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On Capitol Hill today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testifying to lawmakers fielding questions from lawmakers about the department's budget cuts, state of the economy, and the economic impacts of the war in Iran.
NTD's Melina Wisecup was there, and she joins us now with the highlights.
Melina, good to see you. Heading into today's hearing, Secretary Bessent posted about the maximum pressure campaign to stifle Iran's economy.
Tell me more about that.
Right, Stef. So, this maximum pressure campaign is referred to as Operation Economic Fury.
It's mainly targeting Iranian oil and weapons procurement networks.
Now, as of right now, the US has already sanctioned entities um and aircraft from China, Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, etc. for their involvement in procuring weapons on behalf of the Iranian regime.
Leaving today's hearing, Bessent told me that this operation has so far been a success.
Listen to this.
How successful has Operation Economic Fury been in crippling Iran's regime?
Ma- mass- massive.
Economic Fury is just getting started.
And like you mentioned, Stef, in a post just yesterday, the secretary said that in a matter of days, Kharg Island, which is an island home to 90% of Iranian oil exports, he said that uh the storage on the island will be full and the fragile Iranian oil wells will be shut in.
Constraining Iran's maritime trade directly targets the regime's primary revenue lifelines.
Now, another element at the top of the agenda in today's hearing was, of course, the spiking gas prices that we've seen since the start of the war.
Remember, President Trump earlier this week did say that he expects the gas prices to drop immediately after this conflict stops, but President still faced pressure on this today. Um but he said that had the Treasury not taken action on those sanctions, those gas prices would have been even higher.
The oil prices are at $100. If we had not done that sanctions, really, they might have been at 150 because the the world became very well supplied.
So, the if Russia was getting selling their oil at a 20% discount, I can tell you that 100% of 100 is less than 80% of 150, and the American consumer has been better off.
Now, the Treasury Secretary also faced pushback, especially from the Democrat side of the aisle, on how impactful these sanctions have been. Uh for example, Senator Chris Coons uh asked him whether or not the Iranian regime has actually benefited since they have enacted those sanctions.
Listen to this back and forth.
Can you give me any brief idea why it's a good idea to relieve sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil?
Good. With with pleasure, Senator.
The $14 billion is a myth and, unfortunately, a DNC talking point that I've been subjected to many times. Uh if anyone would like to show me where that $14 billion come from, I look forward to an exchange of details on that, Mr. Secretary.
>> Now, aside from today's hearing, the mainly the hearing was also the aside from that topic on Iran, today's hearing was mainly focused on the budget cut requests coming from the administration.
So, the Treasury wants a $1.5 billion budget cut.
The administration has said that this acknowledges the limited resources that they have, as well as uh but making a focus of the priorities that they that they should be making a focus of.
This proposal reflects a focus on improving efficiency and making targeted decisions about where resources can have the greatest impact.
Now, one senator also brought up an issue that's closer to home in the state of Maine. Senator Susan Collins says that there are actually Chinese money uh Chinese Communist Party-led money laundering operations in her state, and she asked the secretary about what they're doing to combat these.
just for some background information, here's what the senator told me about what's actually going on with these money laundering operations in Maine.
It is suspected that there are over 250 houses in rural areas of the state uh that are operated by Chinese affiliated transnational criminal groups.
They are buying they are growing illegal marijuana, and then the money from that is used to bring the precursor chemicals that China produces uh that fuel the fentanyl trade.
>> Wow.
>> a very serious Thank you so much for bringing
Now, the secretary vowed to her that they that he will personally look into the criminal investigations underway right now at the IRS and make sure that these criminal organizations are quickly dismantled.
Thanks for this report.
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