Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair General Dan Kaine testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the Trump administration's controversial war in Iran, defending "Operation Midnight Hammer" as a historic victory that crippled Tehran's nuclear program despite 14 deaths and over $25 billion in costs. While Republicans champion a $1.5 trillion defense budget to fund modernization like the "Golden Dome" system and address China's rise, Democrats fiercely criticize the unilateral military action, lack of congressional consultation, and alleged war crimes. The hearing exposes deep partisan divides over the War Powers Resolution, AI targeting ethics, and whether the Strait of Hormuz blockade constitutes an undeclared global conflict threatening economic stability. [Automatically generated summary]
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Unfiltered Democracy Coverage00:01:44
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High school students, are you planning to take the Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics exam on May 5th?
Well, get ready to take some notes and join us on Washington Journal live Saturday at 9 a.m. Eastern for our annual Cram for the Exam special to get the best tips and strategies to succeed on the test.
Can you explain the benefits and potential problems of an interest group's influence on elections?
What is the best way to remember the foundational documents and their main arguments?
Petaluma High School teacher Kevin Jackson from Petaluma, California and Troy High School teacher Ryan Warenka from Troy, Michigan will take your calls and text questions on the content and structure of this year's exam and how you can prepare for it.
So get your test questions ready.
During the program, call in or ask your questions on social media through Facebook on X at C-SPANWJ or at hashtag Cram for the exam.
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C-SPAN, official media partner of America 250, commemorating 250 years of American democracy.
Stories of Southern Sweetness00:06:33
America 250 is traveling the country to honor the voices that define our nation.
Stories of identity, service, and community.
Here's one of them.
Arkansas was the homeland of the Quapa Nation.
That is what we consider our ancestral homeland.
We're walking right on this tightrope of Quapwaw and American, and sometimes they bleed into each other.
I like the untapped nature of Arkansas.
It helps me think.
It helps me compose my mind.
I grew up in the suburbs of Kolkata, India.
What I loved about the American culture at large is the ability to ask hard questions.
You get the degrees of freedom asking right questions, and hopefully you get to the right answers.
My research will help pick on the corners of the complicated pathways of the human heart.
I grew up in a small town in South Arkansas called Gould, Arkansas.
I had the part owner of the 150th Context Everywinter, Mystic Dan.
My dad was a farmer, and really all he ever did was work.
Dad passed away in May of 23, a year to the date that we won the Derby.
I guess probably the first thing that went through my mind is, you know, wishing he was there to see it.
I've always said I think dad had the best seat in the house.
I grew up in Arkansas, my high-life.
I said I wasn't going to marry anyone in the military because that meant I would have to leave Arkansas.
But I did.
But I also knew, Dan, how much I love my home state.
How friendly.
I'm sorry.
How friendly we are.
And smart.
And very kind.
Arkansas is full of kind people.
I'm Dot Ward.
I live in Madison, Mississippi.
The lifestyle that we enjoy here, it's not quite as fast, I guess.
It's just a wonderful place to live.
The people are so good and everything seems to be peaceful.
To describe the Mississippi Delta to someone who's never been here is a tough thing to do.
First thing that comes to mind is flat.
Second thing that comes to mind is it's even more flat.
The Delta has some of the richest soil in the country.
You can grow great cotton and great corn.
The glues has been built upon what you consider sharecroppers, slavery, what they consider as folk music, field hollers, cries, and the oppression, the pain that those people experience has created this music, this genre of storytelling.
And it makes up what America is today.
You know, a country that's full of stories, the history, the oppression, and how we exceeded some of those expectations and, you know, how we deliver the message.
When my father came here, he wasn't allowed to go to the public school.
And then, you know, just following that, I have a sister who attended Yale.
Our parents and our grandparents worked so hard to give us those opportunities.
Being mostly an agricultural area, if your family needed help, then you would depend on your neighbors, whether that was black, white, Chinese.
So I do hope that that southern sweetness comes across as genuine and that it continues to be that way in our part of the country.
And who knows, maybe we can affect, you know, the whole rest of the country or the world with that southern sweetness.
Alabama is a big player in aerospace, aviation, and space.
So yeah, a lot of people don't know that.
Did I get preachy?
The team here is known for the expertise in propulsions.
So these are the guys that build the rockets that went to the moon.
And then as the space race began with Sputnik in 1957, it was just a natural progression to take those missiles and make them do science things.
And so that's kind of how NASA came to be here in Huntsville, Alabama.
My great-grandfather, he worked on astronauts.
And I want to work on astronauts and be as successful as him.
There's always room at the top.
I've heard that.
I was not always the first one chosen, believe me.
I grew up during the Jim Crow era.
Someone riding in a 1947 Ford threw a wall of concrete with spikes in it out of the window of the car that hit me in my thigh, paralyzed me on the right side.
I've had people in my units who have told me outright that their fathers were leaders of the Klan, but they have told me that they were changed because of their experience with my leadership and with my being their boss.
Now is maybe the most important time in history to share the little stories in your life, the big stories, but also just the story of what it's like to be you.
Because there's only one of you.
China Russia Iran North Korea00:06:27
In my case, there were six of us, six brothers in Vietnam.
One brother was shot down and was rescued.
Another brother was on the docks in Demang for about a year.
I think my mother said to Rosary for 10 years every day, just hoping that we'd come back.
And we all did.
But I was gone an awful lot, but if it weren't for my wife and support of her and our children, I would not have stayed in the Navy and, of course, I would not have been as successful as I had been.
You did a good job, honey.
C-SPAN, official media partner of America 250, commemorating 250 years of American democracy.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hagsath and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Kaine spoke about the Iran war, the cost of the conflict, and alleged insider trading within the armed forces during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
During the nearly three-hour hearing, lawmakers also questioned the two on the war in Ukraine and other global conflicts.
All right, the hearing is in order.
We completed a productive classified session down in the SCIF, and now we will begin the public portion of this hearing.
I welcome back Secretary Hegseth, General Kane, and our acting controller, Mr. Jay Hearst.
I thank all of them, including their families, for their service.
For the dozens of Americans that regularly watch our hearings, my next remarks will be no surprise, but for new viewers, I want to reiterate some context for my remarks.
I've said this at almost every hearing.
We live in the most dangerous security environment since World War II.
Every uniformed officer who has come before this committee has agreed with that statement.
First and foremost, we're locked in a competition with Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.
The competition is high stakes, and it is about whether this will be an American-led century or a century defined by authoritarian, autocratic regimes that care little for the needs of their citizens or those in neighboring countries.
The Chinese Communist Party has accelerated its historic military buildup and its predatory economic practices against Americans and countries the world over.
Xi Jinping leads not only China, but also an axis of aggressors.
This growing alliance cannot be denied.
It includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
They're united around this goal, to oppose America's interests and the interests of other like-minded democratic countries across the globe.
Vladimir Putin's war of choice in Ukraine has now entered its fifth year.
In Putin's objectives, we hear echoes of the imperialistic ambitions of World War II's aggressors, including Adolf Hitler.
Vladimir Putin has suffered 1.2 million casualties and failed miserably in his military objectives.
Along the way, he has transformed Russia's economy into one fueled by war, raising the prospect of an even more aggressive Moscow for the foreseeable future.
Most of Iran's leaders are now deceased, but they and those who survived them have consistently sought violence against America, Israel, our Gulf allies, and the Iranian people.
We saw this during the October 7th massacre, during their continued support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and in their desire to engage in nuclear blackmail.
Iran's Ayatollahs have consistently represented a threat to American interest.
Kim Jong-un has joined Mr. Putin's war of aggression.
He continues a military and nuclear buildup that threatens South Korea, Japan, and the United States.
Ties have never been closer among these four dictators, among these four dictatorships.
They support each other's aggressive endeavors.
They prop each other up financially, and they scheme to undermine America's objectives.
We should expect them to continue this behavior.
This context plays out across every dimension of national power, the economy, technology, diplomacy, and more.
But today we're here to talk about the military dimension of this competition.
These regimes have regularly tried to take force, take by force what they cannot secure through the political process.
For that reason, we must be ready to deter conflicts and, if necessary, to win them.
President Trump has used the U.S. military appropriately and effectively for American interests.
He has viewed our adversaries as a united bloc and has taken action in light of that reality.
In Operation Absolute Resolve, an associated statecraft, the President removed an aspiring dictator off the board and set up Venezuela for a future aligned with democratic interests.
In Operation Midnight Hammer, he sought to eliminate the Ayatollah's nuclear program.
When the Ayatollah chose to double down, the President launched Operation Epic Fury.
In that mission, he has worked to remove the regime's conventional military capabilities and force it back to the table for a permanent solution.
While we all mourn the tragic loss of the 14 service members who've lost their lives in this conflict, we do so knowing the world is safer without a nuclear Iran.
All of these actions are part of a peace-through strength strategy.
In this approach, we seek first to avoid war, but we take military action when necessary to achieve U.S. interest.
Comparative Military Advantages00:03:19
And so, Mr. Secretary, I'm pleased that you are here testifying today in support of President Trump's historic $1.5 trillion defense budget request.
That sum will go a long way toward rebuilding our military capabilities for a generation.
I should say up front that this may be a long hearing.
There's much to discuss.
This $1.5 trillion request is chock full of important programs and initiatives that are absolutely necessary to secure American interest in the 21st century.
I think this funding underpins and accentuates three comparative advantages the United States possesses over the Axis of aggressors.
The first comparative advantage America enjoys over our adversaries is that we have the best innovation and industry in the world.
So I hope our witnesses today will cover the progress we've made in just the past year rebuilding the American arsenal.
Last year, our reconciliation bill, combined with bipartisan appropriation bills, achieved about a trillion-dollar defense budget.
This year's request would represent a near 50% increase.
Every penny of it should be money well spent, making down payments on crucial transformational capabilities such as drone warfare, low-cost munitions, and missile defense.
Also, last year, Congress and the executive branch achieved historic acquisition reforms.
Consequently, we are well positioned to make huge gains on efficiency this year and in the years to come, making it much more flexible and a more timely process.
I look forward to discussing how we might accelerate implementation of these actions.
In particular, I'd like to see the Pentagon do more this year to drive competition in the defense industrial base.
Competition absolutely drives better outcomes for our service members and taxpayers.
Of course, our people are the final comparative advantage we have over our adversaries.
We've enjoyed significant improvements in recruitment and retention, but we need to solidify a merit-based environment that fully cares for our personnel.
I commend you, Mr. Secretary, for your efforts over the past year to do just that.
That task will never be finished, of course, but we embrace it gladly and we salute the progress.
We will always be striving to care for and equip American service members as much as possible.
I look forward to more work between this committee and the Department this coming year.
With that, I turn to my friend and colleague, Ranking Member Jack Reed.
Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Secretary Hegseth, General Kaine, Mr. Hurris, welcome.
And please convey my appreciation, all of our appreciation to our military service members and defense civilians.
We owe them our deepest sense of gratitude.
Mr. Secretary, this is your first public appearance before this committee in nearly a year.
Revitalizing American Manufacturing00:15:18
Since your last public testimony, you and President Trump have unwisely taken the United States to war with Iran.
You ordered attack on Venezuela and have directed ongoing illegal boat strike campaign in the Caribbean and Pacific.
At your direction, our forces have bombed Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, and Ecuador.
In the United States, you have deployed thousands of troops to cities like Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland to police American citizens.
And you have personally intervened to end the careers of dozens of military leaders without explanation.
These actions will have significant and long-term consequences.
Now you appear before us to ask for a $1.5 trillion budget, a 45 percent increase above last year.
I must say I am skeptical, and such a request demands intense scrutiny.
61 days ago, President Trump unilaterally began the war in Iran.
He had no coherent strategy.
He refused to make a case to the American people or consult Congress.
He failed to present any evidence of an immediate threat, and he ignored the advice of military and intelligence experts who warned him of the consequences.
Today, our nation is in a worse strategic position.
The Strait of Humuz was open.
Now it is closed.
Thirteen service members have tragically lost their lives, and more than 400 have been wounded.
We have lost dozens of aircraft, sustained significant damage to our bases in the area, and expended an alarming amount of our missile inventory.
Morale and readiness across the force, especially among overdeployed units and vessels like the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, have suffered.
Gasoline and fertilizer prices throughout the world have surged.
American families are bearing the cost of a war they wanted nothing to do with and have gained nothing from.
And yet, Secretary Hedge said, you declared victory a month ago.
On April 8th, you said, in your words, Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory.
By any measure, Epic Fury decimated Iran's military and rendered its combat forces ineffective for years to come.
Let me be clear.
Tactically, the United States' military performance against Iran has been remarkable, and I salute the service members who have executed this mission with skill and bravery.
The problem with your statements, Mr. Secretary, is they are dangerously exaggerated.
Iran's hardline regime remains in place.
It still retains stockpiles of enriched uranium, and its nuclear program remains viable.
Iran's military retains enough combat effectiveness to keep the conflict at an impasse.
Its missiles and drones remain a far greater threat than you have acknowledged, and the regime has demonstrated it can effectively control the Strait of Hormuz when it chooses.
Mr. Secretary, I am concerned that you have been telling the President what he wants to hear instead of what he needs to hear.
Bold assurances of success are a disservice to both the Commander-in-Chief and the troops who risk their lives based on them.
Our military has performed heroically, but military force without a sound strategy is a path to long-term defeat.
I would like to know what options you are considering now, given the cost from this war and the stalemate President Trump has put us in.
More broadly, Mr. Secretary, too often you have made dangerous statements that are counterproductive to the mission.
You boasted about, quote, no stupid rules of engagement, just days after hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls were tragically killed in a missile strike.
You have made troubling statements about showing no mercy and no quarter to the Iranians, orders that would constitute war crimes.
As importantly, while our men and women are fighting and dying overseas, you have focused unduly on your own personal agenda.
In the past two months alone, you have taken upon yourself to overhaul the Chaplain Corps, cancel flu vaccine requirements, repeal firearm restrictions on military posts, and bar service members from attending certain universities.
Just this week, you brought performer Kid Rock to an Army base to go for a joyride in an Apache helicopter after dismissing an earlier investigation into the pilots who recklessly chose to hover above his home.
That runs directly counter to the chain of command and maintaining good order and discipline.
Most disturbingly, during your tenure, you have fired dozens of our most senior military leaders and personally intervened to block the promotions of many others.
That is a betrayal of the merit-based system that forms the foundation of our military.
You are hollowing out the military's bench of experienced and highest performing senior officers while making young officers wonder if they should continue to serve.
My colleagues and I have heard from countless service members throughout the ranks, many of whom will be watching right now, who are confused and disturbed by your actions.
Hopefully, you can explain them today.
Additionally, this committee expects a fulsome update on Operation Southern Sphere.
This ongoing campaign against suspected drug trafficking boats has resulted in nearly 200 fatalities.
The Administration has failed to explain the long-term objectives of this mission or provide any evidence of reduced drug flows into the United States.
I would ask for a credible answer to this most fundamental question, what is the operation actually meant to accomplish?
Mr. Secretary, you are here to promote the President's $1.5 trillion defense budget.
While this budget provides funding for necessary programs, including shipbuilding and drone manufacturing, many other critical programs like barracks repair and aircraft procurement would rely on the passage of a party line reconciliation bill.
Further, this budget slashes research and development, provides no funding for Ukraine, and includes no funding for losses incurred from the Iran War.
Yesterday, Mr. Hearst testified that Operation Epic Fury has cost $25 billion.
If nothing else, that help clarifies that we certainly do not need a supplemental anywhere near $100 billion, much less $200 billion.
And in this record-breaking budget, there is no pay adjustments for the civilian workforce, and with inflation, that is a pay cut.
After a year of doge layoffs and a hiring freeze across the Department, this is an insult to the 800,000 men and women who support our warfighters every day.
I cannot imagine a faster way to erode readiness and distract from our abilities to deter our adversaries.
Ultimately, Mr. Secretary, I believe you are causing lasting harm to the military.
Like many members of this committee, I had the opportunity and the privilege to serve in the military.
And every officer knows they are duty-bound to give their best professional advice, even if it is not what their superiors want to hear.
Because when leaders fear to speak honestly, people die, missions fail, wars are lost.
The Americans' people's trust in our military took 250 years to build.
You are dismantling it in a fraction of that time.
And trust, once long, can take generations to rebuild.
Mr. Secretary, today I hope you will take a step forward toward rebuilding the trust that has been lost.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, you are now recognized for your opening statement, sir.
Well, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Reid, Senators, thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of President Trump's historic, as you said, Mr. Chairman, $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 budget for the Department of War.
The President's budget request reflects the urgency of the moment, addressing both the deferment of long-standing problems as well as positioning our forces for the current and future fights.
I'm honored to appear alongside General Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Jay Hearst, our Chief Financial Officer and Comptroller.
I'd like to start by thanking this committee and Congress for your partnership in securing the investment needed for a stronger, prouder, and more secure military.
Your focus on acquisitions, your focus on efficiency are the reflection in our department as well and in this budget.
A nation's ability to build, to innovate, and to support the critical needs of its warfighters at speed and at scale is the foundation upon which its deterrence and survival rests.
