00:00In terms of the war and the timeline, given this administration has put timelines out there before,
00:04what you just said about no negotiations happening with Iran,
00:08will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections?
00:11Well, Caitlin, again, I don't — I wouldn't call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting.
00:16I recognize there have been places where this has flared up. Major combat operations — again,
00:23major combat operations lasted for about six weeks. And since then, we destroyed, of course,
00:28their nuclear facilities with Midnight Hammer. With Epic Fury, we destroyed their defense
00:33industrial base for producing weapons and also a lot of their conventional military. And then we
00:38made it harder for them to rebuild that nuclear program. But when you ask, when will this end,
00:44you're asking me a question, like, when will the Iranians stop shooting at ships? I think the
00:49reality is I don't know the answer to that question. You'd have to ask the Iranians. When will the
00:53Iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets? And the answer is it has
00:59less effect day by day. So what we're going to do is not depend on the Iranians behaving responsibly
01:04or negotiating in good faith. What we're going to do is use the tools that we have at our disposal
01:09to
01:10ensure that the American people, one, never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program,
01:15and two, that world energy markets are properly supplied.
01:19But so it's up to the Iranians when this war ends?
01:21Well, if the Iranians keep on — but, Caitlin, if the Iranians keep on shooting at commercial ships,
01:27again, we have, I think, a responsibility, but certainly we're the only ones with the capability
01:34to ensure that the Iranians are not destroying world energy markets. And our attitude is we're not
01:41going to set an artificial timeline because — let's just say, hypothetically, let's say I told you
01:46three months. Let's say I told you three days, okay? And then the Iranians start blowing up oil and gas
01:51ships, and the United States is the only country with the capability to ensure that those oil and gas
01:56ships get to market. Well, what I would say is it would be irresponsible for us to write out our
02:02strategy and our timeline for an Iranian nation that simply cannot honor its commitments and cannot
02:08stop shooting at commercial ships. Do you share any of the concerns of
02:12Secretary Driscoll and several Republican lawmakers about the current state of the army,
02:19specifically about the departure of so many generals and other top officials?
02:23Well, first of all, look, Dan is obviously a very good friend of mine. I think he was a great
02:27secretary of the army. Pete is also a very good friend of mine, and I think he's an amazing secretary
02:31of war. And, you know, fundamentally, where — look, there are a lot of issues where I agree with Pete
02:38on. The issue where I'm in the most strident agreement with Pete is that we needed to have
02:43a culture shift at the Department of War. We have to ask ourselves some very difficult questions,
02:47and it has nothing to do — I want to be clear — this has nothing to do with the
02:51amazing troops that we
02:52have, the amazing military officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted personnel that we have,
02:57but America has fought a lot of wars since I've been alive — 42 years. And we have won almost
03:03none of them until Donald J. Trump became the president of the United States. What does that say
03:09about the culture of military leadership, the way that we did planning? And what does it also say,
03:14frankly, about the political leadership that we've had in the White House at the Department of War for
03:1940 years of, frankly, military misadventures? What Pete came in wanting to do was revive the
03:26warrior spirit in the United States of America. And I think you see evidence of that happening in
03:30a lot of different ways. Two important ways is, number one, we have recruitment at all-time highs.
03:36We had real recruitment problems under the Biden administration because people didn't want to join
03:40a woke military. And what I mean is they didn't want to join any military that was geared towards
03:45a particular political narrative. They just wanted to join a military that was willing to defend America's
03:51interests and do so at the very highest levels of professionalism and excellence. That is what the
03:56military under President Trump's leadership is geared towards doing. The second way that I judge
04:01just that esprit de corps, that warrior spirit that you see at the Pentagon, is when you go out and
04:06talk
04:06to troops today, they talk about how much better it is, how much prouder they are, how much more they
04:12feel
04:12supported from Washington as opposed to, frankly, oppressed by Washington. We're trying to bring the best and the
04:18brightest into the United States military and support them in every way that we can.
04:22If you recall, under the Biden administration, guys were getting fired because they were making
04:27their own health care decisions. And the Biden administration was treating them like they were
04:31convicted criminals. We're not doing that. We're taking things in a much different direction. So
04:35I feel like the military is in a much better place than it was 18 months ago. Of course, there's
04:41a lot
04:41of work still to do. And of course, some of that work is going to take years because, frankly,
04:45the rot got so deep under previous failed administrations.
