Shaheen Presses Hegseth, Senior Pentagon Officials on Lack of Transparency Around Supplemental Funding Request

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), a senior member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services and Appropriations Committees and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Ag-FDA Subcommittee , today questioned U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing reviewing the President’s supplemental funding request. With the President relaunching the war with Iran, Shaheen pressed Secretary Hegseth on the lack of transparency around the conflict and failure by the Administration to achieve any of its stated objectives. Click HERE to watch Senator Shaheen’s remarks and questions. Key quotes from Senator Shaheen: “You've told this committee that you barely spent half of the $150 billion in reconciliation funding. And if you still have $75 billion available, why are you asking the American people to absorb the cost of a war they don't support, instead of asking for transfer authority for unspent reconciliation funding, especially if you can't even get $400 million in Ukraine funding out the door?” “If you can't spend it [reconciliation funding] on a timeline that makes sense, why do you need to come back and ask for more money? Wouldn't it be better to spend money that you already have? [...] This supplemental doesn't include funding to repair damage to our bases or to our military infrastructure in the region. And I have not heard that we've gotten the full extent of any of those damage estimates. So should we expect another request to address that military construction costs?” “At what point do you stop asking Americans to foot the bill for a war they don't support, on top of an inflated budget request and billions in reconciliation funds that you still haven't spent?” ###