However, upon taking office on January 20th, 2025, President Trump inherited a defense industrial base that had been hollowed out by years of America-last policies, resulting in a diminished capacity to project strength.
Under the previous administration, we were offshoring, outsourcing, beset by cost overruns and degraded capabilities.
But under the leadership of President Trump, our builder-in-chief, we are reversing this systemic decay and putting our defense industrial base back on a wartime footing.
Urgency informs everything we do.
We're rebuilding a military that the American people can be proud of, one that instills nothing less than unrelenting fear in our adversaries and inspires historic morale and recruiting in its ranks.
We fight to win in every scenario.
The $1.5 trillion budget put forward by the President will build upon a previous $1 trillion FY26 top line and will continue to reverse the four years of underinvestment and mismanagement of the Biden administration.
The $1.5 trillion budget will ensure that the United States continues to maintain the world's most powerful and capable military as we grapple with a complex threat environment across multiple theaters.
Not to mention, the budget also includes a historic troop pay increase, 7% for junior enlisted, and the budget eliminates all poor or failing barracks.
Quality of life for our troops is front and center in this budget.
By supercharging our defense industrial capacity and transforming how the Department does business, we are restoring American commercial dominance at a pace unseen in generations, transforming the defense industrial base from the broken, slow-moving systems of the past.
We have flipped the Pentagon acquisition process from a bureaucratic model to a business model, decisively moving from an acquisitions environment paralyzed by bureaucratic red tape into an outcomes-driven organization focused on delivering the most for taxpayer dollars.
Over the past year, through historic multi-year procurement agreements that this committee supported, we've cut smart business deals that have sent unambiguous demand signals to industry to build more and build faster.
The result has been a surge, a revitalization of our great American factories and a massive reinvestment in the skilled American workers who serve as the industrial muscle behind our warriors.
The American people do not want to vote for this war.
We don't want to fight the war for any people.
It's about the staff of the budget.
Further interruptions of our hearing will be treated in like manner.
We appreciate the First Amendment rights of Americans to express themselves, but disruption of this hearing will not be tolerated.
So, Mr. Secretary, you may continue.
I'll briefly provide some concrete, high-level metrics of what we've accomplished over just the past few months.
These are announced new facilities and investments to support American warfighters.
The department has helped stimulate more than 250 private investment deals in 39 states, 180 cities, and 150 companies worth more than $50 billion.
It's resulted in 280 new or expanded facilities, more than 18 million new square feet of American manufacturing, and more than 70,000 new jobs.
These $50 billion in investments in new plants, new assembly lines, and new factories are private investments, not taxpayer dollars.
By completely transforming our department's business model, American companies are investing in America with their own dollars, a historic demonstration of American manufacturing and defense revitalization, all with their money, not Uncle Sam's.
This has never been done before and is long overdue from a bureaucratic model to a business model.
These investments equal great things for America, for American families, and American workers to ensure that our warfighters have everything they need, all American-made.
Together with the help of the policy updates and appropriations passed by Congress, President Trump's War Department has begun to turn the lights back on in our manufacturing towns across this country, forging a lethal arsenal of freedom.
Every policy we pursue, every budgetary item we request, serves to ensure that this department remains laser-focused on increasing lethality and survivability from the front lines to the factory floor.
This is a historic budget, as you said, Mr. Chairman.
This is a fiscally responsible budget, and this is a warfighting budget.
Speaking of warfighting, the topic of Iran, I'm sure, will come up often today, which I welcome.
I look forward to sharing the incredible success of our military effort achieved in a matter of weeks.
President Trump has the courage, has had, unlike other presidents, to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and that their nuclear blackmail never succeeds.
We have the best negotiator in the world driving a great deal.
Sustaining America's Edge00:09:03
Unfortunately, as I said yesterday, and I'll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.
Defeatists from the cheap seats who two months in seek to undermine the incredible efforts that have been undertaken and the historic nature of taking on a 47-year threat with the courage no other president has had to great success and great opportunity for preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
Despite this, under President Trump, we are restoring the unbreakable might of American manufacturing.
We're providing for our warfighters and we are putting the people and interests of this country first.
May Almighty God continue to watch over our troops wherever they are, and may we honor the legacy of those brave Americans that we have lost.
This is our sacred mission, and this is what we will continue to execute on.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for that statement, Mr. Secretary.
General King, you are recognized.
Thank you, Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reid, members of the committee, and your staff, who we never get to say thanks to.
Thanks for having me today.
I'm honored to be here alongside the Honorable Pete Hegseph and the Honorable Jay Hearst to testify on the President's fiscal 2027 budget.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify today, and I'm thankful for your continued partnership and support of our warfighters defending the homeland and our interests around the world.
It's a privilege to speak with you today about the foundation of America's strength, the 2.8 million members of our joint force.
And I am continually inspired by the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Guardians, Coast Guardsmen, and civili standing the watch for the nation, supported always by their families.
They could have chosen a much easier path, any other path, but they volunteered for a life of purpose and passion and service.
And every single day they rise to meet the nation's challenges, from combat operations to critical support roles with the courage, tenacity, and grit that keeps our nation strong and secure.
I would also like to express my deep gratitude for the 39 members of the joint force who've passed in operations, combat, and training during my time as the chairman and specifically highlight the 14 who've passed in Operation Epic Fury.
The Secretary and I are deeply grateful for each of them and their families, and their names will never be forgotten.
As the chairman, my duty is to ensure our civilian leadership has a comprehensive range of military options and the associated risks required to make the nation's hardest and most complex decisions.
I owe the President, the Secretary, and the Congress the truth at every turn.
And my blueprint for this role has always been that of General George C. Marshall.
His firm commitment to civilian control and nonpartisan and a nonpartisan military remains my constant standard.
And I strive to emulate his candor, delivering the facts leaders need to hear, not always what they want to hear.
And once a decision is made, executing it with the absolute dedication while keeping the joint force precisely where it should be.
That's the demand of our profession.
As I sit before you today representing our incredible joint force, I want to emphasize my commitment to this committee and to the Congress.
I will always follow General Marshall's steadfast example by providing clear and candid nonpartisan military advice, working together to ensure the military remains squarely focused on one thing: being prepared to deter and, if called upon, fight and win our nation's war, and that is our mission.
America's joint force is operational at its core, purpose-built for the realities in a complex world.
We're organized, trained, and equipped to execute the most demanding missions across the globe with unrivaled precision.
And over the past year, our warfighters have consistently demonstrated exactly what it means to be the most capable and most professional force on earth.
Our shared goal is to ensure the joint force remains the strategic sustains the strategic initiative and advantage and ability to project power to respond to the global challenges on our nation's terms.
During Operation Rough Rider, Midnight Hammer, Southern Spear, Absolute Resolve, and Epic Fury, the Joint Force executed globally integrated missions alongside our interagency and international partners.
And once our leaders made a decision, our forces demonstrated the unmatched ability to seamlessly synchronize actions and activities from the seabed to cis lunar space.
We're able to accomplish these complex things that we are asked to do because we draw from a deep reservoir of training, professionalism, and commitment.
Our operational tempo is high, but we're designed to sustain it, rebuilding readiness every day, training professionals every day, and sharpening our edge every day.
And I am incredibly proud of this joint force team and the leaders at every echelon who command it.
As the chairman said, we are living in a complex environment.
Today, I look forward to discussing how we can sustain America's military advantage.
And I know this committee recognizes the challenges and the urgency in the environment that we face.
We're operating in delicate and dangerous times where risk is scaling, and the complexity of the modern battlefield demands America's constant adaptation, innovation, and partnership with Congress.
As a joint force, we're up to the challenge.
We're built for this environment.
However, our continued success is not guaranteed by our past achievements.
We must continue to be forward-looking and innovate together with the Congress.
To drive the pace of change and maintain our superiority requires timely, predictable, and sustained investment.
And the resources we're going to discuss today are critical to modernizing the joint force and ensuring whatever threats might emerge, we are prepared to defeat them, to protect our interests and defend the nation and win.
This President's budget for 2027 supports the Secretary and the Department's goal of reinvigorating, recharging the defense industrial base and the national industrial base, enhancing our readiness and securing our military advantage to ensure that our warfighters are properly armed, globally integrated, and ready while always taking care of our people.
And that is what truly sets America's joint force apart from each other, especially the 1.8 million members, enlisted members of our joint force.
It is them, the character, the competence of that force that transforms our capabilities into a decisive advantage.
And our enlisted force is represented today by the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman, United States Navy Fleet Master Chief Dave Isom sitting behind me, a teammate who I greatly appreciate and many of you on this committee know from his time in the Indo-Pacific.
While we face dynamic and dangerous times, I have absolute trust and confidence in the extraordinary men and women within our joint force who every day execute the missions we ask them to quietly and with precision.
And coupled with the American spirit to outthink, out-compete, and relentlessly innovate, we will maintain our decisive edge, but doing so requires your continued partnership.
We stand ready today to answer the nation's call.
I humbly ask that as we're here today in this hearing, we remember those deployed service members who are out there right now doing our nation's work.
And may we always forget our remember our fallen and never forget them or their families who continue to show us what courage looks like.
Thank you for your enduring support and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you very much, General.
We appreciate your service.
Let's jump right in.
Securing Critical Supply Chains00:03:56
Secretary Heggseth, let's talk about the money from Reconciliation 1.0 last year.
There have been some complaints about the speed, but not everything we hear is actually accurate.
How much of the $154 billion from reconciliation has the Pentagon put on contract?
My understanding, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to say what an important vehicle reconciliation was for us and how it gave us a chance coming out of FY25 to advance the President's priorities, whether it's drone dominance, Golden Dome for America, shipbuilding, the defense industrial base.
It was a critical vehicle for us.
The number you're looking for is about, what I'm looking at, about $26 billion right now.
But we've got the floodgates about to open and apply to those priorities.
Okay.
So unfortunately, you're starting a bit late through no fault of your own because the money was not sent timely by the Office of Management and budget to the Department until last month.
That's over and done with, but it should be mentioned.
Mr. Secretary, where are we on the obligation rates as far as a normal appropriation bill?
Are we a little behind, a little ahead, or what?
I would say probably a little bit behind as it pertains to reconciliation, but part of that is, as you know, this is a new funding vehicle for the Department.
And twofold.
One, you've got to make sure you do it right and do it in a fiscally responsible way in conjunction with the Congress to ensure that we meet congressional intent, but also that we've been using it to energize our ability to exercise new pathways to get at problems in different and more dynamic ways that don't get stovepiped or stuck in the bureaucracy.
So, yes, there's been some delays, but ultimately I think it's all goodness on the other side, given the new nature of this funding vehicle.
Right, yes, and things have been done differently, and we appreciate that.
But, Mr. Secretary, will you commit to us that you will keep the committee informed frequently of your efforts to get all this money out the door so our industrial base can start building as you have described in this new flexibility that we provided them?
Absolutely.
And you mentioned a few things in reconciliation that you think have been game changers.
I don't think we've talked enough about some of the game changers.
For years, we failed to take action on rebuilding America's drone industrial base and critical mineral supply chains.
After last reconciliation bill and the National Defense Authorization Act, we're in a very different position on drones and critical mineral supply chains.
Are we not?
Very much so.
Mineral supply chains, drones.
We went from Jayada 401 to an autonomous warfare group.
We're looking at the concept of a subunified command, and you're looking at $54 billion in the FY27 budget dedicated to drone dominance, UAS, counter-UAS, ensuring we can scale not just exquisite drones, but also the attributable ones that are proliferating on the battlefield today.
We need to be ahead.
Are there any other initiatives from last year's bill that you want to point out?
And I think I have.
No, the investment in Golden Dome for America, the ability to get running on that, and we are on schedule to deliver capabilities inside this administration, minerals and shoring up supply chains on minerals, the Office of Strategic Capital, which its ability to loan gives 10X to new entrants into the Department, the opportunity to fund things that wouldn't normally meet the threshold for the Department, but give them the running room to invest in those capabilities, and we've already seen fruit from that as well.
Respect for Officer Leadership00:04:19
And briefly, General Kane, there's no question that Vladimir Putin's Russia is taking serious action to undermine our efforts for success in Iran.
Is there any question about that?
Senator, I think there are actions and activities that are mindful of the hearing room we're in, but there's definitely some action there.
Thank you very much.
Senator Reed, you are recognized.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, you recently fired the Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, who is one of the most distinguished and decorated officers of his generation.
General George's nomination came before us.
We reviewed it thoroughly and we concurred.
Why did you fire General George?
Well, as I did then and I'll say now, we thank General George for his service.
And out of respect to him and other officers, we never talk about the nature of why certain officers are asked to step down.
But we all serve at the pleasure of the President.
And ultimately, my view in coming into this department, as I stated in my confirmation hearing, was to change the culture of the department.
And it's ultimately challenging to change the department, the culture of a department with the same people who are a part of or in that department.
So I have made many changes with general officers.
We will continue to make changes as necessary with general officers, and they will be in keeping with the trajectory of where we would like to take the department.
But it doesn't take away from the service of those.
And I think you will note that every officer that has been asked to leave has been treated with respect.
Interesting.
Of the two dozen officers that you have fired for reasons unrelated to performance, since you have not indicated any cause, 60 percent are black or females.
Now, did the president direct you to single out female and black officers to be dismissed?
Senator, of course not.
And as we have emphasized at this department from the beginning, the only metric is merit.
Members on this committee and the previous leadership of this department were focused on hype, you know, social engineering, race, and gender in ways that we think were unhealthy for the department, focusing on those things, making decisions based on those things.
In President Trump's War Department, we make decisions based on only one thing, merit.
And that's how we've made decisions going forward.
That's how we've made them, and that's how we'll make them going forward.
Well, let me go back to General George.
What did he fail in terms of his lack of merit to continue serving?
As I said, I don't talk about the nature of dismissal out of respect for these officers.
But ultimately, we want to take the department in a particular direction, certain services in a particular direction, and we want leadership that is running as fast in that direction as possible.
And in some cases, we make changes accordingly, but do so out of respect to those officers.
Well, I think that direction from your behavior is an intense interest in Christianity, in nationalism, and in not recognizing the talents of women and non-white gentlemen, and that's the wrong direction.
I don't know what you're insinuating, Senator, but I am not ashamed of my faith in Jesus Christ.
Well, you shouldn't be.
And if you want to shame me for it, go ahead.
I'm not shaming you, but are you critical of other faiths?
I am a believer.
I am quite open in that, and our department allows for a multitude of faiths.
So I don't know what you are suggesting.
I have heard the likes of things that people like you suggest to try to smear up my character, and I won't give in to it.
I'm sorry, Mr. Secretary, but broadcasting before the national religious broadcasters, stressing the need for more Christianity in the military forces, doesn't seem like a neutral position in which you tolerate and accept all religions.
European Capacity Building00:15:27
Let me move on.
The strategic aspects of this operation in Iran.
The President declared that we're going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground.
And after more than 13,000 strikes, unclassified assessments conclude that Iran retains more than 40 percent of its drone hospital and 60 percent of its ballistic missile launches compared with pre-war levels.
That's one of his objectives.
The second objective was regime change.
To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand, and we will finish, take over your government.
Well, when we finish, we'll take over government.
That has not succeeded.
And then one of his other things is the onset of the war, the President said, we will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
Military operations have not achieved that goal yet.
And it also seems to indicate that his pronouncements about Operation Midnight Hammer obliterating the nuclear policy and structure of the Iranians was false.
So you have not achieved any of the objectives yet that the President mentioned.
Well, in this setting, I won't talk about the nature of metrics which are classified, as you know, Senator, but I can say that looking at the objectives we set out to achieve from the beginning, some of which you laid out, our military objectives have been stunningly effective.
Look, take, for example, their defense industrial base.
They are completely incapable at scale at any level of reconstituting the capabilities you referred to, which is a devastating result for any country, especially one whose ambitions are as wide as Iran's.
So we've put the President in a very strong position to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.
That's the takeaway that's been underneath every single aspect of this.
For 47 years, Iran's trying to blackmail its way to a nuclear weapon.
They were closer than ever before because of bad deals under previous administration.
President Trump was willing to do something about it and not allow their conventional missile shield.
That's the North Korea strategy.
That's, to be clear, what Iran was pursuing.
Hiding their nuclear ambitions, revealing them over time, and then building a conventional shield of missiles so powerful that no country would challenge them for fear of what would happen if they unleashed that arsenal.
Weakened after the 12-day war in Midnight Hammer, which did obliterate their sites, President Trump saw an opportunity because their ambitions continued to ensure that umbrella of nuclear blackmail did not allow them to get to a nuclear weapon.
And the world is safer because of his bold and historic choice.
Mr. Secretary, I think that's rhetorical but not factual.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator Reid.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Hearst, General Kane, welcome.
Over the last several months, I've worked closely with some of the new direct reporting program managers, and I've been encouraged by how they're approaching the Department's most complex acquisition systems.
General Weitz pulled forward the next milestone for the Sentinel program by at least six months.
General Gootline has completed the initial blueprint for the Golden Dome architecture and is beginning to build it out.
For years, this committee has known that we must improve our ability to defend our homeland against a wider variety of threats.
