CENTCOM Commander U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper Provides an Update on Operation Epic Fury
March 16, 2026 | Sundance |
CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper provides an update on the latest military engagements during Operation Epic Fury. Commander Cooper highlights video footage and captured images of Iranian war infrastructure to show the before and after results of U.S. strikes. WATCH:
st
CENTCOM Commander Provides Update on Operation Epic Fury
(4:38)
All Things Considered – A Good Geopolitical Recap
March 15, 2026 | Sundance |
Some additional contexts not included in the British-centric financial review below.
(1) Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae will be at the White House next week. This meeting was scheduled several weeks before Operation Epic Fury began. The timeline continues to indicate that President Trump’s primary geopolitical focus is on China, not necessarily the U.K-EU angle, although that is a materially significant overlay.
(2) “A major U.S. weapons package for Taiwan worth about 14 billion dollars is awaiting approval from Donald Trump and could be announced after his planned visit to China later this month, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The proposed deal would be the largest U.S. arms sale ever to Taiwan and comes as military tensions between China and the self-ruled island continue to rise.” {SOURCE}
CONTROLLED: Trump's Kharg Island Strike Ends Iran's Oil Terror Premium
(11:59)
Trump's 5-year plan demolishes London's Iran oil scam. Barbara Boyd exposes the Iran Terror Premium — $10 trillion drained over 25 years — and the nuclear century Trump and the Gulf States are building to replace it.
President Trump announces U.S. forces bombed military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island while leaving oil infrastructure intact, which Barbara Boyd argues reflects a doctrine and long-term strategy rather than instinct. She disputes claims of an imminent oil crisis, citing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the Strait of Hormuz has not been mined, and says price spikes are driven by London’s insurance and spot markets, noting Lloyd’s of London negotiating after the U.S. created a vessel-insurance mechanism. Boyd frames the conflict as an effort to dismantle a 50-year financial empire tied to the petrodollar, oil speculation, and the “Iran Terror Premium,” which Peter Navarro estimates added $5–$15 per barrel and drained about $10 trillion over 25 years. She highlights preparations including energy independence, Russian oil positioning, the Abraham Accords, and a U.S.–Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement as part of a broader nuclear-focused development agenda.
While media attention fixates on Iran, a broader strategic shift is unfolding as great powers act in their own sovereign interests, with Trump identifying Zelenskyy as the obstacle to peace and Russia naming Britain as the saboteur.
EXPOSED: Trump & Russia Point to the Same Enemy — Britain's Empire Is Finished
(12:34)
Today's
Monday Brief with Susan Kokinda argues that while media attention fixates on
Iran, a broader strategic shift is unfolding as great powers act in their own
sovereign interests. It highlights President Trump's statements portraying Putin
as willing to make a deal and Zelenskyy as the obstacle, alongside Trump and
Defense Secretary Hegseth stressing that U.S. objectives in Iran differ from
Israel's, including a reported message to stop striking domestic economic
targets. It then examines Russia's Foreign Ministry explicitly blaming Britain
for using Storm Shadow missiles in Bryansk and for trying to derail U.S.-led
peace efforts, amid Zelenskyy's threat toward Hungary's Viktor Orban and EU
condemnation. Finally, it notes Russia and China abstaining—not vetoing—a UN
Security Council resolution condemning Iran's missile and drone attacks on Gulf
states, framing these moves as evidence the old paradigm of permanent conflict
is breaking down.
00:00 The Monday Brief - EXPOSED: Trump & Russia Point to the Same Enemy —
Britain's Empire Is Finished - March 16, 2026
02:30 Trump's Endgame: Sovereign Nations, Not Imperial Pawns
05:25 Russia Ups the Ante, Britain Named as the Saboteur
08:16 The New Geometry — Sovereign Nations at the UN
March 15, 2026 | Sundance |
The Panicans will be greatly disappointed by the foresight and economic planning a proactive White House deployed before the confrontation with Iran began. [Video and Transcript Below]
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, leaves CBS’s Margaret Brennan stuttering to respond to the insight presented. As noted in the interview, proactively the Trump administration planned to mitigate any oil disruption for the U.S, undertaking a series of moves before Operation Epic Fury began.
Iran thinks “that they’re going to harm the U.S. economy and get President Trump to back down,” Hassett says. “There couldn’t be anything that was a stupider thing to say because the bottom line is that our economy has got all this momentum in the world and we’ve got lots and lots of oil,” he continued.
Then highlighting how the strength of the U.S. position actually ends up with leverage in trade negotiations, Hassett notes, “we have lots of trading partners that are more on the hook from imported oil from these guys.” Which draws attention to President Trump’s statement yesterday saying, in essence, ‘come guard your oil shipments while we kill bad guys’. WATCH:
Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett says of Iran war funding: "Right now, we've got what need"
(6:59)
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to President Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett. Good morning to you.
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The IDF spokesperson said this morning that Israel’s combat operations will go through the beginning of April. Is that also the U.S. timeline? And if so, how much will this conflict cost the economy if it goes on another three and a half weeks?
