{"id":53752,"date":"2026-05-02T09:21:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T09:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/53752\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T09:21:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T09:21:03","slug":"hegseth-and-senate-democrats-spar-as-iran-war-nears-legal-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/53752\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth and Senate Democrats spar as Iran war nears legal deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"Pete<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on April 30, 2026. (Cliff Owen\/AP)
\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Senate Democrats grilled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on his handling of the Iran war on Thursday, accusing him of sugarcoating the cost and fallout of the conflict as the secretary again lashed out at critics. <\/p>\n

Making his second public appearance before Congress in two days<\/a>, Hegseth defended the war as a \u201cgreat success\u201d and dismissed the claims of Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee that the conflict has left the U.S. worse off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are two months into a historic military success in Iran, and you want to call it a defeat,\u201d he said in response to questioning from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. \u201cAnd it\u2019s defeatist Democrats like you that cloud the mind of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polls have consistently shown that the majority of Americans oppose a war the U.S. launched alongside Israel against Tehran on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

Hegseth appeared before the committee one day before the conflict was set to reach the 60-day mark, a deadline that under federal law requires President Donald Trump to either seek congressional approval for the war or withdraw forces. <\/p>\n

Hegseth indicated Thursday that the Pentagon will not abide by that time frame, arguing, \u201cWe are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat on the committee who has led the charge to assert congressional war powers<\/a> and force a debate on the Iran war, said that interpretation of the statute was incorrect.<\/p>\n

Democrats repeatedly challenged Hegseth\u2019s assessment of the war and its prosecution, citing Iran\u2019s retention of highly enriched uranium, the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its impact on energy prices and the bombing of an Iranian girls\u2019 school for which the Pentagon has yet to officially take responsibility.<\/p>\n

Hegseth said the bombing, which took place two months ago, remains under investigation and declined to say when the Pentagon will release its findings. He emphasized that \u201cno military, no country works harder\u201d to avoid civilian casualties. <\/p>\n

Several Democrats on Thursday also doubted the accuracy of the Pentagon\u2019s stated $25 billion cost for the campaign. Blumenthal said he believed the estimate was \u201cwell below\u201d the actual costs, based on information available to lawmakers. <\/p>\n

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the committee, offered a blistering critique of Hegseth\u2019s leadership and said he was concerned Hegseth was telling President Donald Trump \u201cwhat he wants to hear\u201d about the war. <\/p>\n

\u201cBold assurances of success are a disservice to both the commander in chief and the troops who risk their lives based on them,\u201d Reed said. \u201cOur military has performed heroically, but military force without a sound strategy is a path to long-term defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also assailed Hegseth\u2019s tenure as secretary, from his firing of dozens of senior military leaders to last week\u2019s cancellation of the flu vaccine requirement<\/a> for troops.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, Mr. Secretary, I believe you are causing lasting harm to the military,\u201d Reed, an Army veteran, told Hegseth. \u201cThe American people\u2019s trust in our military took 250 years to build. You are dismantling it in a fraction of that time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Several Republicans came to Hegseth\u2019s defense, many of them praising the decision to attack Iran. <\/p>\n

Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri credited Hegseth with taking on the Biden administration\u2019s efforts to improve diversity, equity and inclusion, describing them as a \u201csort of cultural Marxism.\u201d Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana, a former Navy SEAL, said the Iran war was just. <\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump did not start this war, we did not start this war,\u201d Sheehy said. \u201cThese radical, barbarian, savage clerics who started killing Americans 47 years ago in a unilateral campaign of terror, murder, treason, kidnapping, torture had been murdering our countrymen all over the world almost every single year.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hegseth on Thursday doubled down on his attacks on the war\u2019s critics, repeating a statement he made in the House on Wednesday that the greatest threat the U.S. faces in the conflict was the \u201creckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.\u201d <\/p>\n

He did not apologize when questioned by Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., about his likening of lawmakers and journalists to the Pharisees in the New Testament who had criticized Jesus for performing miracles \u2014 language Rosen said was hurtful and antisemitic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s a pretty accurate term for folks who don\u2019t see the plank in their own eye and always want to see what\u2019s wrong with an operation as opposed to the historic success of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cSo I stand by it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on April 30, 2026. (Cliff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[32959,32956,32958,5687,32960,32961,197,32957,18,31578,2386,32954,67,32955,1463],"class_list":{"0":"post-53752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pete-hegseth","8":"tag-60-day-mark-iran-war","9":"tag-60-day-war-powers-deadline","10":"tag-can-pentagon-disobey-60-day-war-powers-deadline","11":"tag-defense-secretary-pete-hegseth","12":"tag-hegseth-2nd-appearance-congress","13":"tag-hegseth-senate-committee-iran-war","14":"tag-iran-war","15":"tag-is-60-day-war-powers-deadline-real","16":"tag-pete-hegseth","17":"tag-senate-armed-services-committee","18":"tag-senate-democrats","19":"tag-senate-democrats-hegseth-iran-war","20":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","21":"tag-us-blockade-iranian-ports","22":"tag-us-iran-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116504250620761025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}