Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Thursday promised to personally give his department’s social media posts a final seal of approval after staffers sent out an erroneous message regarding the Iran war.
“That is a miscommunication in our department. I take full ownership of that as the person in charge of the department. Very unfortunate. It will not happen again,” he said during a Fox News interview.
Wright’s pledge followed a debacle that sparked on Tuesday, when the Energy Department’s X account sent out a post stating that the “U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.” The post referenced a strategic shipping waterway in the Persian Gulf that has seen a precipitous decline in activity due to Iran’s hold over the area during its war with the United States and Israel.
The White House disputed the message as false, and the Energy Department later admitted it was “incorrectly captioned” and swiftly deleted the post.
Fox News’s Dana Perino pressed Wright about the incident on Thursday.
“As the secretary of energy, what have you done to make sure that that doesn’t happen again? Are you going to personally approve those posts?” she questioned.
“Yes, I will,” Wright replied. “And, yeah, that is a miscommunication in our department. I take full ownership of that.”
In another interview on Thursday, Wright said that the Navy is seeking to escort tankers through the strait by the end of the month to prevent shortages from driving up prices. The key waterway carries 20% of the world’s crude oil supply.
“It’ll happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now,” he told CNBC. “We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.”
IRAN WAR CAUSING LARGEST DISRUPTION OF OIL IN HISTORY, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY SAYS
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, on Thursday vowed to keep the strait closed.
“Certainly, the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz should still be used,” the Iranian leader said in the first statement he has made since succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed during the joint U.S.-Israeli operation targeting Tehran that began the war on Feb. 28.
