The White House is seeking $1.5 trillion from Congress for the Pentagon and is expected to send a separate ask for the Iran war. Lawmakers want more transparency around how the money will be spent.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Trump administration officials have been on Capitol Hill this week pitching the largest defense budget request in U.S. history, $1.5 trillion. But that proposal does not give Congress a full picture of how much additional money the administration will need for the war on Iran. NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales has been following this and joins me now. Good morning, Claudia.
CLAUDIA GRISALES, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So how is the White House that had told Americans – this is a White House that had told Americans it was all about cutting spending – pitching this $1.5 trillion request to Congress?
GRISALES: Well, they’re calling it a, quote, “paradigm-shifting investment.” At least that’s how the director of Office and Management Budget, Russell Vought, is describing it to members of Congress. He told budget committees this week that their focus is to double and triple military capabilities. That includes new ships, planes, drones, ammunitions as part of this request for the Pentagon’s 2027 fiscal year. And at the same time Congress has received this major defense request for appropriations, there’s still an Iran war supplemental request that the administration has yet to share. And that’s left lawmakers with a lot of questions.
FADEL: So the administration still hasn’t said how much they will need and we’re almost 50 days into the war. How are Republicans responding?
GRISALES: Well, defense hawks like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham are anxious to move forward, even without the full funding picture. They argued that the war in Iran exposed a lot of gaps for the military, for example, shortages in munitions to keep up with a conflict moving at a high tempo. And Graham, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, questioned Vought in a hearing Thursday if the supplemental war request was ready. Here’s how Vought responded.
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RUSSELL VOUGHT: Not yet, Senator. We are working on it. We do want to continue to assess when it will be needed by and how long the operations will last. But we have it, we’re reviewing it, we’re well-aware. And we’ll make sure we send it up.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Sooner rather than later.
FADEL: And what are you hearing from Democrats?
GRISALES: Well, they’re expressing concern over what they say is a lack of transparency around the war itself and ultimately what these funding requests could look like. Betty McCollum, she’s a top Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations subpanel. She told Army officials on Thursday that members cannot do oversight without more information.
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BETTY MCCOLLUM: That’s the only way we can do our job properly to do the oversight that we are tasked with. To be clear, the size of the request for defense spending is shocking.
GRISALES: And so one way Democrats have tried to force the debate on transparency and these costs is by forcing votes on limiting President Trump’s war powers – that is, his use of military force in Iran. And while they’ve been unsuccessful so far in terms of seeing passage with any of these votes, they plan to force more of these. And it’s possible they could pick up new Republican support in the coming days if the war drags on.
Trump has 60 days to carry out military action without authorization from Congress. And that window is rapidly closing. Although, he could invoke a 30-day extension. That said, some Republicans have said they will end their support for the war, make new demands, if it goes past that timeline.
FADEL: How much has this war cost so far? Do we know?
GRISALES: Well, several analysts who’ve been tracking the conflict have put out a range of estimates. For example, the Center for Strategic and International Studies has said it has cost more than $29 billion so far.
FADEL: What does all this uncertainty mean?
GRISALES: Well, it injects a new level of chaos into the process. And that can make it harder for members to get on the same page, and it can also expand the potential for growing political fallout. So with a shorter window to build a consensus around these budget requests, that means there’s more opportunity for partisan divide and even intraparty divide. Also, members are facing the prospect of having to vote on new spending for a war that many voters do not support and taking these votes without the information that members need from the administration.
So the votes on spending could come later in the year. And that comes closer to the November elections, which could eclipse Republicans’ messaging on the campaign trail to focus on selling their agenda and touting their accomplishments.
FADEL: That’s NPR’s Claudia Grisales. Thank you, Claudia.
GRISALES: Thank you.
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