Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday accused President Donald Trump of asking American taxpayers to foot the bill for his administration’s military campaign against Iran, after the White House transmitted a formal request to Congress for $87.6 billion in supplemental funding.
In a post on X published at 3:52 PM on June 24, 2026, Schumer wrote: “President Trump is asking taxpayers to clean up his messes, to the tune of $87.6 billion. After dragging America into a reckless war, he now wants Congress to hand him tens of billions more to paper over the damage — while families are still paying higher prices. We should be lowering costs for the American people, not writing another blank check for Trump.”
Schumer’s post came in direct response to a breakdown of the supplemental request circulated earlier Wednesday by journalist Jake Sherman, which detailed the bulk of the funding: $67 billion for the Department of War, $11 billion for farmers, $40 million for the FBI tied to “Operation Epic Fury” and other classified programs, $672 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration, and additional allocations including $1.5 billion for State Department diplomatic programs, $300 million for embassy security and construction in Bahrain, Dubai, Karachi, Lahore and Riyadh, $1.4 billion for the Ebola response in Central Africa, and $1 billion toward a modernized Penn Station in New York City.
The official transmittal letter, sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell T. Vought, stated that “most of this request will address urgent needs related to Operation Epic Fury (OEF), in addition to other critical needs such as responding to the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa and supporting hardworking American farmers.” The letter described Operation Epic Fury, the military campaign against Iran launched February 28, 2026, as having achieved “a successful operation to deter the threat of a nuclear armed Iranian regime and massively degrade the regime’s ability to project power in the region.” The request includes $21 billion specifically earmarked for the Department of War to “support critical capabilities, munitions procurement, and strengthen the U.S. industrial base.”
Wednesday’s post was the latest in a months-long series of public statements in which Schumer has repeatedly criticized the war’s cost, the administration’s transparency, and the conduct of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. On the day the operation began, Schumer released a statement saying that “the administration has not provided Congress and the American people with critical details about the scope and immediacy of the threat,” adding that “President Trump’s fitful cycles of lashing out and risking wider conflict are not a viable strategy.”
Schumer has consistently tied the war’s price tag to its impact on household costs. In May 1 floor remarks delivered after Hegseth testified before Congress, Schumer said that “after weeks of leaving Congress in the dark about the state of Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, Hegseth came to the Capitol to testify yesterday,” and called the secretary’s testimony “disgraceful,” directly responding to Hegseth’s characterization of congressional critics as “the biggest challenge” facing the administration by telling him to “take a look in the mirror.”
That same day, Schumer joined Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), along with 35 other Senate Democrats, in a letter pressing the administration to release the Office of Legal Counsel opinion it used to justify its claim that hostilities with Iran had “terminated” for War Powers Act purposes. The senators argued that “the already unconstitutional war in Iran has violated its statutory deadline set by the War Powers Act” and that continuing strikes and naval operations “constitute hostilities” under the law.
By mid-May, Schumer was citing escalating cost figures directly from Pentagon testimony. In May 13 floor remarks, he noted that “when Hegseth and other Pentagon officials came to testify at the end of April, they said this war cost American taxpayers $25 billion,” and that “yesterday, they revised that figure to $29 billion,” using the discrepancy to argue Trump had launched the campaign “without a plan, without a clear objective, and without any thought to how it might affect the American people.”
Schumer marked the 60-day threshold under the War Powers Act with similarly pointed remarks, stating that “for 60 days, Trump has blundered, stumbled, and straggled through this mess of his own making,” and that “for 60 days, military families have stayed up at night, praying their loved ones won’t join the ranks of the brave 13 American servicemembers killed and nearly 400 wounded.” He called on Senate Republicans to support the Democrats’ War Powers Resolution, saying “the most important vote a Senator can take is on matters of war and peace.”
When the administration later announced a ceasefire framework with Iran, Schumer continued to press for transparency on the terms. In remarks demanding the administration disclose details of the agreement, he said that “three days after Trump announced his so-called ‘understanding’ with Iran, the American people still have no understanding of what it actually is because Trump refuses to tell us,” and argued the administration was “deliberately deceiving the American people because they’re afraid that it will show that Trump has capitulated.”
In a subsequent floor speech addressing the terms of the framework, Schumer said “Trump’s ‘memo of understanding’ reads like an Iranian wish list,” asserting that under the deal “Iran gets to keep backing its terrorist proxies, to keep building ballistic missiles, to maintain its stranglehold on the global economy, and to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction aid and maritime tolls.” He cited polling showing that “roughly 80% of Americans say they want this war to end immediately” and renewed his call for Trump, Rubio, and administration officials to brief the full Senate.
Schumer has also disputed administration claims that the conflict has fully concluded. In floor remarks delivered after Trump indicated plans to take Kharg Island, Schumer said “it doesn’t take a military genius to see that Trump’s fiasco of a war with Iran never ended — not with American helicopters being shot down, not when American bases are being attacked, and American troops are coming under fire.” He added that “Americans have made it clear they don’t want this war, they don’t want the high costs of gasoline and fertilizer and everything else that come with it, and Trump has made it clear he is incapable of cleaning up his mess.”
Wednesday’s $87.6 billion supplemental request, formally submitted to House Speaker Johnson, now goes to the appropriations committees in both chambers, where it will be weighed alongside the broader funding requests for war-related costs, embassy security, agricultural assistance, and other items outlined in the OMB transmittal. Schumer’s office did not immediately indicate whether Senate Democrats would seek to attach conditions to the package or oppose elements of it outright, though his Wednesday statement signaled continued resistance to additional war-related spending without corresponding relief on consumer costs.
The request comes as Congress continues to weigh the Iran War Powers Resolution, which the Senate passed for the first time on a bipartisan vote earlier this week, with nearly all Democrats and four Republicans supporting the measure in what was described as a symbolic rebuke of the administration’s continued military posture toward Iran.