Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth indicated at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday that the U.S. military has the capacity to destroy Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, the underground site suspected of housing elements of Tehran’s nuclear program, following a series of threats by President Donald Trump to strike the site.

The facility is buried inside a mountain in a manner that experts believe would be difficult to fully destroy, even with the heavy munitions used by the U.S. to target Iran’s Fordow and Natanz facilities last summer.

“A lot of our capabilities are classified,” Hegseth said, in response to a question about whether the U.S. has the capacity to destroy the facility. “But if anybody in the world can reach anything on God’s green earth, it’s the United States military, the most powerful military in the world. It’s all about options and trade-offs.” 

"If anybody in the world can reach anything on God’s green earth, it’s the United States military."

Pete Hegseth indicated the U.S. military can destroy Pickaxe Mountain, suspected of housing elements of Iran's nuclear program.

Read more: https://t.co/wxqcuGwu2t pic.twitter.com/an5VEFu4aZ

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 22, 2026

Hegseth, during a hearing focused on a nearly $90 billion supplemental funding request to recoup costs from the war, estimated the current costs of the Iran war at $37.5 billion, up from a $29 billion estimate provided by another Pentagon official in mid-May. He said that estimate includes certain expenses such as troop pay through the end of the fiscal year, but does not incorporate other expenditures related to the war.

He did not directly address a question about whether the Pentagon would put forward another supplemental request to repair or rebuild damaged U.S. bases and facilities, which were excluded from the previous Pentagon estimate.

Asked whether China and Russia were assisting Iran in its military operations against the U.S., Hegseth suggested that they were, but declined to discuss the extent of the cooperation.

“There’s definitely adversary alignment — attempts to do so — and there are many ways that we deter that,” Hegseth said. “Some of which are — and the depth and extent of it ought to remain — classified, and it should. But there are ways in which both of those countries are, at different levels, enabling some of the things Iran is doing.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) pressed Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on whether the supplemental would provide sufficient resources to “appropriately end this war favorable to the United States and to take care of this problem permanently.” 

Caine responded that such a scenario would be dependent on how Iran responds and behaves.

“I can’t answer the question on what it will cost because the enemy has a vote. What I’ll commit to you as this plays out, we’ll make sure that the Congress is informed,” Caine said. “But because I’m not quite sure how this is going to play out yet, it would be unwise for me to comment on what a future cost may or may not be depending on what they choose.”

Hegseth said that the administration continues to believe it has the authorities necessary to continue the war without congressional authorization, but said he would defer to legal experts on whether passing the supplemental would constitute a congressional authorization for use of military force — an argument made by the Clinton administration during operations against Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Throughout the hearing, Hegseth insisted that Iran’s capabilities had been significantly degraded, despite its continued attacks on commercial shipping and U.S. bases around the region, several of which have recently resulted in the deaths and injuries of U.S. service members. Hegseth also called the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports “effectively impenetrable.”

“Iran is at the weakest point militarily it has ever been in in the past decade, certainly — maybe in 47 years,” Hegseth said. He said the Iranian regime had built thousands of ballistic missiles to defend its nuclear program “many of which we have destroyed, others of which they have hidden in underground facilities.”

“So I acknowledge they still have capabilities, no doubt,” Hegseth continued. “But the amount of damage that we’ve done to them over the course of these series of operations has put them in the worst place they’ve ever been.”

He didn’t answer questions about whether the U.S. would attempt to impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz, as Trump recently floated and then walked back.

Caine acknowledged that air power has “limits, and we always have to be mindful of those,” but argued that the U.S. has other capabilities in the diplomatic, informational, economic and military realms. He declined to discuss the possibility of U.S. ground forces being deployed to Iran, but said that his job involves developing a range of options and laying out their risks.

Though the hearing was principally focused on the supplemental request that the administration put forward to cover the Iran war, Hegseth and Caine both repeatedly argued for the full $1.5 trillion military funding request the administration has put forward for 2027.

