Hegseth seeks to justify $1.5T budget while defending $23B war in Iran | The Excerpt

On the Friday, May 1, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Today marks the 60th day since the start of the U.S. war in Iran. According to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the president must now seek congressional approval to continue military operations. USA TODAY Congressional Reporter Zach Schermele joins The Excerpt to break down this historic inflection point.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Pete Hegseth:

You have to stare down this kind of enemy who's hell-bent on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to a point where they're at the table giving it up in a way that they never have it.

Adam Smith:

So they haven't broken yet.

Pete Hegseth:

Well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated. Underground, they're buried and watching them 24/7.

Adam Smith:

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Pete Hegseth:

So we know where any nuclear material might be and we're watching that.

Adam Smith:

[inaudible 00:00:22] claiming my time for a quick second here.

Dana Taylor:

That was Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, in a tense exchange with Senator Adam Smith, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a hearing on Thursday where Hegseth sought to justify a 40% increase for the new fiscal year defense budget, bringing the total to $1.5 trillion.

Meanwhile, today marks the 60th day since the start of the US war in Iran. According to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the president must now seek congressional approval to continue military operations in the war on Iran, a war whose price tag stands at $25 billion with no clear objective or end in sight.

Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Friday, May 1st, 2026. Joining me now to discuss the ongoing war and the Pentagon's new budget request is USA TODAY Congressional Reporter Zach Schermele. It's good to speak with you, Zach. Thank you so much for coming on from the Hill.

Zach Schermele:

Thanks for having me.

Dana Taylor:

During testimony this week by Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the House Armed Services Committee, we learned the cost of the war to date; $25 billion. Did Hegseth say how much more the Pentagon needed to finish the war in Iran?

Zach Schermele:

The secretary was very clear that the Pentagon is going to need Congress's help in order to fulfill the administration's priorities in the region.

And this has been a big question over the course of the time since the president authorized this joint military action with Israel and Iran taking out many of the leaders and continuing the conflict there that some Republican leaders in Congress have insisted, people like House Speaker Mike Johnson have insisted are not an all out war. But it's pretty clear that that is the level of what it is that we're dealing with here. And the question that has been clagging lawmakers, particularly Democrats, for quite a while now is just exactly what the price tag of America's involvement in this war is. And it was pretty interesting to see the controller for the Pentagon saying that 25 billion is the price tag right now.

Now we've seen some estimates from nonpartisan think tanks putting the war's costs at around a billion dollars a day. That is something that lawmakers, especially Democrats, on Capitol Hill have continued to point to. And there are going to be additional budget requests, or funding requests rather, from the Pentagon to Congress likely in the coming weeks here.

Dana Taylor:

The House and Senate hearings before the Armed Services Committee this week were both about the Pentagon's $1.45 trillion budget request. As I mentioned, that's about a 40% increase over last year's budget. What were the reasons given by Hegseth and Kane to support such a steep increase here?

Zach Schermele:

Right. Well, you know, these hearings, which is part of what happens in Congress every year during budget season, every agency comes up to the Hill and they talk to lawmakers and they try to advocate for more funding; of course, we spend a lot of money, trillions of dollars, on defense spending. And so the Pentagon was making the argument to members of Congress that they need these funds in order to both modernize and continue their operations in regions across the world.

Of course, the looming question over their testimony in front of House and then Senate lawmakers this week was the big question mark that the war in Iran creates in terms of how many resources are being depleted as a result of our involvement there, and how continuing on in that conflict could potentially ratchet up the price tag of the conflict going forward.

Dana Taylor:

Zach, during the Senate hearing, Hegseth made the argument that because we're technically in a ceasefire, the 60-day deadline created by the War Powers Resolution is on pause. Is that true?

Zach Schermele:

This is something that we've heard from a number of other Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. There's sort of a split right now between folks who are less critical of the administration's involvement in the war in Iran and folks who really do want to see a plan for scaling down hostilities in the region.

But Tim Kane, the Senator from Virginia, who has really been the architect of these war powers resolutions that have failed insofar in the Senate, immediately when he was discussing this question with Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth said that that was not his understanding of what the statute says in the War Powers Act. And so he said that this is going to pose some really important legal questions for the administration about how exactly they define the 60-day deadline.

Dana Taylor:

The war was ostensibly waged in order to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but Hegseth has already publicly said that the US has "obliterated" Iran's nuclear facilities. How did Hegseth respond to questions about why we're still at war?

Zach Schermele:

Right. Well, one of the main criticisms from Pete Hegseth and others at the top of the Trump administration involved in national security of the Biden administration, in fact, one of the main criticisms from President Trump himself of that administration, of his predecessor, was the pretty universally considered disastrous pullout from Afghanistan. And I think that that chaos ... I mean, everyone remembers that video of a plane trying to pull out and folks running on the runway after the aircraft. And I think that has really provided a lot of cover for members of the administration to say that they do not want to pull down our involvement with the war in Iran in a way that isn't responsible and isn't measured. You know, it's a lot easier to get into a conflict like this than it is to get out of one.

Dana Taylor:

Democrats have made repeated attempts to invoke the War Powers Act. Why have those efforts failed so far?

Zach Schermele:

You know, this is one of the most interesting, I think, political stories of Congress in this moment. You know, at a time when Democrats in Washington are really struggling to have really any sort of political relevance and to be able to force the administration to do certain things, Tim Kane, that Senator from Virginia, a Democrat, figured out how to force these privileged resolutions onto the floor of the Senate and make it so that Senate Republicans ...

