Transcript: Amos Hochstein on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” April 19, 2026
The following is a transcript of an interview with Amos Hochstein, senior energy adviser to the Biden administration and spokesman for the Middle East, which aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on April 19, 2026.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And now we're joined by Amos Hochstein. He was a senior energy adviser in the Biden White House and a Middle East negotiator, and is now a managing partner at the investment firm TWG global. Good to have you back here.
AMOS HOCHSTEIN, MANAGING PARTNER, TWG GLOBAL, FORMER SENIOR POWER ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Great to be here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So President Trump said the current gas prices are not very high, but the average cost of gas is about $4.05 a gallon. The last time we saw that was under the Biden administration when Russia invaded Ukraine. So if you're advising President Trump today, how do you make sure this vacuum doesn't last long?
HOCHSTEIN: Well, we're over $4 now, because we have a real disruption. In the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we had unprecedented disruption concerns, and it went up to $5. For the President right now, any further closure of the Straits of Hormuz is bound to cause a spike in prices. We are at a time when you have an energy crisis like the Strait of Hormuz. It moves very slowly, and then it seems to fall off a cliff, because when you close the strain, the world still has all the tanks that were in the water before, and that can take 25,30 days to reach their destination. But right now, there are no tankers on the road, in the sea to Asia and Europe. So we are reaching a stage where some countries have no more fuel, no more jet fuel. Now those are poor countries, and now they're middle-income countries, but that's finally coming to the U.S. So you've got a few weeks before this goes up a lot.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But he has to get a deal quickly, in other words.
HOCHSTEIN: He has to get a deal quickly.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, because we're seeing all these economies crash. I mean in Europe, they say jet fuel is only for a few weeks – only six weeks left. Secretary Bessent said he expects the price to drop sometime between June and September. Is that true?
HOCHSTEIN: I think that – right now, what they're doing in the administration means things that are still going to say, OK, we'll deal with that in June. If we come to June, the prices are high, we will say August to November.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They're trying to talk markets down.
HOCHSTEIN: They are talking markets down as if the issues are closed – you mentioned Europe. Some Asian countries are already canceling flights. They don't have jet fuel. They also last about two to three weeks at most, ahead of large parts of Asia. But remember Margaret. When a plane leaves the United States, it cannot take jet fuel with it. The management kept saying, we have a lot in the US, it's good. But if you leave the US and there is no jet fuel on the other side. So what's happening is the fuel costs that the American people are going to see, they're already starting to see, and before Memorial Day in the summer, the tickets are going to be more expensive. When jet fuel is expensive around the world. It's also expensive here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we saw Spirit Airlines really struggle under that with the bankruptcy issue. Let me ask you about your Mideast experience here. In July 2024 Secretary Blinken said that Iran is a week or two away from having enough fissile material to eventually make a weapon if Iran decides to do so. There have been informal discussions with the Biden administration, but they have gone nowhere. So when President Trump said he did it, when no other president would, it was just that the bill was going to come and fall on his watch?
HOCHSTEIN: I think there's something to that, which is why I support President Trump joining in June to take the strikes that we've been thinking about within the Biden administration, that we would have to take if there was a second term. We thought that spring, summer of 2025 might be, we might have to be in the same place. And we did, we did war games. We did practice runs of what it would look like, because that would have to happen under our watch. But we- he said, destroyed their nuclear program. The question is not what he did in June, the war we were in now, he did not attack the nuclear facilities again. This was not nuclear, so the question now is, can you make a deal with the Iranians? And the high positions that the two sides have now are very far apart, despite all the talk that we are almost there, or we are, but if we are not, hell will break out for them.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, anyone who knows who will or will not appear on the Iranian side to be interviewed. I thought that was interesting, that the ambassador acknowledged that.
