The Dictatorship

Inside the Democratic quest to learn the actual cost of the Iran war

Published

1 month ago

May 6, 2026

May. 6, 2026, 2:20 PM EDT

It was an answer Democrats had long sought — but not one they believed.

Last week, more than two months after the U.S. first launched its attack on Iran, a top Pentagon official finally offered Congress an estimate for the cost of the war so far, pinning it at $25 billion.

That estimate was quickly dismissed by Democrats as not realistic.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said $25 billion is “lowballing it.” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., dismissed the figure as an “undercounting.” And Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the Pentagon’s number was in all likelihood “way too low.”

Now, as the war stretches into its third month, Democrats are still trying to find out exactly what the price tag is for what President Donald Trump has dubbed a “little excursion” in the Middle East.

Many are frustrated with what they see as an administration eager to obfuscate. And some Democrats admit they may not get a straight answer anytime soon.

Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told MS NOW that the Trump administration has withheld more information from Congress regarding defense spending than any administration he has worked with since taking office in 2011.

“This administration is uniquely unresponsive,” Blumenthal said. “This administration has stonewalled unlike any other I have seen, which has frustrated not only Democrats but our Republican colleagues.”

Blumenthal said he asked for a cost estimate in each of the three classified Pentagon briefings about the war but — prior to last week’s public hearings — had not received an update since the early days of conflict, when the Pentagon pegged the cost up to that point at more than $11 billion.

“It’s truly maddening that they have been so unresponsive,” Blumenthal said.

Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, an Iraq War vet who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, shared Blumenthal’s frustration, saying it is “pathetic” but “not surprising” that the Trump administration is “not being straightforward.”

Ryan argued Americans are facing, courtesy of the White House, an “unprecedented level of lies and deception around this war, even compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Ryan told MS NOW it will likely take Democrats winning back control of the U.S. House and — with it — subpoena power to “get a full 100% reckoning” of what has happened in Iran, including the cost. But, he says, “we can’t wait that long.”

In the interim, sources told MS NOW that congressional Democrats are instead relying on open source data, public reporting and satellite imagery to get a better sense of the war’s potential price tag.

A congressional official with knowledge of the effort to track Iran war spending said far more damage has been done to U.S. bases, for example, than the Pentagon has publicly revealed.

“That is a lowball estimate that does not account for battle damage and other costs,” the official told MS NOW of the $25 billion figure. “But until DOD submits its costs, we just have to guess from public reporting.”

Ryan told MS NOW that Democrats on the Armed Services Committee estimate that the cost so far is likely double what the administration is saying — “probably $40 [billion] to $50 billion, and counting.”

Democrats on both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have sent formal requests to the Pentagon asking for cost estimate breakdowns.

MS NOW reached out to the Republican chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to ask if they believed the $25 billion figure. Neither responded.

In addition to collating open source data, Democrats are looking at different legislative tools to get their arms around the price tag — but that could take time.

For instance, just days after the first U.S. strikes, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee sent a request to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, asking that they put together an official estimate of the financial and economic impacts of the war.

In his letterthe top Democrat on the Budget Committee, Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., asked the CBO to examine not just the direct costs of military action, but also the potential indirect costs, including the foreign aid the U.S. may need to distribute in the region and the rise in consumer prices domestically.

It’s not clear when, or if, the CBO may offer an assessment.

Democrats argue it should not be this difficult for Congress to get answers out of the administration about Pentagon spending — and say past administrations have been more forthcoming.

Records show that over the past decade, the House Budget Committee has regularly hosted top Defense Department officials — under both Democratic administrations and during the first Trump White House — to testify about the Pentagon’s budget. That has not happened during the current Trump term.

The reluctance to come before Congress is all the more notable as the White House is in the process of asking lawmakers to approve $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending for the upcoming year — a more than 40% increase year over year. And it remains unclear if the Trump administration may ask for additional funding on top of that to cover costs associated with the war.

