WATCH: Sen. Murphy questions Hegseth in funding hearing as Iran war reignites

[00:00:00]thank you all for being here today. Secretary Hegseth, um, the American people either didn't want this war from the start or were deeply skeptical of this war because they have seen this country make the same mistake over and over again in wars in the Middle East, and that is to create either unrealistic or open-ended objectives.

[00:00:21]You said in March that the United States was quote on plan to defeat, destroy, and disable all of Iran's meaningful military capabilities at a pace that would that we have the world has never seen before.

[00:00:34]Obviously, as we've discussed here today, that objective has not been achieved and is not going to be achieved. Iran is adept, more depth than even at the start of the war at hiding their capabilities or repairing after damage we have done. There's an open report that when it comes to their missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, 30 of 3 3 are still operational. I wouldn't believe all the open reports, Senator, but I've also heard you say in this hearing that the objectives now seem to be more limited than they were at the outset of the war, that this is about reopening the strait, and this is about dismantling their nuclear capability, and the president, of course, has said himself that he thinks Iran has a right to a missile program. Um, so my question is pretty simple. Is it correct that it is no longer a war objective to destroy all of their military capacities. This is what the president has said. Have our goals been simplified to reopening the strait and to getting into a negotiation over a nuclear program. Now I don't think you have a realistic plan to do either of those things, but I think it's important for us to know what we're funding. Are the objectives much more limited today than they were when you made that statement in March. So I, I think the objectives have been consistent and clear from the beginning, and I, I would compare, I would contrast it to North Korea, where a conventional buildup was used to hide a nuclear capability that eventually evolved to a point where it couldn't be contested. And what Iran continued to do even after midnight hammer was try to build that conventional capability to dare anyone to stop them from pursuing nuclear weapons. So getting after their conventional capabilities, missile launchers, defense industrial base, their navy was all part of ensuring they can't blackmail us into into pursuing a nuclear capability. Laser focus on Iran will never have a nuclear capability.

[00:02:32]That's the promise the president has made and that he will keep in every it supports it is still a war objective either through military action or through a diplomatic agreement to destroy and disable all of Iran's meaningful military capacities, including their missile program. As far as all, when we talked about that from the podium for at the outset of this, we were talking about their defense industrial base, and if you look at the metrics of their ability to make more.

[00:03:00]Uh, that it's been overwhelmingly destroyed. Not everything, but overwhelmingly. Now, do they have missiles in underground bunk bunkers because they're a terror state? Sure they do, and we've acknowledged that from the beginning. But their capacity is less today than it's ever been. They obviously, they obviously have significant capacity to effectively disrupt the entirety of the Middle East and oil flows out of the Middle East, and that's not going to change. Um, let me ask you one more question. This is a request for supplemental funding because you don't have the funding in your base budget to do what you need to do, which makes questions about the base budget relevant.

[00:03:35]There's been a lot of attention, Mr. Secretary, on the modernization of a luxury jet that was gifted to the president by the government of Qatar. Reports suggest that maybe as much as $1 billion in your base funding, an extraordinary amount of money has been used for an upgrade and the plane is back in the shop for a second upgrade.

[00:03:52]As far as I can tell, never before has an administration not made public the amount of money for an upgrade or a construction contract on a presidential airplane. Obviously we don't need or want disclose the details of that upgrade, but never before have you withheld from Congress and the public the total amount of money. I think there are two really important questions here. One, will you make public the amount of money that you are spending to upgrade this plane, and 2, can you commit to this Congress and this committee that the president isn't going to take this plane with him when he leaves office. The only thing more insulting to the taxpayers of spending money on a jet they don't need would be for the president to take it with him, to take it out of our military inventory when he leaves office. See, the Air Force has done an incredible job of making that a capable jet that ultimately, but its capabilities are and and and investment are are classified and shouldn't be talked about in considering securing the money. Will you disclose the amount of money publicly. I would, I would imagine as part of the regular budget process, that's something that we would look at. And, and will you commit that the president will not take you have to look at the classification level of certain things that are not devolved for reasons of national security. Will you commit that the president will not take this jet with him out of federal inventory when he leaves office. It's that's not a decision for necessarily me to make and ultimately we're grateful to have it in the fleet for the Air Force to protect the President of the United States. That's Senator Peter answer to the American public.