← Videos · Energy & Permitting

Wright With Jake Tapper: A Deal With Iran in the Near Future, and Gas Below $3 Later This Year or Next

April 19, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:08:04

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

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joined CNN’s Jake Tapper on April 19, 2026, according to the Department of Energy’s recording. Asked about President Trump’s Truth Social threat to strike every power plant and bridge in Iran if Tehran rejected the deal on offer, Wright said the president was seeking maximum leverage in negotiations, that much of Iran’s infrastructure supports its war machine, and that he was not worried about the threat. He said negotiations were going very well and that he believed Trump and Vice President Vance had the conflict on a pathway to a good ending before long, describing public Iranian statements as signs of a regime falling apart into factions.

Wright agreed with Tapper that the Strait of Hormuz is not safe for transit right now, after Iran fired on a French ship and a British freighter, and said it would become safe after a deal is reached, which he said would not be in the too-distant future — agreeing that a week or a couple of weeks was a reasonable timeframe, as the exchange put it. He said the U.S. blockade of Iranian oil and Treasury’s campaign against Iran’s financial networks were turning up the pressure, and that Iran would sell no more products abroad through the strait under the maximum-pressure campaign. He said the Vice President has led the negotiating delegation from the start, including for talks in Islamabad.

On gasoline, Tapper noted prices had surged more than a dollar a gallon since the war began. Wright said prices likely peaked about a dollar below the Biden administration’s peak, that they will start coming down, and that a return below $3 a gallon could happen later this year or might not happen until next year, while insisting the administration will get back there. He said the short-term disruption was the cost of ending a 47-year conflict and preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.

Why it matters

Wright’s candor that the strait is unsafe and that sub-$3 gasoline may wait until 2027 sets the public expectation baseline for the Iran campaign’s domestic cost, against which the administration’s promises will be judged.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Wright’s April 19, 2026 expectation of an Iran deal within roughly one to two weeks, and of gasoline possibly returning below $3 a gallon later in 2026 or in 2027, are dated predictions flagged for the scoreboard editors, with no verdict entered here.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Jake Tapper on CNN - April 19, 2026”, 2026-04-19 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-04-19). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.