Boyle, who called the administration’s $25 billion figure “almost certainly a lowball,” said he “will not support another blank check for an endless war of choice in the Middle East without a clear strategy, a real justification, and full transparency.”

“Americans want their tax dollars used to lower costs here at home — not poured into another reckless war with no end in sight,” Boyle wrote in a statement to MS NOW.

The vague war price tag — coupled with the massive 2027 Pentagon funding request — has given Democrats a new plank in their midterm “affordability” line of attack against the White House and Republicans.

Democrats are expected to continue to pound the drum about the cost of the conflict, especially the trickle-down effects back home, such as higher gas and grocery prices.

Ryan introduced a bill on Tuesday— co-signed by the top Democrats on the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees — barring the use of additional taxpayer dollars for military action against Iran absent congressional authorization for the war or an official declaration of war.

Ryan told MS NOW that his constituents were already concerned about the cost of living, and the war has only compounded that.

“There’s a very clear date and event around which this changed, which was February 28 and the initiation of this war,” Ryan said.

“So,” he added, “reminding people where the accountability lies is the goal.”

Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.

David Rohde is a senior national security reporter for MS NOW. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, he previously worked for NBC News, the New Yorker, Reuters, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor.

The Dictatorship

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Published

7 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Court denies request to immediately block DOJ ‘slush fund’

Jun. 10, 2026, 6:14 PM EDT

A federal judge in Washington has denied a bid Wednesday brought by a watchdog group to immediately block the Justice Department’s “anti-weaponization” fund, for now choosing to trust the department’s assertions that it is not moving forward with the fund.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled immediately, denying Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the Department of Justice from taking steps to create the fund.

Throughout the 30-minute hearing, the DOJ reiterated that the administration was not moving forward with the nearly $1.8 billion fund, which seeks to compensate individuals who allege they have been politically targeted or victimized by the DOJ.

Andrew Block, the only lawyer present for the government, repeatedly cited Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s June 2 congressional testimonyin which he said the administration was “not moving forward” with plans to create the fund.

Leon indicated he agreed with the DOJ’s position that the case appeared to be moot, saying he was not persuaded there was an issue for the court to decide regarding the creation of the fund. He issued a stern warning to the DOJ, saying, “Don’t play possum with this court!” — meaning he does not want to be deceived.

The plaintiffs argued Blanche’s testimony did not amount to an official cancellation. Nikhel Sus, CREW’s attorney, said Blanche “refused to memorialize that rescission,” or in other words, put it in writing. Sus said that was “highly unusual.” Leon responded, “This whole case is highly unusual to say the least.”

Leon asked the government twice why they would not just rescind the order that established the fund. Block responded, “I don’t know,” and pointed again to Blanche’s public statements about the fund’s future.

Both Leon and Sus raised the issue of Trump’s continued public defense of the fund. “It can still be an important issue and also not moving forward,” Block said. “That isn’t a direction to move forward with the fund.”

Although Leon rejected CREW’s bid for an immediate block, he indicated he is still considering its request for a longer-term block against the fund.

A block order from a separate federal judge in Virginia remains in effect until at least Friday.

Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Trump is accelerating our Social Security insolvency crisis

Published

7 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Jun. 10, 2026, 5:50 PM EDT

The date when Social Security’s trust fund is expected to run out of money just got bumped up. The fund is now projected to empty in 2032according to a new report released by Social Security’s trustees.

The new depletion date isn’t an earth-shaking change — it’s only a quarter earlier than the estimate in last year’s report. But it illustrates how President Donald Trump’s policies are degrading a program he promised to never jeopardize — and accelerating an approaching crisis in how our government will assist the elderly and disabled.

The report names three factors that contributed to the earlier insolvency date. One is a declining fertility rate, but the other two drivers can be traced back to Trump: a drop in immigration into the country, and the “substantial effect” of the tax policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill he signed last summer.

