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‘American households paying $5,000 more’: Ro Khanna confronts Hegseth on Iran war’s cost | Watch
During Pete Hegseth’s congressional testimony, Democrat Ro Khanna on Wednesday confronted the Secretary of Defense over the cost an average American family is paying for the war on Iran.
When Hegseth refused to answer and shot back “what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb”, Khanna slammed him for seeking snappy moments in the testimony while he and the administration had failed to calculate the cost of the war out of incompetence.
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Khanna said that an estimate with him shows that an average household would pay $5,000 more a year because of rising petrol, food, and other essential costs caused by the war. Overall, he said the war has cost the United States $631 billion.
Khanna further said, “You know what is upsetting to me? It’s incredible that you didn’t even do the analysis on how much it’s costing the American people. It’s one thing if you said, ‘Okay, it cost the American people $5,000 but we think it’s worth it. That’s what we’ve done in World War II and other wars. Here’s what it costs, you gotta pay for it.’ You don’t even know what the average American is paying! You don’t know what we paid in terms of the missiles that hit the Iranian school! You don’t know what we’re paying in terms of gas! You don’t know what we’re paying in terms of food! Your $25 billion number is totally off!”
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Khanna further flagged that, despite weeks of war, the administration is nowhere close to achieving its stated goals of recovering Iran’s near-weapons grade uranium and destroying the regime’s nuclear programme.
Khanna and Hegseth have a history of sparring. In his characteristic bluster, Hegseth has often responded with rhetoric and name-calling when asked policy-based questions in hearings. Khanna, a progressive, has announced that he is considering a run for the presidency in the 2028 election.
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When pressed on the cost of the war, Hegseth responded that petrol costs more in California, a Democrat-run state, and Khanna said such deflection would no longer work as the administration had now failed even those who had supported it.
“It used to be that that type of stuff worked, and then you started to lose the people that you campaigned you said you wanted to be for because you said you wouldn’t get us into bad wars! You said you would… you would bring down the prices. You know what I’m sad for? I’m sad for all the people that voted for Trump. I’m sad for them because you betrayed them! You betrayed a lot of that MAGA base! And you know who knows that? J.D. Vance knows that!” said Khanna.