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Wright Discusses Iran, Hormuz Flows and Wartime Energy Duties on the Ross Kaminsky Show

June 26, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:16:33

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told radio host Ross Kaminsky that serving as a wartime energy secretary had made his tenure all-consuming, recounting the Venezuela operation and then the Iran conflict, according to the Department of Energy’s upload of the interview. Wright argued that the Middle East’s problems trace to Iran — its support for Hamas and Hezbollah and its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and said President Trump accepted short-term energy price effects rather than hand a nuclear-armed Iran to his successors.

On the Strait of Hormuz, Wright said U.S. military escorts had ended Iran’s ability to close the strait. After a ship was holed the previous night with no casualties, he said, shipping continued: about 14 million barrels of crude had transited in the previous 24 hours, and two days earlier 20 million barrels of crude had passed through, above pre-conflict levels, with roughly six million additional barrels moving by Saudi and Emirati pipelines — about 26 million barrels leaving the region in total, by his accounting.

Wright said the conflict had destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities, weapons-making and drone capacity and had shut off Iran’s oil supplies for 60 days, leaving Iran, in his assessment, in a far weaker position with different calculations about its future, though he said the outcome of negotiations remained unknown.

Why it matters

The radio interview is Wright’s most detailed public accounting of wartime oil logistics — strait transits, pipeline bypasses and the escort mission — paired with his strategic case for confronting Iran despite energy prices.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Secretary Wright’s statements that about 20 million barrels of crude transited Hormuz in a single recent day and that Iran’s oil supplies were shut off for 60 days during the conflict. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no verdict is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins The Ross Kaminsky Show on Radio — June 26, 2026”, 2026-06-26 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-06-26). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.