Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confronted an unusually pointed reception from lawmakers of both parties on Tuesday as the House and Senate defense spending committees reviewed the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion military budget proposal for fiscal 2027. Across four hours of testimony, Hegseth was pressed on the conflict’s fast-rising price, the durability of U.S. weapons stockpiles, and the growing economic pain from Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz — with members of his own Republican Party delivering some of the most direct criticism.
Pentagon officials told the panels that the cost of the Iran war has climbed to an estimated $29 billion, up from $25 billion three weeks earlier. Pentagon Comptroller Jay Hurst said the increase is driven largely by the expense of replacing munitions and repairing equipment — about $24 billion — but also includes operational costs for deployed forces. Hegseth maintained that accounts of depleted weapons inventories were exaggerated. “I take issue with the characterization that munitions are depleted in a public forum,” he said. “That’s not true.”
The Defense Secretary’s reassurances did not prevent lawmakers from raising alarms. California Republican Ken Calvert, chair of the House defense subcommittee, asked directly about the impact on future readiness: “Questions persist about whether we are building the depth and resilience required for a high-end conflict.” A recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that U.S. forces had expended more than half of the prewar inventory of four key weapons systems and warned that rebuilding to levels adequate for a possible confrontation with China would take years.
Alliance tensions emerged as a sharp subplot. Hegseth’s earlier combative tone toward Congress was absent, but Republican senators did not hold back on the administration’s treatment of traditional partners. Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the GOP chair of the Senate defense spending panel, told Hegseth that “NATO is the most important military alliance in world history” and voiced concern that European allies feel the United States is reducing its influence. Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, added in a separate session, “America First has never meant American alone. American power is most effective when it’s exercised in concert with like-minded nations.”
The economic blowback from the Strait of Hormuz closure was another flashpoint. With about a fifth of global oil normally passing through the waterway, the blockade has spiked gasoline prices and fueled political headwinds for Republicans ahead of the midterms. Maine Sen. Susan Collins, herself facing a tough reelection, asked whether the administration anticipated the step. “It seems to me that there’s been a different plan almost daily,” she said. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, responded that the president is briefed with carefully considered military options.
Democrats used the hearing to demand more transparency on the war’s full cost and a clear path to reopening the strait. Washington Sen. Patty Murray accused the administration of spending “families’ hard-earned tax dollars on a war that many strongly oppose” while forcing people to pay more at the pump. Delaware Sen. Chris Coons repeatedly pressed Hegseth for a plan, asking, “If we control it, how do we reopen it?” Hegseth answered that he would not publicly disclose operational details, maintaining that “we have plenty of what we need” and that the military has plans to “escalate if necessary, retrograde if necessary.”
The hearings exposed the deepening tension between the administration’s insistence that the campaign is succeeding and