WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators launched pointed remarks in a hearing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Tuesday over the U.S. war against Iran, as Republicans push a $95 billion budget package to fund the military, along with aid to farmers and voting law changes that are top White House priorities.
Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins are set to testify before the Senate Appropriations
Committee days after the Pentagon announced that three more American service members have died in the conflict, bringing the death toll to 17, and that more than 100 have been injured since early July.
"This war is now spiraling out of control again,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the panel, who warned the conflict with Iran “could be another forever war.”
President Donald Trump “has told us over 40 times now that a deal is near, and the war will be over soon,” Murray said. "But now, he’s asking for $70 billion more — and for us to just trust him it’ll all work out fine.”
Ahead of the hearing, the White House issued a statement of administration policy urging support of the budget resolution “without modification—immediately.”
War funding makes up the bulk of the GOP's new budget proposal, one last priority package the Republicans hope to launch before lawmakers recess to campaign for the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. It also includes $10 billion in aid for famers struggling under Trump's tariffs and $10 billion for voter law changes that are likely to include new ID requirements, none of it paid for with offsets.
Most Americans continue to disapprove of how Trump is handling Iran, according to an AP-NORC poll. Gas prices have spiked as Iran works to control oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. munitions are running low amid the onslaught of American missile strikes and Trump has shifted away from his own campaign promise not to draw the U.S. into prolonged military conflicts.
Nevertheless, Trump has showed no signs of backing off the war, and the Republicans have largely refused to confront his strategy, question his objectives or use Congress' power of the purse or war powers authority to halt the conflict.
“The commander in chief and the whole Department of War are working very hard to bring this to a resolution,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson at his weekly press conference Tuesday. “There's a lot of questions about how that will be done.”
Trump, in a social media post at the start of the week, asked all House Republicans to vote for the budget resolution.
Hegseth appears before the panel facing a torrent of questions about not only the war, but his own leadership of the department.
Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the committee, opened the hearing saying it's “deeply troubling” that the Pentagon has blocked or denied promotions to various officers, particularly women and minorities.
“This is likely to discourage well-qualified women and individuals of color from joining our armed forces, thus depriving us of their talent, dedication and patriotism,” Collins said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Hegseth has been busy promoting his plan for testosterone screenings for the troops rather than publicly disclosing the latest service member injuries in the war with Iran. Nearly 450 have been injured since the start of the war.
“One of the biggest questions Pete Hegseth has to answer today is why he was out marketing testosterone supplements for our troops last week while withholding casualty numbers in the Iran War from the American people,” Schumer said.
Senators have pressed the defense secretary to release the Pentagon's report on the deadly attack on an Iran primary school at the start of the war and threatened to withhold his own travel budget unless he complies.
This week, the Senate will consider another war powers resolution, having voted nearly a dozen times to try to halt the conflict. The House has approved a war powers resolution limiting Trump’s ability to wage war, with a few Republicans joining the Democrats to pass the measure, but no resolution has cleared both chambers to be sent to the president's desk.
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 big tax cuts bill last summer, as well as Homeland Security funds earlier this year.
The proposal is headed toward a House vote this week, which would start the process by instructing 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 it will pile onto deficits because the new funding is not being offset with spending reductions elsewhere. Other conservative Republicans share those concerns.
GOP senators have so far panned the House budget plan, but are waiting to see if Johnson can kickstart the process with this week's voting.