And we finally have a partner with the full backing of the department to lead the charge.
Mr. Secretary, what's the advantage of this new type of program management structure?
It's consolidating decision-making in one place under a highly screened, highly capable general, General White and General Gootline, who know that terrain extremely well and understand what mistakes have been made in the past in programs of that magnitude, and then are given the authority to cut through the red tape.
That's the key.
Success or failure lands with them and they know it.
And as a result, they're incentivized to ensure that program and then given every dollar and authority needed to move it as quickly as possible.
So whether it's Sentinel, whether it's F-47, whether it's Golden Dome for America, these critical strategic assets, the direct report construct, along with Deputy Secretary Feinberg, who is a national treasure and is changing the way we do business at this department, is giving us a chance to ensure these critical systems are delivered.
Thank you.
And General Kane, can you give us your thoughts on why the Golden Dome received the why they must receive that requested $17 billion in funding for the fiscal year 27?
Well, Senator, as you know, it's an essential part of our Homeland Security layer of defense.
And as General Gootline begins to do the work that you're asking about and, frankly, helping to advance the insurance around that down payment, charging the defense industrial base with those capital allocations will allow them to get after it much, much quicker.
We appreciate the help.
And if there's a delay in that funding?
Well, hopefully there won't be, Senator, because we've got a leader on that account 24-7, 365.
But if we do, we'll always, of course, come back and talk to the Congress, but also figure out what has to be true to help that constraint get removed in that production system.
And that's really what we're asking these leaders to do: to be able to get past the theory of constraints.
Thank you.
Secretary Hagseth, I agree with your statement on nuclear deterrence when you said nothing else matters if we don't get this right, so we will.
We need a modernized nuclear triad and NC3 architecture that can credibly deter multiple adversaries instead of an insufficient nuclear force structure based on fundamentally flawed assumptions made 16 years ago.
Our presidents must also have a more diverse set of options so that they can effectively manage more complex nuclear escalation dynamics.
So, Mr. Secretary, how does this budget request achieve those objectives?
Well, thank you for your leadership on this issue for a very long time.
First and foremost, it invests in it.
$71 billion in our nuclear triad and NC3, understanding that if you get that wrong, you get everything else wrong.
Frankly, it's why the Iran effort is so important.
Imagine what the situation in the region would look like if Iran also wielded a nuclear weapon and the limits it would put on our capabilities in those situations.
Our adversaries have to deal with that dilemma because of the strength of our nuclear triad.
So that $71 billion investment, the DERPOMs that have been put over top of it to move those systems left, as you acknowledged, it's just been a priority since we came into the building, and we're funding it accordingly.
And Chairman Kane, Secretary Hagseth, whoever would like to answer this, should our nuclear command control and communications systems like the YSAOC be given the same level of priority as Congress considers the Department's budget request as our triad?
I think so, but I defer to the Chairman.
Yes, ma'am.
We have got to be able to see to anything.
So, yes, ma'am.
Thank you.
Senator Shaheen, you are recognized.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Secretary Hagseth, Congress enacted $400 million to provide security assistance to Ukraine in January.
Now, the committee received a notification just yesterday confirming only that the funding would go toward Ukraine.
It contained no details about the type of equipment, no delivery timelines, nothing that is typically included in these notifications.
And when asked about the delay in funding, the committee was told that Bridge Colby was developing a spend plan, but we have received nothing.
So when can we expect the full spend plan for this appropriation?
And, Madam Chair, if this is not already part of the record for the committee, can I enter it into the record?
Without objection.
We acknowledge and are executing on the European capacity building amount of $400 million that you referred to.
Under Secretary Colby has done a great job looking at options and worked very closely with our European commander, General Grinkowicz.
So his request of what makes the most sense will inform what ultimately is invested in.
Well, this notification says that UCOM coordinated on the spend plan in March, but General Grenkovich told this committee on April 16th that he had not yet been asked to review any spend plan for this appropriation.
So, General Kane, have you received the spend plan for funds in Ukraine, and have you asked the UCOM commander for his concurrence?
I do not believe so, but I will find out, Senator, and get back to you by the end of the day.
Thank you.
And yesterday, Mr. Hearst, you told the House that you needed to seek legal review to appropriate the funds as Congress intended.
So, can you share with us what the nature of that legal review is?
And it seems to me the law was pretty clear.
I saw it.
It was part of the Defense Appropriations Bill that we passed in January.
And as you know, violating Congressional intent on appropriating funds is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act.
So, what is the nature of the legal review that you have to get?
Thanks for the question, Senator.
What we were looking at is if we could use the funds in the same manner as USAID, and we had our council look at that.
And so they provided us a legal opinion on how the funds could be used to support European capacity building.
And can you share with this committee what that legal opinion is?
Ma'am, I don't have a copy of that, but we can ask the OGC office if they can supply it to you.
Madam Chair, can we ask that that legal opinion is shared with the committee?
Officially?
Thank you.
Also, I don't know who can answer this, but it says that consistent with the President's priority to shift the financial burden of Ukraine support to European partners, the United States will seek commensurate financial contributions via the prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PERL, from the European partners for this program.
So What's the justification for using Pearl when there's $400 million in appropriated funds?
Can somebody?
Pearl is a reflection of the President's priority and the belief that any weapons that are supplied are paid for by European partners and used as they see fit, whether it's Ukraine or somewhere else.
That's not the intent of Congress in providing that $400 million.
As I understand the Pearl program, the Europeans purchase those weapons from the United States and they pay for them.
But this appropriation was $400 million that Congress expected to be provided to Ukraine, not paid for by the Europeans, but provided from the United States to support Ukraine.
So again, I don't understand what the justification is for using Pearl when that's not the intent that Congress provided.
We're following the intent of European capacity building, but at the same time recognizing that wherever Pearl can be utilized so that the Europeans contribute to that fight per the burden-sharing approach that this President takes is important.
It's congressional intent.
And that's what I'm asking you.
Why are you using Pearl to do something that Congress intended to go directly to Ukraine?
Well, we look forward to that.
Can you answer that?
What was the legal opinion on this?
Did you ask the attorneys if the $400 million could be used for the Pearl program?
Let's get back to you.
We'll take it for the record, ma'am.
Thank you.
And what portion of the funding that is committed from the Europeans under Pearl is being used to assist Ukraine rather than restocking our own shelves?
Can you answer us that?
That's up to Europe.
Ultimately, Europe pays for any weapons that we provide, and they can utilize them as they see fit, whether it's Ukraine or otherwise.
Thank you, Senator Shaheen.
There have been a number of times when our witnesses have stated both in the closed hearing and up here that they will get back to us.
And we certainly hope that will happen very expeditiously.
So thank you very much, and thank you, Senator Shaheen.
Senator Cotton.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your appearance today.
Mr. Secretary, you provided us with a chart here entitled the Arsenal of Freedom, which includes a lot of sites that you visited.
My favorite one is down here in South Arkansas, Camden, where you and I had a chance to visit just a couple months ago, highlighting the great work that the people there are doing to help rebuild our Arsenal of Freedom.
Thank you, first off, for being there and for your kind words for the workforce of the people of South Arkansas.
Isn't it fair to say that the war in Iran, just like the Ukraine war before it and still today, hasn't caused any challenges with our munitions, the way some of our Democratic colleagues would say, but it's exposed to a decades-old problem of brittleness and fragility in our defense industrial base before you and General Kaine took over and that we are trying to address right now.
In many ways, that's precisely what we are trying to address.
We also have a situation where President Trump rebuilt our military in the first term, and a lot of those munitions and a lot of those capabilities were sent to Ukraine under the previous administration to the point where when we ask our commanders or when we look at O-Plans, the answer often is that was sent to Ukraine.
So the recognition of those two things has the President gave us a charge from day one to rebuild the Arsenal of Freedom to fast forward not to provide a little bit more of each thing, but 2x, 3X, 4X, the number of exquisite munitions that we need.
Minimizing War Casualties00:14:33
The expenditures that we've seen under this Administration, we can account for them and we ensure that other O-Plans and elsewhere are well taken care of.
So on the munitions front, we're in really good shape, but we need to accelerate, and that's exactly what we're doing.
And I think that's an important point you make, is that we're not just trying to fill a hole that was created by Epic Fury or by support for Ukraine.
We're going to fill that and then go much beyond that for our needs in the future.
So we're never caught where we were over the last several years with these worries about munitions running short.
Is that right, Mr. Secretary?
That's exactly right.
The President has charged up with not just replacing anything, but filling it up, as he might say, to the tippy top and make sure that the remainder of this term and future presidents have all the munitions they need for any level of contingencies, especially considering the dangerous world we live in.
I want to turn now to Operation Epic Fury.
It's been a smashing military success.
Unfortunately, we have suffered casualties to include soldiers killed in the line of action.
Obviously, our military takes the greatest steps possible to protect our troops, whether they are in action or whether they are on bases in the region.
No war, though, is antiseptic.
Mr. Secretary, could you explain some of the steps we've taken to try to minimize to the greatest extent we can the number of casualties we've taken in the Middle East?
First of all, every day we live to ensure that we follow through on the legacy of those who gave everything.
So that's front and center for us.
But I can also say, and the Chairman may want to weigh in, from the beginning of looking at the possibility of this contingency, setting the defense and ensuring that Admiral Cooper and everyone throughout CENTCOM had every possible measure they could to ensure that our troops are protected and force protection was maximized was the top priority.
Moving assets to the region, we integrated our air defenses with local Gulf countries to ensure our shot doctrine was maximized, whether it's ballistic missiles or on drones.
Flowing in the most recent capabilities to ensure we can intercept drones, moving troops off the X.
I think what people mostly don't know is that a massive effort was undertaken before this conflict to move as many humans off of targets to other places and maintain operational security about where they might be to minimize the space with which Iran could hit.
We always knew something getting through was a tragic possibility.
But I can assure you, from our perspective, that was priority number one, as it was Admiral Cooper's, to ensure that fortification and missile defenses were right there when we went on offense if we had to.
General Kane, do you have anything to add?
Well, in addition to just, again, mourning our fallen from the 103rd, what I'll add to the Secretary's comments is after every tragic loss, commanders at every echelon within our joint force are going to go back and look at what was our plan and what lessons we can learn from this so that we protect and defend our soldiers, sailors, and other members of the joint force the next time.
Thank you.
And I know you do, and I just wanted to give you the opportunity to speak to what you've done to try to prevent casualties and minimize them.
Obviously, again, no war is antiseptic.
One final question.
I understand you've been accused of lying to the President.
Mr. Hegseth, have you lied to the President at all about what's happening in Iran or Epic Fury?
No, only tell the truth to the President.
General Kane, have you lied to the President about what's happening in Iran or Operation Epic Fury?
Never.
I suspected that would be your answer, but since you were accused of it and deep staters are leaking to the media about it as well, I just wanted to give you a chance to answer on the record that, of course, you've always given the President a completely accurate picture of what's happening.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you very much, Senator Cotton.
Senator Gillibrand and then Senator Rounds.
Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing before this committee, and thank you for the closed session prior to this.
I don't know if you fully appreciate how much the American people do not support this war.
It is an unauthorized war.
Normally, when you come to Congress, it's a way for the American people to be part of that discussion.
The American people, particularly in my state of New York, are upset for a lot of reasons.
First of all, this war is costing so much money, over $25 billion already, estimates $1 billion a day, and they're feeling it every single day at the gas pump with higher prices for both fuel, for diesel, for gasoline for their cars.
They're also feeling it with higher grocery costs, and they're exhausted.
They are truly exhausted.
On top of that, on top of that, they have so many grave concerns about how this war is being prosecuted.
They read in the paper that 22 schools have been hit.
They read in the paper about a girls' school, hundreds getting killed.
We have a debate going on in this country about AI, a serious debate about AI.
And I haven't heard yet from you that you will not allow AI to make final targeting determinations, even when nuclear weapons are being used.
That's a huge issue that we need to discuss.
So I want to start from the top, Secretary Hegseff.
Why do you continue to prosecute a war that the American people aren't behind?
First of all, I appreciate the opportunity for that closed session where we had a unsurprisingly very different discussion than we have here with the cameras on.
We support this.
Because my job is to represent New Yorkers, and I can tell you when I talk to them all across my state, they are furious, and they expect me to explain to them why they are furious.
And Senator, when I talk to Americans, and especially when I talk to the troops, they are grateful for a president who has the courage to take on this threat after 47 years of what Iran has done targeting and killing Americans and what it would mean to the world if Iran's nuclear ambitions were actually achieved.
So the question I would ask to you and to others is, what is the cost of a nuclear-armed Iran?
What is the cost to the American people?
The world's most dangerous regime has a nuclear weapon.
But the truth is they don't want war coming to this shore.
And when you do a decapitation operation, the likelihood is going to be exchanged in the United States.
There's no evidence that we are safer because of this war.
We did not have any evidence that Iran intended to imminently attack this country in any way, shape, or form.
So I disagree with your assessment that we are under threat.
Do you not believe them when they say death to America?
Listen, our adversaries use rhetoric all the time.
What I'm concerned about is we are not safer.
And I would just like to know why you have not sought the support of the American people.
And three out of five Americans are against this war today.
I believe we do have the support of the American people.
And we have briefed regularly what this mission looks like and why it's critically important that we undertake it.
And I would remind you and this group that we're two months in to an effort.
And many congressional Democrats, as I pointed out, want to declare defeat two months in.
Iraq took how many years?
Afghanistan took how many years?
And they were nebulous missions that people went along with.
This is different.
This is a defined mission set that we have had great success in pursuing against a determined enemy who seeks nuclear weapons.
And I'm proud of the opportunity to remind the American people that the Americans are not supporting this war.
You don't care what they're doing.
And the American people are quite smart.
They understand and see through spin.
They know that a regime that says death to America, that seeks nuclear weapons and the ability to did they lie about the range of their missiles?
How much?
Because I saw 4,000 people.
How much more will you ask the American people to pay for this war?
Right now, do you want it a billion dollars a day?
Do you want it $2 billion a day?
You're asking for $200 billion more to fund this war and to make sure we have to...
You haven't asked for $200 billion.
I don't know where you got that number from, Senator.
I think you got it from the news, which you should be careful what you read in the news.
Okay, Mr. Hagseth.
Secretary Hagseth, here's a few more.
Let's talk about how you're prosecuting the war.
What is your response to targeting that has resulted in the destruction of schools, hospitals, civilian places?
Why did you cut by 90 percent the division that's supposed to help you not target civilians?
And do you know the impact of a strategic failure at a war when you have so many civilian casualties?
You may have tactically completed a mission well, but strategically is not meeting your goals because of the harms to civilians.
What is the cost of that?
No military, no country works harder at every echelon to ensure they protect civilian lives than the United States military.
And that is an ironclad commitment that we make, no matter how, no matter what systems you have.
So why did you cut the department by 90 percent?
Thank you, Senator Gillibrand.
There will be other rounds of questions.
Senator Rounds, you are now recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, thank you to all of you for your service to our country.
Let me just allow you to finish the answer a little bit with regard to the Senator from New York.
Does the United States military ever target a civilian center?
Well, thank you, Senator.
Unlike our adversaries, unlike radical Islamists, unlike those that target civilians or use civilians as shields, the United States military never targets civilians and puts constructs in place to ensure that the maximum extent possible we do not harm or hit civilians.
Do you say war?
Is war a difficult place with a lot of complexities?
Absolutely right.
But no country does more and no department does more than our department.
Do you still have all of the resources necessary to assure that every opportunity to eliminate that as a threat in terms of that happening?
Do we still have the resources available in the department to make sure that we do the best we can never to hit a civilian target?
Every resource necessary at every echelon is available, legal, intel, and otherwise, to ensure that we minimize at every extent possible civilian casualties.
And the suggestion was made that somehow AI might be used without a human in the loop, which is a classic anthropic talking point, which is half of what we talked about previously.
There is a human in the loop on decisions that are made.
And the suggestion otherwise is to suggest that somehow AI is running targeting.
Thank you.
Right now, part of what we're also talking about is not just are we engaged right now in terms of trying to eliminate the threat from Iran in terms of being a nuclear-armed country, but we've also got staring with us as well the fact that we have an ongoing principal threat with regard to a pacing threat with China.
The dual-capable B-21 raider will be a critical part of both our conventional and our nuclear deterrence against China and Russia.
As you know, the Air Force's program of record includes plans to procure 100 B-21s, but many national security experts and leaders, including Stratcom Commander Admiral Correll and Indo-Paycom Commander Admiral Poparo, are calling for a greater number of B-21s.
Admiral Poparo testified here last week that he would favor buying 200 B-21s.
Secretary Hagseth and Chairman Kane, could you speak to the progress and the importance of the B-21 program?
And if you agree with the growing sentiment that the U.S. needs to revisit the B-21 program of record and assess the requirement for at least 200 B-21s to match the global threat, would you speak just to exactly what that would mean and what the probability of that is?
Thank you for the question.
And I appreciate the fact that you are listening to and hearing from combatant commanders, because that is who we listen to as well, who are looking at the operational plans and what would be required to ensure we deter and, if necessary, defeat.
