By Thomas Whitaker
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants Congress to pass at least $350 billion more for the military before Republicans give up their majorities in January. A growing number of Senate Democrats say they will not vote for any funding bill that pays for the war with Iran, setting up a fight over the Dec. 11 deadline to keep the government open.
In a Nov. 5 social media post, Mr. Hegseth called on “every patriotic member of Congress” to back a reconciliation bill of “at least $350 billion,” Air & Space Forces Magazine reported. That figure is the portion of the administration’s $1.5 trillion defense request that it planned to fund through a separate reconciliation bill, alongside a $1.15 trillion base appropriations bill. The White House also asked in June for $87.6 billion in supplemental funding, including about $67 billion for the Pentagon, to cover war costs and other programs; that request has stalled, The Hill reported.
The war began in late February. It has cost at least $47 billion, according to The Hill, and has killed 11 U.S. service members in combat, with 12 more deaths classified as non-hostile and more than 850 troops injured, according to Defense Department figures cited by Stars and Stripes.
The administration’s case
President Donald Trump has acknowledged that the war hurt Republicans at the polls on Nov. 3, but he has defended it as necessary to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. “I did the right thing,” he told The Wall Street Journal, according to Stars and Stripes. “I would have done it again.” He told Fox News that “people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran,” and that voters were reacting to gasoline prices more than the war itself.
A White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “the United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian economy collapsing.” “Iran has been decimated, and things will go one of two ways; the easy way or the hard way,” the spokesperson said. “President Trump holds all the cards and will do whatever is best for the United States.”
Not everyone on the president’s side agrees on the politics. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X after the election, “The reason we lost is the war,” Stars and Stripes reported.
The Democratic push
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said last week that his party would use its new majorities to end the conflict. “We are going to end the war,” he said, according to The Hill. “We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war, and the Founding Fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people.” Four Republicans, Sens. Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul, have backed a Democratic war powers resolution directing a withdrawal from hostilities absent congressional authorization.
Some Democrats want to act before January, in the stopgap bill that has to pass by Dec. 11. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told Jewish Insider that any funding bill should replenish munitions but “say, ‘the war is illegal, until you get [congressional] authorization’ — I think we should put in a provision that says, ‘no funding for a war in Iran unless you get an authorization from Congress.’” If Mr. Trump would rather shut the government down than accept that, Mr. Kaine said, “then that’ll be on them.”
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said the Senate should reject “any [funding] package that includes another cent for [the Iran] war.” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the incoming Appropriations chair, said Democrats “are going to look at every tool we have available to us to bring this disastrous war to an end,” Jewish Insider reported. Not all Democrats want a shutdown fight. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said he supports efforts to end the war but added, “We should do everything we can to fund the government.”
Armed Services: a smaller topline coming
The Armed Services committees will feel the change most directly. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on House Armed Services, is seeking the chairmanship. In a letter to colleagues he wrote that the country needs “a more realistic and sustainable approach that does not require a defense budget in excess of $1 trillion or paid for through draconian cuts to critical domestic programs,” Air & Space Forces Magazine reported. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a member of Senate Armed Services, called government funding one point of leverage. “We control that,” he said, according to The Hill. “So if he can’t find a way out of this, we can put pressure on him.”
From New York, Rep. Pat Ryan, a House Armed Services Democrat from the Hudson Valley and a former Army intelligence officer, said in a statement to The Hill that Republicans who opposed the war in the campaign should “put their money where their mouth is and vote to end the war and pass my bill to prevent Trump from spending a single dollar more on it.” Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens, the top Democrat on House Foreign Affairs, said he will introduce a joint resolution to end the war on the first day of the new Congress, The Hill reported.
Odds for the $350 billion
Budget analysts give the reconciliation bill little chance. Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners put its odds at 10 percent and wrote that “the magnitude of Democratic gains in the House and Senate from the midterm elections suggests that nothing will get done by Congress for defense legislation” this year, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported. Travis Sharp of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments noted that the 2025 package paired $150 billion for defense with a tax cut. “This year, there’s no tax cut to trade,” he said. Attendance matters too: some Republicans who lost may not return, which would give Democrats more leverage on any lame-duck bill.
The defense policy bill is also unsettled, with fault lines over the war, the campaign against drug cartels and the Department of War name, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported. The Chronicle laid out the lame-duck calendar Monday. House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said Friday that “we have no idea what the strategy is moving forward in Iran,” The Hill reported.
The Western New York stake
The war has already reached the region. In March, Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station canceled its June Thunder of Niagara air show because of resource demands tied to operations shifting to the Middle East, CBS6 reported. The base’s 914th Air Refueling Wing flies KC-135 tankers, and the Chronicle reported in October on what the stalled defense bill means for the base. A stopgap that freezes spending, a war-funding cutoff or a smaller defense budget next year would each reach the base differently, and the Chronicle has asked the wing’s public affairs office how current operations are affecting its airmen and missions.
Analysis: what to watch
This section is the Chronicle’s analysis.
Three decisions will show where this is heading. First, whether House and Senate Republican leaders try a reconciliation bill at all before Jan. 3; if they do not, Mr. Hegseth’s $350 billion request is effectively a marker for the next budget. Second, whether Senate Democrats insist on war-funding language in the Dec. 11 stopgap. Because a stopgap needs 60 Senate votes, a large enough Democratic bloc could force either a short-term deal with limits or a shutdown each side would blame on the other. Third, whether Mr. Trump signals a path to ending the war on his own terms, which the White House says is his call alone. “Only President Trump knows what he will do and when,” the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Western New York’s House members, Republican Nick Langworthy and Democrat Tim Kennedy, will both vote on the stopgap. The Chronicle will report how they and Sens. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand vote on any war-funding limits.
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