It’s unclear at this point if or how that request will be fulfilled. Lawmakers had planned to include $1.15 trillion in the base defense budget and an additional $350 billion in a partisan reconciliation bill, but both of those are currently in limbo.

Senate Democrats have largely rejected the $1.15 trillion topline, particularly in the midst of the Iran war, and the House’s third reconciliation bill aims to cover just the Iran supplemental request.

Republicans are now floating the idea of a fourth reconciliation bill — but many Senate Republicans have been skeptical that the current third package can pass, so it’s not clear how realistic another reconciliation bill would be ahead of the midterm elections.

“This request is an urgent, necessary injection of resources to address the immediate needs of our department. The supplemental funding request is not a substitute for the president’s full $1.5 trillion base budget request,” Hegseth said, amid repeated interruptions of his opening statement by anti-war protesters in the chamber. “$1.5 trillion is what the president seeks and what we need to defend the country. The members of this committee understand better than most that long-term strategic dominance cannot be funded through one-off supplementals.”

Hegseth lambasted what he alleged was neglect and gross negligence by the Biden administration, as well as blaming U.S. aid to Ukraine for some of the current deficits, and said that without additional funding, the U.S. would face “critical shortfalls” that would imperil its ability to pay service members, replenish supplies and continue critical operations.

Former U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie on Monday voiced his support for the U.S. to shift its military footprint in the Middle East westward, including in Israel, to mitigate threats from Iran. 

Speaking on a Jewish Institute for National Security of America webinar, McKenzie said, “No one in their right mind would ever put the CENTCOM forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran [in Qatar], yet that’s where it is. Because when we put it in place many years ago, we were thinking Iraq, we were thinking Afghanistan, we were thinking other things, and not the growing threat from Iran.”

The U.S. has long operated a sprawling network of bases across the Middle East as critical hubs for air operations, naval logistics, and intelligence gathering, housing between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel. These include Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base — the largest U.S. military facility in the region — and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, alongside key installations in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

However, throughout the conflict with Iran, U.S. bases across the region came under repeated drone and missile fire from Tehran and its proxies. Recent reports have suggested that the U.S. is considering moving the damaged bases westward further out of Iran’s range, including in Israel. 

The U.S. does not currently maintain a permanent, sovereign military base in Israel, though American forces temporarily operated out of Israel’s Ovda Air Base during the conflict with Iran and the U.S. stationed dozens of military refueling and cargo aircraft at Ben Gurion Airport.

McKenzie argued in support of JINSA’s position that the U.S. should continue operations at Israel’s Ovda Air Base on an ongoing basis. 

“What we’ve got is a situation where it’s good to be close to your potential enemy, because it’s a short commute to the fight,” McKenzie said. “But it’s bad to be close to your potential enemy, because he has the ability to strike you very quickly.”

While McKenzie argued that the U.S. should maintain its existing Gulf footprint to signal continued solidarity with regional partners, he noted that an anchor in Israel would grant Washington unparalleled operational flexibility. “The goal is to spread out that necklace of bases far to the west, where you make it harder for the Iranians to reach you,” he said, though he cautioned that the strategy faces a shelf-life as Tehran continues to expand its missile capabilities.

“We need to look at basing in Israel. I think it’s a great idea,” McKenzie said, suggesting that Ben Gurion could continue to serve as a vital refueling hub for American tankers. He also pointed to Egypt, Jordan, and Oman as viable components of a broader western basing network designed to complicate Iran’s targeting calculus.

Israel provides a unique advantage over traditional Gulf hosts, McKenzie argued, because it is far less likely to impose strict political or operational parameters on American missions.

“Of all the countries, one thing that’s significant is the [host] country … they’re going to want to have a say in where those jets go when they take off,” McKenzie explained. “Probably Israel is the place where you’re going to have the fewest ABO [access, basing, and overflight] restrictions on your airplanes. That’s why Israel is a particularly attractive location.”

