Former national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday accused President Trump of having “no answers” for reopening the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Israeli offensive in Iran led the Middle Eastern country to close the passage.
Sullivan, who served under former President Biden, said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” that it was “very obvious from the outset … that Iran would threaten the Strait of Hormuz, shutting down energy supply to the world, trying to dive up gas prices for ordinary Americans and energy prices for people around the world.”
“And yet here, nearly two weeks into the war, we seem befuddled by the fact that they have done that, and we have no answers for how to respond to it,” Sullivan said.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key path for exporting roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and gasoline, has caused a surge in gas prices. The national average price for gas in the U.S. reached $3.57 as of Wednesday, according to AAA.
Trump, as echoed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, has called for Iran’s unconditional surrender as the conflict rages on. Sullivan accused Leavitt of “playing word games about unconditional surrender, meaning kind of the opposite of what unconditional surrender actually means” when it comes to the U.S.’s endgame.
