Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) marked the five-month anniversary of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran on Wednesday with a blunt warning to his followers: the financial toll on ordinary Americans is not slowing down, and neither is the conflict itself.
“We’re almost six months into Donald Trump’s war with Iran. The costs of this conflict are rising every day for Americans,” Crow wrote in a post on X on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at 1:34 p.m.
A Six-Month War With No Clear End
The war began on February 28, 2026, when the United States, alongside Israel, launched strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, with the Trump administration setting an initial goal of a swift dismantlement of that program and a change in the country’s government. Five months later, according to reporting from The New York Times, those objectives remain almost entirely unmet, and the president has grown increasingly hesitant to resume large-scale combat operations that his own intelligence agencies do not expect to succeed
Crow linked directly to that Times report in his Wednesday post, a piece that describes a president who once boasted of limitless power now boxed in by a conflict he has struggled to bring to a close. The article details how Trump has been unable to rein in surging oil prices or stop the near-total shutdown of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, even as a second chokepoint between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden has come under threat
The Price Tag Keeps Climbing
Crow’s post is the latest in a string of public statements he has made tracking the war’s mounting costs. In a statement released ahead of a House vote on his War Powers Resolution, co-sponsored with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Crow said 18 American servicemembers had been killed since the war began, with hundreds more wounded, and that “billions of taxpayer dollars” had been spent on what he called an “unmitigated disaster”
Independent estimates back up the scale of that spending. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put the total cost of the war at $37.5 billion as of late July, and the administration has separately asked Congress for an additional $88 billion. That same reporting notes that gas and diesel prices have jumped between 37 and 43 percent since the war began, pushing the cost of gasoline above $4 a gallon nationwide.
Public approval of the war has fallen alongside its cost. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll cited by the Times found only 29 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the conflict, while U.S. News reported separate polling putting overall approval at 30 percent — a mark it took the Vietnam War six years to reach.
Crow’s Pattern of Public Criticism
Wednesday’s post is consistent with months of statements from Crow, a former Army Ranger and paratrooper who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Armed Services Committee. In March, Crow led 120 House Democrats in demanding answers about civilian casualties from the war, including a U.S. strike that reportedly killed at least 175 people, many of them children, at an Iranian elementary school. That same month, he joined every Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee in calling on Chairman Mike Rogers to hold public hearings on the war, writing that lawmakers remained “deeply troubled by the lack of transparency from the Trump Administration”.
In May, Crow told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that the United States is “not good at having off ramps and accomplishing large strategic decisions in the Middle East,” arguing that the more pressing question was whether the country wanted to remain entangled in Middle East conflict for another five, ten, or twenty years. More recently, in a July appearance covered by Raw Story, Crow said it was “nuts” that five months into a war entered “without a plan, without an endgame, without a strategy, without allies,” the U.S. had spent more than $100 billion while the Iranian regime emerged “more emboldened” than it was in February.
Trump’s Own Words on the Economic Toll
Crow’s Wednesday post also echoes a controversy from earlier this year, when Trump himself dismissed the war’s financial impact on ordinary Americans. Asked in May whether Americans’ financial situations were motivating him to strike a deal with Iran, Trump told reporters, “Not even a little bit.” He continued: “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all”.
The remark drew swift criticism from Democrats, though Trump later stood by it. In a Fox News interview with Bret Baier days later, Trump was shown a clip of the comment and told the network, “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again”.
A Presidency Consumed by the War
The Times report Crow cited in his post describes a White House increasingly defined by the conflict, even beyond the battlefield. According to the Times, Trump’s frustration with the war has coincided with a string of abrupt reversals on unrelated deals, including his decision to undercut a nuclear energy pact with Saudi Arabia less than 24 hours after his own energy secretary signed it, and his declaration that a long-negotiated agreement on the Gordie Howe International Bridge with Canada was “dead,” followed by 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods.
The Times reporting also notes that a June 17 cease-fire, signed by Trump at the Palace of Versailles, collapsed within two weeks, and that the administration is now weighing three options: military escalation, an economic pressure campaign, or declaring victory and withdrawing. Each carries significant risk, according to the report, with U.S. missile interceptor stockpiles reportedly reaching critically low levels after repeated rounds of strikes and counterstrikes.
What Comes Next
Crow’s Wednesday post did not call for a specific next step, but it continues a consistent message he has delivered since the war’s earliest days: that the human and financial costs are mounting without a clear strategy for ending the conflict. His office has not indicated whether he plans additional legislative action beyond the War Powers Resolution he previously co-sponsored with Jayapal.
As the war enters its sixth month, the political pressure on the administration appears to be building from multiple directions, with Speaker Mike Johnson himself recently telling reporters, “We got to wrap it up” — a sentiment the Times noted is increasingly common even among the president’s usual allies.