Transcript: Kevin Hassett on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” March 15, 2026

The following is a transcript of an interview with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on March 15, 2026.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Now we go to President Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett. Hello to you.

KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Hello.

MARGARET BRENNAN: An IDF spokeswoman said this morning that the Israeli war will resume in early April. Is that also the US timeline? And if so, how much will this conflict cost the economy if it continues for another three and a half weeks?

HASSETT: All right. Well, one of the things that we are told about almost every day is what is going on and what the president is being told about the war in Iran. And as of yesterday the story was – the message was that people, the Department of Defense – the Department of the Army believes that it will take four to six weeks to complete this project and that we are ahead of schedule. So we’re a few weeks away and I think that should give you some clarity as to when we expect the president to decide that we’ve accomplished his goals. Another thing I can say is that you can also look at the futures markets, which is interesting because you have often quoted the price of fuel, which, of course, is currently affected by the disruption of the strait, but if you look at future prices, they expect a quick, quick end to the situation and very low prices. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a bearish futures price trend in all my years of futures watching.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll talk about oil trading later in the program, as those markets prepare to open later today, but the International Energy Agency has called this the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. So I’m not sure how much past charts are indicative of the future here, but the president is asking other countries now to send ships to help protect the Strait of Hormuz. He recently heard Iran’s foreign minister say that Tehran has been approached by other countries about negotiating a way to overcome difficulties. If that kind of discussion happens, will the American people get out of here?

HASSETT: First of all, you have to understand that America is not going to have its economy hurt by what the Iranians are doing. The bottom line is that in the ’70s we didn’t produce much oil, but now we do. So America is in a very strong position. They think they will hurt the American economy and get President Trump to back down. There would be no stupid thing to say because the main thing is that our economy is strong in the world and we have a lot of oil. We have a number of trading partners who specialize in imported oils from these guys. And as we can see, it is absolutely unacceptable that a government that could kill 40,000 of its own people in the last few months would have allowed countries to let things pass. President Trump thinks that is unacceptable and in the global economy we need to fix it and we will fix it fast.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. It’s a global market, but I take your point there’s supply of course, there’s refining, there’s some disruption in the ability to access oil and gas. But electricity prices themselves have risen more than 20% since the dispute began. Jet fuel prices are leading airlines to raise ticket prices quickly. That’s not my opinion, a United Airlines executive just said that. The American Farm Bureau has warned of supply chain shocks when we already have high input prices. So can you give us some kind of a guess here as to how this will affect consumer prices and for how long?

HASSETT: Absolutely. And I want you to know that this is something that the government has been studying for years. Even myself, when I first came in as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers one of the first assignments I received from General Mattis was to learn what happens when there is an oil crisis. And so we know how to mitigate- to mitigate the impact of this disruption. Now, you can’t remove it completely but you can reduce it a bit. So we’re increasing the number of permits we give to Venezuela, we’re getting new sources of fertilizer from Morocco and Venezuela and other places to make sure our farmers have the fertilizer they need. And we are thinking ahead with the jet fuel problem which is a big problem for jet fuel from Asia. And we’ve had discussions about making it easier for foreign ships to move from the Gulf of America to the west coast to make sure we don’t have jet fuel disruptions either. So we look at every situation and have a plan for each situation.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. Are you going to trap those things and make them work or are you just looking at them? And how do you prevent food prices from rising too?

HASSETT: All right. Well, the biggest problem right now would be energy prices and we are watching and monitoring very carefully. We look at things every day and see how fast we are progressing. What is also important, is that the reason why oil futures markets are falling down towards 60 and even below 50 in the long run is that we expect that if Iran stops being this disturbing terrorist force in the Middle East that there will be a boom in oil production and industrial production. But think about the damage this bad government has done to its people. Back in the ’70s before the revolution, Iran was the 17th largest economy in the world, now it’s like the 50th.

MARGARET BRENNAN: No one is going to defend the state’s human rights record in this process.

HASSETT: They ran – they ran their country down – but the point is – I just wanted to say that the countries around them, they also face the risk of them attacking and attacking. So we expect that the world economy will have a big positive shock as soon as this is over and we are still being told that it will take four to six weeks from the start and that we are ahead of schedule.

MARGARET BRENNAN: A good big shock, four to six weeks. So this is the April 9 situation you are talking about? You will see some kind of improvement–

HASSETT: The president will make a decision.

MARGARET BRENNAN: –even–

HASSETT: The president will decide if they no longer have the power to torture us and harm our neighbors. And when he decides that, he will end the war.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a very broad definition.

HASSETT: Well, we’ve destroyed their navy, we’ve destroyed their air force and so on and I think we’re on our way.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Tell me how much this war is going to cost? Because I know that the Pentagon has reported that it will be about $11.3 billion. Do you need to ask congress for more money to pay for what you do?

HASSETT: I think right now we have what we need, whether we have to go back to the conference to get more is something I think Russ Vought and OMB will look at, but the latest number, he said is 11.3, the latest number that I was told is 12, so it’s consistent. So this is something that we already have the tools to do this so we won’t need any kind of addition.

MARGARET BRENNAN: More than that was spent in the first week of the war, you know that. It was just over five billion in weapons. Strong for 12?

HASSETT: I said $12 billion–

MARGARET BRENNAN: –Six weeks into the war?

HASSETT: No, I’m sorry. Twelve billion is the only one that has been used so far.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Gotcha. Kevin Hassett. I see a lot. We will be back with more ‘Face the Nation’