President Trump asked Congress on Wednesday to approve $87.6 billion in extra spending this year for the war with Iran as well as a handful of unrelated programs, a request that came amid growing Republican tensions over his handling of the conflict.
The bulk of the request — about $70 billion — “addresses operational costs” incurred by the Pentagon during the conflict, the administration said in a letter to Congress.
The request also includes $11 billion for American farmers, $1.4 billion to respond to the Ebola outbreak in central Africa, and $1 billion to complete the renovation of Pennsylvania Station in New York City.
Representatives Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and Ken Calvert, Republican of California and the chairman of the panel’s defense subcommittee, said in a statement that they looked forward “to fully reviewing the details of the request with our colleagues.”
“Congress has a constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense, and we must always sustain our military with the tools and capabilities needed to defend America in full force against all threats,” they said.
But the request appeared all but dead on arrival in the Senate, where legislation needs to win bipartisan support — 60 votes — to advance. Nearly all Democrats have said they are opposed to the war and will not vote to fund it.
“For months, the administration has failed to answer basic questions about its aims and justification for the Iran war and failed to provide the most basic information about its costs,” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
Ms. Murray added that the request “is not merely meant to pay for the president’s disastrous war, but an attempt to secure tens of billions of additional dollars for unrelated Pentagon priorities that should rightly be considered through the annual appropriations process.”
The Pentagon’s request included $21 billion for munitions, as well as $4 billion for a new program that would launch a group of satellites to track airborne targets from orbit.
Mr. Trump’s spending request on Wednesday did not find a particularly receptive audience. Hours before, he had plunged the Capitol into disarray when he abruptly canceled his plan to sign a bipartisan housing bill, saying he would not do so until lawmakers passed a law imposing new voting restrictions including proof-of-citizenship requirements and measures to severely curtail mail-in ballots.
At the same time, some Republicans, who deferred to the president for months on the conflict as he refused to consult with or ask authorization from Congress to carry it out, are now questioning the costs, objectives and prospects for winding it down amid fitful peace talks.
The Republican-led House and Senate have voted in recent weeks to direct Mr. Trump to halt the war or request a formal vote of approval from Congress to continue it, in symbolic but striking rebukes that reflect bipartisan skepticism.
On Tuesday, four Senate Republicans crossed party lines to vote with Democrats in favor of the war powers resolution.
And some vulnerable Republican lawmakers have privately said they do not want to cast a vote to spend tens of billions of dollars on a politically unpopular war weeks before the midterm elections.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made the rounds in recent days in Congress, meeting privately with Republicans to make the case that the Pentagon urgently needed funding to buy additional weapons. He met privately on Wednesday with House Republicans, where Representative August Pfluger of Texas, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said he pushed “very hard for us in Congress to make that investment.”
A top Pentagon official testified last month that the war with Iran had cost around $29 billion to that point. That estimate, however, did not include a number of costs the United States will have to bear associated with the hostilities, including repairing more than a dozen American military bases damaged by Iranian attacks.
The marquee tax legislation Republicans passed last summer over solid Democratic opposition provided the Pentagon with $150 billion in new funding.
In an effort to find another way to steer around Democrats and approve more military funding, the administration and some Republicans in Congress have considered using the same filibuster-proof budget process they used to enact that law, known as reconciliation, to push through $350 billion in new military funding.
But even that method is far from simple. It would require almost total G.O.P. unanimity, and some conservative House Republicans have already cast doubt on the Pentagon’s call for a record $1.5 trillion budget for the coming year. Others have said they would back such high levels of military spending only if they could attach unrelated, divisive measures. But those could alienate more moderate Republicans whose votes would be needed to push through new defense spending.
The White House also attached some policy requests to the supplemental funding request, including that lawmakers codify the year-round sale of the ethanol blend known as E15. Several Midwestern Republicans locked in tight races in this year’s midterm elections have urged the passage of that legislation, which passed the House in May but has stalled in the Senate.
The request also included “$300 million for urgent elevator-related capital projects across over 45 buildings nationwide,” with a focus on the “repair and replacement of elevator and other conveyance systems.”
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