Beyond fewer diplomatic hurdles, McKenzie emphasized that Israel remains an ideal option because its multi-layered air-defense architecture makes it uniquely resilient against incoming fire. “That’s probably the most significant thing,” he said. Iranian strikes on U.S. facilities in Qatar and Bahrain forced the U.S. to evacuate or disperse personnel and relocate troops after missiles damaged several facilities.

McKenzie revealed that CENTCOM had previously proposed a similar western contingency plan to the Biden administration, but encountered stiff bureaucratic resistance.

“We had plans to do this, plans that were not supported by the policy shop in the Pentagon during the Biden administration. But I think now is the time to go back and take a look at it,” McKenzie said. “It just really was a refusal to examine the reality of the situation on the ground and the growing trend of Iranian rearmament weaponization, which placed these bases at a very close range to Iran under increasing degrees of risk.”

When asked whether shifting forces westward would satisfy the ongoing memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran — which requires the U.S. to withdraw forces from the “immediate proximity” of Iran within 30 days of a final deal — McKenzie remained noncommittal, expressing strong skepticism.

“I think we still need to further negotiate what removal from immediate proximity of Iran means,” McKenzie said. “It would be easy to say moving west would grant you that visibility. I’m just not sure I’d recommend that, and I’m not sure that this administration is going to want to do that.”

Addressing whether a permanent U.S. presence would put Israel at a heightened risk for more frequent or intense Iranian or proxy strikes, McKenzie acknowledged the potential but argued the protective benefits outweigh the downsides, stating: “I’m not sure how we could get to a higher level” of threat environment.

“Yes, possibly. But on the other hand, what you gain by U.S. basing there is you gain the use of those aircraft against [Iran] in order to reduce the frequency, duration and intensity of those attacks,” McKenzie said. “I’d rather have U.S. forces there than not.”

Vice President JD Vance said this week that U.S. military officials are working directly with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. The vice president made the comments after departing Switzerland following the conclusion of talks with Iran that lasted until Monday.

“One of the things we wanted to come out [of the negotiations]” was a “channel on the Iranian side” to seek conflict resolution, Vance told the outlet UnHerd aboard Air Force Two. “Which we did. They were like, ‘OK, fine, we’ll send somebody from the IRGC to go hang out in Doha with somebody from CENTCOM,’ and that’s how we’re going to settle a lot of these disputes,” he said.

President Donald Trump designated the IRGC an FTO during his first term in 2019 and ordered the strike that killed IRGC Quds Force head Qasem Soleimani in 2020. Announcing the designation, the State Department said the group “has been directly involved in terrorist plotting; its support for terrorism is foundational and institutional, and it has killed U.S. citizens.” The IRGC also “continues to provide financial and other material support” for terror groups including Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the statement added. 

The group played a central role in Iran’s attacks around the region during the U.S.-Iran war, including an attack on the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain earlier this month, and is linked to dozens of recent plots and attacks in Europe. U.S. authorities have also repeatedly alleged IRGC involvement in assassination schemes targeting current and former American officials, including Trump.

Vance said that the Emiratis — “by far the most hawkish, by far the most pro-Israel country in the [Gulf Cooperation Council]” — are also “having conversations with the Iranians that have never happened before, including with the IRGC,” namely about economic incentives to urge Iran to cooperate.

Regarding criticism of the memorandum of understanding reached with Iran, Vance said, “There are many things I don’t like about the comparison to the [2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], but one of them is that the MOU is a much more generic document than the JCPOA.”

“It really is a foundational document,” he said of the MOU. “Let’s open the strait, let’s stop shooting at each other, and let’s see if we can make a nuclear deal. And from their perspective, it’s, ‘Let’s lift the blockade, let’s stop shooting at each other, and let’s see if there’s a sanctions deal.’ That’s fundamentally where it’s coming from.”

Vance claimed the Iranians are now offering “things radically different from the JCPOA” and “want a fundamentally transformed relationship with the United States and the world.”

