The top Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday seemed dubious of plans to fund the Pentagon’s $1.5 billion budget request as Congress waits to receive a supplemental request for tens of billions of dollars to fund the war in Iran.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), the chair of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the Trump administration’s bid to get roughly $1 billion through the typical funding request process and the additional $500 billion through supplemental requests.
“The subcommittee needs to understand how the resources requested in this budget translates into real, measurable improvements in warfighting capability,” Calvert said during a panel hearing on the defense budget, adding that he has “serious concerns” about the Pentagon’s ask.
“Questions persist about whether we are building the depth and reliance required for a high-end conflict,” he said.
Hegseth insisted that the historic budget the Pentagon is requesting is “a fiscally responsible budget, and it is a warfighting budget,” arguing that the administration inherited a defense industrial base that had been “hollowed out by years of America last policies, resulting in a diminished capability and capacity to project strength.”
As to the White House’s method to hit its funding goal, the Pentagon chief said that “there’s a reality in this town of what can get done and how it gets done and in a perfect world everything would get done in regular order and with a $1.5 trillion topline but there are a lot of challenges and dynamics, some of which I don’t control.”
Congress is also waiting on a reported $80 billion to $100 billion supplemental request from the administration to fund the ongoing war in Iran – with a major chunk to backfill expended munitions – which Calvert said would be helpful to get “sooner rather than later, so we can get to work.”
“I understand a desire for flexibility, I understand why you’re breaking this up in order to, in some chunks I guess [it’s] more digestible to some degree politically, but I would hope we can get a supplemental bill here soon,” he said. “Obviously we know of the munitions issue and we know of the cost of this conflict . . . Any idea of when we’re going to get this supplemental?”
Hegseth declined to answer, saying only that the Defense Department is “well aware of all of those dynamics,” and downplayed the issue of depleted munitions stockpiles as “foolishly and unhelpfully overstated,” adding “we know exactly what we have, we have plenty of what we need.”
The cost of the Iran war continues to climb as the conflict is now in its eleventh week. The Pentagon’s top budget official, comptroller Jules Hurst, told the subcommittee that the estimated cost of Operation Epic Fury is “closer to $29 [billion],” up from $25 billion two weeks ago, “because of updated repair and replacement of equipment … and also just general operational costs.”
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the House Appropriations Committee chair, also raised concerns of the use of reconciliation to fund the Pentagon next fiscal year.
“I don’t have any concerns about the amount. . . I am worried about the ability to sustain that number through the reconciliation process, at some point the money disappears,” Cole said.
The question of how the Pentagon will hit a historic $1.5 trillion budget was a concern on both sides of the aisle, with ranking member Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), opening the hearing by requesting that the administration provide a more detailed breakout of the costs of the Iran war and how the Pentagon would spend a significant budget increase.
Lawmakers have “asked several times for a complete update on ammunition levels, and it has not been provided,” McCollum noted.
She also asked whether the administration had a “Plan B” to scale back operations against Iran, but Hegseth declined to go into specifics.
“We have a plan to escalate if necessary. We have a plan to retrograde if necessary. We have a plan to shift assets,” Hegseth said.
The subcommittee is set to more formally consider the defense budget and supplemental request on June 11.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.