Assets like the B-21 or the F-47 are critical to that.
That is why we are funding them and increasing the funding, and where necessary, would increase the allocation.
And I think you see a budget that reflects the reality that we have to invest in more capabilities to include the B-21, which is ahead of schedule, and we will be funding to the tune of $6 billion, and we believe we will require a lot more, over $100, in the future.
But I will defer to the Chairman.
Hey, sir.
Thank you for the question.
Working through Jay Rock and the Vice Chiefs, I'll absolutely stack hands around assessing the requirement.
And we are glad to see B-21 on the flight path, no pun intended, that it is on through operational testing.
On the specific numbers, the one sort of big picture strategic thing I want to say is we want to make sure as we think through what does air power of the future look like based on the evolving threat that we are staying well in front of it.
And so that is the only thing we will look at in the assessment.
But I am on board with assessing the numbers.
I want to make sure we are buying ahead of the technology development curve so that we give all those young warfighters out there the capabilities that we need well into the future.
Is there any question at all that we are going to need more than 100 B-21s?
I want to go back.
Here's how I will look at it, Senator.
I want to go back and look at the O-plans right now that we have to make sure that we allocate those numbers.
So I don't believe so, but I do want to take the due diligence time, if you will allow me to look at that, Senator.
I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you and to clarify what that number should look like in the near future.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Senator Mann.
Senator Blumenthal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here today.
I want to talk about the costs of war.
The costs of war include caring for our veterans.
We have had an estimate from Mr. Hearst yesterday that the cost to date in dollars for this war has been $25 billion, which I believe is well below the actual cost based on everything that I have heard, everything available to us in various kinds of settings.
True Costs of Conflict00:04:52
And I am going to ask for a more accurate assessment.
But we also know that about 400 service members have been wounded as a result of this war.
When they retire, when they come home, their retirement pay will be docked dollar for dollar for every disability benefit dollar they receive.
Secretary Hegset, I would like your commitment that you will support the Major Richard Starr Act that will eliminate this wounded warrior tax.
I am sure you are familiar with it.
Tens of thousands of servicemen and women now are reduced in their retirement pay, literally, for every dollar of disability benefits they receive.
Well, I appreciate your focus on this issue, and I will tell you: of the you mentioned roughly 400 that have been injured, thankfully over 90 percent are returned to duty.
But that doesn't mean they wouldn't have a residual challenge.
And we are tracking that at point of injury to ensure that that is noted, even though they are returned to duty.
But what I would like is your commitment that you will support the Major Richard Starr.
As I have said in the past to other organizations, we support the Richard Starr Act.
Thank you.
On the issue of cost, Mr. Hearst, does that $25 billion estimate include all of the costs in terms of damage to our bases, the need to replace planes and munitions, and the costs of injuries to our servicemen and women?
Senator, so for the Milcon facilities replacement cost, that is probably the hardest thing to estimate right now because we don't know what our future posture is going to be or the future construction of those bases.
Well, you owe it to us.
You are here to ask for appropriations.
And I would like a more accurate estimate of what has been done that will require replacement and renovation as well as the other costs.
And I think $25 billion is probably less than half, maybe less than a quarter of the total cost of war, which is the reason why the supplemental request is much higher.
So I think you owe it to the American people to give us the straight talk about what the costs have been.
Mr. Secretary, I know you have characterized this war as an astonishing military success, to use your words yesterday.
But the American people aren't buying it.
And I know you feel the American people are seeing through the abstruse stuff that is thrown at them, but one point is irrefutable, which is America never succeeds in war unless the American people are behind it.
And if what you are seeing as success now is winning, I would hate to see what losing looks like, because none of the shifting and contradictory objectives of the war so far have been achieved.
Likewise, let me ask you, yesterday the President said that Ukraine has been, quote, militarily defeated.
I assume you don't agree with that assessment.
The negative nature in which you characterize the incredible and historic effort in Iran is part of the reason, Senator, why the American people view it the way they do.
It is why I looked out at our press corps at the Pentagon and called them the Pharisees in the press.
It is because they look for every problem.
I am asking you defeated.
You missed the statement.
I would submit, based on my nine trips to Ukraine, that is a false narrative that the President is.
We are two months into a historic military success in Iran, and you want to call it a defeat.
And it is defeatist Democrats like you that cloud the mind of the American people and would otherwise fully support preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.
And they are bravely fighting our fight.
And that is the reason that I am pursuing the Russian sanctions bill, which is bipartisan along with Senator Graham, and why I hope we will recognize our obligation to release that $400 million we have appropriate.
Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Ernst.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.
Iowa General Transformations00:03:24
Really do appreciate your time to be with us.
Before I begin some of my questions, I do want to start with something personal.
And both to you, Secretary Hegseth, and to the Chairman, I want to thank you both for the time that you take to recognize our fallen and those that have given, of course, during this administration, given their all.
You have traveled to Dover and have been there to greet those families and to welcome home the fallen.
I've been there with you, and Iowa has been hit in particular very hard.
We lost two of our Iowa National Guardsmen from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division.
Secretary Hegseth, you know full well the 34th, but we also lost six members from the 103rd Sustainment Command Expeditionary based out of Des Moines, Iowa during this current conflict.
And again, your presence there meant a lot to the families.
It also meant a lot to me.
So thank you very much for taking the time to do that.
Secretary Hegseth, you and I have had many discussions over the course of many months now regarding general officer positions.
And I believe that we were operating in good faith as we talked through a couple of those in particular, two Iowans, General Mingus and General Randy George.
I was disappointed to see that their retirements were hastened over what I believed had been set out by you and the administration.
So I just want to take the time to list out some of General Randy George's accomplishments as Army Chief of Staff.
He pulled the Army out of its worst recruiting crisis since the Vietnam era, exceeding fiscal year 2024 recruiting goals and welcoming more than 61,000 new soldiers.
Recruitment numbers that both you and the President talk a lot about, and rightfully so.
He cut 5% of general officer positions, 12 positions that were deemed as non-essential in the Army.
And he reduced the Army headquarters by 1,000 personnel.
He co-authored the Army Transformation Initiative, which is a comprehensive response aligned with your directives.
And he testified here in front of Congress and took a lot of heat defending that Army transformation.
He was suddenly let go at the beginning of April 2026.
General George's merits, which I firmly believe in, he enlisted at the age of 17.
He is a West Point graduate.
He had four combat deployments.
He served in Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
He had 38 years of honorable service.
He achieved the greatest Army recruitment and modernization effort in a generation.
So I want to thank him for his service.
And I would like to enter into the record, Mr. Chair, the speeches that I did honoring General Randy A. George on his retirement and General James J. Mingus on his retirement.
Without objection, they'll be admitted.
Ensuring a Clean Audit00:03:09
Thank you very much.
I'd like to talk a little bit about the audit, Mr. Secretary.
I saw the video that you posted this week calling on the Department to pass a clean audit, and thank you for doing that.
It's something that we talked about during your confirmation hearing.
Fiscal responsibility at the Department has been a priority of mine for a very long time, and I think it's time that we build on that momentum.
It's extremely important.
And that's why I'm pushing for my Receipts Act in this year's NDAA.
It's focused on improving financial traceability and accountability across the department.
And if you could talk a little bit more about the efforts in making sure that we are being much more accountable to our taxpayers, what is that effort going to entail?
When will we see a clean audit?
As I said, Senator, thank you for your work on the audit.
That has been a priority of our department from day one.
And we put in place goals and benchmarks to get to FY28, get to 28 for a clean audit.
The joint task force audit, which we announced, was a reflection of even more capabilities we want to push forward and centralize authority to make sure it happens.
Jay's been involved from the beginning.
We also have a new IG who, the new IG's focus, one of his focus points is precisely this.
And he's prepared to work with us to ensure we reach it.
So I think at every level and through this budget, it's a focus.
Okay.
Thank you.
We look forward to seeing a clean audit.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Hirono.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I begin my questions, I'd like to take a moment to highlight the true costs of this war, both for the military and everyday Americans, the true cost of the President's illegal war with Iran.
And since the start of the war, 13, 14 brave U.S. service members have been killed and more than 400 have been wounded.
We've burned through over $25 billion in taxpayer money with no end in sight.
And the fiscal year 27 budget request is a massive 42 percent increase from last year.
Hundreds of critical munitions have been expended and deployments have been extended, directly impacting service members' quality of life, military readiness, and our ability to deter our adversaries.
The relationships with our allies, some of our closest allies and partners, have been fractured.
And the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which somehow caught the President by surprise, even though he had to have been warned, is directly contributing to the affordable crisis that Americans are facing.
Energy costs are skyrocketing, with the price of gas now at its highest level in almost four years.
Instability has driven interest rates to its highest level since September of last year.
The cost of fertilizer is spiking, which will have a direct impact on the cost of food.
Women in Combat Arms00:14:28
This illegal war is driving up costs, undermining readiness, and alienating our allies with neither a clear rationale for starting this war nor an exit strategy.
And when the President was asked how long he let this war continue, he said, Do not rush me.
I have a question for General Kane relating to women serving in combat.
And I'd like to hear your best military advice.
Does the mere fact of women being in combat armed units lower standards or readiness if they meet the physical standards?
Well, ma'am, the standards are set by the civilians.
We have examples of women leading well across the joint force.
I'll highlight some of our current commanders engaged in the fight in Epic Fury, specifically one of our bomb squadrons, or led by an extraordinary female leader who's doing great work.
But those standards are set by the same.
I think your answer is that, in fact, it does not lower standards of residence readiness.
Second question: Should every service member, regardless of gender, be permitted to serve in any role, including the combat arms, if they meet the standards established?
Yes or no?
Set to me, ma'am.
Over the last decade, since combat arms have been open to women, have you personally seen any instance where the standard resulted in a degradation in combat effectiveness?
Apologies, I didn't hear your first question.
The people policies are all set by the civilian leaders in the government.
Could you repeat the question again?
I'm sorry, ma'am.
Over the last decade since combat arms have been opened to women, have you personally seen any instance where the standard resulted in a degradation and combat effectiveness?
Again, I'll highlight that the standards are set by our civilian leaders.
Women continue to perform well across a range of MOSs and jobs and AFSCs that are out there.
I do need to get to a question for Secretary Hicks.
Prior to your nomination hearing, you said women shouldn't serve in combat armed units.
At your confirmation hearing, you reversed course and you basically said as long as the women meet the standards, they should be able to serve.
But recently, you ordered a review of the effectiveness of women in combat roles.
And I am concerned you are laying the groundwork to reverse the policy allowing women to serve in these units because right now current law, if you want to change this policy, current law requires you to submit a report to Congress justifying such a change.
So did you order the review to support a potential decision to overturn the policy of having women in combat roles?
We are laser-focused on standards.
The highest male standard for every combat arms position should be the standard.
And 10 years into this, we are reviewing it, which is what the American people would expect.
Also, there's nothing illegal about a war that defends the American people and prevents Iran from having a nuclear bomb.
You didn't answer the question because the reason that you're asking for this review, I think, has to do with your earlier position that you don't think women should serve in combat roles.
So now we have the study, and I'd like to ask you, will you reveal the study to the public, to the American people?
Will you make the study public?
Will you make that study public?
Yes or no?
We're doing the study for that very reason to ensure that real science is applied to this question and not social engineering like the previous administration.
I appreciate your assurance that that will be made public.
Yeah, I think it's really important that this study be made.
Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Scott.
Thank you.
Well, first, thank each of you for being here.
Secretary Hicksmith, can you talk about, you've had the job for a little bit.
What are you most proud of and what are your biggest challenges?
Well, I appreciate the question.
And what I'm most proud of is the incredible men and women who serve in our nations in uniform and what they are capable of when they're given a clear mission and unleashed to do it.
And I think the best reflection of the success of President Trump and this War Department is the historic recruiting success and the historic morale amongst our ranks.
I would encourage every member of this committee, Democrat or Republican, go into the formations, go into the Air Force formations, the Army formations, the Marine Corps formations, and talk to corporals, talk to sergeants, talk to lieutenants, talk to captains, talk to colonels.
And what you will find are men and women more inspired to serve in the military than they have been in a generation.
And you see that in the young Americans who are rushing to recruiting stations at historic numbers, 30-year highs across the force.
We're hitting our recruiting numbers halfway through the year.
Why is that?
Because the American people look at what we're doing at the War Department by getting back to basics, and they're attracted to that.
Same with our retention rates, which are now merit-based.
Our best sergeants, our best leaders are staying.
That's exactly what we want.
So we've made changes to change the environment.
The renaming of the department to the War Department is not just a name.
In fact, it's restoring it to the original name of the department set by George Washington, but it's an ethos as well.
That warrior ethos lives inside the heart of each one of these men and women, and we're unleashing it.
I'm proud of the, I mean, you name it, the border, the missions, yes, those are all incredible demonstrations of that, but it's the people and the urgency of Americans to want to be a part of it that is the best affirmation, Senator.
Thank you.
So we've talked about the importance of not relying on Chinese drugs for our military.
Can you just talk about what you're doing to make sure that we don't continue to rely on China for anything, including our drugs?
Oh, drugs.
Absolutely.
We can't be dependent on China on anything that's critical to our supply chain, even if it's the national industrial base and not just the defense industrial base.
And you've been a leader on that.
This committee has been a leader on that.
Onshoring bringing manufacturing here, bringing critical capabilities here is central to the interagency and the NSC, but also our department.
If any critical weapon system is reliant upon something China could change at a moment's notice, then we have a true challenge to our ability to produce for the American people.
And so we're finding all of those, changing them, onshoring it.
Reviving the defense industrial base allows us to ensure we're separated from China on anything that's critical.
Thank you.
Can you talk about the importance of foreign military sales to our allies and our partners and what you're doing to make sure that whether it's what you're doing right now in Iran or any potential conflict in Asia, our partners have the best assets to be able to be a great partner?
Absolutely.
Foreign military sales has been a huge problem for a long time because the department didn't prioritize it and organized to deliver efficiently on it.
So we're working with the State Department.
We've changed the way we do business internally.
The executive order, the America First Arms Strategy, prioritizes what we sell and to whom, a catalog approach.
But it took us, this committee would be astonished to know how long it took us just to get our arms around who we are selling to what and by what processes, which means there was no strategy behind ensuring we're sending the proper demand signal to industry and delivering those systems on time and under budget to those countries, which you can imagine is frustrating to partners who are relying on those to be able to step up and burden share.
So foreign military sales is critical to our own defense industrial base.
More customers, more customers for our companies that employ more American workers to ensure our allies are properly armed for the fights and they can stand alongside us.
So FMS is a big one for us, Senator.
General Kaine, I just want to commend you and everybody in the military for what you did in Venezuela and then what you've done in Iran.
The willingness of the American military to fight and win, do you think it's changing the calculus for Beijing and Moscow?
Well, Senator, I know they're watching, and I'm incredibly proud of the joint force and their ability to integrate and synchronize a range of activities.
And I suspect that my counterpart in China is watching very closely and envious of what our joint force is capable of doing if ordered to do so.
Well, thank each of you and thank everybody that serves under you.
Thank you, Senator Scott.
Senator Kaine.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hearst, I want you to just confirm something for me about the President's submitted budget.
$1.5 trillion is about a 40-plus percent increase from FY26.
Am I right that not a penny of that is to go to a pay raise for the 800,000 civilians who work for the Department of Defense?
We have 4.2 percent of a civilian salary set aside for bonuses to make sure we can recognize high performers in the civilian war force.
But you have guaranteed pay raises for the active duty in the guard and reserve component, but no guaranteed raises for the military, but in the last year this department has given out more civilian bonuses.
Well, if we are going to increase the defense budget by that much, I would hope the committee would take a look at this.
Chairman Kaine?
Man, I like the sound of that, Chairman Kaine.
General Kane, I want to ask you a question about Southern Spear.
It's an operational question.
I know from your background that you carefully act to keep military actions within the rules of war.
What legal justification could there possibly be that would allow the U.S. military to strike boats in international waters and kill the occupants of those boats without a showing of evidence that there's narcotics on those boats?
Well, sir, as you know, our job is to show the range of options, the associated risks, and then take those execution orders, transmit them down to the COCOMs on legally appropriate and legally backstopped actions.
Could you give me a legal justification for striking boats that do not have evidence that they are carrying narcotics?
I apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
I don't have a copy of the order issued to Southcom with me today.
It's classified in its own right, which clearly articulates, based on a variety of criteria, what constitutes a valid military and legally valid target in that theater.
And I know, I just want to say I know and trust that our commanders at Echelon are rigorously following that legal opinion and those legal boundaries upon which we've been issued those orders.
And General Kane, I would encourage, again, my colleagues, I am at a disadvantage.
I've seen the legal opinion, but I can't talk about it because it's classified.
I've seen the targeting criteria, but I can't talk about them because they're classified.
I've seen the secret list of DTOs against whom we have declared war that even they haven't been informed of, but I can't talk about it because it's classified.
But I would urge all of my colleagues to go to the SCIF and read the targeting criteria and get briefed about it, and then also look at all of the files of all the strikes that have taken place.
