Story Highlights
- The Trump administration’s proposed FY2027 defense budget would reach a historic $1.5 trillion — a record peacetime and wartime figure in American history
- The Iran war has cost $25 billion to date according to Pentagon figures, with no supplemental appropriations bill requested from Congress to formally fund the conflict
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren questioned witnesses about possible insider trading, citing multiple instances of stock trades placed minutes before Trump’s market-moving social media posts about the war
What Happened
Making his first appearance before Congress since the Trump administration went to war against Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced withering questioning from skeptical Democrats over a costly conflict being waged without congressional approval. The war has cost $25 billion so far, according to Pentagon numbers presented to the House Armed Services Committee during a contentious hearing ostensibly focused on the administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion.
Hegseth called Democratic lawmakers “reckless naysayers” and “defeatists from the cheap seats” who have failed to recognize the many successes of the U.S. military against the Islamic Republic. He said President Donald Trump has had the courage “unlike other presidents to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and that their nuclear blackmail never succeeds.”
In one tense exchange, Hegseth told Democratic Rep. Adam Smith that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated in 2025 strikes by the U.S., prompting Smith to question the Trump administration’s reasoning for starting the Iran war less than a year later. “We had to start this war, you just said 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat,” said Smith. “Now you’re saying that it was completely obliterated?” Hegseth responded that Iran “had not given up their nuclear ambitions” and still had thousands of missiles.
Senators also focused on civilian deaths in the Iran war and the Pentagon’s decision to hollow out a congressionally mandated office set up specifically to reduce civilian casualties. The Associated Press has reported that growing evidence points to U.S. culpability for a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base that killed more than 165 people, including children.
Sen. Mark Kelly pressed Hegseth about how long it would take to rebuild the weapons stockpile drawn down by the war. “Many of these strikes use our best weapons, and we’re using a lot of them and a lot of interceptors,” Kelly said. “We can’t make these munitions overnight.” Hegseth acknowledged it could take “months and years,” depending on the weapons system, to rebuild the stockpile.
Why It Matters
The Hegseth hearings crystallized a fundamental constitutional tension at the center of Trump’s second term: the executive branch is waging, funding, and expanding a major military conflict while systematically excluding Congress from the decisions required by both statute and the Constitution. The $1.5 trillion budget request represents a demand for historic resources to pursue a conflict that Congress never formally authorized — and whose costs have never been presented to lawmakers in a supplemental spending bill.
For American taxpayers and their elected representatives, the combination of a $25 billion war tab with no formal appropriation and a $1.5 trillion annual budget request raises fundamental questions about democratic accountability. Defense spending at this scale — unprecedented in both peacetime and wartime in raw dollars — requires congressional deliberation, not just deference. The Founders vested the power of the purse in Congress explicitly to prevent exactly this kind of unchecked executive expenditure.
The hearings were the first time a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet has defended the war publicly on Capitol Hill since it entered the conflict without congressional approval two months ago. Gen. Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared alongside Hegseth and stressed the need for more drones, missile defense systems, and warships.
The depletion of U.S. munitions stockpiles is a particularly serious strategic concern with implications extending well beyond Iran. America’s ability to deter adversaries in the Pacific — most critically China with regard to Taiwan — depends on maintaining deep reserves of precision-guided munitions and interceptors. Burning through those reserves in Iran without a credible replacement timeline creates vulnerability that adversaries will monitor carefully.
Economic and Global Context
The $1.5 trillion defense budget request, if enacted, would dwarf any previous American defense appropriation in nominal terms. For comparison, the FY2025 defense budget was approximately $895 billion. The proposed jump to $1.5 trillion represents a more than 67 percent increase in a single budget cycle, to be achieved at a time when the national deficit is already projected to exceed $2 trillion for fiscal 2026 and the government is simultaneously pursuing massive tax and immigration enforcement spending through reconciliation.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren questioned the witnesses about possible insider trading, saying that multiple times stock traders have made bets or purchases minutes before Trump’s market-moving social media posts about the war. Warren’s line of questioning added a financial misconduct dimension to the already charged hearing atmosphere.
The war’s effect on energy markets continues to be its most visible economic impact. With the Strait of Hormuz partially blockaded and global oil markets disrupted, gas prices have averaged $4.48 nationally — up from under $3 per gallon before the conflict began. That price increase functions as a broad-based tax on every American household, most acutely affecting lower-income families who spend a higher percentage of their income on energy and transportation.
Implications
The budget hearings and the constitutional conflict over war powers are converging toward a series of decisions that will define the limits of executive authority for years. If Congress appropriates a $1.5 trillion defense budget without requiring a formal war authorization, it will have effectively ratified both the Iran war and the president’s theory that the War Powers Act is unenforceable. That precedent would permanently enlarge executive war-making authority.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, told Hegseth during the hearing: “I’m sad for all the people who voted for Trump. I’m sad for them because you betrayed them.” Still, Republicans say they back Trump’s wartime leadership for now, citing Iran’s nuclear program and the potential for talks to resume. Some GOP lawmakers are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.
For the defense industry, the budget proposal represents an extraordinary windfall. Drone manufacturers, missile defense contractors, shipbuilders, and munitions producers are all positioned to receive dramatically expanded contracts if the full $1.5 trillion is appropriated. The economic concentration of that spending in a handful of contractors and states creates powerful political constituencies with every incentive to sustain and expand the conflict rather than end it.
Sources
Hegseth faces questions about Iran in first congressional appearance since war began
