Pete Hegseth Wants $200 Billion For Iran War

Mar 21, 2026 08:13 PM EDT, Sat

The biggest problems with Pete Hegseth’s $200 billion request

The Pentagon is considering asking Congress for $200 billion in funding for Trump’s war against Iran. That’s absurd.

Mar. 20, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT By Hayes Brown

It was inevitable that the ongoing military campaign against Iran — with no end in sight — was going to cost more than the Trump administration’s relentless optimism would indicate. But now the Department of Defense is considering asking for up to $200 billion in war funding, an essentially open-ended flow of money for an unnecessary war that Senate Democrats must stand firm in rejecting.

The staggering figure was first reported Wednesday evening by The Washington Post and confirmed by MS NOW as being under discussion. It far outstrips the roughly $19 billion that the war has cost over the past three weeks. As much as $11 billion of that was spent in the first week as the U.S. fired off a massive barrage against Iran, using some $5.6 billion worth of the most advanced weaponry on the planet over just the first two days.

Hegseth’s department is using the military’s munitions like it’s playing a video game with a cheat code for infinite resources rather than treating them as a limited and valuable commodity.

Incredibly, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth showed no shame Thursday about approaching Congress hat in hand for additional money on top of the $1.5 trillion defense budget that he’s seeking for the next fiscal year. “Obviously … it takes money to kill bad guys,” he said alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding that “that number could move.”

While the Pentagon is reportedly struggling to figure out how to spend the 50% funding increase in Hegseth’s request for fiscal year 2027, the defense secretary had at least some idea of how the new $200 billion would be spent. “We’re going back to Congress and 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, everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond,” he said.

Or, as President [Donald Trump put it during a press appearance alongside Japan’s prime minister on Thursday, $200 billion is “a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy-top.”

The Washington Post reported two weeks ago about the disturbingly swift burn rate of America’s top-of-the-line munitions, such as the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors, that give the U.S. a military edge globally. As the Iran campaign continues, the strikes have shifted to utilizing less expensive weaponry like GPS-guided bombs that use gravity to fall toward their targets. Trump dismissed any worries about U.S. stockpiles in a social media post, saying that American “medium and upper medium grade” bombs and missiles are “virtually unlimited.”

Some opponents of U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia are likely to cite that spending as justification for this massive funding request. But over the course of four years, U.S. support for Ukraine has totaled roughly $188 billion. Much of that spending has been in the form of land-based systems and other materials that are less expensive than what was fired against Iran. Our cumulative efforts to back Kyiv against Moscow have not been nearly as expensive as this needless conflict could wind up being.

Moreover, Hegseth and his department are displaying a general lack of fiscal responsibility that should give lawmakers pause before they simply approve any request that comes their way. The Pentagon’s track record on responsible spending is grim, to say the least; it is the only federal agency to have never passed an independent audit. Replenishing depleted stocks is one thing, but Hegseth’s department is using the military’s munitions like it’s playing a video game with a cheat code for infinite resources rather than treating them as a limited and valuable commodity.

Approving another $200 billion can’t be seen as anything but tacit approval for this war to continue until that funding has been spent, and beyond.

The idea of tossing fistfuls of cash at an already bloated Pentagon was bad enough when initial expectations were that the supplemental funding request would total about $50 billion. Asking for four times as much for a war of choice with no strategy and no endgame would be deeply offensive. Approving another $200 billion can’t be seen as anything but tacit approval for this war to continue until that funding has been spent, and beyond.

The bottom line is that congressional Democrats should be opposed to this request when it arrives. While it’s always hard to be seen as voting against the troops, even the most pro-military Democrats must insist on voting “no” unless there are firm strings attached and the request is greatly scaled back. At the top of the list should be an insistence that no hardware purchased with any additional funds can be used for the current war effort, rather than merely restocking the dwindling stores.

Without that guarantee, Democrats would be providing funding that puts American service members in danger — and they’re doing nothing as an opposition party to prevent Hegseth from further raiding the Treasury to keep playing games with our military’s lives.

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.

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