What new Democratic Congress could mean for Iran war, $1.5T Pentagon budget
Trump’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget and nearly $90 billion request for Iran war funding will soon be in the crosshairs as Democrats negotiate their demands with the White House.
WASHINGTON — Democrats swept into clear majorities in both the House and Senate overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, setting up an almost certain showdown over funding for the Trump administration’s war with Iran and the Pentagon’s record-shattering $1.5 trillion budget request for next year.
Leading up to Tuesday’s midterm elections, incumbent and prospective Democratic lawmakers signaled their intent to use a legislative majority to pressure the White House to end the conflict while also ramping up key oversight and investigations into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon.
“The reason we lost is the war,” US Vice President JD Vance wrote in a post on X on Wednesday, directly linking Republicans’ loss of Congress to the unpopularity of the US war with Iran, which Trump launched in February after campaigning for the presidency on plans to end US involvement in foreign conflicts.
“If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so,” Vance added, in an apparent effort to distance himself from the policy.