HOCHSTEIN: Well, look, Margaret, when you have conversations that are done freely, right? Phone calls and no real paper, you get to a place where Iran says Lebanon is included. The US says, no, it wasn't. The Iranians say we are opening the straits because they are completely open, and the Americans say, no, the blockade remains. There is no- if there is no paper, there are no serious discussions on this, and we are trying to do it quickly to reduce the markets. Then you get to this disagreement, and now we're in a very bad situation. This is a very serious issue, and I think it shouldn't take just three days to make a nuclear deal. It's really serious. But if the issues aren't opened soon, the power they have, and my concernances, does not matter how the war ends, the Iranians now have a card they never had before. In theory, we knew they could close the straits, but they didn't, and now, for the foreseeable future, they have this card against us and their neighbors.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Why do you think President Trump isn't sending his top ambassador and national security adviser? Why don't we see Secretary of State Rubio leading this?
HOCHSTEIN: That's the mystery that I think many in the region and around the United States are asking, why is this not being handled by the Secretary of State who is also his national security adviser. Maybe the secretary of state doesn't believe this is the right way. I can't. You should ask him if you can get him to answer that question.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We'd like him to join us.
HOCHSTEIN: I'm sure you can. But that- that's the real mystery. Behold, the Vice President of the United States–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –But it shows that you know when you go to the negotiating table? The Vice President's departure is significant because the last two times Witkoff and Kushner came with the Iran delegation, the talks fell apart. In fact, they ended up being bombed. So you need someone who wasn't there the last two times it failed, right?
HOCHSTEIN: And you need someone old enough that the Iranians believe he's speaking for the President. So I think it's important for the Vice President or somebody to go. I think it would be good if we could get to a place where you have preparatory discussions, and you send the vice president at the end of the process, so that the log jam is broken.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to start in Lebanon, you created a 2024 ceasefire in Lebanon on Friday of this past week, we saw the President announce a 10 day ceasefire to stop the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which is connected to the big issue that he really wants to do with Iran. What do you do with this deal?
HOCHSTEIN: So a couple of things. One, I'm glad to see that the fire is out, even if it's a break. The worrisome part is that it is seen as a ceasefire set up by Iran by insisting that the Lebanese lay down their arms before they appear in talks with Pakistan. That is a tragedy, because one thing we have always emphasized, Iran does not control Lebanon. What happens in Lebanon is none of their business. Hezbollah has been exposed in the conflict for the past few years as not really a Lebanese militant group, or a terrorist organization, as they say. But instead they said, we are doing this at the behest of the Iranians. So allowing the Iranians to say the names is not a good thing. However, direct talks between Israel, even at a low level, at the diplomatic level, is a positive development. Most Lebanese want to see a permanent ceasefire, even if they don't want to see a peace deal. They want to see harmony, they want to see an end to conflict, but we have to make a big effort here. There is such a great opportunity. It will not be a moment of opportunity if Israel takes over a significant part of Lebanon to re-establish a buffer zone. That won't work, because ultimately that will help Hezbollah re-establish its political footing and its narrative. Therefore, we must come to the table, make sure that Israel withdraws from Lebanon, stops fighting and provides real assistance to Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. They can't do it themselves.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That's what I asked Ambassador Waltz about, they can do that. And to be clear, the Israelis didn't just say they were going to stay in southern Lebanon, they were going to take back the land they took after Assad fell in Syria. So it's a serious discussion that needs to happen.
HOCHSTEIN: This is a strategic Israeli victory that will lead to, and, extreme, will lead to them losing more ground.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you, as a Democrat, there was this unusual vote this past week in the Senate. Forty Senate Democrats have tried to block US arms sales to Israel, and that adds to the growing tension we've seen between your party and Benjamin Netanyahu. Do you think the Democrats will regret this coalition action?
HOCHSTEIN: So I hope it's not a break in the alliance. I think this, what really shows that in the last few years, Prime Minister Netanyahu has sacrificed Israel's interest in the United States. The most important asset Israel has is not its military or intelligence. A relationship, a special relationship with the United States that has been bipartisan for decades. He rejected that because he decided not only to be part of the Republican Party, but he has decided to be a member of Donald Trump. So all Democrats now realize, if you want to be Trump, great, if we're anti-Trump, then de facto, we're against you. I think this has a lot to do with Bibi Netanyahu and his extreme right wing government, and nothing to do with Israel. Look, you have part of Israel voting against Bibi. So I think this- the Democrats should side with Israel, not Bibi. But I think that's the big wake-up call this week, that vote.
MARGARET BRENNAN: An important vote. Amos, thanks for your comments.
