Republican lawmakers will get their chance to air out frustrations with the Trump administration’s handling of the Iran war and a string of high-profile Pentagon firings when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth makes back-to-back public appearances on Capitol Hill this week.
Hegseth will go before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday — his first testimony under oath since the conflict with Tehran began — then in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. He is set to appear along with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine, with the two expected to tout a $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 budget request for the Defense Department.
Lawmakers in both chambers have sounded alarms over Hegseth’s recent ouster of popular Army chief of staff Randy George and Navy Secretary John Phelan, with concerns of a hollowing out of leadership at the Pentagon.
The White House also is facing growing frustrations over its struggles to end the war in Iran and the lack of information about its strategy and costs, with a 60-day deadline to wrap up fighting without congressional approval arriving this week.
“We’re in the middle of a war. We got to know that things are being managed [well],” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said when asked how she felt about George’s firing.
“So, not good,” she added.
“He has separated some of the most extraordinary generals that we’ve had in play. I don’t quite know what’s going on there,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told The Hill of Hegseth’s leadership earlier this week.
Hegseth’s growing tensions with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — a longtime friend and aide to Vice President Vance — have also spurred mounting concern on Capitol Hill. George’s firing was a central theme of Driscoll’s turn in Congress last week.
“There is no person that has more respect for Gen. George … he was an amazing, transformational leader,” Driscoll told House lawmakers. “That being said, the civilian leadership, the design of our system, is that they get to pick the leaders that they want, and we execute on those orders.”
The firings and tussles that have spilled into the public eye have alarmed defense hawks given the ongoing wars in Iran and Ukraine, with some GOP lawmakers eager to see Hegseth “move on,” though they emphasize that is Trump’s decision to make, The Hill reported on Monday.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) published a scathing op-ed in The Washington Post on Tuesday asking why the Defense Department is sitting on some $400 million for Kyiv that has been authorized by Congress, though his ire was focused on Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby.
The war in Iran has also been a sore point within the House and Senate. Though Republicans have largely supported the aims of the war, there are growing questions about where it’s heading — and how honest the Trump administration has been about the cost so far.
Case in point, NBC News reported earlier this week that American military bases and other equipment in the Middle East have suffered far worse damage from Iranian strikes than publicly acknowledged. Repair of the extensive destruction is expected to cost billions of dollars, U.S. officials and congressional aides told the outlet.
And following a classified House Armed Services Committee briefing last month, members from both parties said they were left without a clear understanding of the administration’s strategy in the country.
House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told reporters after the closed- door gathering that officials were being “tight-lipped” on such information as planning and potential troop movement, asserting that lawmakers “deserve more answers than we’re given.”
President Trump is expected to request from Congress between $80 billion and $100 billion in supplemental funding for Iran operations. The conflict, which began on Feb. 28, is in the midst of a ceasefire that Trump extended last week for Tehran to come to the negotiating table with a proposal.
Another issue that has irked some in the GOP is Hegseth’s announcement last week that service members no longer will be required to get flu vaccine shots, a decades-long standard.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) called the decision “a mistake” because they have a much longer track record of safety and effectiveness than the more controversial COVID-19 vaccine.
Amidst these concerns, the Pentagon wants a record-breaking defense budget for next fiscal year, to the tune of $1.5 trillion — the most money requested, adjusted for inflation, since the days of World War II.
The request, a roughly 40 percent increase from 2026 funding levels, is all but a nonstarter for Democrats, with House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) calling it “way too bloated,” and “a fiscal catastrophe.”
However, it’s one area where Hegseth may find broad GOP support.
The Senate Armed Services Committee rolled out its messaging playbook on Tuesday, touting that increased defense spending will create more jobs and boost local economies.
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