Patty Murray pushes back as Pete Hegseth asks Congress for more Iran war funding

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked a Senate panel on Tuesday for more than $87 billion for costs related to the war with Iran, but a senator from Washington state with power over federal spending signaled that Democrats won’t support the Trump administration’s request for additional money.

The top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, said she and her colleagues wouldn’t support “rubber-stamping a request to bankroll this war and whatever other misadventures Trump wants to get us into next.” The hearing came days after an Iranian strike on a U.S. base in Jordan brought the war’s toll to 17 Americans dead, one missing and hundreds injured.

“It used to be a pretty somber and serious thing, a president taking America to war and costing lives and taxpayer dollars, but this president has been downright flippant,” Murray said. “The people I represent worry Trump thinks this is all a game and has sent men and women into harm’s way without any sort of plan, and now that he’s driven the car into the ditch, he wants taxpayers to bail him out.”

Hegseth appeared alongside Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who was present because the $87.6 billion “supplemental” spending request includes about $11 billion to help farmers weather an economic storm that has intensified since the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran at the end of February. Most of that extra money – $67.1 billion – would go to the Defense Department, which the Trump administration prefers to call the Department of War.

Although Republicans control the Senate, the 60-vote supermajority required to pass most legislation in the upper chamber means Murray and her fellow Democrats can block a spending bill – unless GOP lawmakers use a procedural tool called budget reconciliation. The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday to start that process, giving the Trump administration an additional $95 billion for the war and other expenses, but its fate in the Senate is doubtful, with vulnerable GOP senators seemingly wary of backing an unpopular war less than four months from November’s elections.

Murray pointed out that the administration’s budget request isn’t only for the war with Iran. It would also give additional money to U.S. Southern Command, which has conducted dozens of airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean since September 2025, killing hundreds of alleged drug traffickers. The request also includes nearly $1 billion to keep National Guard troops on the streets of Washington, D.C., and more than $1 billion for troops on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The problem is not a lack of money, but poor planning,” Murray said to Hegseth. “So I’ll be blunt. The truth is your request does not make a lot of sense.”

Hegseth responded by saying the increased spending is needed “because of the gross negligence and neglect of the Biden administration,” and he touted increased military recruiting numbers since Donald Trump returned to the presidency.

“The American people didn’t want to sign up for what Joe Biden was providing our military, and they want to sign up for what President Trump is doing in his leadership,” he said. “Those are good problems to have that we need to fund, and a reflection of momentum. And this budget will allow us to continue the kind of momentum that gets us ahead.”

The Trump administration has asked Congress for an unprecedented $1.5 trillion for the military in the fiscal year that begins in October, a roughly 50% increase over the current year’s Pentagon budget. Caine, whose buttoned-up demeanor contrasted with Hegseth’s frequent attacks on Trump’s critics, acknowledged the difficult political context in which the administration made its request while urging senators to give the military what it wants.

Hegseth told the committee that not giving the administration that full amount would be “the greatest threat that our nation faces.” He estimated the cost of the Iran war so far to be $37.5 billion.

Republicans on the committee largely voiced support for the administration’s request, using their allotted time for questions to emphasize that failing to adequately fund the military could hamstring American forces in what could be a lengthy naval blockade of Iranian oil exports.

But Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, the panel’s Republican chair, used her opening statement to voice disapproval of Hegseth blocking the promotion of Black and female military officers, saying the practice undermines the U.S. military, which she called “one of the greatest meritocracies in the world.”

Democrats expressed support for U.S. troops and said they share the goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but they said the Obama-era agreement that Trump abandoned in his first term was a more effective way to reach that goal, without costing more American blood and treasure in the Middle East.