Pete Hegseth and some of his top Pentagon brass appeared before Congress on Tuesday to answer questions about the $1.5 trillion in taxpayer money they want ferried their way in next year’s budget, a ghastly sum that would mean a 42-percent increase from this year’s funding level. The request comes as the United States remains locked in a deeply unpopular conflict with Iran, one that has caused the price of gas to soar and inflation to skyrocket to a three-year high. Jay Hurst, the military’s money man, told lawmakers that the government has already spent nearly $30 billion on the war, the objectives of which remain unclear after over two months of chaos.
Americans blame Donald Trump for the self-inflicted cost-of-living crisis, with a CNN poll released Tuesday showing his disapproval on the economy at 70 percent. The president doesn’t seem to understand or care about the economic shock Americans are experiencing, repeatedly insisting everything is fine in between meandering monologues about the lavish ballroom he is building on the White House grounds.
Trump was asked before departing for China on Tuesday to what extent the financial crisis is motivating him to make a deal with Iran. “Not even a little bit,” the president said. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran is that they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” he added.
Trump has long insisted the war was necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran has amassed 11 tons of enriched uranium in the eight years since Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, but there is no evidence the nation was on the precipice of obtaining a nuclear weapon like Trump says. Regardless, reports indicate that Iran’s nuclear program has been relatively unaffected by the joint offensive from the United States and Israel.
Very much affected is the cost of gas and other goods in the United States, although the Trump and his administration don’t seem to have much issue with the cost of his Washington, D.C., vanity projects increasing. The president ranted Tuesday morning about reports detailing the ballooning cost of his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and hours later did not take well to a reporter pointing out that the price tag of the ballroom had doubled. “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person,” he said of the ballroom. “You are not a smart person.”
Trump also lashed out a reporter who questioned whether his policies were working, considering inflation is so high. “My policies are working incredibly,” he said, adding that everything was fine before the war. “We had a choice. Let these lunatics have a nuclear weapon — if you want to do that, then you’re a stupid person. And you happen to be, I know you very well. Anybody who wants them to have a nuclear weapon is a stupid person.”
