March 19, 2026
So this war with Iran – what do you call it again?
Oh right – an excursion – this excursion has so far conservatively – cost the United States taxpayers – conservatively – a billion dollars a day – multiply that by three weeks – carry the one … about $19 billion dollars in just operating costs. The pentagon told congress in just the first six days they spent more than $11 billion dollars on this excursion in Iran. Now — the math is really fuzzy here about what it’s actually costing because no official numbers have been released – more on why that’s important in a second.
So the reason why I’m talking about how much this war with Iran – sorry – excursion with Iran is costing us – is because today we learned the president will ask congress for a whopping $200 billion more to continue it. That’s on top of the trillion dollars budget that the pentagon is already sitting on.
Ok – so the question is – will congress hand over that $200 billion or not? The constitution is clear on this one – congress will decide. And that decision has consequences on both sides. If they say yes – and hand over those hundreds of billions of dollars, where is that money coming from – likely – it’ll be borrowed which will just jack up our debt. Not to mention the political fallout lawmakers could face in the midterms for supporting this war. And if they say no – then Trump and Hegseth may be out of luck and it may leave our service members in the region in harms way.
What we do know for sure is — lots of lawmakers – Republicans and Democrats say they’re not going to hand over one more dollar to the Trump administration until they get answers to their questions about what are the goals of this mission, what kind of planning went into it, what’s the long term fallout going to be and importantly – what’s the plan to try and blunt these spiking energy prices? President Trump and the VP Vance keep downplaying the long term effects.
Now – the fact is – no one knows what the future holds. It’s Trump’s opinion that things will return to normal quickly once he declares this war is over. As I reported in this video yesterday — the chairman of the federal reserve said that depending on how long this war lasts – the price shocks to the US economy and to you and me could only be temporary. …or not. And that’s the point. It’s just too hard to tell right now because no one knows how this is going to shake out. But here’s what we do know for sure – president trump campaigned on no new wars. Especially no endless wars. His mission goals in Iran have shifted several times since the strikes started. He has so far refused to give a timeline for when this war with Iran is going end and based on what we’re seeing in the region today with the Strait of Hormuz still being choked off and strikes escalating on energy facilities throughout the middle east – this thing looks like it could drag on for a very very long time – regardless of whether Trump says it’s over or not.
Congress is going to have a big decision on its hands. And it’s unclear when they may take up this request for $200 billion– or more — in supplemental funding.
Watch Trump today here.
Watch Hegseth today here.
Watch Vance yesterday here.
