The White House formally requested $87.6 billion in additional spending from Congress on Wednesday, the vast majority of it for what the administration described as “urgent needs” related to the four-month-old U.S. war on Iran. The funding request landed on Capitol Hill one day after the Senate passed a bipartisan resolution instructing the president to end the military action — the first such resolution to clear both chambers of Congress.
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Office of Management and Budget said the bulk of the money — $67 billion — would go to the Defense Department. The department’s share includes $21 billion for munitions, $17.3 billion for operational costs, and $12.1 billion for classified programs, the White House said. The letter noted that Washington and Tehran are currently observing a ceasefire but that the Pentagon needs to “rebuild stocks” used in the conflict, which the administration has code-named Operation Epic Fury.
About $11 billion of the request is designated for U.S. farmers and $1.4 billion to combat the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa. Approximately $300 million would bolster security at U.S. embassies and diplomatic missions in the Middle East and South Asia after some came under attack earlier in the war.
The proposal faces a difficult path through Congress, with the war deeply unpopular among voters and midterm elections less than five months away. The president’s own party has shown growing unease with the conflict. Last month, Pentagon chief financial officer Jules Hurst told a congressional panel the war had cost about $29 billion so far, though defense analysts and lawmakers have said that estimate does not reflect the full scale of the operation’s financial toll.
Trump met with Senate Republicans in a closed-door luncheon Wednesday, one day after the chamber voted 51–49 on the war powers resolution. The president had described the vote as “poorly timed and meaningless” before the meeting. On social media, he labeled the four Republican senators who broke ranks and voted with Democrats as “losers.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, one of those four, told reporters he and Trump had a shouting match at the luncheon. “I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on,’” Cassidy said. He added: “This was supposed to last four weeks, it’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved.”
Earlier Wednesday, Trump vented about the vote in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House. “We had four Republican senators and all Democrats… they want to lose the war because they’re stupid,” Trump told Rutte, according to reporters present.
The funding request also came after Trump abruptly canceled the signing of a bipartisan housing bill, a move that added to tensions with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Republicans have expressed growing skepticism about a peace plan Trump agreed last week with Iran, further complicating the political landscape for additional war appropriations.