The U.S. military launched what it called “self-defense strikes” in Iran on Tuesday evening in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter by an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

A U.S. official told Politico and Axios that the strikes targeted Iranian radar and air-defense sites. 

In announcing the start of the operation at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, CENTCOM called the mission “ a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.”

The military action was widely anticipated after President Donald Trump declared earlier on Tuesday that the U.S. military “must, of necessity, respond” to Iran’s attack on the American asset. Prior to Tuesday’s exchange, Trump had indicated that a comprehensive diplomatic agreement between Washington and Tehran to end the war was in its “final throes” and could potentially be finalized in “two or three days.”

Regional experts had speculated that any U.S. military response would likely be limited in scope and unlikely to derail negotiations or trigger a return to fully fledged conflict, but Iranian leadership indicated it is prepared to launch further attacks.

“Our Powerful Armed Forces will leave no attack or threat unanswered,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on X following the U.S. airstrikes. “Despite its defeats on the battlefield, the U.S. opted to test our determination. Leave our region if you want to be safe. History of the Persian Gulf has many chapters on dire fates of intruding outsiders.”

The House passed a war powers resolution on Wednesday that would halt U.S. military operations against Iran, after House Republicans postponed an expected vote on the resolution for more than a week, in an ultimately futile effort to stave off defeat.

The resolution passed 215-208, with four Republicans breaking ranks to vote for the resolution, and all present Democrats remaining united on the issue for the first time since the war began. Six Republicans and one Democrat were absent for the vote — so the resolution likely still would have passed even with full attendance.

The vote comes after the Senate advanced a procedural vote on a similar resolution, and is a notable signal of opposition from Congress to the war in Iran, even if President Donald Trump can veto such a resolution if it passes the Senate. Some Republicans have suggested that the underlying 1973 War Powers Act is unconstitutional or invalid, and should be challenged in court or ignored by the administration.

A final Senate vote on the war powers resolution that advanced last month is still pending.

Republican Reps. Warren Davidson (R-OH), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Tom Barrett (R-MI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) broke ranks to support the resolution. Davidson and Massie are libertarian-leaning isolationists, while Barrett and Fitzpatrick represent hotly contested swing districts.

Davidson voted for a war powers resolution at the outset of the conflict, but voted present and then against subsequent resolutions, before flipping his vote back to yes on the latest vote.

Fitzpatrick told reporters his vote was an issue of the law. The War Powers Act gives the administration 60 days to conduct military operations without congressional approval. 

“We’re past the 60 days, so you have two choices: you either follow the law or you change the law,” Fitzpatrick said. “You can’t violate the law, that’s not an option. … I don’t see what’s complicated about it. Bring it to Congress, debate it on the merits and have us vote. That’s the way the system’s supposed to work.”

The administration has claimed that its military operations against Iran that began in February have concluded, and that its continued limited strikes against Iranian targets do not qualify as warfare.

Barrett, who introduced a limited Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iran, offered a similar stance in a statement.

“Congress has the exclusive authority under the Constitution to declare war and authorize the use of force,” Barrett said. “The War Powers Act of 1973 delegates some of that authority to the president for a limited period of time. That authority has expired, so my consistent belief is that it is time for Congress to decide the scope of the mission and the appropriate limits on the use of force in Iran.”

Other Republicans argue the legislation sends a message of weakness and division and strips the U.S. of leverage in the midst of negotiations.

“I think what it signals to Iran is that, especially from the Democratic standpoint, it gives them confidence to try and drag these negotiations out. So I think it undermines the position of the United States of America,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee, told reporters. “They’re actively undermining the United States position in these negotiations, so, from my standpoint, I think it’s foolish, and that’s why I voted no.”

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), the sole Democratic holdout on previous votes, also flipped his vote to support the resolution in Wednesday’s vote.

Golden said that, after the 60-day mark of the Iran war passed, the statutory cutoff for military operations undertaken without congressional authorization, he believed the war could not continue without such approval. But he described a war powers resolution the House voted on last month as textually flawed and outdated.