I've done that with the first 46 strikes or so.
And I think there's a profound mismatch between what is occurring and the underlying assumptions in the legal opinion.
And I would just encourage my colleagues to dig into this.
To Secretary Hegseth and General Kaine, the War Powers Resolution specifies that a war initiated by a President without congressional approval must be concluded within 60 days.
It can be extended by an additional 30 days if, quote, the President determines and certifies to Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of the U.S. Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.
We are right at the 60-day deadline.
Is the President intending to either seek congressional authorization for the war in Iran or send us the legally required certification that he needs an additional 30 days to remove U.S. forces from the war?
Just briefly on the previous question, we do know that these are designated terrorist organizations, so we treat them like the al-Qaeda of our hemisphere, just as a note.
But that was not the question I asked.
I know there's more to that question.
I just think it's important to understand that.
There's no willy-nilly targeting of drug boats.
We know exactly who these people are affiliated with.
I was asking about what's on the boats.
On Iran, ultimately, I would defer to the White House and White House Council on that.
However, we are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire.
So you're not in.
It's our understanding, just so you know.
Okay, well, I do not believe the statute would support that.
I think the 60 days runs maybe tomorrow, and it's going to pose a really important legal question for the administration.
We have serious constitutional concerns, and we don't want to layer those with additional statutory concerns.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much.
Senator Sullivan.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony.
Mr. Secretary, I mentioned it in the classified hearing today, but I do think the $1.5 trillion top line is historic, meets the needs.
Historic Defense Budgets00:15:50
And the other thing is, I mentioned in our earlier meeting, you know, the President's done a really good job of getting other allies, NATO and Asian allies, to step up, meet a 5 percent GDP of defense spending.
And in many ways, that's what this is doing as well.
So, isn't that important as well in terms of our global leadership?
What you and the President are providing is that example as well.
I think the more we step up, the more the world should look at the American leadership and example and step up as well.
And they're going to do that.
It helps.
It remains to be seen whether some of our allies actually step up to their commitments, but that is the hope.
Let me go to an element of that budget that I mentioned in the classified hearing.
You know, I always like to put this chart up in different hearings.
We have the examples.
So, we have a lot of our adversaries, the Chinese, the Russians in my AOR in the Arctic and the North Pacific.
These are the numbers just recently: ADAS incursions, EEZ incursions by the Russians, by the Chinese.
By the way, the green ones are joint Russian-Chinese strategic bomber task forces, joint Russian-Chinese naval task forces.
This is America, right?
This is a really important part of our national defense.
So, I was pleased to see that one of the elements in the budget was what's referred to by the Air Force as the J-Bear fighter town recapitalization, given how strategically important that Air Force base is.
General, can you talk a little bit about that recapitalization?
It's for building out what is a very strategic base but old.
A lot of these facilities are from the 1950s.
The goal, in the Air Force's language, was to have a recapitalization to provide a new state-of-the-art fighter facility capable of supporting multiple platforms now and well into the future.
$6.9 billion total authorization, $2.2 billion appropriate for this year.
Can you talk about the importance?
I was glad to host you at J-Bear recently.
Can you talk about the importance of this element of the President's budget?
Yes, Senator.
Thank you for that.
You know, our investment up at JBARE is essential to modernizing the nation's ability to project power and capabilities and really bolsters our effort in not only the Indo-Pacific but also in the high north and the Arctic, which I know is something that's passionate to you.
The Arctic is certainly becoming more operationally and strategically valuable, and we need to be thinking proactively around how we're going to set the conditions for us to offer a range of options to the Secretary and the President about power projection across a range of capabilities, and fighters is certainly one of them in the recap effort that's there.
You know, It is our ability to protect that flank is a national imperative and something that we want to keep focused on.
And we appreciate the efforts across this committee and the rest of the Congress to help us with that.
Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, one of the things that I have been talking about and I think is really important now is American energy and us being energy dominant.
President put a recent executive order out highlighting the need to accelerate the ability to produce LNG in America.
We have a huge LNG project that we are getting close to getting off the ground in Alaska.
It would be huge for our military in terms of energy for our military, huge for our allies.
And can I get your commitment to work with me and this committee?
You mentioned in your testimony the Office of Strategic Capital.
This, to me, is one of these projects that I think would be absolutely critical for our national security.
We talked about this just in Admiral Poparo's testimony last week.
He was talking about the Alaska LNG project as hugely strategic, kind of a private sector American counter to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.
I think it would be a great opportunity to work with the Office of Strategic Capital.
Can I get your commitment, Mr. Secretary, to do that on this project?
Yes, very aware of that project, and I think the Office of Strategic Capital is a great place to look at partnering.
Great.
I appreciate that.
Finally, I am just going to ask 47 years of war that we have had with Iran.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they talk about the civilian casualties.
These are all horrible, horrible whenever there are any civilian casualties.
But just general, do our forces target civilians ever?
Sir, never intentionally, and I don't know in any particular case of unintentional, but we don't do that.
That is not core to our American values or how we approach things.
Do our adversaries target civilians?
Yes, sir.
Like the Koods Force?
Yes, sir.
I think it is really important as we keep bringing this topic up to remember who we are and who we are.
Senator Sullivan, do you ask unanimous consent to have the two exhibits added to the record?
Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.
Without objection, that will be done.
Senator King.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have had a lot of discussion about Iran.
I would like to talk about several other aspects of the budget.
The first is the way the budget has been constructed.
Ever since I have been here until last year, we have had bipartisan budgets and bipartisan National Defense Authorization Acts and passed by majorities.
I voted for all of them.
And all of a sudden, in this year, 25 percent of the budget is essentially out of the process and will be passed, presumably, through some kind of reconciliation, which is, by definition, a partisan exercise.
Mr. Secretary, why not all those items, housing or golden dome, whatever, why aren't they in the regular budget?
Why do we suddenly have a two-part budget where this committee and the Congress generally has oversight and input to a process where a quarter of the budget is essentially a slush fund?
Well, Senator, I appreciate the question.
I wouldn't characterize a quarter of it as a slush fund, but I recognize that we see it as a, in totality, as a $1.5 trillion budget.
But why is the inspiration?
Why the two pieces?
Multiple vehicles.
As you know, there are multiple dynamics that play into why there are multiple vehicles, but we are fully committed with working to the committee to ensure that the right vehicles are utilized to get precisely this amount, $1.5 trillion.
You didn't answer my question.
Why are there two pieces?
Why not?
For time immemorial, we have done budgets here.
To my knowledge, we have never used this reconciliation process for a defense budget before.
What is going on?
My understanding of the reason for the vehicles is to ensure we actually get to $1.5 trillion, which is the most important bottom line.
The most important bottom line is that top line of $1.5 trillion to fund what we need, and we think this process is the most effective way to get there, Senator.
What you are really saying is we don't want to deal with that pesky Congress and their appropriation process.
I think this is significant, Mr. Chairman, that we are basically abdicating a quarter of our responsibility in terms of this budget.
Let me move on.
One of the factors of this budget that hasn't gotten any publicity is that there is zero funding for Ukraine.
That is correct, isn't it, Mr. Hearst?
That is correct.
There is no USAI funding in this budget.
And there was $400 million that was appropriated last year by a bipartisan, bicameral act of Congress.
What has become of that money?
My understanding is not a dollar of it has been dispersed.
It was released very recently, and again, we got these funds, I believe, in March, and it takes time for funds to flow through the Department, but it is going to get put to work very shortly.
We are going to work with the UCOM Commander to make sure we use these funds in the most appropriate way possible.
I didn't want Senator Sullivan to be the only one with an exhibit.
This indicates what has happened to our support for Ukraine over a period of years.
The orange bars are U.S. support.
The blue bars are Europe, as you see.
Europe is 99 percent in the year 2026.
Same thing with humanitarian and other aid to Ukraine.
And yet this is, I believe, an existential struggle for the future of democracy where we had an aggressive country invade a neighboring country without any justification whatsoever.
And by the way, that invading country is the major winner so far of the war in Iran.
They have gotten, the estimates are $40 to $80 billion of additional revenues from oil and the relief of sanctions as a result of the war in Iran.
Secretary Hegseth, why are we abandoning Ukraine?
Senator, if you would hold that chart back up, I think that is a beautiful chart.
I think that is exactly what we want.
We want Europe stepping up and funding and shouldering the burden.
They are rich countries worth $20 trillion versus an economy of $2 trillion.
Europe can step up.
Europe can fund it, and they have through our Pearl initiative and through our European command.
That's exactly what the American people want to see.
Other countries stepping up and funding that.
If it is that important to Europe, which I understand why it is, and the incursion of Russia and the bravery of the Ukrainians, then European countries should pay for it.
And that is exactly what that chart says, and that is the administration policy.
So we don't have any interest in what happens in Ukraine.
Is that what you are saying?
It is only the Europeans.
I am saying the threat is far closer to rich and capable countries in Europe, and they should step up to lead the charge.
And that is why that chart is a good thing to see.
They have stepped up, but I think the American people should understand that we have stepped back, in fact, stepped back to the point of abandoning.
This is a war that never would have happened under President Trump, and he supports ending it through a deal, and he has pursued that.
So far, it hasn't happened.
I'm out of time.
I want to talk about DTOs, who designates, but we will take that up later.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Senator King.
Senator Schmidt.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And it is apropos.
I am following my friend from Maine.
Missouri and Maine came into the Union at the same time, but we couldn't disagree more on this particular point.
We may have to separate here.
I actually think it is interesting that Ukraine just came up because we have heard from my colleagues on the other side discussion about the cost of the ongoing American effort.
There was never, never a discussion about the $200 billion we were sending to a foreign country that's not even in NATO.
Never.
In fact, when amendments were offered for independent audits of how that money was spent, there was bipartisan opposition to that kind of oversight.
So I find it really rich now that there's a complaint that we're not spending money on Ukraine.
And by the way, $30 billion for salaries for bureaucrats, pensions, and social safety net programs and government operations to keep the state functioning during wartime.
That's where American tax dollars were going.
$30 billion for bureaucrats in Ukraine.
And we just heard a speech for more money for Ukraine.
Yet, the $1.5 trillion for this country is being balked at.
I mean, I've seen Ukraine flags all over this capital for three years.
At the same time, the same people call the President of the United States of this country a Nazi.
So forgive me if I feel like we've lost our bearings a little bit.
So I'm all for the America First agenda.
I'm all for us realigning our priorities.
I'm all for the national defense strategy that says our core strategic interests are the homeland, the Western Hemisphere, and the rising threat in China.
And that means our European allies should step up.
If Vladimir Putin is truly some existential threat and the next Hitler that's going to roll through Europe, you would think, by the way, he can't take Kiev, so you can't have it both ways.
He hasn't made it to Kiev, but they would step up.
And we better start demanding that, because if we want to meet the challenges of the 21st century in China, our priorities, our focus has to be somewhere else.
It doesn't mean abandonment.
It just means a true partnership with our European allies, who for a very, very long time have not stepped up.
I want to ask you, Mr. Secretary, in your first year, one of the things I think that's really gone towards this morale and recruitment boom that we've seen through your leadership and President Trump was finally taking on the sort of cultural Marxism that had taken hold from the highest levels of leadership from the President of the United States to your predecessor, this obsession with DEI.
Could you just walk through maybe the worst example that you saw and a way that you addressed that and how it was affecting morale?
Well, thank you, Senator.
First of all, I want to fully associate myself with the first two and a half minutes of your comments, and I appreciate that perspective very much so.
I would note $30 billion for bureaucrats in Ukraine is more than the bill that we've talked about today for a existential and critically important war to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon.
That's worth noting.
I haven't talked about it as much in these hearings because this is a budget hearing about $1.5 trillion that's historic and significant.
But underriding the change that we've seen at our department was a laser focus on getting back to basics.
And the key word to that is merit.
We had a department that was obsessed with gender, ideology, and race, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In fact, the mantra you would hear dripping from the lips of generals with a serious look on their face was, our diversity is our strength, which is the single dumbest phrase in military history.
Of course, our diversity is not our strength.
Our unity is our strength, our shared purpose, the flag we wear and who we and the Constitution we serve to defend.
And when you clear that debris away, whether it's Marxist ideologies or social engineering or political correctness or quotas based on gender and diversity, you get the best of the best rising up, regardless of gender, regardless of race, motivated by that environment where merit reigns.
It's accountability, standards, lethality, readiness, training, all the debris wiped away.
That is the secret sauce of the revival of the War Department and why Americans are attracted to serving in it and why those inside it, why morale is sky high.
And any insinuation that it is not are coming from folks who haven't been in our units recently.
Go visit the troops at every level, and their morale is at record level.
And I want to talk about morale with the 15 seconds that I have left.
I want to thank you for coming to St. Louis for your Arsenal of Freedom tour, where the next generation aircraft, the F-47, is being built by the hardworking men and women in Missouri who take a tremendous amount of pride for that aircraft that's going to go further, see further, go faster, have a bigger payload.
And I know there's another decision coming with the FAXX, but really appreciate your leadership and thanks for coming.
Thank you, Senator.
Thank you, Senator Schmidt.
Political Leaders and Stocks00:14:48
Senator King, do you wish to ask unanimous consent to include your exhibit in the record?
Yes, please.
Without objection, that will be done.
Senator Warren.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So Americans are paying a high price for Donald Trump's war with Iran.
We've got 14 service members who are dead, over 400 more who are wounded.
Prices are rising for nearly every American family.
But someone is profiting off Trump's war.
Insiders who know what's going on and who place bets on that inside information.
On March 23rd, just 14 minutes before Trump unexpectedly posted about very good conversations on ending the war, traders suddenly bet $500 million on the price of oil, which, once Trump made his announcement, immediately dropped.
It happened again on April 7th and then again on April 21st.
A surge in oil bets, then a Trump post, and then a huge shift in oil prices in just the space of minutes.
It looks like insiders have been making out like bandits using secret information about the war.
Now, one U.S. soldier has been charged, but that was for betting on capturing Maduro months ago.
Not a single person has been charged in the many, many, many trades over the Middle East war.
So, Secretary Hagseff, do you have any explanation for these perfectly timed spikes in trading activity other than insider trading?
Senator, all I can tell you is that everything we've done in our department, everything we've done with information in working with the White House and across the interagency has been completely above board.
Well, so what does it mean?
Do you have any other explanation other than insider trading?
Do you have a story for why, just minutes before there's an announcement, there's a surge in trading activity?
Senator, I'm more than focused on doing my job and ensuring we execute properly, which thankfully under this administration, our troops have done incredible things in all these missions.
My job in all of those moments is to make sure we're prepared, and that's part of the reason why we've been so successful in these raids, in these efforts, is that this joint force is.
You're saying you're not paying any attention to this insider trading.
Is that what you're telling me?
That you've paid no attention to this, you haven't noticed it, you haven't done anything about it?
What I'm saying is we're focused on our mission of executing for the American people, and what happens in markets is not, in betting markets, is not something we're involved in.
What happens in betting markets doesn't matter to you, even if the information may be coming from insiders in your office?
Senator, it's not something we're involved in at all.
And of course, we take operational security at every level very seriously.
In fact, no one's taken operational security more seriously than us.
If you look at what it required to keep secret Midnight Hammer and Operation Maduro, the absolute resolve with Maduro and the steps we've taken, no one's been tighter about ensuring that operational security is ensured.
With insider trading out of your office?
I mean, we would ensure at every level that inside information is properly safeguarded.
All right.
Well, obviously you're not.
I'm also concerned about recent reporting on your own financial dealings with regard to profiting from the war in Iran.
The Financial Times reported that your broker tried to buy hundreds of shares in a BlackRock fund invested in defense companies just before the war began.
The law clearly prohibits the Secretary of the United States.
That entire story is false, has been from the beginning, and was made up out of whole cloth.
And anybody that looks at it sees how it was worded from the beginning to make it look like I was involved in something I had nothing to do and never have.
So any insinuation that I've ever profited other than serving this nation, what I give, what you give, what others give, I'm not looking for money.
I don't do it for money.
I don't do it for profit.
I don't do it for stocks.
And that's part of the reason why I'm able to be effective in this job.
Because no one owns me.
No one owns this department.
No one owns this president.
And we can execute for the American people, and we do.
The law clearly prohibits the Secretary of Defense from owning stock in the 10 biggest defense contractors.
Other senators and I sent you a letter with detailed questions about this, and you have not given us a response.
So I'd like to hear you say, did you, through your broker at Morgan Stanley or otherwise, seek to invest in any defense-related funds right before Trump started the Iran war?
I'll give it to you as a big, fat negative.
Then let me ask you a second question.
Is your broker getting your personal sign-off on any investment in individual stocks?
Bigger, fatter, negative.
He's not getting your sign-off before he makes investments in defense stocks.
Can I refer you to your asking, does he know that he has to get your sign-off before he does that?
Of course.
I don't know what you're looking for, but you ain't going to find it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator.
I would like to enter into the record the ethics agreement that the Secretary of Defense has signed that he will sign off personally before his broker makes any attempt to buy defense stocks.
Is there objection?
Thank you.
Without objection, it will be admitted.