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities.

Reduced immigration during Trump’s second term — especially when coupled with a declining fertility rate — strains Social Security because the program is funded through payroll taxes. Those come out of people’s paychecks, and fewer workers supporting an aging population means the program receives less revenue. Indeed, Social Security already has been tapping its trust fund for the better part of the past two decades because the program’s costs have exceeded its cash income. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out last yearlast year’s tax cuts were a boon to the rich but a bust for the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.

To be clear, if the fund is depleted, Social Security won’t go belly up. Benefits will continue to be paid out, but there will be a large drop in the amount. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the “average monthly cut would total $500, which is more than what the average retired household spends on groceries each month.”

That would be a huge blow to the budgets of many older Americans. Social Security is a major source of income for most retirees, and roughly 40% of beneficiaries over the age of 65 rely on it for most of their income. And it would mark the destabilization of the sole source of retirement security for most Americans that is supposed to be insulated from ups and downs — unlike 401K plans. As the CBPP has pointed outSocial Security is “most workers’ only source of guaranteed retirement income that is not subject to investment risk or financial market fluctuations.”

Trump’s acceleration of the program’s insolvency comes atop his assaults on the program’s administrative capacities. His cuts to the Social Security Administration have left offices understaffedincreased wait timesand reduced quality of customer service.

Ultimately, Trump is exacerbating a colossal social safety net problem that predates him, and the trust fund will hit dire straits after he has left office. Democrats need to have clear plans for shoring up the program and making it robust for the future — which will require not being sheepish about taxes as a tool for renewing the social contract. And when Republicans try to claim that they, too, are champions of Social Security, all Democrats need to do is point to the truth.

Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.

The Dictatorship

Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 6.10.26

Published

7 hours ago

June 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The latest from Northern Ireland: “The family of a man who lost an eye in a knife attack appealed for calm on Wednesday after the incident triggered a wave of anti-immigrant violence in Belfast overnight, with masked men burning families out of their homes and torching vehicles. The appeal ‌came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with attempted murder and as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and politicians in Northern Ireland condemned the violence by ‘masked thugs’ that had targeted ethnic minorities.”

* In related news: “The British government hit out at X owner Elon Musk Wednesday, accusing him of whipping up tensions online ahead of disorder in Belfast.”

* The tenuous state of a dubious ceasefire: “Trump said the U.S. is going to hit Iran ‘hard’ today when pressed by reporters in the Oval Office about his statement earlier that Tehran will ‘pay the price’ for taking ‘too long’ to reach a peace agreement. ‘Well, we’re going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard, resuming bombing,’ he said.”

* The latest casualty figures from Lebanon: “Israel’s military offensive in Lebanon has killed at least 3,666 people, including 131 healthcare workers, and injured more than 11,300 since the U.S. and Israel began their war with Iran in late February, the Lebanese health ministry reported yesterday.”

* The changing nature of modern warfare: “Ukraine is wreaking havoc on unarmored trucks and trains in the battlefield’s rear, using drones with upgraded engines and batteries, integrated Starlink communication systems and new artificial-intelligence capabilities. The ramped-up attacks are causing fuel shortages, complicating troop rotations and reducing Russian military activity on the front.”

* This seems like a reasonable request: “Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee demanded Wednesday that Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s controversial pick for acting director of national intelligence, submit to a full security check before assuming the post, including an examination of his financial holdings and foreign contacts.”

* Some market trends can’t be stopped despite the White House’s best efforts: “Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said.”

* A bizarre schedule for a nonemergency vanity project: “Federal officials are laying more groundwork to begin construction on President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch, sharing additional documents that detail the project’s scope and an aggressive timetable for potentially completing work before Trump’s term ends. According to National Park Service documents posted this month, the administration envisions 20 hours per day of construction on the arch, year-round, in hopes of completing the project within two to three years.”

See you tomorrow.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”