‘Resign Immediately’: Democrats Grill Hegseth on Iran War
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During a rare appearance before a congressional committee, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced strong Democratic criticism on Wednesday for a range of actions during his tenure—not least the planning and prosecution of the Iran war.
Hegseth’s job performance has come under growing bipartisan scrutiny amid widespread congressional displeasure with the dearth of information that the Defense Department has shared about the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran as well as a recent spate of high-profile firings of well-regarded senior military officers and civilian officials.
During a rare appearance before a congressional committee, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced strong Democratic criticism on Wednesday for a range of actions during his tenure—not least the planning and prosecution of the Iran war.
Hegseth’s job performance has come under growing bipartisan scrutiny amid widespread congressional displeasure with the dearth of information that the Defense Department has shared about the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran as well as a recent spate of high-profile firings of well-regarded senior military officers and civilian officials.
“Mr. Hegseth, I stand by what I said last time you were here. You were incompetent then, you’re incompetent now, and you’re the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to incompetence,” said Democratic Rep. Salud Carbajal.
“You need to resign immediately,” said Democratic Rep. Patrick Ryan, following a heated exchange with Hegseth over whether he and other Pentagon leaders should be held responsible for the deaths of six U.S. troops at the start of the Iran war when their base in Kuwait came under attack by Iranian drones.
Ryan, who like Hegseth fought in Iraq during the so-called U.S. war on terror, quoted the accounts of service members who survived the drone attack and who told CBS News that they felt their military unit was left insufficiently defended against Iran’s long-range drones.
Democrats also lit into Hegseth over the escalating costs of the Iran war, which his acting comptroller, Jules Hurst, testified at the hearing had cost an estimated $25 billion over two months of fighting.
But Hegseth knew he would be in the hot seat with Democrats, who have been champing at the bit for months to publicly grill him. The former Fox News weekend anchor came prepared to aggressively punch back when he appeared before the House Armed Services Committee to formally testify about his department’s record-setting $1.5 trillion spending request for the upcoming fiscal year.
“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said in his opening remarks, which were not included in his prepared testimony.
Consistently combative, Hegseth frequently changed the topic or offered his own questions to Democrats rather than answer their questions. This went on so much that the Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, repeatedly had to interject himself to remind the secretary that he was not in control of the question time.
Republicans largely did not join Democrats in their criticisms of the Iran war, though multiple Republicans offered soft rebukes to Hegseth for his recent firing of the Army’s highest-ranking officer, the popular Gen. Randy George.
“I disagree with the firing of Gen. George,” said Republican Rep. Austin Scott. In what appeared to be a delicate warning to Hegseth, he went on to note that, traditionally, military spending bills require bipartisan support to pass in the House. “It takes 218 votes to get something across the floor of the House of Representatives,” Scott said. “We’re going to lose some Republican votes. We’re going to have to have some Dem[ocrat] votes to do the things that we have to do to fund the Department of Defense, and I would encourage everybody to keep that in mind.”
Republican Rep. Don Bacon, who is retiring at the end of the year, also unsuccessfully pressed Hegseth for clarity as to why the Pentagon is withholding $400 million in security assistance for Ukraine that Congress authorized months ago.
“I just want to emphasize, we did put $400 million in for Ukraine,” Bacon said. “I ask you to execute it. It’s important for most of us in here. It has overwhelming support.”
However, many Republicans, such as Rep. Joe Wilson, showered praise on Hegseth and credited him for boosting the military’s image through recent missions such as the January seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Rep. Ronny Jackson was even more effusive, opening his remarks by exclaiming, “I can’t tell you awesome this hearing is today. It’s fantastic!”
Throughout the hearing, Hegseth responded to Democratic criticisms of the Iran war by asking whether they would have preferred Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon—a prospect that was by no means guaranteed or even imminent, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered surprise bombing attacks on multiple Iranian nuclear sites last June.
Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran was never popular with the American public, and support for his administration has fallen to new lows as the war has approached the 60-day legal limit for unauthorized U.S. military operations. It’s questionable whether Hegseth’s insistence that the United States is “absolutely” winning the war will sway public opinion, particularly amid deepening worries about the rising cost of things such as food and gasoline due to Iran’s continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
But Trump, who is known to closely track and grade the public appearances of his top officials, may very well be pleased with Hegseth’s bombastic performance, which gave not an inch and admitted no error.
“Two months into a conflict, lest I remind you—and my generation understands how long we were in Iraq, how long we were in Afghanistan, how long we were in Vietnam,” Hegseth said. “Two months in on an existential fight for the safety of the American people. Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb. We are proud of this undertaking.”
Hegseth was echoing recent arguments made by Trump that it’s unfair for Democrats to demand an end to the war when it has lasted a fraction of the length of time as the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars—which have all come to widely be viewed as strategic failures.
“Those are stunning examples to me of something that didn’t go our way,” said Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, an Air Force veteran who the Trump administration has sought to punish for appearing in a video reminding U.S. service members that they can refuse illegal orders. “We had the opportunity to execute on those wars quite well, but we didn’t accomplish any mission.”
This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.
Rachel Oswald is a staff writer at Foreign Policy. X: @OswaldRachel
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