04:50On July 2nd, Treasury Secretary Besant was asked when Americans could see
04:55$3 gas again. And he said maybe by Labor Day. Things haven't worked out that way. But do you
05:02have a new timetable for Americans on when they could expect lower gas prices? And should they not
05:06expect to see $3 gas again until at least 2027?
05:11Well, in defense of Scott, he said, maybe by Labor Day, because we're talking about things
05:15that are inherently unpredictable. And I think it's important. You know, I'm a strong believer that
05:20the American people are our fellow citizens, and we should speak with them honestly about these things.
05:24And the fundamental reality is that the reason gas prices are so high right now is because the
05:31Iranians are shooting at commercial shipping. Even, by the way, when they signed an agreement that said,
05:35we're going to stop shooting at commercial shipping, they almost immediately went back to
05:40shooting at commercial shipping. And I actually think that this drives home a couple of points.
05:44Number one, it's why things like the Venezuela oil deal are so important is because we've learned
05:49that we can't be over-reliant on anybody for the world's supply of energy and gas. It's one of the
05:54reasons why the president has pursued an energy dominance agenda, because, yes, gas prices are higher
06:00in the United States. They're way worse everywhere else in the world because of what the president did,
06:05particularly during the first administration, to make us more energy dominant. I also think it
06:10drives home, frankly, the ridiculous atrophy that we saw in our European allies and their inability to
06:20actually do anything to help keep world energy markets supplied. So when the Iranians shoot at
06:25commercial shipping, obviously that means some ships don't want to go through. A lot of ships have gone
06:30through. We got about 15 million barrels out of the Strait of Hormuz just yesterday,
06:33despite the fact that the Iranians continue to ship or continue to shoot, I should say.
06:38What has anybody in the world done? Why is it incumbent upon the United States of America to be the
06:44only country in the world that can actually ensure world energy markets continue to stay supplied?
06:50And the answer is because we're the only country that has the capability of doing it. And so what the
06:55president has said is we really have two options here. We could leave and the entire world would be
07:00way worse off because there would be no guaranteed access to oil and gas. By the way, the Gulf Arab
07:07countries are telling us that would be the worst thing in the world. Or we can accept the Iranians are
07:12going to shoot at ships like crazy people and we're going to do what we have to do in order
07:16to ensure
07:17that their efforts don't lead to a worldwide energy crisis. Now, we've been quite successful up to this
07:22point. Gas, frankly, could have been much, much higher were it not for our efforts. But I'm not
07:27going to make a promise about when it's going to return to $3. What I will say is that we
07:32have to
07:32remember why are we doing this? Number one, it's so that Iran never has a nuclear weapon. And number two,
07:39what we're doing right now is protecting commercial shipping in order to ensure that we don't have a
07:44worldwide energy crisis. The only reason, the only reason we do not have a worldwide energy crisis
07:49is because of the leadership of the president, but also because of the fine work of our military
07:53from Pete Hegseth on down. But the Iranians are doing what the Iranians do. I think that they're
07:59losing their capabilities by the day. I think they're realizing, by the way, that their control
08:05over the Strait of Hormuz is effectively gone and it's a diminishing asset. So if you go back three
08:10months ago, how much oil and gas was coming out of the strait under Iranian threats? It was virtually
08:16nothing. Now it's almost back to where it was before the conflict even started.
08:21So my advice to the Iranians is stop acting like crazy people and stop shooting at commercial
08:25shipping. And in the meantime, we've got to do what we've got to do, despite what a foreign
08:31country is going to do in the Strait of Hormuz. And the Iranians say that an attack on a wedding
08:36celebration earlier this week killed several people, injured dozens of others. I know CENTCOM says it's
08:41investigating. But have you been briefed on that attack? And was the U.S. responsible?
08:45So I've been briefed to the extent that I know that we're investigating. I've seen the same public
08:49media reports everywhere else. I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe
08:58about what's happened in the conflict thus far. So I'm extremely skeptical of this. What I can say
09:02with 100 percent confidence is that unlike the IRGC, the United States never targets civilians in combat.
09:09We never will do that. We never have done that. And unfortunately, obviously,
09:14sometimes things happen. But in this particular case, I don't think that we have any information
09:19one way or the other. We're investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know. And
09:23if we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran. When our military
09:27makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them. So we're investigating it very fully.
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