HASSETT: Right. Well, one of the things that we’ve been briefed on almost every day is what’s going on and what the president is being briefed on with regard to the Iran war. And as of yesterday this story was- the message was that people, the defense- Department of War believed that it would take four to six weeks to complete this mission and that we’re ahead of schedule. So we are a couple of weeks in and I think that should give you some clarity about when we expect that the president will decide that we’ve achieved his objectives. The other thing I can say is that you can also look at futures markets, which are interesting because you’ve cited over and over the spot price of gasoline, which, of course, is affected right now by the disruption of the strait, but if you look at the futures prices, they are expecting a rapid, rapid end to the situation and much, much lower prices. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a sort of future price path with such a steep decline in all my years watching futures.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will talk about the oil trade later on in the program, as those markets prepare to open later today, but the International Energy Agency called this the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. So I’m not sure how much past charts are a future indicator here, but the president is calling on other countries now to send ships to help protect the Strait of Hormuz. You just heard Iran’s foreign minister saying Tehran has been approached by other countries about negotiating their way through strait. If that kind of negotiation happens, are Americans just going to get cut out here?
HASSETT: Well, first of all, you have to understand that America is not going to have its economy harmed 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 that they’re going to harm the U.S. economy and get President Trump to back down. There couldn’t be anything that was a stupider thing to say because the bottom line is that our economy has got all this momentum in the world and we’ve got lots and lots of oil. We have lots of trading partners that are more on the hook from imported oil from these guys. And as we can see, it’s completely unacceptable that a government that would, you know, murder 40,000 of their people just a few months ago would be blackmailing countries to let stuff through. President Trump thinks that is unacceptable and for the global economy we need to fix it and we are going to fix it fast.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. It is a global market, but I take your point there is supply of course, there’s refining, there’s other interruptions to the ability to access oil and gas. But gas prices themselves are up more than 20% since this conflict has begun. Jet fuel prices are leading airlines to raise ticket prices quickly. That’s not my opinion, that’s the United Airlines CEO who just said that. The American Farm Bureau warned of supply chain shocks when we already have record high input prices. So can you give us some kind of projection here on how this will impact consumer prices and for how long?
HASSETT: For sure. And I want you to know that this is something that the government has been studying for decades. And even myself, when I first came in as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers one of the first assignments I got from General Mattis was to study what happens if there are oil disruptions. And so we know how to minimize- minimalize the impact of this disruption. Now, you can’t make it completely go away but you can minimal-ize it. And so we are increasing the amount of permits that we’re giving to Venezuela, we’re getting new sources of fertilizer from Morocco and from Venezuela and other places to make sure that our farmers have the fertilizer they need. And we’re even thinking ahead about the jet fuel problem which is really mostly a problem for jet fuel coming from Asia. And we have been in discussions to make it easier for foreign ships to go from the Gulf of America over to the west coast to make sure that we don’t have a disruption from jet fuel as well. And so, we are looking at every scenario, and we’ve got a plan for each scenario.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Are you going to trigger those things and make them operational or are you just looking at them? And how do you prevent food prices from also going up?
HASSETT: Right. Well, the big problem right now would be energy prices and we’re watching and monitoring closely. We’re looking at things every day and seeing how quickly we progress. The bottom line is again, that the reason why futures markets for oil are dropping down towards 60 and even below 50 in the long run is that we expect that if Iran stops being this disruptive terrorist force in the Middle East that there will be a boom in oil production and industrial production. But think about the harm- the harm that this evil government has done to their own people. Back in the ’70s before the revolution, Iran was the 17th largest economy in the world, now it’s something like the 50th.
MARGARET BRENNAN: No one’s going to defend the regime’s human rights record on this program.
HASSETT: They’ve run- they’ve run their country into the ground- but the point is that- I wanted to just say that the countries around them, they also suffer from the risk of having them go nuts and attack them. And so we expect that the global economy is going to have a big positive shock as soon as this is over and we’re still being briefed that it would be four to six weeks from the beginning and that we are ahead of schedule.
MARGARET BRENNAN: A big positive shock, four to six weeks. So this a April 9th scenario you’re talking about? You are going to see some kind of boost–
HASSETT: The president will decide.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –even–
HASSETT: The president will decide if they no longer have the capability of blackmailing us and harming our neighbors. And once he decides that, then he will call an end to the war.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s a pretty broad definition.
HASSETT: Well, we’ve destroyed their navy, we’ve destroyed their air force and so on and so I think we are well on the way.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well tell me how much is this war going to cost? Because I know the Pentagon briefed it’s going to be about $11.3 billion. Do you need to ask congress for more money to pay for what you’re doing?
HASSETT: I think right now we’ve got what we need, whether we have to go back to congress for more is something that I think that Russ Vought and OMB will look into, but the latest number, you said 11.3, the latest number I was briefed on was 12, and so it’s consistent. So this is something that we’ve got the weapons that we’ve already got in place to do this and so we are not necessarily going to need any kind of supplemental.
MARGARET BRENNAN: More than that was spent in just the first week of the war, you know that. It was over five billion just in munitions. You’re solid on the 12?
HASSETT: I said $12 billion–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –For six weeks of war?
HASSETT: No, I’m sorry. The 12 billion was what I was briefed has been spent so far.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Gotcha. Kevin Hassett. Thank you very much. We we will be right back with a lot more ‘Face the Nation’