Senator Banks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Heckseth, you're doing a great job.
I've been in Washington for 10 years, several secretaries of defense, now Secretary of War.
You're the best that we've had since I've been in Washington.
What you've done to restore readiness, restore military recruitment, get the Pentagon focused on warfighting is second to none.
And I appreciate what you and President Trump and General Kaine are doing very much.
In fact, General Kane, according to the Department's 2025 China Military Power Report, quote, China believes the next revolution in military affairs will occur when militaries transition to intelligentized warfare and fully integrate artificial intelligence, big data, advanced computing, and other technologies into the joint force, end quote.
Can you describe, General, in greater detail how the PLA is using AI to enhance its military capabilities?
You bet, Senator.
You know, they are attempting to integrate AI across the range of their warfighting functions, which extends to command and control, information advantage, intelligence, certainly kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities, and to a certain extent sustainment.
I'll note that so are we, and in many cases, we are out in front of them.
I want to commend our chief digital and artificial intelligence officers inside the joint force at the COCOMS with the services, who are also leaning very far in as we march towards a digitized joint force that allows us to see and command and control a force better.
The China Military Power Report also goes on to note that the Chinese AI sector remains, quote, constrained by its limited access to high-performance AI chips.
General Kane, how big of an advantage is it for the American warfighter that America's arsenal of compute is bigger than China's?
Sir, it's critical to us.
And, you know, while I acknowledge there's all kinds of chip issues in this, it is important to us to continue to scale at that.
And I'll highlight a lot of the work going on up at Fort Meade that the committee has helped to advance in the cyber capabilities.
So we appreciate the help with that.
If that advantage were eroded and China were able to develop more advanced AI capabilities as a result, what are some of the potential consequences for American warfighters?
Well, sir, it could certainly put us at risk, and that's why we're leaning in so hard.
There's always a balance between commerce and protection.
I acknowledge those are policy matters, I think, is what you're starting to get towards.
But on a pure military-only standpoint, we would see some defense in depth eroded from that.
Secretary Hegseth, do you agree that enhanced Chinese AI capabilities could put American service members at risk?
Senator, we absolutely have to stay ahead.
The advantage that AI provides applied to any number of capabilities, whether it's domain awareness, targeting cycles, you name it, AI and leveraging it, and that's why we've made it the forefront.
I mean, it's AI first with everything that we do, integrating it at every potential echelon to ensure we can respond faster.
If we're better at that than any adversary is, it's going to give us an advantage and we have to maintain that.
I agree.
Do you agree that we should do everything in our power to ensure that American service members go into battle with an overwhelming and fear-inducing technological advantage, particularly with AI?
Always.
Overwhelming is the goal in every scenario.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon issued updated guidelines that prohibit department funds from supporting grants and contracts involving fundamental research collaboration with blacklisted Chinese entities.
How important are those restrictions to safeguarding our technological leadership?
Have to have them, especially when you look at the power of models and all those things.
You have connections to entities that could have connections to your adversary, and you can have degradation of your advantage.
Again, this is where I appreciate your leadership, Mr. Secretary, which has been second to none.
And I know that you will work with Congress to help codify those restrictions and encourage taxpayer dollars to never advance the capabilities of our enemies and our adversaries.
I appreciate both of your leadership.
We've come a long way in a couple of years from, I mean, the night and day difference between the last administration and this administration is apparent to every Hoosier that I talk to.
So I appreciate your leadership.
I yield back.
Thank you very much, Senator Banks.
Senator Peters.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member.
Gentlemen, welcome to the committee.
I appreciate this discussion.
I'll just start off.
The number one question I get when I'm back home from people is basically very simply, when will this war end?
We know the costs that the American people are paying, both at higher fuel costs, our farmers are paying because of fertilizer costs.
We know that the whole world economy is paying a great deal for this war.
And basically, as I think that through, and this is what I want to talk to you about, is that we all know that it's a whole lot easier to go to war than it is to get out of war.
That's always the tough question.
And we've got to figure that out.
And there are some folks who have written quite a bit about this.
One text on war by Carl von Kloswitz.
Mr. Secretary, I'm sure you're familiar with the book.
I know all of the men and women in uniform are.
It's the most widely read, most influential military strategy book in Western history, which is pretty broad.
And it is the core curriculum that is read in all the war colleges.
I read it when I was at the Navy War College taking courses.
It's part of what the U.S. military thinks about when to go to war and then how to get out of the war.
And one of those core principles it starts with is basically war is the continuation of politics by other means.
Everybody knows that quote who's worn the uniform and others too.
It basically means there's two things about that.
It's politics to get in the war and it's politics to get out of the war.
And in between, we rely on the men and women in the military to carry out those policies.
So I want to be clear, and I think I speak for all of my colleagues, is that we know the military plays an important part.
They need to do the job.
And nobody, nobody questions the amazing work that our men and women in the U.S. military have done and continue to do.
They've performed absolutely brilliantly, and we applaud all that they have done.
However, what we do question is the politics part.
It's a continuation of politics.
So it's our political leaders that get us into war and our political leaders who have to get us out of that war, which falls on you, Mr. Secretary Hexaf, and others in the administration, including the President as Commander-in-Chief.
So, Secretary, are you familiar with the concept in that book of center of gravity?
Sure.
So, center of gravity is basically, as you know, it's basically the hub of all the power and movement.
Everything depends on it.
Klaus Witz will say, if you don't take out the center of gravity, it's very difficult to win the war.
You can have tactical successes.
You can have military successes, but if you're not focused on that, you're not going to be able to win.
Basically, he talks about military strikes are tactical, and tactical success doesn't necessarily create the political conditions necessary to get the parties to the table to negotiate and get it done.
So, we've got to focus on that.
So, my question for you, Mr. Secretary, what is the center of gravity for Iran?
Well, the Senator of Gravity, as the President has seen it and as I see it, and he's talked about for 30 years, is their pursuit of a nuclear weapon and what they could do with that in pursuit as an extension of the radical ideology they have professed since the beginning of their revolution.
So, the prophetic ideology they profess alongside the most dangerous weapon in the world would be the center of gravity of the rationality of undertaking, which I appreciate it.
I'll actually elaborate more.
I appreciate it.
General Kane, you know more about Klosswood's and strategy than I will ever know, including all the folks behind you.
What would you consider the center of gravity as defined by Klausowitz in this type of war?
Special Operations Strategy00:16:08
Well, sir, you're not going to love this answer, but I hope you'll respect it.
War is politics by any other means.
And the political side of that necessitates that our political leaders determine what is the center of gravity associated with that.
From a military-only perspective, there's a variety of things academically that we could look at for center of gravity, from leadership to will to capabilities to intent.
But I'll defer to our political leaders for that.
That's fine.
That's fair.
I don't like it.
You're right.
I know.
I know.
And I know you know the answer to that, and you're just not telling me.
I get why you're doing that.
My inner mind.
I would say, you know, other observers say that basically it's not the leader.
Usually if you take out a leader, that doesn't necessarily make the changes.
And in Iran's case, it's probably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
That's the center of gravity.
They're the ones that control the country, and they're very diverse to do that.
The Americans' center of gravity is probably our economy and our ability to maintain public opinion support.
We already know the public isn't there.
We know the impact to our economy.
And central to that is the leverage.
I'm running out of time here, but the central of leverage is the Strait of Hormuz.
That that is bottom line.
We have to open that up.
We have to take that away from Iran.
The fact that we haven't done that yet, and we're 60 days in, we're just now bringing minesweepers from the Pacific in there.
We have some unmanned opportunities, but we've got to have the capacity to do that.
It was clear, even if there was a plan to keep the straits open, it was not going to be implemented because the assets were not positioned in a place to actually open the straits.
If they were, it would have been, we would have seen those happening right now.
We are not.
So we are missing the point here.
The center of gravity is going to be bringing down the government of Iran in a way that they will want to have a peace treaty so we can protect our country from having nuclear weapons pointed our way.
But the center of gravity is going to be, in a lot of ways, is going to be focused on what happens on the straits.
And Mr. Secretary, we've got to see action a whole lot sooner in the straits.
The world community needs it.
We're not going to bring this war to an end until we seize control of the straits in a certain way.
Which in part is why we have a blockade that has been impenetrable for the Iranians because they don't have a conventional Navy to contest it, which means we control the Straits.
The time of Senator Peters has expired.
Let me observe that I very much appreciate the Senator from Michigan suggesting ways in which our effort in Iran could be more successful.
I do appreciate that.
And let me also observe, Senator Kaine, that civilian control goes back well beyond Marshall.
It goes back to George Washington, who was wise enough to resign his commission to the elected membership of the government at that time.
Senator Sheehi, you are recognized.
I think it's important to note that the objective is not to get out of the war.
The objective is to win the war, not to get out of it.
And I think we've allowed the narrative to shift so off target here.
President Trump did not start this war.
We did not start this war.
These radical, barbarian, savage clerics who have started killing Americans 47 years ago in a unilateral campaign of terror, murder, treason, kidnapping, torture, have been murdering our countrymen all over this world almost every single year, hijacking airplanes, hijacking cruise liners, taking our embassies, blowing up our embassies, blowing up our barracks, blowing up our ships, capturing our soldiers and murdering them in brutal ways.
They started this war.
And it would be a lot easier to beat them if we didn't have administrations shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars into their pockets while they're actively fighting our own people.
While our own uniformed service members have been fighting this murderous regime, and we have presidents quite literally shipping pallets of cash to pay these terrorists off, it's been a disgrace.
It's been an embarrassment to this country for far too long.
But back to the point.
General Kane, I have a specific question for you.
I think in this day and age, we all know that basically every single operation that we partake in, whether it's stealth bombers, whether it's a blockade, our special operations forces are a fundamental shaping and priority component to all those.
Would you agree?
Yes, Senator, I would.
And I think for the last about 15 years, the Special Operations Community budget has been largely flat, even adjusted for inflation.
And yet, continuously, we call on those warriors to deliver the impossible.
And they pretty much do.
We were reminded just a few weeks ago, even after the amazing Maduro raid when we had to rescue one of our F-15 crewmen, yet again, our community came up and did something that probably most people thought wasn't possible, and they did an amazing job.
But we cannot continue to call on a tiny fraction of our military to carry such a heavy load and to have such an op-tempo without the appropriate resources.
So I'd like to hear your thoughts on how we can not just increase the budget but make sure we're shaping their budget in a way that ensures that those warriors are getting the direct support for training and sustainment, but also the platforms that they need from mini submarines to unmanned aircraft to manned aircraft and the platforms that are very unique for their mission are furnished and deployed rapidly.
So I'd like to talk about the percentage increase of SOCOM's budget, how we affect that, and how fast we can do it.
Well, sir, I'll just highlight my gratitude and appreciation for the entirety of the SOCOM joint force at Echelon and the work that they do.
You know, I'll leave the budget numbers and the increased percentages to my civilian leadership, but echo to your point the exponential return on whatever investment they give.
These are incredible entrepreneurial leaders at every echelon who do great, great things as the lights dim as I say that.
So hopefully they'll see that as a nod towards them.
But I'll defer on the budget allocation numbers to the comptroller, sir.
First of all, I want to second completely your opening remarks, and that's certainly our view as well.
On the SOCOM budget, I'm going to say I think we need to increase what's in this budget.
And I've heard from multiple people about that.
In fact, if there is a supplemental, I actually just wrote a note to Jay about it.
I think SOCOM, given the op-tempo, given their direct participation in so many of these historic aspects, SOCOM should be part of that supplemental as well.
Makes complete sense.
Who's been shouldering a huge part of the burden?
Special Operations Command.
So whether it's a supplemental or this budget, I fully agree, and I think we need to invest more.
Great.
And I'd ask that particular care be given the era of beards and guns and kicking indoors, as much fun as that was for all of us.
It's coming to a close, and we're going to be going back to our roots as specialized commandos, whether it's undersea, Arctic, airborne operations.
And as we all became kind of one joint soft force during GWAT, quite frankly, that was an easier problem to resource for, to budget for, and acquire for.
It's going to be a lot harder now when our operators go back to their service corners and need platform-specific technologies and training.
Submersibles, aircraft take years to acquire, years to specify.
It's not just buying more ARs and body armor and ammo and sending them downrange.
So I think we have to think about the SOCOM budget a little differently than we have for the last 25 years and make sure we are programming in a way that it is sustained and is protected.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator Schmidt, for that insightful exchange.
Senator Kelly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here.
Secretary Hagseth, safe to say that our weapons like SM-3s, Tomahawks, Patriot missiles have capabilities that are unmatched.
That is why they cost a lot, take a long time to produce.
Your budget requests $31.8 billion to expand production capacity for critical missile stockpiles.
Is that correct?
$31.8?
I am looking at $53 billion for munitions acceleration over 14 critical munitions, of which the ones you listed are a part.
More than that.
Yes, sir.
More than $20 billion more.
So we have been working together to grow the industrial base because we are all worried about how our stockpiles would hold up in a conflict against China.
Since the start of this war, you have made it a point to highlight the number of strikes the U.S. military is carrying out, citing that more than 13,000 targets had been struck as of April 8th.
On March 2nd, you said, and this is a quote, this was a massive, overwhelming attack across all domains of warfare, striking more than 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours.
On March 10th, you said, yet again our most intense day of strikes inside of Iran.
On April 6th, you said, and this is another quote, the largest volume of strikes since day one of this operation.
Your department has released video after video of things blowing up.
None of us doubt the strength of the U.S. military and their ability to do hard things.
I understand that better than anybody.
The questions we should be asking and answering are: what does this cost us and what does it achieve for the American people?
Many of these strikes use our best weapons, and we are using a lot of them and a lot of interceptors.
Open source reporting has estimated that the military has used an outrageous number of Patriots.
I'm not even going to say the numbers, but a lot of Patriots, a lot of Thoud rounds, JASMER, Tomahawks, very expensive, exquisite.
We can't make these munitions overnight, and it's clear from your budget request that you know that.
Can you tell us how many years specifically is it going to take to replace these systems?
Senator, thank you for the question.
I would defer to the comptroller on the amount because I think it is a lot higher than 53 if you look at long-range fires, JASM, ELRASMs, Tomahawks.
We are looking at $238 billion.
Okay.
We're looking at $40 billion for hypersonics.
So I actually think it's closer to $330 billion in munitions.
How many years to replenish?
That's the question.
I think that's exactly the right question, too, Senator, because the timeframe we were existing under was unacceptable.
Well, this budget does, I mean, months and years, fast.
I mean, we're building new plants in real time.
So just to replace what we had.
I said months.
And then you said years.
It depends on the weapon system, but 2 to 3, 4x of what we have today.
So, yes, we are dealing with the reality under the previous administration of what they sent to Ukraine and what they allocated elsewhere.
Okay, I got it.
So we fired years worth of munitions.
And it is clear that these are being expended to try to achieve some objectives.
That was the plan.
But, Mr. Secretary, this war is stuck.
The Strait of Hormuz is closed.
The Iranian regime is in place.
The nuclear material still in their hands.
Americans are being crushed by higher costs.
And it's not clear to them at all what the goal of this war is.
So I've got about a minute, and I want to go to another topic.
I saw your hearing yesterday.
And I'm going to give you one more chance to address a question here.
It's my understanding that the definition of no quarter is that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees will be executed.
Is that your understanding of the definition?
The only entity that would kill detainees or target civilians is the Iranians, and they're the ones being crushed.
So the Iranian military and their military capabilities are not.
The question is, I disagree completely with your articulation.
No, do you understand the definition that I just read you?
Because that's the definition from your department's law of war manual.
Is that your understanding?
And I'm going to just get to the point here.
We fight to win and we follow the law, Senator.
Okay, so your quote was: we will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.
And yesterday, you did not clarify whether you stand by this statement.
So I'm going to give you another opportunity to clarify if that is what you meant.
Do you stand by that statement you made on March 13th?
We have untied the hands of our warfighters.
We fight to win, and we follow the law.
Okay, so you're not clarifying.
So you stand by that statement.
So you're the Secretary of Defense.
The things you say matter.
And your response here, right now, makes it clear to the American people exactly why you are not right for this.
It makes it clear to our enemies, Senator.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Senator Sheehy has left the room, but it's been whispered to me that I just referred to him in the last exchange as Senator Schmidt.
I don't know if he considered that a compliment or an insult, but I do correct that for the record.
Senator Slotkin, I think you are next.
Thank you.
Gentlemen, you are here to ask for $1.5 trillion, 40 percent more than what we gave you last year, a trillion dollars.
And I agree with the chairman of this committee that the world has never been more dangerous and complicated.
And regardless of whether we disagree on the reasons for getting into this war, I think we can all agree that we want our military to come out of it safely and successfully and as soon as feasible.
The military has taken, you all, the administration has taken military action in 10 different places in the world in 15 months, more than any president in U.S. history.
I think President Trump has really become a foreign policy president.
And many of those operations were on the news for a couple of days, but then the American public didn't feel them.
And I think the difference with this war with Iran is that the American public is feeling it in their pocketbooks.
Gas in Michigan is $4.99 today.
The cost of fertilizer, of airline tickets, things that are real to people.
