered me immediately. The United States must lead in A.I. We can't have the energy subtraction policies of the Biden administration and send A.I. overseas. We have to lead here in the United States and we have to stop the ruinous price rises the Biden administration did. But those two things can be and are being achieved. And so we've been working with these companies since the start of the administration. In fact, Laura, I've got to point out, Indiana just a few days ago is the first state that that filed for a rate reduction request to their committee on electricity. And many other states have had multi-year freezes in their electricity rates. And these are made possible by the U.S. government in partnership with these large data center developers to bring this A.I., bring these investments, but bring with it no price increase to Americans. Ultimately, price decreases for Americans. Yeah, that'll make people very happy because Americans are obviously very concerned about that. That was very good to see today. Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for coming by.