‘Inevitable’ Iran funding request sets up another big clash in the Capitol

DORAL, Fla. — House Republicans are promising a supplemental funding package aimed at replenishing U.S. weapon stockpiles and bolstering defenses abroad, as the Trump administration’s military operation against Iran ramps up. 

The operation has already stretched into a second week, with the price tag quickly climbing. Pentagon officials told lawmakers during a briefing on Tuesday that the approximate cost of war against Iran is more than $11.3 billion in the first six days of action, a source briefed on the figure told The Hill.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters at the House Republican retreat in Doral that an Iran supplemental funding package was “inevitable,” but added that discussions with the White House about the topline and timing of the bill were ongoing.

“We don’t yet know what the details of that will be. As you know, in the process submitted by the administration to Congress, and then it’s deliberated upon and passed, we were anticipating a supplemental even before the Iran operation began. So that will happen. The timetable is yet to be determined,” he said.

But Johnson could face an uphill climb getting the funding package across the finish line, as he navigates a razor-thin majority and would likely need to appease a few fiscal hawk conservatives in his conference, who normally advocate for spending cuts. Johnson can afford to lose only one Republican defection, assuming all members are present and Democrats are unified in opposition, and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has a long track record of voting against such operations.

Rep. Mike Kennedy (R-Utah) said that he imagines a potential supplemental funding package will be “very expensive.”

“I need to see where we (are) at with our own foundation that we still have after destroying Iran’s hierarchy and subsequently what do we need to make sure we’re ready for whatever’s coming next. So, I don’t know what those numbers would be, but I can imagine it’s going to be very expensive,” Kennedy said.  

But Kennedy added that he suspects this will be a short-term conflict.

“We’ll still have to build back up our munitions, but any sort of long, drawn out conflict is something that’s problematic for many of us on the Republican side, so I – and President Trump’s committed to making sure he gets the job done,” he said. 

Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) said that he would want to see the “specific details” of the package and the strategy moving forward on the Iran conflict. 

“One of the things that frustrated a lot of us, and I was very supportive of Ukraine supplementals – we didn’t always know, like, okay, what was the strategy? What was the plan moving forward? Because when’s the next supplemental request gonna come? That’s what folks back here get leery of. It’s just like, ‘oh, another request, another request.’ It’s definitely something, as I’ll reiterate to the Speaker, it’s inevitable and will need to eventually play out in Congress. But let’s identify…what we can accomplish with the funds that we already have, and what does that do to change the next version of the defense package,” he said. 

Whatever the pricetag, the additional funding is likely to spark an outcry from Democrats, who are furious that Trump attacked Iran unilaterally and are already suggesting they’ll oppose more money for the conflict unless the administration can first win Congress’s approval for the continued use of military force.

“The nerve of these extremists to want to raise the possibility of coming to Congress for supplemental funding related to a war that we haven’t even authorized yet,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters in Washington last week. 

More recently, Jeffries has been less adamant, emphasizing that no decisions on the Democrats’ position will be made before the caucus can meet as a group to discuss its strategy. Still, he’s signaling that Democrats will likely oppose any additional Iran funding.

“That certainly is the presumption,” Jeffries told MS NOW’s Katy Tur on Tuesday.

That would set the stage for another partisan clash over Trump’s agenda and, more broadly, the powers of the president to attack other nations unilaterally.

“The president owes the country a justification and a rationale, and that’s been nonexistent,” Jeffries told Tur. 

House GOP leaders had discussed adding military funding for the Iran conflict to a second potential reconciliation package, a source familiar with the conversation at the Republican retreat told NewsNation. Reconciliation packages are often used by the majority party in Congress because they can get around a Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes to overcome.

House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said the Iran funding “could” go into a reconciliation bill, but added that he thinks the best way for the package to move is through regular order. 

“It could go in there if — I mean, I think it’s best to let everyone have, you know, regular order, and let both … Republicans and Democrats have an opportunity to provide their vote in support of our military while in conflict. I think that’s the way it’s going to go down,” he said. 

The funding debate, whenever it happens, appears on track to be an extension of the war powers fight that’s already split Congress, largely along partisan lines. In that battle, Republicans have been under heavy pressure to support their ally in the White House, while Democrats have faced similar pressure from liberal base voters to go to the mats against Trump’s unilateral approach to war.

Democrats are largely powerless to block any additional Iran funding in the House, where Republicans have a numbers advantage and just a simple majority is needed to move legislation. Any GOP votes against Iran funding — Massie is a leading candidate — would likely be offset by centrist Democrats hopping the aisle to support it. A preview of those potential defections accompanied a vote earlier in the month on a war powers resolution, which failed by a narrow tally of 212 to 219 with four Democrats joining Republicans to oppose it.

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), senior member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said in a statement that the administration must “clearly explain the scope of the operation, the strategy moving forward, and how existing resources are being used to accomplish the mission” before any new package is considered.

Cuellar, a moderate, has at times crossed party lines to support GOP-backed legislation, including a Department of Homeland Security funding bill earlier this month aimed at ending the partial government shutdown.

As senior member of the subcommittee, Cuellar said he takes seriously his responsibility “to ensure our military has the resources it needs to protect our nation and support the safety and success of our servicemembers, while exercising careful oversight of taxpayer dollars.”

The real fight is likely to occur in the Senate, where the minority Democrats have the power of the filibuster to block bills that don’t receive 60 votes. Already, some top Democrats are amplifying Jeffries’s warnings that they’re ready to reject any additional Pentagon funding without a clear explanation from the administration as to why it’s essential. 

“Let me be clear: I will not support a blank check for this war of choice,” Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday on the chamber floor.

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