Forty-six members of the Senate Democratic caucus are demanding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provide a detailed accounting of the ongoing Iran war’s total costs.
The letter was led by Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and signed by every Senate Democrat except Sen. John Fetterman, with independent Sens. Bernie Sanders and Angus King also included.
The United States is now more than six months into a conflict that President Trump initially said would last only six weeks.
Eighteen American servicemembers have been killed and more than 820 wounded, with over 50,000 troops currently deployed across the Middle East.
The senators are requesting a full breakdown by Sept. 30 of all direct and indirect costs incurred to date in the conflict.
Democrats also demanded a detailed accounting of the administration’s $67 billion supplemental funding request and how $34 billion in Pentagon funds from Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill will be spent.
“American taxpayers have already paid an extra $100 billion out of their pockets for higher gas and diesel prices alone and at least another $60 billion in higher costs for things like groceries, mortgages, and plane tickets as a result of the war,” the Democrats wrote.
“Now you are asking that they pay again to fund a war of choice that Congress never authorized and the President launched with no strategic plan,” the letter added.
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in late July, Hegseth put the cost of the Iran war so far at $37.5 billion, covering payroll, operations, maintenance, and other anticipated costs through the fiscal year’s end.
The Pentagon has identified roughly $42 billion of its supplemental request as directly war-related, though Democrats argue that figure fails to capture the conflict’s full financial toll.
The senators also noted that Hegseth has briefed Congress only seven times in six months and held just eight Pentagon press briefings since the war began, compared to more than 70 in the first month of the Iraq War alone.
Democrats criticized the administration’s supplemental funding request as a seven-page document with vague line items, contrasting it with the detailed hundred-page requests submitted during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Slotkin and her colleagues also noted that military deployments, including those of the USS Lincoln and the 82nd Airborne, have been repeatedly extended, adding pressure on military families.
“The American people elected us to be responsible stewards of their tax dollars,” the Democrats wrote, calling their information requests “the bare minimum required” to fulfill congressional oversight duties.
Fetterman, the lone Democratic holdout, released a statement explaining his position on the conflict and his refusal to sign the letter.
“I’ve always been at odds with my fellow Democrats over how we hold Iran accountable,” Fetterman said. “I’ll continue to remain an unapologetic supporter of efforts to confront the Iranian regime and its proxies.”
The letter, while largely symbolic given Republican control of Congress, underscores growing Democratic frustration over what they see as an alarming lack of Pentagon transparency during a costly and expanding military engagement.