Secretary Hagseth, the President said that you were most keen on this war.
He said that you were the most gung-ho about it.
And I think despite us all wanting to come out of this successfully, it is hard to miss that we are at the stalemate, that we don't control the Strait of Hormuz because shipping is not getting through.
And we can block what they're trying to get through, but nothing is moving and it's costing the American public.
And I think that's a fundamentally different moment than the rest of the military action we've taken.
Even in like Middle East 101 class, we used to talk about and run war games on the Strait of Hormuz.
It's a strategic geography that the Iranians have.
Military Poll Insights00:15:05
And I think it's just concerning to me that we can try and tell the American people that it's going great and we're killing it, but until the Strait of Hormuz is open, I don't think we can credibly say that with any seriousness.
I think the question I have for you, though, is future looking, and it's our 2026 elections.
The President has been very clear.
He said in the State of the Union that essentially if his side doesn't win, then the election was rigged.
He said that before the 2020 election.
He's asked for voter rolls for 29 different states.
He just asked for Detroit's votes or ballots.
And we know that in 2020, he wrote an executive order that he didn't sign that said to the U.S. military, to the Secretary of Defense, you should go and seize ballots and voting machines.
A few months ago, he said that he regretted that he ever, that he didn't sign that executive order.
So the U.S. military has never been deployed.
You miscorrectly, incorrectly said yesterday that they were deployed during different elections.
Governors deployed them under their authorities, but the federal government has never put the uniformed military at our polls during World War II, right after 9-11.
We've never had to do that.
So, Secretary Hegset, if the President, who regrets not signing that executive order to the then SEC Deaf in 2020, asks you to seize ballots or voting machines in states during the 2026 election, will you stand up for the Constitution and say no, or will you salute and do his bidding?
Senator, I didn't get a chance to answer the front part of your question, which there was a lot of deferred maintenance under the Biden administration that needed to be addressed because the world was in chaos.
Just address the election issue, please.
Well, again, that's the most important thing.
It's what's happening.
It's yet another gotcha hypothetical, which is your special.
It's not that we had an executive order under the Biden administration.
That your predecessor is not a hypothetical.
I refuse to accept.
You give that answer all the time.
You and I have done this dance before.
Get over it, okay?
In 2020, the president, your boss, the guy you're performing for right now, told the journalists this year that he wished he signed that executive order to your predecessor.
And your predecessor said publicly, thank God, we didn't actually go forward with it.
What are you going to do?
You're the guy here in the seat.
It's not hypothetical.
Tell the American people, will you deploy the uniformed military to our polls to collect voter rolls or machines?
Are you accusing me of performing?
Because you're performing for cable news right now.
Dude, Mr. Speaker.
It's a hypothetical.
By the way, in 2024, under the Biden administration, 15 states did deploy.
Under their governor's authority, when their governors asked.
What did Joe Biden say that?
That's fundamentally, I don't think anything, because he needed them for cybersecurity and for COVID.
Trump did it too under Trump.
But it was not the federal decision.
It was those governors of the states under their authorities, okay?
It's never been done in our history.
Please stand up for the Constitution.
Do not send uniformed military to our polls.
Do you have a response to that portion of the question, Mr. Secretary?
I've never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won't.
That goes without saying.
Thank you for the answer.
Senator Duckworth, you are now recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Despite his campaign promise of no new wars, President Trump has been obsessed with using the military any chance he gets, from deploying troops to American cities to propping up Maduro's chosen number two in Venezuela to an endless war of boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea, and now in an illegal war with Iran, where hundreds of thousands of our troops are in harm's way every day with no exit strategy in sight.
This administration hides bad policy behind the exceptional military operations and the valor of our uniformed personnel.
I've long said Iran is a malign actor, but a responsible administration would have managed this short of conflict instead of starting a war of choice.
There was no imminent threat to the United States or our troops.
The military was not the most effective tool to get Iran to capitulate, as we're already seeing too clearly now.
And using force has made Americans in the Middle East less safe while spiking costs for Americans here at home, all to the tune of 14 service members dead, hundreds wounded, billions of taxpayer dollars, and untold costs to our military readiness.
This administration claims to be focused on the warfighter, but President Trump told us when he announced a war from his luxury resort that he expected service members to die.
Now, sadly, it's clear how unserious Trump is about his role as the commander-in-chief.
His war within Iran has already reminded us how important it is to prevent a war, how serious it is to ask the military to wage one under poor strategic direction, how destructive a wide-ranging war can be for Americans, for our service members, and how difficult it is to actually end one once you start it.
The incompetence and casual disregard for our service members' professionalism and sacrifice is, in my opinion, a scandal.
General Kane, General Kane, can you tell us the status of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Navy, the entity actively closing the Strait?
Senator, apologies, I was listening to you.
I was just trying to write it down.
They are mostly destroyed.
CENTCOM continues to watch them.
Not the Iranian Navy.
No, no, the IRCG systems.
Yes, ma'am.
The smaller, I won't get into any classified materials, but the smaller, fast and smaller boats, Boston, whaler-sized boats, there are still some out there.
Yes, ma'am.
So this administration and the Secretary of Defense has been boasting about sinking the ships of the Iranian Navy, but let's call this what it is.
It's misdirection.
They want us to focus on the impressive number of large Iranian ships underwater to distract from the fact that they had no plans for the second Navy that Iran owns that has always been a hard problem to address by military force.
The IRCG Navy, not the Iranian Navy, has been Iran's tip of the spear at the Straits of Hormuz, seizing vessels and threatening to target U.S. assets.
Iran has long invested in this second asymmetrical Navy, specifically to develop capabilities that would be difficult for conventional U.S. military forces to target.
Iran's advantage was well known to anyone paying attention.
I have no doubt that competent planners in the Pentagon raised their concerns about a quagmire in the Strait to leadership.
The question is why their leadership did not pay attention to this sound advice.
Hubris is not strategy, and in war it costs lives, even if the Strait reopens.
This administration has created a new, less safe world by initiating and then bungling this crisis and teaching Iran that it can charge a million dollars a ship to transit the strait.
It will take a long time for the global economy to bounce back to normal trade flows, and Iran has learned, again, that they can charge $1 million per ship, creating a new funding line for their malicious activity against Americans for years to come.
And in the Indo-Pacific, I don't doubt that if the worst day comes, our military will step up to challenge and defend Americans in our interests with military force.
But will they be asked to lay down their lives unnecessarily just because the White House was unready and incapable of preventing a crisis boiling over into a war in the Indo-Pacific?
General Kane, do you agree that the military would benefit from significant intra-agency planning by the Department of Defense on actions short of war that can be taken if a crisis occurs?
Ma'am, I appreciate that question, you highlighting the importance of that.
And we have really great relationships now on the joint staff with the interagency.
I think our relationship in particular, I'll just pick CIA, I think it's the best it has ever been.
We are really working hard to find the best of Title 10 capabilities plus the best of Title 50 to ensure that we deliver really entrepreneurial options for our national policymakers to do what you are talking about, Senator.
All right.
But I am concerned because during the recent NDS hearing, I laid out the very real ways that a crisis in just one of the dozens of flashpoints in the Indo-Pacific could be devastating for our service members, Americans, and our American economy.
But since then, this administration has only further diminished DOD's ability to prepare for these crises.
In fact, as many as one-third of the assets in the Middle East originally meant to be in the Indo-Pacific.
This war of choice is draining our military resources.
We need leaders who do everything they can to ensure warfighters only fight when they have to, not because of one man's whims and a lack of bravery among the yes men he surrounds himself with.
I thank you for your service, General, and I continue to look forward to working with you.
Thank you, Senator Dougworth.
Senator Rosen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Ranking Member Reid.
Thank you, General, for your service.
Before I begin my questions for Secretary Hegseth, I have one brief important question for General Kaine.
General, as you have acknowledged at your confirmation hearing, service members who served at locations which another U.S. government agency deems contaminated, like the Nevada test and training range, should have the same presumption of radiation exposure as DOE employees who served alongside them.
But we also must ensure that DOD provides the VA with the records proving that these individuals serve there.
So this is a problem that DOD has the power to solve.
I know we have discussed this.
So, General Kane, will you commit to ensuring parity for DOD personnel who served in locations that the U.S. Government has already deemed contaminated, identifying those who served in such locations, and providing documentation of that service to the VA so that they can receive the veterans' benefits that they have earned?
You bet, ma'am.
And since our last time together on this, we have continued to chip away at removing or figuring out how to get past that one particular blocking in that record so that that data flows normally.
And I am committed to trying to solve that for those leaders and teammates who are out there at that site.
Thank you.
We will look forward to continuing to work with you on that.
So, Secretary Hegseth, I want to talk a little bit about AI, because, of course, our service members deserve every advantage we can give them.
So, I just want you to help me understand this.
In February, on the eve of Operation Epic Fury, you publicly designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk.
However, this week it has been reported that the White House is now helping agencies get around this decision to access Anthropic's technology.
So, the Administration cannot credibly make both claims simultaneously.
So, before I ask you about the inconsistency, I just want you to reconfirm what it is you plan to use this technology for.
It has been publicly reported that the decision to label Anthropic a national security risk was influenced by your personal and very public contract dispute with Anthropic when the company said that its technology could not be used for fully autonomous weapons targeting or mass surveillance of Americans.
So, following up on your response to Senator Rounds earlier, can you confirm whether or not there will always be a human in the loop when AI is used for lethal targeting decisions?
Well, first of all, on Anthropic, they would not agree to our terms of service.
That would be like Boeing giving us airplanes and telling us who we can shoot at.
This is not just about Anthropic, though.
I just want to be clear.
And also, Anthropic is run by an ideological lunatic who shouldn't have to do that.
But that is not my question.
My question is: AI.
Decision-making over what we do.
Writ large.
We follow the law.
AI, will you confirm?
You said this to Senator Rounds earlier, so I'm just asking for you to confirm.
We follow the law, but we don't have to sign a different terms of agreement with this.
This is not about Anthropic.
This is just an example.
I want you to confirm that whether or not there will always be a human in the loop when AI is used in the kill chain for lethal targeting decisions, will there always be a human in a loop, or will AI make the decision?
We follow the law and humans make decisions.
So you will confirm what you said to Senator Rounds that a human will always be in the loop when AI is used.
Which is why I'm just saying that.
That's part of our terms of service anyway.
That's how we operate.
All I want to say is this: there is a DOD directive 3000.09, which mandates that autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over use of force.
That is in the DOD.
That's why we follow the law, Senator.
So the answer is yes, Mr. Secretary.
The answer is we follow the law.
Absolutely.
I think this is more important than following the law.
I think that people want to know that AI isn't going to make lethal decisions, and it is critically important.
AI is not making lethal decisions.
That's what we want to hear.
We are going to follow on that one.
I have just a few seconds left, but you keep doubling down on this phrase, Mr. Secretary.
You compare journalists, you compare us, you compare so many to Pharisees.
Pharisees.
It is a problematic and historically weaponized term that casts Jewish communities as hypocritical or morally corrupt.
You doubled down again and said it.
Words matter.
Words matter.
What you choose to say, how we choose to say it.
How do you justify using this language as Secretary of Defense?
Words matter.
It's a historically hurtful term.
Why do you continue to use it?
And what actions are you taking to prevent rhetoric like this from permeating throughout the Department that is going to target specific groups or individuals of people based on their religion?
Senator, I feel like it's a pretty accurate term for folks who don't see the plank in their own eye and always want to see what's wrong with an operation as opposed to the historic success of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
So I stand by it.
You stand by calling people Pharisees.
Sir, I cannot stand for that.
That is wrong.
It is not respectful to people.
And I expect anyone who is in leadership in our country to be respectful and use respectful terms and not be an anti-Semite.
Thank you, Senator Rosen.
The Chair and the ranking member have no second round questions.
Deeply Unpopular War00:14:54
I am told by Senator Kelly that he would like to ask a second question.
Yeah, Mr. Secretary, so $1.5 trillion, $1.5 is a very round number.
You know, if you were putting together a budget, you'd come up with: these are the problems we are trying to solve.
This is the capability we need.
These are the systems we have to buy.
And at the end of the day, it would spit out a number, and it's probably not $1.5 trillion.
So to me, it feels like that number was just kind of pulled out of thin air.
I took a look recently, and it seems that the defense budget of the rest of the world, I'm talking China, Russia, India, every Asian country, every European country, South America, everybody else is in the neighborhood.
It looked like 1.7 to 1.8.
So your request is approaching all defense spending from everybody else with the exception of us.
That is a huge amount of money.
You know, when I got here, you know, just five years ago, it was almost half of that.
Through budget reconciliation, you've received a bunch of money to buy things, some of the weapon systems, you know, to resupply what we need.
I'm just trying to understand, you know, like where is all this money going to go?
And if you figured out ahead of time, what do you want to spend this on?
And by the way, there are systems the President wants.
You know, he saw last summer how effective Iron Dome and David Sling were.
And because of that, the President decided we are going to build our own version.
We are going to call it Golden Dome because the President likes the color gold.
We have seen that.
See it in the Oval Office.
We are going to call it Golden Dome, and it might cost somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion.
I have heard those estimates.
By the way, on that problem, I know a little bit about intercepting stuff in space.
It's really hard.
And the physics on this favors the offense.
There are some things in that program that I think is really important that we do and try to figure it out.
But space-based interceptors to hit multiple targets.
And by the way, it's important how you size the system.
So I'm trying to understand, Mr. Secretary, what kind of detail did you guys did?
You work out like a detailed plan and at the end of the day it came out, oh, it just happens to come out to be $1.5 trillion.
Senator, the exact amount is actually $1.535 trillion, and it was a product of a highly rigorous process throughout our department, from COCOM commanders to the services with our comptroller, with our deputy secretary, with the chairman and myself, to ensure the budget reflects the realities of the world we live in and the capabilities we are going to need.
And that's why there's $65 billion for shipbuilding, $120 billion for the defense industrial base, $331 billion for munitions, $44 billion for quality of life, $71 billion on our nuclear dib.
You name it, we're investing in it.
And the biggest reason for it is the underinvestment of the Biden administration.
I mean, what they spent on defense, the continuing resolutions and others, undercut the buildup that President Trump had created.
So, yes, we are doing a lot of deferred maintenance here around the world and in our department.
And this budget reflects it.
And it's a commitment, a generational commitment to the security of the American people.
And if the rest of the world won't spend on their defense, that's their fault.
The American Department of War will invest properly to defend the Americans, and that's what this is.
I've always been supportive of defense spending in my entire time here.
And after 25 years in the Navy, I want to make sure our folks have what they need.
I think you should go back and take a look and see if there are places where we are making investments that we actually don't need.
There are some systems out there.
I mean, we are constantly looking and trying to balance, do we want F-47, which I have been supportive of, B-21, also supportive, and then we want to make all these other investments in really inexpensive, low-cost munitions.
because we suddenly realize that the expensive stuff, even through B-21, we can't really maybe not get close enough.
But the whole idea behind B-21 and F-47 is we can penetrate further into the A-2AD bubble.
So there is some conflict there.
So I am just encouraging you to go back and see if there are some systems where we can bring that number, the overall number, down, because as I look at what the Department is trying to field, some of this stuff, in my judgment, and I know others might have another opinion, some of this stuff we either don't need or it is not going to work.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Kelly, your time has expired.
Let me just say you have a great deal of expertise in the area of space, and we do look forward to your contribution as we mark up further legislation.
Senator Blumenthal, I understand you have a follow-up question.
Yes.
First of all, I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your support for the Major Richard Starr Act, which I think is tremendously significant.
I am committed to getting it done as soon as possible, at least before Veterans Day, and I look forward to your help in accomplishing that goal.
But I want to thank you for your support.
I am sure the Veterans of America are grateful for the prospective victory there.
I have talked to many of the combatant commanders about lessons learned from Ukraine.
And I think that there is unanimity on the point that there is a lot to be learned, not only about what the Russians are doing, but what other adversaries could do as well.
General Kane, Chairman Kane, would you agree that there are lessons to be learned from Ukraine?
You bet, you bet, Senator, and there are lessons learned from everywhere, and that is really the culture of our joint force right now, is to make sure that across the globe, anytime we are in contact with the enemy, we are going back and determining what we can learn from there.
But a big one, if you will allow me, a big one is mass and simultaneity, which is something the Secretary has taken a strong role in making sure that we are doing that through drone evaluations and things like that moving forward.
Following up on a question that I asked earlier, my last question, the President said yesterday that his view is, after his conversation with Vladimir Putin, that Ukraine has been, quote, militarily defeated.
In your professional judgment, has Ukraine been militarily defeated?
Sir, I haven't seen the President's quote, but I will go back to something I started with, and that is the importance of me maintaining trust with a variety of people.
And a President will make a wide range of comments and considerations.
You don't have to go too much farther.
I understand the point that you're approaching.
Thank you, Mr. Senator.
In my view, Ukraine has not only not been militarily defeated, but the point that I was trying to make in the last exchange with the Secretary, there is a false narrative based on my last visit to Ukraine, which was my ninth, my conversation not only with President Zelensky, but with our own military on the ground, as well as our intelligence community.