And then this was an effort that has spread over to the House as well. So House Republicans too have had to go on record to say repeatedly after every major action that has occurred, and what has now become kind of a weekly basis since the war started, whether or not they continue to support hostilities in the region.

And it's failed largely because Senate and House Republicans, they know that crossing the president and the White House on something this important could have consequences for them. And that I think was demonstrated by a War Powers Resolution just a couple of weeks ago.

That was related to hostilities in Venezuela. There were a couple of unexpected Senate Republican defectors, people like Todd Young and Josh Holly, who voted to advance a resolution, one of these War Powers Resolutions to halt hostilities in Venezuela. And it was reported that President Trump called all of the Republican senators who crossed him and then really publicly berated them, and a number of them ultimately switched their votes and didn't allow that measure to continue.

So senators have learned what happens when they cross the White House.

Dana Taylor:

How are Republican lawmakers signaling they'll respond now that the deadline is here? Are they willing to bring authorization for the war up for a vote?

Zach Schermele:

So as I said, the response is slightly mixed depending on whom specifically you talk to here on the Hill. But I think that to say that there is angst certainly among Senate Republicans as this deadline draws near is certainly accurate.

There are folks like Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, who have been very adamant about wanting the administration after this deadline passes to be much more clear about why we are there in the first place and why we are continuing to allow the military to engage in that conflict. And whether or not people like her are sufficiently satisfied with the degree to which they're hearing from the administration going forward is going to be a key factor.

Dana Taylor:

Is it clear what legal arguments the president is using to justify continuing the war in Iran without congressional authorization? Is the authorization for use of military force an option here? And can you briefly explain what that is?

Zach Schermele:

So an AUMF is slightly different from a formal declaration of war in that it is somewhat more limited. The president's ability to use military force is somewhat more limited. Remember, Congress was given the power in the Constitution to formally declare war, and AUMFs were drawn up after the 9/11 attacks and Congress at that time passed an authorization for use of military force.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, that Republican of Alaska, who's one of the more notable folks up here on the Hill on the GOP side about criticizing the war in Iran, has floated in conversations with reporters in the hallway here the possibility of drawing up an AUMF and putting it up for a vote.

Dana Taylor:

Are there any precedents that might shape how this deadline is interpreted or challenged?

Zach Schermele:

Yeah, well, it's important to consider that this is part of a long history of presidents in the United States really skirting around Congress's authority to declare war.

You know, President Obama, President Clinton, President Bush, they all took actions in certain regions across the country to make it such that the executive branch was expanding its authority in that instance. And I think that what members of Congress have learned over time is that if you don't assert your authority in the moment over getting involved in foreign conflicts and in hostilities, that power doesn't really come back to the legislative branch.

And so this is part of a longstanding trend of Congress kind of allowing the White House to usurp their authority.

Dana Taylor:

How are rising gas prices in the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, something Trump has said could go on for months, factoring into the Trump administration's decision making?

Zach Schermele:

Well, gas prices are something that is at the top of the minds of lawmakers here on a Capitol Hill. I mean, it could be something that continues to influence lawmakers' decisions going forward about whether or not they're going to remain supportive of our involvement in this war; especially with respect to the ways in which members at the highest level of the administration have sort of differed on what their interpretation of the gas prices are. I think that that's something to keep an eye on. You know, Energy Secretary Chris Wright made some comments recently about gas prices not potentially coming down, and the president really openly disagreed with him about that.

But you know, something that I have learned over the course of covering Capitol Hill is that one of the most important factors in influencing policy in Washington is truly people calling up their members of Congress. And when phones are ringing off the hook here, that creates pressure. It creates pressure that then translates over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and changes can potentially be made.

And so the degree to which constituents become increasingly frustrated about these gas prices going up; and remember, when they go up, which can be very easy, they don't come down very often just quite as easily; that's going to be an important component here.

Dana Taylor:

Zach, if the administration steamrolls through this deadline, what are the likely political and legal consequences for both Congress and the president here?

Zach Schermele:

Well, longer term, right, Congress will have allowed a president to once again steamroll them with respect to the legislative branch's authority over declaring war. And it's going to set a precedent historically for how Congress interacts with the White House when it comes to these types of conflicts. I think in the shorter term, the midterm elections are going to be influenced very, very crucially by what the administration decides here and how crucially lawmakers vote.

You know, I think about people like Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican who is up for reelection in that state and facing a really tough fight. Folks like her in those types of tough political positions are really going to be having to choose their words carefully in terms of how they're supporting these War Powers Resolutions and justifying that support to their voters.

Dana Taylor:

What happens next, Zach?

Zach Schermele:

So I think the most important thing to keep an eye on is whether or not Republicans, especially in the Senate, start to flip their votes on these War Powers Resolutions. I think that is going to engender changes potentially from the White House. You know, we've seen it in these types of votes in the past weeks, not only with respect to Iran, but also Venezuela, that the White House really does pay attention to how people are voting on the Hill.

And so the degree to which that changes, the degree to which gas prices continue to fluctuate, and whether or not the administration can come to more agreement with Iranian officials and the intermediaries there in the Middle East, all of those factors are going to be important to watch.

Dana Taylor:

Zach Schermele is a USA TODAY congressional reporter. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, Zach.

Zach Schermele:

Thank you.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan, for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected].

Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back Monday morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.