“The passage of my War Powers Resolution is a significant bipartisan rebuke of President Trump’s illegal and costly war in Iran, and the first step toward ending it once and for all,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Greg Meeks (D-NY) said in a statement. “The passage of this WPR today signals a significant turning point: more and more Republicans are listening to their constituents who do not want another open-ended war in the Middle East. Now the Senate must take up this measure and make clear to the President that enough is enough.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he would support “big, strong and short” U.S. military action against Iran following Tehran’s latest strikes on the United Arab Emirates on Monday — the first such attack on the critical American ally since the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold in early April.

On Monday, Iran launched 15 missiles and four drones at the UAE and targeted key infrastructure and maritime assets. Authorities in Fujairah reported a fire at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone after a suspected Iranian drone strike. 

Additionally, the U.K. military’s Maritime Trade Operations Center said it received reports of a commercial vessel on fire off the UAE coast and warned nearby ships to keep a “safe distance.” The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned an Iranian drone attack on a tanker belonging to the state-owned ADNOC energy company as it attempted to pass the Strait of Hormuz as an “act of piracy.”

Graham, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and supporter of the war effort, said that Iran’s “attack against UAE’s vital infrastructure and continued attacks on international shipping … justifies a big, strong and short response to inflict further damage on Iran’s war machine” in a statement on X.

“A forceful response on behalf of our ally, UAE, will reinforce that America is back as a reliable ally, helping to further wash away the damage caused by the Biden administration on this front,” Graham continued. “The UAE has been a champion ally in this fight, doing everything that’s being asked of them and beyond. Iran’s recent brazen attack against the UAE tells me a lot about who’s in charge in Iran and the chance of a diplomatic solution any time soon.”

Trump has said the U.S. would help guide and protect commercial ships navigating the strait in what he called “Project Freedom,” telling Fox News on Monday that Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” if it tries to interfere – while also writing on Truth Social that Iran has already done so. 

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz said on Monday that Washington is working with Bahrain and other Gulf allies to draft a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at “holding Iran to account” for its actions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Former U.S. Central Command head Gen. Frank McKenzie said Wednesday that the U.S. military is “in the heart of the plan” in its war against Iran, pointing to major military achievements against Tehran’s missile and military capabilities, while cautioning that the conflict remains a grinding, long-term campaign.

As the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran nears the one-month mark, officials say Iran’s capabilities have been severely degraded, while President Donald Trump has asserted that the war is nearly over and that its objectives have largely been achieved. 

At the same time, reports indicate that Iran has rejected Trump administration proposals to negotiate an end to the conflict, while the Pentagon is deploying the military’s highly specialized 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East — raising fresh questions about the trajectory of the war and the broader strategy.

During a webinar hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, McKenzie said the U.S. is “accomplishing the objectives that we set out. CENTCOM is executing a long-prepared campaign plan. This is not something that we’ve drawn up on the back of the envelope day-to-day. These are things that have been studied and refined for many years. If you are sitting down at CENTCOM right now, you are satisfied with where you are.”

McKenzie said one of the clearest indicators of success is that Iran has been unable to generate the kind of large ballistic missile salvos that U.S. military planners had long feared.

“Iran has not been able to mount massive volleys against Israel. Have they been able to fire some number of missiles against our targets? Yes, but not the massive volleys that we thought would make it hard for us to defend,” McKenzie said, attributing that in part to Iran’s own strategic miscalculation.

“The Iranians made a mistake in designing their ballistic missile force. They mistook hardening and burying for security,” McKenzie said. “The truth of warfare today is this: if you can see it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can kill it. And even if you dig yourself deep underground with these beautiful missile cities, that just makes it easier for us to strike and destroy these missiles wholesale rather than retail.”

Yaacov Ayish, former head of the IDF’s general staff, also said that “significant progress” has been made. He noted that Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities have subsided.

“When I’m thinking about the amount of ballistic missiles launched by the Iranians compared to what they had planned, I think they are in a very very bad place, and this is due to the fact that not only their command control capabilities were shattered since day one of this war, but also because we [the IDF] are, together with the U.S., hunting their launching capabilities.”

