Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on Capitol Hill for back-to-back budget hearings Tuesday, faced early bipartisan scrutiny over the Trump administration’s plan to cover costs of the Iran war and its record $1.45 trillion Pentagon spending request.
His testimony alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, marks the senior Pentagon officials’ last scheduled appearance before Congress to defend the budget proposal. They are speaking first with the House panel on defense spending before meeting with Senate appropriators later in the morning.
The first session proved more courteous than Hegseth’s combative appearances late last month before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, where he lashed out at lawmakers skeptical of the Iran war, calling them America’s “biggest adversary.”
“It was disappointing that you referred to members of both parties as ‘defeatists,’” Rep. Betty McCollum (Minnesota), the panel’s top Democrat, said to Hegseth in her opening remarks. “I will not question your patriotism, nor will you question mine.”
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-California), head of the committee’s panel on defense spending, nudged Hegseth to send Congress a final request for supplemental funding to cover the costs incurred by the war in Iran.
The Pentagon’s acting comptroller, Jules W. Hurst III, told lawmakers Tuesday that the operation’s estimated cost as of this week was $29 billion, although that figure does not account for the damage inflicted on U.S. bases in the region.
“It would be helpful to get the supplemental sooner rather than later,” Calvert said after Hegseth didn’t provide a timeline for the proposal.
Hegseth’s last hearing, April 30, occurred a day before the conflict reached the deadline by which the Trump administration was required under the law to seek Congress’s approval to continue the war. He argued then that the 60-day threshold had paused during a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran.
The administration later asserted that the hostilities had “terminated,” in a letter sent to Capitol Hill.
“This law states beyond May 2nd, the administration needs congressional authorization to continue military operations. The president just recently said yesterday that Epic Fury is not over,” McCollum said.
In response, Hegseth said: “We have a plan to escalate, if necessary. We have a plan to retrograde, if necessary.”
The ceasefire showed signs of fragility last week as U.S. warships intercepted Iranian attacks while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leading to retaliatory strikes on a handful of Iran’s military facilities. President Donald Trump attempted to downplay the attacks at the time, but on Monday he told reporters the ceasefire was on “life support.”
It remains unclear whether enough Republicans will accept the administration’s argument or if some may break ranks and support the next round of Democrat-led resolutions intended to halt the fighting without lawmakers’ explicit approval. All of the measures so far have failed.
While most Republicans avoided directly criticizing Hegseth during his previous testimony on Capitol Hill — and have cheered the administration’s massive defense budget proposal — some prominent GOP lawmakers showed frustration with the Pentagon’s decision in early May to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany after Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Iran had “humiliated” the U.S. during the war.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who chairs the Senate defense spending panel, has also publicly called on the Pentagon to explain why it hasn’t spent $400 million in security assistance to Ukraine that Congress passed earlier this year.
A senior Republican Senate aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity per terms required by the office, said that lawmakers were asking for a detailed plan on the Ukraine aid and for more information from the Pentagon to justify the Germany withdrawal.
In the first hearing, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, pressed Hegseth on the administration’s plan to use a risky party-line process in Congress known as reconciliation for $350 billion in defense funding. While the tool only requires a simple majority, making it easier to pass the Senate, it is also seen in Congress as less predictable than the annual defense budget and could threaten Pentagon priorities such as boosting munitions production and energizing America’s sluggish arms industry.
“It’s a high-risk strategy,” Cole said, warning that political support for defense spending increases, which he favors, can be “transitory.”
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