Sen. Chris Murphy said Sunday that the United States has already lost its war with Iran and that he would back an unfavorable settlement simply to stop the damage from continuing. “So Donald Trump has lost this war. America is weaker. Iran is stronger,” Murphy told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” “The price to reopen the Strait increases by the day. The supposed deal that’s on the table right now would pay Iran $100 billion a year, in order to reopen the Strait. That is one third of Iran’s entire economy. What a victory for Iran, that at the end of this war, they get paid to reopen the Strait, they get paid to rebuild their military, they get paid to rebuild their support for proxies in the region.”
Why He’d Still Vote for a Bad Deal
Despite calling the terms “terrible,” Murphy said ending the war outweighed the cost of the specific settlement on the table. “The answer to your question is, yes, I will support a deal to end this war and reopen the Strait,” Murphy said. “I am prepared to support a bad deal, to end this war and reopen the Strait, because the only deal that is available, at this point in time, is a terrible bad deal. But the war needs to end because every day that the war continues, America gets weaker, Iran gets stronger, and people here in the United States get screwed, as prices go up, and up, and up.”
What Iran Is Actually Demanding
Murphy’s comments came two days after Iran formally laid out its conditions for reopening the strait. Iranian officials said Saturday that reopening would require the U.S. to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, pay damages for the war, unfreeze Iranian assets, lift sanctions on Tehran, and end its military operation entirely. Murphy told Welker that Trump now faces genuinely poor options and needs to find a way out simply to stabilize markets and lower costs for ordinary Americans.
Murphy’s Framing of Who “Won”
Central to Murphy’s argument was a direct rejection of any claim that the war achieved its stated goals. Iran, in his account, comes out of the conflict positioned to extract payment specifically for the outcomes the war was supposed to prevent or punish — continued military rebuilding and continued support for regional proxy groups — rather than facing any diminished capacity as a result of five and a half months of fighting. That framing is what led directly to his blunt assessment: “What a victory for Iran.”
A Consistent Position Across Five Months
Sunday’s remarks extend an argument Murphy has made consistently since the war began February 28. In a Senate floor speech in July, he detailed what he described as the war’s central failure: that Iran had gained effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, a position it did not hold before the conflict, despite limited lasting damage to Iran’s missile sites along the waterway. Around the same time, on X, Murphy said that roughly 145 days into the war, the majority of Iranian missile sites remained operational, calling the conflict “a forever war.”
Earlier Congressional Votes to End the War
Murphy’s position has repeatedly translated into formal legislative action that has fallen short. A resolution he sponsored, S.J.Res.59, to direct the removal of U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities against Iran failed 47-53 in a March 24 vote, blocked largely along party lines, according to a statement from Sen. Ed Markey supporting the measure at the time. Markey noted that 13 U.S. servicemembers had been killed in the war by that point, and that gasoline prices had risen 35 percent, or roughly $1 a gallon, since the conflict began.
A Pattern of Repeated, Failed Votes
That March vote was not an isolated attempt. According to the Connecticut Mirror’s reporting on the same floor debate, Murphy told reporters the repeated votes were “our only opportunity to debate the war, which is tragic,” acknowledging the measures were largely symbolic given Republican control of the chamber. Markey separately voted for at least three additional war powers resolutions over the following weeks — sponsored at various points by Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Tammy Baldwin — each of which also failed, by margins of 47-52 and 46-51, according to Markey’s own office. In an April statement following one such vote, Markey said Trump’s “expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary war has empowered Iran to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz — which Iran now controls — and there is no going back.”
The Scale of Costs Cited Earlier in the War
Independent estimates of the war’s financial toll grew substantially over its course. Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed briefing that the war’s first six days alone cost an estimated $11.3 billion, according to three people familiar with the briefing. Sen. Chris Coons, who attended, told reporters at the time he suspected the real figure was higher: “I expect that the current total operating number is significantly above that. If all you’re looking at is the replacement cost for the munitions used, it’s already well beyond $10 billion.” Murphy himself said after a separate classified briefing in March that he expected the war’s ultimate cost to run into the “hundreds of billions” of taxpayer dollars — a prediction that gives added weight to his Sunday framing of the war as having already been lost regardless of how it formally concludes.
Murphy’s Institutional Position on This Issue
Murphy’s remarks carry particular weight given his role on two committees directly relevant to the war: he sits on both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Appropriations Committee, giving him both a policy and a budgetary lever over how the conflict is funded and formally authorized. That dual role is why Welker’s questions to him Sunday focused as much on the appropriations fight over future funding as on the diplomatic terms of any eventual settlement.
How Murphy’s Position Has Evolved
Murphy’s Sunday comments mark a notable shift in emphasis from his earlier statements. Where his March and July remarks focused primarily on stopping the war on principle and opposing further funding, his Sunday comments went further by explicitly endorsing a bad deal as the least-damaging available path forward — a concession that ending the conflict, even on Iran’s terms, now outweighs continuing to fight for better ones.
A Rare Success in the House
Not every War Powers effort failed outright. According to a statement from Rep. Gregory Meeks posted on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats’ official website, the Senate passed his companion Iran War Powers Resolution in June, prompting Meeks to say: “With the Senate passage of my Iran War Powers Resolution, both chambers have now made clear that the president cannot continue this war of choice and must cease all hostilities against Iran.” That measure, unlike the earlier Senate votes Murphy and Markey participated in, marked a rare instance of both chambers formally going on record against the war’s continuation — even though it did not carry the force of law and did not end the conflict.
Where This Leaves Things
As of Sunday, no final agreement on reopening the Strait of Hormuz had been reached, and Iran’s publicly stated conditions remained far broader than a narrow shipping arrangement — encompassing sanctions relief, asset transfers, and an end to the broader military campaign. Murphy’s willingness to back a deal on those terms reflects his assessment that further delay carries greater costs for the United States than accepting an outcome he himself describes as a clear strategic win for Iran.