Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, told Congress on Capitol Hill on July 22, 2026, that the war with Iran has cost more than $37 billion and asked for tens of billions of dollars in additional Pentagon funding. The request now goes to Congress, which must decide how much more to approve while the U.S. campaign of strikes continues.
Capitol Hill funding request
Hegseth said the cost of war had risen by nearly $8 billion since the last public estimate. That puts a sharper number on the funding ask and gives lawmakers a specific scale to weigh against other Pentagon needs.
The testimony matters because it ties the price tag to an active conflict, not a retrospective account. Congress is being asked to act while the war is still adding to the total.
Iran strikes and retaliation
The financial update came as the U.S. continued striking Iran for an 11th straight day. Iran struck U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan on Tuesday, widening the conflict beyond the initial air campaign and putting more pressure on the same regional footprint that supports it.
Kuwaitis are reportedly forced to ration electricity after Iranian strikes on power infrastructure raised fears of outages. That keeps the conflict from staying in one lane: military operations, base security and civilian energy supply are all moving at once.
Trump in the Oval Office
Donald Trump tried to put the conflict in a broader frame from the Oval Office yesterday, saying, “Iran is bigger. It’s more — it’s a more complex situation.” He added, “But we’re probably doing equally as well, if you look at the damage that’s been done,” and said, “We’ve been nice.”
Those remarks sit beside a war cost that is still climbing. Hegseth’s testimony gives Congress a number and a funding request; Trump’s comments point to an administration that is still publicly describing the conflict as manageable even as the spending keeps rising.
Congress now has the immediate choice that matters most: whether to approve the additional Pentagon funding Hegseth requested, and if so, at what level. The war’s cost is already above $37 billion, and the bill is still growing.