In fact, Ukraine arguably is winning.
There is this false narrative, Russia is winning.
Putin wants that false narrative to be our official narrative.
I am not putting words in your mouth, and you don't have to respond.
I understand your reasons for not responding.
But the American people should know that the President of the United States is undermining our security because Ukraine is holding the line against Vladimir Putin, who will keep going against Moldova, which I also visited on my last trip, against our NATO allies.
And we still have an obligation under Article 5 to come to their defense, just as they did after 9-11, as King Charles so eloquently reminded us.
And my view is, and this observation is hardly novel, that China is watching what we are doing in Ukraine.
Would you agree?
Sir, I'd agree that China is watching everywhere and carefully thinking about what their force posture and approach will be.
And I think they are learning a variety of things to include the tenacity and grit of the joint force around the things that we have been ordered to do over the last year.
But if they see weakness in our response to Russia in Ukraine, that will affect the deterrence of their possibly moving against one of our allies or partners in the Far East.
Let me finally ask Mr. Hearst your estimate of $25 billion, would you share with us what that estimate is based on?
Yeah, we can work to get you a product of the details if you would like.
And finally, Mr. Secretary, is there going to be a report on the bombing of the school in the first day or so of the war?
I know you were asked about it yesterday.
I am wondering whether you have a more detailed response that you can share with us.
As I have said, that is under investigation of 15.6.
A general officer from outside the chain of command has been reviewing it, and it is still within the parameters of the investigation.
Will there be a preliminary report in the next few weeks, or do you have a time estimate?
I don't have a time estimate for you, but it will be, it is right now within the parameters of the length of time that normally these investigations take.
I am asking because in your final response to Senator Gillibrand, you said that great care is taken to avoid civilian casualties, and it would be profoundly significant if that report were made available in a timely way to show, in fact, the commitment to avoiding civilian casualties and learning lessons from the mistake made there.
Thank you, Senator Blimenthal.
This concludes today's hearing.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for their testimony.
For the information of members, questions for the record would be due to the committee within two business days of the conclusion of the hearing.
We are adjourned.
Members, the American people don't want this war in Iran.
Mr. Secretary.
Several senators on the Armed Services Committee spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill about the hearing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Cain.
Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal began by criticizing the Trump administration's handling of the Iran war.
What do you make of the cost question so far of the war?
The administrations have failed to come clean with the American people.
This administration is hiding the cost of this war, literally deceiving and confusing the American people about what the real cost is, not just in the immediate expense, but the long-range impact strategically and also on our economy.
Senator, what has stuck out to you the most about the hearing so far?
What has struck me the most so far is the willful blindness and apparently self-delusion of this administration about how the American people feel about this war.
The refusal to acknowledge how deeply unpopular this war is has extraordinary impact because no war can be waged in a democracy like America without the support of the American people.
This war is so deeply unpopular and growing more unpopular by the day.
What most impresses me in this testimony is the self-delusion about the unpopularity of this war and the refusal to acknowledge the cost of this war, both immediately and in the longer term.
We are just talking against a 60-dead-day deadline for the War Powers Act.
Has the administration started making any entreaties to you all about extending for 30 days?
Political Prisoners Concerns00:15:32
Do you have any sense of how that would look like or what that looks like?
The administration's present intention seems to be to blow through the 60-day deadline illegally and unwisely.
I think the American people already sense that this war is very much against American interests, and that's why it is so deeply unpopular.
But if this administration were a little bit smarter, it would do more to explain to the American people what the objectives are.
Because right now, what we see is shifting and contradictory goals, none of which have been achieved so far.
But have they reached out to you at all about that?
No.
Senator, what do you think the Democrats should do to change all this course looking at the midterm and get, you know, overcome the Republicans?
We just have to continue telling the truth for the American people.
Senator, are you worried that the administration is taking us a good example the case in Venezuela when there are still 400 political prisoners held by Delta Rodriguez?
I haven't heard about the political prisoners, but we're in favor of releasing political prisoners, or at least I am.
Is it defeatist for Democrats to criticize the war?
I'm sorry?
Secretary Heckseth yesterday criticized critics of the war as defeatist.
You know, Secretary Hegset seems to feel that by attacking the committee, he somehow is persuading the American people it's exactly the opposite.
His antagonism and seeming reluctance to tell the truth, I think, is doing this administration and the country a tremendous disfavor.
And by refusing to come clean, give us precise numbers on cost, when we know that the true figures are higher than what has been told us, I think just undermines his credibility.
Clearly, Secretary Hitchhup and Derrick Kane and the entire military, we should thank them for their willingness to defend the freedom of this country.
I mean, I'm personally proud of what they've been willing to do and put their lives on the line for our freedom.
I want to thank the President for being willing to do something that's tough, you know, to try to prevent Iran from a nuclear weapon.
Not easy, but I know this department has been really built in issue.
The White House suggested today that they're reaching out to lawmakers about this, the 60-day deadline, I believe it's tomorrow for the War Powers Act.
Have they done any outreach to you all, and what does the process look like for giving them an extra 30 days?
So they've not reached out to me.
No one suggested, first off, president's got the right to use the military to defend freedom of discussion.
Senator, what has shocked you the most so far about the government?
Senator, can you start a little bit, please?
What has stuck out to you the most about the hearing so far?
I mean, the professionalism of Secretary Hitchhup and General Kane and their absolute commitment to having the most lethal military in the world and make sure that we have, you know, everybody that serves, I have the opportunity to serve, and you want to serve with the best people, and they're committed to doing that.
And so you see that in what they're talking about.
Senator, proxies are one of the biggest problems in the region.
Do you think it's important to be a part of the negotiation and Iran will not be able to support proxies to destabilize Middle East?
The big thing is that we've got to make sure they don't have nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles to harm Americans.
Now, would there be a nice side benefit that they don't have the resources to help Hezbollah and the goodies in Hamas?
That would be a real benefit.
But, you know, in this role, what we're trying to do is make sure they can't continue to kill Americans.
Senator, is there a time duration after which you would like the administration to come to Congress for authorization for this war?
Well, I mean, you'd like to, you know, you always want everything to sort of be a partnership and have all the information.
I can just tell you in my case, they've been very transparent with everything I've asked.
So, and, you know, part of, you know, part of it, it's hard.
You're in the middle of a conflict.
But they've been very transparent with me.
Anything I've asked for, I've gotten it.
What was the...
I know you can't tell us what was discussed explicitly, but what was the closed-door classified briefing this morning, specifically about Iran or other topics?
Oh, there are a lot.
I mean, there are a lot.
I mean, there are a lot of different issues.
The biggest issue as we all know is what's going on in Iran right now.
But there are a lot of different issues.
And I can just tell you that my experience with Pete Hetzf and General Kaine in that today, in the class fight and in private, they're very forthcoming.
Were there discussions about Venezuela and there's some concerns among the political opposition in Venezuela because Del Codriguez said that I'm still outsolver but there are still 400 political prisoners well first off I think Delsi Rodriguez is a terrible person.
She was part of the Maduro regime.
She's part of the torture chambers.
She's part of what they did to political prisoners.
I mean there's story after story about what she's doing.
She's not the president.
She's the head of a cartel is what she is.
She's despicable.
All the political prisoners have to be released.
There has to stop the oppression and we've got to have an election soon.
If we don't, we're not going to have a country that is a great ally to the United States.
We're not going to have a country that people can invest in.
So the earlier we can have an election, we get a real leader that cares about their people because she doesn't, the better off we are.
Should she get also out of the power in Venezuela?
Well, it should be a choice of the people of Venezuela.
We need to have free and fair elections and they choose.
And so I think they'll choose somebody that actually cares about them, not somebody that put them in prison because of their political views.
So did the president make a mistake about trusting her because she's still holding these political prisoners and there's not a clear calendar for the election.
I know the president and Marco Rubio are focused on the transition to democracy.
I'm glad that they arrested Maduro.
I wish we'd already had free and fair elections, but I know I've talked to the president, I've talked to the secretary, they're absolutely committed and we will get them.
Unfortunately, it's taken longer than I would hope, but we're going to get them hopefully this year.
Thanks, everybody.
Because of the ceasefire, the clock stops.
But the military operations haven't stopped.
We're still using the U.S. military to blockade all Iranian forests, which is an act of war.
Our troops are on borders to be in combat.
That's what their orders are.
And so they're aware of the 60-day limit.
He said he's not sure what the president's going to do, but the floating of an idea that is not supported by the statute that a ceasefire stops the clock is just frankly wrong.
And I pointed out, we already think you're violating the Constitution.
We shouldn't also violate the statute.
What is the if they blow through this?
If they and I mean, have they done any outreach to you all about this 60 days?
No, no.
No, and so my question is, are you going to send over the required notice that you're winding down in 30 days, or are you going to seek a congressional authorization?
Now, in a way, that question was really more for my Republican colleagues than it was, because the White House is going to do what it's going to do.
But a lot of my Republican colleagues have been saying, well, we think the president has 60 days to kind of be free range, but then after that, the president needs Congress.
And, you know, I have grave concern based on that answer that the White House does not intend to honor the 60 days.
And then the question will be on my Republican colleagues who have been saying that's an important milestone for them, whether they stick to their guns and stick to their words and stick to the law, or whether they come up with yet another excuse to allow the president and just wage war illegally.
Does the backstop then become just simply a supplemental and whether or not there's funding?
You know, the multiple options are war powers, resolutions, which are we're going to bring up every week during this war because members are hearing from their constituents and they're hearing overwhelmingly that this war is deeply impacted.
And at some point, I think some of the members who have been voting with the president will give them a latitude, we'll give them a latitude for 60 days.
They'll hear enough from their constituents about the unpopularity of this war and the fact that it doesn't justify sending our sons and daughters to risk their lives, that they'll start voting in accord with the constitutional oath that they've taken.
But you're right, then you also have both the NDA process, the appropriations process, and possibly the supplemental process.
There are three other, one, an authorizing and two, an appropriating process where we have some tools.
FF ceasefired at least Iranian and Kurds from Iran attacking Kurdistan 27 times.
Kurdistan has been a loyal ally, a very loyal ally.
What I don't know is what the administration is doing to provide support or act in accordance with the alliance that we've had with the Kurds for a very long time.
And I just don't know what they are doing to support the Kurds at this moment.
Senator, on a more domestic topic, looking at the midterms and the next election, what is the common ground for the Democrats to overcome the pundit?
You know, pundits do punditry.
I do public policy.
And so, you know, and I'm not on the ballot in November.
I'm trying to stop an illegal war.
That's what my constituents want me to do.
I represent the most pro-military state in the United States.
Our population of active guard, reserve, DOD civilian, DOD contractor, military family.
Everyone in Virginia has a direct family member or close friend who's in the military, a child in the military, a spouse in the military.
And if in this pro-military state my constituents are telling me we should not be in another war in the Middle East, then that is my focus right now.
I'm not really thinking about the message of them who are running when I'm not for the midterms.
I'm trying to stop a war.
That's what I'm just laser focused.
Yes, a couple of things.
On Iran or beyond?
On Iran.
And we also had some classified news with Brad Cooper last couple of days.
So we've learned about the Senate.
We've learned some things about what may come next or what are challenges and obstacles right now.
But these were all within classified.
What do we want?
No, I would say it's a little more on the current challenges and opportunities.
I mean, we definitely, these were helpful briefings in the classified.
We did learn a little bit more, but I just can't talk about it.
Okay?
Thank you.
What do you think about the arguments of the report of Latin Pari and the Secretary of Defense of the War of the UN?
So the Secretary of Defense does not want to be held accountable for leaks and possible insider trading coming out of his office and has said he has no time to think about that.
This is serious.
American service members have died.
Hundreds have been injured.
American families are paying more for the price of gasoline and groceries, all because of this war.
But a handful of insiders are making out like bandits and they're doing it based on insider information.
And Secretary Hegseth, who has that information, says he doesn't have time to worry about that.
What do you make of his criticism yesterday that critics of the war are defeatist?
In a democracy, we ask the hard questions on behalf of the American people.
This is an unpopular war, and it's unpopular because Donald Trump cannot explain why he started it.
He cannot explain what his strategy is.
He cannot explain what his goals are.
He cannot explain how it will end, and he sure as hell cannot explain how it helps one single family here in the United States of America.
It is our job in Congress to put those questions to the administration, and that means to the Secretary of Defense.
And if it makes him uncomfortable, maybe the right answer is he should put a stop to this war.
Senator, he suggested that the 60-day timeline in the War Powers Act gets stretched because we're in a ceasefire.
I think that was right before your line of questioning.
What do you make of that?
And what exactly?
I mean, have you received any outreach from the White House about the 60-day deadline?
No, the White House has not reached out about the 60-day deadline.
And let us remember, included in acts of war is a blockade.
The United States Navy is blockading the Strait of Hormuz.
Donald Trump points this out to us every single day.
That means that right now the United States is at war with Iran.
Only it is a war that the President of the United States doesn't think he has to come back to the representatives of the American people and explain to them why we are in this war and what his plans are for ending it.
Senator DePi?
What is your wish for the Iranian people at these time?
I know this is a hard time.
We are trying to talk to our leaders here because what we want to see is a system that works and works for the American people.
That is our job.
And what Donald Trump and Pete Hegson cannot do for all of their chest beating is explain how what they're doing in Iran is somehow helping the people of the United States of America.
Thank you.
Do you think that there's going to have to be U.S. ground troops there in Iran in order to resolve this situation?
Well, if you mean the situation being opening the Strait of Hormuz, I had a long conversation with Admiral Cooper about this yesterday.
I'm not going to get into the details about what he said he would need to do to affect that change in this conflict, but it is something that he is thinking about.
Did it include more aggressive military action?
Well, I mean, you can't just say to the Iranians with the status quo at where it's at today with the ceasefire, hey, open the strait, and they're going to do that.
Government Funding Shutdown00:03:12
It would be good if we had more leverage.
So it's going to take, you know, something, right?
But I don't want to get into operational details.
During an earlier line of questioning, I think suggested the 60-day clock on the war powers takes a pause during a ceasefire.
Yeah, I don't know that to be the case.
I don't think that's the case.
We'll go take a look at the law.
It doesn't seem to be that to me, and I think Senator Kane had taken a look at it already.
Do you have any sense of any movements within the next couple months to try to rein this in from a commercial standpoint?
Well, I mean, I know you're all already trying war powers resolutions.
We're going to try.
We're going to do that again.
We might even have a vote on that today.
Another vote.
And then there's the additional 30 days, but the president should actually ask.
He should send a request to us.
I doubt he's going to do this.
He routinely operates outside the bounds of the law.
And he doesn't seem to understand what our constitutional responsibilities are.
Or he doesn't care.
So are you confident that with the way forward in Iran right now after we have the...
Of course not.
What did we hear?
They need $1.5 trillion.
I haven't checked lately, but I think the rest of the world's defense budget, every other country, China, Russia, India, Brazil, every European nation, every Asian nation, Africa, all adds up to around $1.7 trillion.
I mean, think about that for a second.
And they're asking money for systems that, from what I know about intercepting things in space and physics, just ain't going to work.
Golden Dome, as an example, they want somewhere between who knows what the price tag could ultimately be.
It could be $500 billion or a trillion dollars.
On that problem, the physics favors the offense.
So I want to go back in there and ask them additional questions about this budget, because it seems to me they just, I mean, $1.5 trillion is a very round number.
It seems like they just pulled that number out of thin air and say, well, you know, previous years it was this.
Let's just ask for $1.5 trillion.
We'll spend it on something.
Thank you.
And some news out of Washington, D.C. with President Trump signing a bill into law that would end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
The shutdown, which stretched 76 days, was centered on Democrats' concerns about the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics.
Notice reports that the bill, which funds DHS agencies besides ICE and parts of Customs and Border Patrol, was approved by voice vote in the House following passage in the Senate earlier in April.
House and Senate Republicans successfully funded ICE and CBP through a separate budget resolution, which provides for those agencies through the remainder of President Trump's term, the next three and a half years.
And that's the latest on government funding.
Live Network Coverage00:01:48
Be sure to continue following the story here on the C-SPAN networks.
I'll look now at some of our live coverage Friday on the C-SPAN networks.
At 12.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, watch live coverage of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's commencement address at her alma mater, Michigan State University.
Then at 2.30 p.m., the Center for Strategic and International Studies hosts military officials to discuss land power issues such as modernization efforts, interoperability with the U.S. Army and joint forces, and lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.
On C-SPAN 2 at 11.30 a.m., author Timothy Sandifer discusses his book, Proclaiming Liberty, about how the founding fathers transformed centuries of political thought into the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
At 1.30 p.m., Congressman Rogue Khanna joins a discussion on whether the U.S. has lived up to the ideals of the American Revolution and its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And at 5 p.m., Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Congressman Craig Goldman discuss global issues facing the United States at a forum hosted by the McCain Institute.
Watch live coverage of all these events, also on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org.
And now United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterre speaks amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran.
He warns of a potential global recession should the conflict continue impacting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Good morning.
The Secretary of General will make some opening remarks and then we'll take a few questions.