Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) — an Army Ranger who served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan — said Wednesday that the Trump sons are profiting directly from the Iran war their father launched, as a new investigation found Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are linked to at least 10 defense firms that have received $3.7 billion in federal funds since Trump took office.
“Trump’s sons are getting more federal contracts,” Crow wrote on X. “That’s billions of your tax dollars padding their pockets, not yours. More war in the Middle East means more money in the pockets of the Trump family.”
The post linked to an MS NOW investigation that found the firms linked to the Trump sons collectively received about $3.7 billion in federal funds since the start of Trump’s second term — nearly $1 billion more than those same companies received over an equivalent period at the end of the Biden administration. Three of the firms had no federal contracts at all before Trump’s second term, including one drone startup founded in 2025.
The Iran War Connection
Crow’s framing ties the profit question directly to the Iran war. Operation Epic Fury began February 28, 2026 — and within days, a Florida golf course company partly owned by the Trump sons announced a reverse merger to take a drone startup called Powerus public. Seven weeks after that announcement, the U.S. Air Force placed a limited order for Powerus interceptor drones. Powerus was subsequently selected to compete in the Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance Program, according to the MS NOW investigation.
The war has already killed 13 U.S. servicemembers and wounded 290 more, cost tens of billions in taxpayer dollars, and driven gas prices sharply higher, according to Crow’s official press release introducing legislation to prohibit further Iran war funding. The ceasefire announced June 17 collapsed Wednesday when Trump declared it “over” at the NATO summit in Ankara, with CENTCOM launching new strikes after Iran attacked three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz — creating conditions for yet another surge in defense spending from which analysts say the Trump sons stand to benefit.
Don Jr. called his understanding of his father’s goals in the White House a selling point for 1789 Capital, the venture firm where he has been a partner since mid-November 2024. “We understand what the administration wants to do, because we helped craft some of that messaging,” he told an investor forum in October 2025. “We can be on the outside, but still have that understanding of what they plan to do, and that’s logical,” according to the MS NOW report.
Crow’s Record on the Iran War and Pentagon Conflicts
Crow has been among the most persistent congressional critics of both the Iran war and the Trump family’s defense business ties. He was one of the first lawmakers to introduce a War Powers Resolution to end the conflict, calling the war “unauthorized and illegal” from the day it began on February 28. He introduced legislation to prohibit all further funding for the conflict and demanded public hearings on civilian casualties, including a U.S. Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed at least 175 people, mostly children, according to his official press release calling for public hearings.
Crow also pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directly in the House Armed Services Committee about conflicts of interest involving a top Pentagon adviser Hegseth described as a “long-term friend” and “great patriot,” according to his official media page. He was one of the signatories of a letter demanding answers from the White House on the $620 million Pentagon loan to Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth magnet startup in which Don Jr.’s firm 1789 Capital had invested just three months before the loan was approved — the largest single award in the history of the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital.
What the Investigation Found
Beyond Powerus and Vulcan Elements, the MS NOW investigation documented a broad pattern of Trump son investments followed by federal contracts. Donald Trump Jr. has been on the advisory board of drone maker Unusual Machines since November 2024. In October 2025, the Army placed its largest-ever order from the company. The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported the company was in talks with the administration to secure additional federal funding, sending its stock soaring.
Eric Trump was named chief strategy adviser to Foundation Future Industries in March 2026. In April, the company announced $24 million in Defense Department contracts to test its humanoid robots for potential battlefield use. Eric Trump also invested in February 2026 in a pending merger between Xtend, an Israeli-founded AI drone company and Pentagon contractor, and a Florida construction firm — a deal that would take Xtend public. Xtend was tapped in May to compete in the Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance Program.
Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told the MS NOW investigation that Trump’s sons are “profiting from this defense budget, which makes the situation even worse and undermines public confidence.” He said no law bars a president’s family members from investing in companies with government interests, but that past administrations have placed informal restrictions on such relationships. “President Trump should do the same,” Painter said.
Crow’s Floor Speech Framing
Crow delivered a House floor speech in May that laid out the moral argument behind Wednesday’s post in full. “Working class Americans, like the kids that I grew up with, the kids that I deployed with, fought with, suffered with — they’re the ones that have to do the fighting, and the dying, and the paying for these conflicts,” Crow said, according to his official press release on the speech. “They see that the burden of these wars fall on them, while the elites and the rich and the powerful in this country get richer, and more powerful, and more comfortable. The burden is not equal in this nation.”
The White House has called such criticism “the same tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade.” Spokespeople for Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have both said the sons play no role in awarding or managing federal contracts. Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez told MS NOW the department “maintains a rigorous, multi-layered ethics framework” and is “in full compliance with all ethical laws and regulations.”
For Crow — a former Army Ranger who has introduced two separate War Powers Resolutions to end the Iran conflict, both of which failed on party-line House votes — Wednesday’s X post connected two threads he has been pulling since February 28: that the war was launched illegally, and that the people profiting most from its continuation are not the working-class Americans doing the fighting.