McKenzie said the U.S. is also making progress against Iran’s drone threat, though he acknowledged that it remains an evolving challenge. Throughout the conflict, Tehran has launched over 2,000 low-cost, easy-to-produce drones at targets across the Middle East.  

“We are still absorbing how to employ and defend against drones, as is really everybody else,” he said. “The best way to do that is going to be by striking where the drones are manufactured, where they’re launched. The worst way to do it is to defend them in the terminal area.”

McKenzie also addressed the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has effectively blocked one of the world’s most critical oil routes. He said the U.S. has already struck Iran’s major naval assets and is now focused on “preparatory steps in order to clear” it. 

“What that means is first clearing those craft, getting rid of Iranian submarines, looking at the fast-attack craft, the small cigarette-boat type vessels that can swarm out from the northern to the southern coast of Iran … to affect shipping in the region,” McKenzie said. “CENTCOM is busy on a program of doing that. I think there’s probably some days left ahead of work to finish that. But it’s progressing.”

He said Iran also retains a “large and capable stack of mines,” and suggested CENTCOM has likely been targeting both the mines and the vessels used to lay them.

“You don’t have to clear the whole Strait of Hormuz,” McKenzie said. “You’ve got to clear a route that you’re going to bring vessels through.”

Ayish noted that he sees “two ways to solve” the tension at the strait. 

“One is the diplomatic channel that is under discussion between the U.S. and the Iranians via certain mediators, and there is the military option,” Ayish said. “When you are analyzing the achievements that were achieved, it seems like both options are viable, and I think the major reason for the Iranians to go into this negotiation is because they know that it’s very imminent. Both options are seriously on the table.” 

When asked whether CENTCOM had failed to adequately prepare for what had unfolded in the strait, McKenzie rejected that premise.

“I’m not sure I’d agree with that assertion,” he said. “You build your plan off the forces that you have. We’ve always thought there’d be a struggle over this. The nature of warfare is you can’t get everything you want. Sometimes it takes a little while to get that. I think we’re working toward that end right now.”

McKenzie also declined to rule out the possibility of U.S. boots on the ground, an outcome many Democrats and some Republicans have strongly opposed.

“I think it’s certainly something we want the Iranians to worry about,” McKenzie said. “I would certainly leave that on the table, and then I wouldn’t share what I was going to do. I think we want them to be very worried about that.”

Meanwhile, while Ayish noted a goal of achieving “a situation that will allow a regime change in the future in Iran,” McKenzie said the U.S. is not directly pursuing regime change in Tehran, even if it could emerge as a consequence of the campaign, even as Trump told reporters Tuesday that regime change had already been achieved.

“The United States is not pursuing regime change directly. It may be a product of what we’re doing,” McKenzie said. “We’d like to get to a point where there’s going to be some entity in Tehran that will negotiate the objectives we want for this campaign, whether it’s a completely new regime or a version of this regime that is so affected by pressure that they’re willing to make these concessions.” 

The Pentagon’s reported intention to ask Congress for $200 billion for an emergency supplemental to fund the U.S. military amid war in Iran is being met with prompt rejection from a number of congressional Democrats, raising questions about whether the funding will pass through normal procedures or if supporters will have to resort to partisan budget reconciliation measures.

“As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said of the reported proposal on Thursday. “We’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is — everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond.”

The Pentagon request will still need to be approved by the White House before being submitted to Congress.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) said that the size of the request suggests that the administration is planning for a much larger war than initially envisioned.

“At the height of combat the Iraq War cost around $140 Billion per year. If the Pentagon is asking for $200 billion they are asking for a long war. The answer is a simple no,” Gallego said on X.

The request seems likely, however, to include funding to expand U.S. defense production beyond the specific costs of the current Iran war. President Donald Trump has requested $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon’s overall budget in 2027, expanding the military budget by more than one-third.

