As the Iran war entered its third week in mid-March 2026, congressional Republicans had held no public hearings on the conflict and resisted Democratic demands for them, the Associated Press reported. “The United States' war with Iran is entering its third week, but Congress has yet to publicly test the Trump administration's case for the conflict,” the AP wrote. Trump had not sought congressional approval for the attack.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters he did not expect public hearings specifically on the Iran war, though he said the subject would come up in the regular run of testimony on military policy and spending. “They have briefed us,” Thune said, pointing to classified briefings held behind closed doors, and he noted that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine were holding regular news conferences. The Republican chairs of the national security committees also said they had no near-term plans for war-specific hearings; Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker said regular hearings would give lawmakers plenty of chances to ask questions. A few Republicans pushed back: Sen. Lisa Murkowski said it was important to get information in public hearings “so that the public can better understand this, too.”
Six Democratic senators (Cory Booker, Tammy Baldwin, Tammy Duckworth, Tim Kaine, Chris Murphy and Adam Schiff) said that unless hearings were scheduled with Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Cabinet officials, they would force daily votes on war powers resolutions to tie up the Senate floor. “We're not going to let the Senate go on with business as usual,” Murphy said. Baldwin said, “Our Republican colleagues have abdicated their responsibilities.”
The stakes were high. Pentagon officials told senators in a closed-door briefing that they estimated the first six days of the war cost more than $11.3 billion, NBC News reported, citing three sources. Israeli and American strikes had killed more than 1,200 people in Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, and by the AP's count 13 U.S. service members had been killed. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and to raise and support armies.
Correction (October 2, 2026): an earlier version of this entry said Republicans “blocked all” Iran war hearings and that there was “zero” public oversight; the reporting shows Republicans resisted calls for war-specific public hearings while saying the war would come up in regular hearings, and the entry now says so. It said 175 or more children were among the dead in Iran, that 46 Democratic and independent senators signed a letter to Hegseth, and that gas prices rose 74 cents; none of those figures could be sourced and they were removed. A cited Washington Post link now redirects to the Post's homepage and was replaced with the original AP report.