NBC’s Welker Straight-Up Asks Trump Energy Honcho ‘If You Were Prepared’ Why Is Strait Closed?

NBC News anchor Kristen Welker straight-up asked Secretary of Energy Chris Wright why the Strait of Hormuz is “effectively closed” if the Trump administration was “prepared,” and got a puzzling response.

As the Iran war enters its third week, 13 U.S. servicemembers have been killed, a preliminary military investigation has determined the US is responsible for  the strike on an elementary school that killed at least 160 children, and attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have exacerbated surging prices and roiled the stock market.

But Trump and his administration have kept up a steady drumbeat of attacks on the media for reporting on the full effect of the war. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth complained last week that reporting on troop deaths is intended to “make the president look bad,” and this week loudly demanded positive coverage from a “patriotic press corps.”

Trump has been especially sensitive about the attacks on oil tankers, which reporters like Maggie Haberman and others have noted do not appear to have been successfully prepared for.

On Sunday morning’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, Welker confronted Wright over the vulnerability of the waterway, and Wright responded by pointing out something that should have been obvious before the war started:

KRISTEN WELKER: Very quickly, Mr. Secretary. There’s a big debate over whether you all were prepared for what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz. If you were prepared, why is the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed right now?

SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: Because it’s right near the Iranian shoreline.

The world is abundantly supplied with oil and energy. We knew there would be a short-term disruption in energy flows. And to hear Chuck Schumer say that we didn’t, is just so — he knows how foolish that is. And to say stuff to try to undermine the United States in the midst of a world-changing conflict just boggles my mind.

But this mission was carefully planned out. It’s been superbly executed. On the other side, we’ll be in a much better place.

KRISTEN WELKER: Okay.

SEC. CHRIS WRIGHT: The greatest driver of terrorism in the world, the greatest threat to global energy supplies will be defanged. Yes, we have disruption to get there. But we’re going to be in a much, much better place in the not-too-distant future.

Watch above via NBC’s Meet the Press.

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