“We’re asking for a lot of reasons beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran. This is a very volatile world,” Trump said Thursday.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told reporters that a $200 billion request for a war without congressional authorization and for which the costs have not been clearly articulated would be a “nonstarter.” He also raised concerns — as have other Democrats — that any authorization of funding for the war could be legally considered an authorization for use of military force.

“​​Trump is asking Congress for $200 billion more for his war in Iran, but he cut your health care, drove costs up, and slashed Medicaid,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said. “He wants money for his war first while Americans are paying for it.”

At the same time, some Republicans have expressed that they would likely support the request, arguing that it is necessary to provide funding in time of war if it makes sense, though some haven’t treated the $200 billion figure as final.

“We’ve been in a shooting war … we need to see it through and make sure our men and women have what they need,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), arguably the leading advocate for the war on Capitol Hill. “So I’d hate to be the senator that denied the request if it made sense.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) predicted that the request would be carefully considered and matched to U.S. needs.

“It will be detailed and specified. I’m sure it’s not a random number, so we’ll look at that,” Johnson said. “But obviously, it’s a dangerous time in the world, and we have to adequately fund defense, and we have a commitment to do that.”

Meanwhile, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) is withholding comment until the funding request is finalized and submitted. 

Other Republicans have expressed more skepticism, with some calling for a clear plan from the White House before any decision is made. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said she is a “no” in an interview with CNN, arguing instead that funds should be allocated domestically. 

“I have already told [House] leadership: I am a ‘no’ on any war supplemental. I am so tired of spending money over there [in the Middle East],” Boebert said. “I have folks in Colorado who can’t afford to live. We need America First policies right now.” 

Since the war started, some on Capitol Hill have discussed potentially attaching funding for the war to a reconciliation package, which could pass the Senate by a party-line vote rather than needing to receive a filibuster-proof 60 vote majority. 

But Sen. Susan Collins (R-AK), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, rejected that idea on Thursday.

“That would not be my preference,” Collins said. “I understand the need to get this through, but it seems to me that it would be best to go through the appropriations process.”

It is also not clear, with narrow margins in the House and a small number of Republicans opposed to the war, that any reconciliation package — particularly one including funding for the conflict — could pass the lower chamber, either.

President Donald Trump said repeatedly on Monday that he believed the Iranian regime was going to “take over the Middle East” and would have obtained a nuclear weapon “within weeks” had he not ordered the U.S. military operation against Iran. 

Trump made the comments from his Doral, Fla., golf club at a press conference while defending his decision to have the U.S. launch its military operation in Iran, noting that Iran had a “number of missiles they were able to buy and make over the last six months, and those missiles were aimed at various countries.”

“When you look at over 1,000 missiles shot at, like the UAE, they were looking to take over the Middle East,” Trump said. “We got there first. We’re lucky.”

“If I didn’t hit them first, they were going to hit our allies first,” he continued. Had the U.S. not struck Iranian nuclear sites last June, “that was definite, because they would’ve had a nuclear weapon within a matter of weeks.”

Trump said that negotiations between the U.S. and Iran on the latter’s nuclear ambitions had reached a stalemate last year because the Iranians told Special Envoy Steve Witkoff “essentially, in a real nutshell, we want to continue to build nuclear weapons.”

“The situation was very quickly approaching the point of no return, and the United States found it intolerable. In my opinion, based on what Steve and Jared [Kushner] and [Secretary of Defense] Pete [Hegseth] and others were telling me, [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] was so involved, I thought that they were going to attack us,” Trump said. “If we didn’t do this at the time we did it, I think they had a mind to attack us.”

Trump, who is in Doral for the House Republicans’ retreat, made similar comments while discussing the ongoing U.S. military operation in Iran earlier Monday in a speech to Republican lawmakers and donors.

“Within a week, they [Iran] were going to attack us,” he told the crowd at the Republican Members Issues Conference.

