Hegseth is facing questions from senators over funding for the Iran war

Washington– The US war against Iran has cost $37.5 billion so far, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday, as he faced questions and protests at a Senate hearing ahead of a $95 billion GOP budget package to fund the military, along with aid to farmers and voting law changes that are top White House priorities.

Hegseth presented the new estimate, higher than previous calculations, during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. Several times, protesters interrupted Hegseth’s opening remarks, which come days after the Pentagon announced that three more U.S. service members had died in the conflict, bringing the death toll to 17, and that more than 100 had been wounded since early July.

Hegseth said additional funding for the war is an “urgent and necessary” infusion of money, and with President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget, a generational investment in the military.

“Without this money, we face severe shortages,” Hegseth testified.

But Senator Patty Murray, the committee’s top Democrat, warned in her opening remarks of “another war forever.”

“This war is now spiraling out of control again,” Murray said.

She said that Trump “told us more than 40 times that the agreement was close and that the war would end soon.” “But now he is asking for an additional $70 billion – and for us to just trust him, everything will be fine.”

Gen. Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Agriculture Secretary Brock Rollins will also testify before the committee.

Ahead of the hearing, the White House issued an administration policy statement urging support for the budget resolution “without amendment—immediately.”

War money makes up the bulk of the GOP budget plan

War funding makes up the bulk of the GOP’s new budget proposal, a final priority package Republicans hope to release before lawmakers recess to campaign for the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. It also includes $10 billion in aid for farmers struggling under Trump’s tariffs and $10 billion for voter law changes that will likely include new ID requirements, none of which would be paid for with reparations.

Most Americans still disapprove of the way Trump is handling Iran, according to an AP-NORC poll. Gas prices rose as Iran sought to control oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, American ammunition decreased amid the onslaught of American missile strikes, and Trump moved away from his campaign promise not to drag the United States into long-term military conflicts.

However, Trump has shown no signs of backing down from the war, and Republicans have largely refused to confront his strategy, question his goals, or use Congress’s fiscal or war powers authority to stop the conflict.

“The Commander-in-Chief and the entire War Department are working diligently to find a resolution to this matter,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “There are a lot of questions about how to do this.”

In a post on social media at the beginning of the week, Trump asked all Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote in favor of the budget resolution.

Hegseth faces questions about war, testosterone displays, and more

Hegseth appears before the committee facing a barrage of questions not only about the war, but also about his leadership of the ministry.

Sen. Susan Collins, the committee’s Republican chair, opened the hearing by saying it was “deeply troubling” that the Pentagon had blocked or denied promotions to various officers, especially women and minorities.

“This is likely to discourage women and well-qualified individuals from joining our armed forces, thus depriving us of their talent, dedication and patriotism,” Collins said.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Hegseth was busy promoting his plan to conduct testosterone screenings for troops rather than publicly revealing the latest service member infections in the war with Iran. Nearly 450 people have been injured since the beginning of the war.

“One of the biggest questions Pete Hegseth has to answer today is why he marketed testosterone supplements to our troops last week while withholding casualty numbers in the Iran War from the American people,” Schumer said.

Senators pressured the Defense Secretary to release a Pentagon report on the deadly attack on an elementary school in Iran early in the war and threatened to withhold his travel budget unless he complied.

This week, the Senate will consider another war powers resolution, after voting nearly a dozen times to try to stop the conflict. The House has approved a war powers resolution limiting Trump’s ability to wage war, with a few Republicans joining Democrats to pass the measure, but no resolution has been allowed to send both chambers to the president’s desk.

Republicans are working to pass the budget despite Democratic objections

The GOP budget proposal is expected to flow through the reconciliation process, which enables the majority to approve the plan on its own, over the objections of Democrats in the minority.

It’s the same lengthy process Republicans used to approve Trump’s bill for big tax cuts last summer, as well as Homeland Security funds earlier this year.

The proposal is headed toward a vote in the House of Representatives this week, which will begin the process by directing various committees to begin drafting the legislation. Johnson can afford only a few defectors from his slim majority.

So far, one Republican, Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, has objected to the budget plan, warning that it will run up deficits because the new funding is not offset by spending cuts elsewhere. Other conservative Republicans share these concerns.

GOP senators have so far criticized the House budget plan, but are waiting to see if Johnson can start the process with a vote this week.