Lawmakers grill Hegseth on Iran conflict, $1.5T budget request

By Thérèse Boudreaux
The Center Square

As the U.S.-Iran conflict continues with no end in sight, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth dodged questions from U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in congressional hearings Tuesday.

Hegseth, General Dan Kaine, and Under Secretary of War Jules Hurst appeared before House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees to defend the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion military budget request for 2027.

The total cost of the 74-day conflict has now topped $29 billion, Hurst said, and the military currently faces $24 billion in material replacement costs – an expense not accounted for in the Department of War’s massive budget request.

Hegseth said the $1.5 trillion proposal “reflects the urgency of the moment…addressing both the deferment of longstanding problems as well as positioning our forces for the current and future fight.”

“We are rebuilding a military that the American people can be proud of,” Hegseth added, saying the budget will “reverse the underinvestment and mismanagement” of the previous Biden administration.

Unconvinced, Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., pointed out that $1.5 trillion “is an extraordinary sum of money,” particularly in light of a national debt approaching $40 trillion and the dubious constitutionality of U.S. military actions in Iran.

“Congress and the American people have concerns about what you plan to do with this money,” DeLauro told the defense officials. “This was only supposed to last six weeks. We have thus far been unable to get any reliable information as to the true cost of this war.”

She also lambasted the “consistent lack of transparency since this war began,” as well as the Trump administration’s shifting rationales and objectives.

“Every additional day this war goes on, brings with it additional costs,” DeLauro said. “This administration has not presented Congress with any kind of clear or coherent strategy.”

Only Congress has the power to declare war, but Congress still hasn’t authorized U.S. military actions against Iran. The War Powers Act of 1973 gives the president only 60 days to conduct military operations without congressional approval, and that deadline has passed.

The Trump administration has skirted the requirement by temporarily declaring a ceasefire, a move which Hegseth argued resets the 60-day clock.

Both Republicans and Democrats, however, expressed skepticism that the declaration truly reflects reality.

“I think reasonable people have disagreed about the boundaries of the presidential war powers for a long time, but the War Powers Resolution is pretty clear here: it requires the president to terminate hostilities within 60 days, absent congressional authorization,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said.

“I think where there is confusion is, while the president says hostilities have ended, we still have 15,000 troops that are forward, more than 20 warships and an active naval blockade [in the Strait of Hormuz]…In other words, it doesn’t appear that those hostilities have ended.”

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., asked Hegseth point-blank whether the ceasefire was “just to evade the War Powers Act.”

Hegseth called the ceasefire is “a very dynamic situation,” but praised the U.S. military’s tactical successes, saying it has “degraded almost completely [Iran’s] defense industrial base” and destroyed Iran’s three aircraft carriers and 11 submarines.

“We’ve had more leverage than we’ve ever had,” he claimed.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., however, appeared dubious of this assessment when Hegseth appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee later.

“As I look at the achievements, Iran [is] to date led now by an even more extreme Supreme Leader, the global economy is held hostage to the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, our munitions stockpiles are dangerously depleted, and Iran is no further from a nuclear weapon than before our invasion,” Durbin said.

Lawmakers in both committees also expressed concern over the conflict’s impact on American citizens. Fuel and fertilizer prices have spiked as commercial vessels have faced uncertain, disrupted, and treacherous passage through the critical strait.

“If this goes on for another thirty days, there will be thousands more farms that will go bankrupt, there are going to be families that are going to be ruined, and so time is not on our side,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Conn., said.

“And I just don’t believe that Iran is ready to capitulate yet, and if they capitulate in a year, there’s going to be a whole lot of families and businesses that are ruined in the United States.”

But defense officials evaded questions on whether they had a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, as well as questions on Iran’s remaining current drone and missile capabilities and a timeline for when the conflict will end.

“Our military objectives have been clear the whole time around targeting Iran’s ballistic missile systems, preventing them from threatening U.S. forces in the region, destroying the Iranian navy, degrading its capacity and capability, and ensuring that they can’t rebuild by focusing on their defense industrial base,” Kaine parried.

When asked, Kaine was also unable to break down how the War Department is spending the over $1 trillion Congress allocated to it last year. The Pentagon has failed eight consecutive audits and remains the only federal agency to never pass an audit.

“You’re coming up and asking for another significant supplemental, and before we can reasonably appropriate additional money, we have to find out how existing appropriated dollars have been spent. That’s critically important,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told Hegseth.

“We’re not getting the detailed spending plan, the detailed obligation plan for this. And without it, it’s very difficult to say ‘just take the money and run.’”