In comments at the retreat and the presser, Trump touted the progress made in the nine days since the U.S. first struck Iran as evidence that the operation had been a “tremendous success” thus far. 

“We’re achieving major strides toward completing our military objective, and some people could say they’re pretty well complete. We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out very completely,” Trump told reporters, adding that “most of Iran’s naval power has been sunk” and the regime’s “drones are way down.”

“We continue to target Iran’s drone and missile capability,” he continued. “We’ve struck over 5,000 targets to date, some of them very major targets, and we’ve left some of the most important targets for later, in case we need to do it. If we hit them, it’s going to take many years for them to be rebuilt, having to do with electricity production and many other things. So we’re not looking to do that if we don’t have to.””

About the future of Iran’s leadership, Trump said, “We want to be involved. We don’t want another president that maybe wouldn’t be willing to do what I’m willing to do, for the good of the world, for the good of our nation, to be stuck with a situation in five years or 10 years.”

Speaking to attendees at the GOP retreat, the president described the U.S. attacks on Iran as a “little excursion” that he expected would “be a short-term” operation. 

“We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil,” Trump said. “And I think it’s going to be a short-term excursion.”

Trump also acknowledged the broader differences between himself and Vice President JD Vance on foreign policy matters at the presser, but said that Vance was supportive of his decision to strike Iran. 

“We get along very well on this. He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.”

President Donald Trump accused Tucker Carlson on Thursday of having “lost his way” following recent criticism from the commentator of the U.S. military operation in Iran, asserting that the former Fox News host was not representing the views of the Make America Great Again movement.

Trump made the comments while speaking to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Thursday afternoon after being asked about Carlson’s characterization of the ongoing U.S.-Israeli operation as “absolutely disgusting and evil” and his broader attacks on the Trump administration’s friendly relationship with Israel. 

“Tucker has lost his way,” Trump said. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”

In response, Carlson told Status News, “There are times I get annoyed with Trump, right now definitely included, but I’ll always love him no matter what he says about me.”

The president told journalist Rachael Bade on Monday that Carlson’s vocal opposition to his strikes on Iran had “no impact” on him, adding that Carlson “can say whatever he wants.”

“MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” he added, referring to Carlson and Megyn Kelly. 

The criticism came less than a day after Carlson dropped a new episode of his podcast in which he accused the Chabad Lubavitch movement of seeking to start a “religious war” to facilitate the destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in order to build the Third Temple on top of its ruins. 

Carlson claimed in the episode that the goal of the Hasidic sect’s movement is the rebuilding of the Temple, based solely on the fact that Orthodox Jews believe that the Temple will be rebuilt when the Messiah comes, a prophetic vision that has been a part of daily Jewish prayer for two millennia. He failed to mention, however, that no mainstream Jewish denomination, including the Hasidic and the Orthodox, advocates for the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, in order to build the Temple. 

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), the D.C.-based Chabad which engages with foreign and domestic political leaders, told Jewish Insider late Thursday that he welcomed Trump’s rejection of Carlson’s embrace of anti-Israel and antisemitic ideas.

“With regard to Tucker Carlson, the president must have come to the conclusion that while difficult and perhaps unpleasant, his own statement earlier today was necessary,” Shemtov told JI. “In a more perfect world, Tucker might recognize that some of his expressed beliefs simply do not coincide with established facts and historic Jewish beliefs. He might also realize that Israel and the Jewish people are merely an appetizer for the voracious hateful appetite of the Iranian regime. America and the West would be the main course.”

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, a Chabad rabbi in Lexington who leads the Kentucky Jewish Council, told JI that Carlson’s attacks on the Hasidic group had prompted an outpouring of support from Jewish and non-Jewish supporters.

“This is not someone stumbling. These are intentional choices. They are choices that are intended to make Jews around the world feel unsafe, and they had the exact opposite reaction,” Litvin said of Carlson. “There were more positive tweets about Chabad today than there have been since I’ve been on Twitter, which is, I think, 15 years. There has never been as many positive tweets about Chabad in a day as there are right now.”