Senate Democrats are demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio immediately appear before Congress for public hearings on the Iran war, threatening repeated votes on war powers resolutions if the Trump administration does not comply. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are demanding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio immediately appear before Congress for public hearings on the Iran war, threatening repeated votes on war powers resolutions if Republicans do not force the Trump administration to comply.
Three senators, including the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, requested the hearings in a letter sent Tuesday to President Donald Trump, and six others said they will tie up the Senate floor with five separate war powers resolutions to compel Republican leadership to greenlight committee hearings.
The resolutions were filed last week following failed votes in the Senate and House to halt military operations in Iran without congressional authorization. The new measures will become eligible for floor action next week, the latest in a series of attempts by Democrats and a few Republicans to claw back Congress’ constitutional authority to declare war.
“This is us trying to force the Senate to do its job, to have the debate, to hold the hearings, to provide the oversight,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told reporters on Monday night. “And that is something the American people deserve — not conversations and classified briefings, but out-in-the-open, transparent accountability. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
He is being joined in the effort by Sens. Tim Kaine, of Virginia; Adam Schiff, of California; Tammy Baldwin, of Wisconsin; Chris Murphy, of Connecticut; and Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois.
In a separate push, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York; Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee; and Jack Reed, of Rhode Island, the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee; are appealing directly to Trump to make his top officials available for public questioning.
“Public hearings would be a small but important first step to uphold your oath, to inform Congress, and to explain your actions to the American people whose sons and daughters are on the front lines of this war,” the senators wrote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-N.D., told reporters Tuesday that senators will have the opportunity to question a variety of military officials about Iran when they appear on Capitol Hill for routine hearings on next year’s defense policy legislation in the coming months.
But Democrats say they want key cabinet secretaries, particularly Hegseth and Rubio, to immediately appear under oath to testify about why President Donald Trump embarked on a war with Iran and what the military campaign’s goals and scope are.
“If this administration thinks it can defend this war — I don’t know how it can — then it should send Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio to the Senate next week for a hearing in front of the relevant committees,” Murphy said. “We want there to be a hearing so the American public can hear from their leaders why they think this war is in the national interest.”
The U.S. military has struck more than 5,000 targets across Iran since launching Operation Epic Fury with Israel on Feb. 28, according to Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Administration officials have offered shifting rationales for the bombing campaign and have not provided a clear timeline for how long it could last.
Trump on Monday said the war “is very complete, pretty much” while Hegseth warned Tuesday that Iran had yet to see the “most intense” of American military strikes and said the war would end when Trump decided it was over.
Democrats said they had a host of questions they wanted to ask administration officials in public, including whether the U.S. is responsible for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reportedly killed.
Trump has repeatedly suggested Iran struck the school but U.S. military investigators believe American forces were likely responsible for the deadly attack, according to news reports.
Kaine said he wanted to know if the military has changed its targeting criteria for limiting the risk of civilian casualties or if the school was hit in error. Schiff said he wanted administration officials to be under oath when they answered such questions.
Officials have held several closed-door briefings for lawmakers on the Iran campaign, most recently on Tuesday. Democrats have expressed frustration with the classified nature of the briefings, saying they are tired of not being able to answer questions about the war from their constituents.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., emerged from the briefing on Tuesday “dissatisfied and angry” and said the American people deserved answers about the financial cost of the war, estimated to be about $1 billion per day, as well as the potential for further escalation and the danger to service members.
“I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran,” he said. “The objectives that have been outlined for this war will require boots on the ground at some point and this panel and this briefing was unable to answer my questions.”
