‘An unauthorized war’: Democratic senators grill Pete Hegseth on US war with Iran – live

Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, has told senators that Vladimir Putin has aided Iran’s war effort, something the Kremlin has previously denied to the White House.

Caine declined to go into details, citing the public nature of the hearing, but said: ”There’s definitely some action there.”

The chair of the committee, Republican senator Roger Wicker, agreed. “There’s no question that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is taking serious action to undermine our efforts for success in Iran,” Wicker said.

In his opening remarks to the Senate committee, Hegseth repeated what he told the House panel yesterday:

As I said yesterday, and I’ll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.

Defending Trump’s budget request, he said the president had “inherited a defense industrial base that had been hollowed out by years of America last policies, resulting in a diminished capacity to project strength.”

As Pete Hegseth was delivering his opening remarks, protesters interrupted him and was removed from the room.

One protester said: “This is despicable, the American people [did] not want to go into this war.”

“We appreciate the first amendment rights of Americans to express themselves but disruptions of this hearing will not be tolerated,” said committee chair Roger Wicker, before inviting the defense secretary to continue his testimony.

Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, did not hold back in his opening remarks directed at Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth and Trump had “unwisely” taken the United States to war against Iran, he said.

He argued that the war has left the US in a worse strategic position than when it was started with the strait of Hormuz closed and 13 US military members killed. Many others have been injured, and equipment has been destroyed, he added.

“American families are bearing the cost of a war they wanted nothing to do with and have gained nothing from,” he went on.

Reed then said Hegseth’s statements on the war are “dangerously exaggerated”, as Iran’s regime and its military and nuclear capabilities remain intact.

“Mr Secretary, I am concerned that you have been telling the president what he wants to hear instead of what he needs to hear,” he told Hegesth.

Hegseth has often made “dangerous statements that are counter-productive to the mission”, Reed added, including “orders that would constitute war crimes”.

And on Hegseth’s personal agenda in overhauling the merit-based system of the military and firing dozens of senior military leaders, Reed said:

My colleagues and I have heard from countless service members throughout the ranks, many of whom will be watching right now, who are confused and disturbed by your actions. Hopefully you can explain them today.

He concluded:

The American people’s trust in our military took 250 years to build. You are dismantling it in a fraction of that time.

Meanwhile, King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived at the White House to say farewell as their four-day state visit comes to an end.

The monarchs shook hands with Donald and Melania Trump, with Trump calling Charles, “the greatest king in my book,” before they entered the White House.

A few minutes later, the king and queen departed. They’re expected to head to Arlington cemetery to lay a wreath before leaving for Bermuda.

“We need more people like that in our country,” Trump told reporters after their car left.

To recap quickly, when he appeared before the House armed services committee yesterday, Pete Hegseth denied that the US-Israel war on Iran, which the Pentagon estimates has cost the US at least $25bn, is “a quagmire” and claimed critics of the operation posed a greater threat to the US and the war effort than Iran itself.

“The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” he said.

Here’s my colleague Joseph Gedeon’s report:

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine return to Capitol Hill today for a grilling from the Senate armed services committee.

Formally billed as a hearing on the defense department’s $1.5tn budget request, questioning is likely to focus mostly on the US’s deeply unpopular war on Iran, as it did yesterday in what was at times a fiery and combative hearing, as well as the tumultuous internal politics of Hegseth’s Pentagon.

It’s due to start shortly, I’ll be watching and will bring you all the key lines here.

Further to the report I brought you earlier from the Washington Post, Louisiana has now moved to postpone its May primaries, as other southern states are also scrambling to redraw congressional districts in response to yesterday’s supreme court ruling that severely weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act.

Before the supreme court’s decision, eliminating a key protection against racial discrimination in drawing voting maps, some states had already begun initiating processes to redraw districts and gut black voting power. More states have now followed, with governors calling for special sessions to redraw congressional districts, potentially before the midterm elections in November.

Louisiana’s governor Jeff Landry and attorney general Liz Murrill, both Republicans, said in a joint statement today that the state can no longer use its current districts to carry out the primaries after the supreme court ruling. Early voting had been scheduled to begin on Saturday in advance of the 16 May primary.

“The State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map,” Landry and Murrill said in the statement on social media Thursday. “We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.”

Louisiana is currently represented in the US House by four Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map could give Republicans a chance to pick up at least one more seat in the November midterm elections — adding to GOP gains elsewhere in Trump’s national redistricting battle.

Here’s my colleague Adria R Walker’s report:

The US president also ramped up his criticism of German chancellor Friedrich Merz, saying he should focus on trying to end Russia’s war in Ukraine and spend “less time on interfering” with the effort to tackle “the Iran nuclear threat”.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!

He has been sparring with Merz in recent days, after the German leader told students on Monday that Iran’s “very skilled negotiators” are “humiliating” the United States and that “the Americans clearly have no strategy” for the war.

Trump responded on Tuesday, saying Merz “doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” The next day, he threatened to reduce the number of US troops deployed in Germany.

Donald Trump has posted on Truth Social this morning renewing his call for ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, saying “it better be soon”.

When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television? People are angry. It better be soon!!!

It comes after he and his wife Melania Trump called for the network to sack the late-night talk show host over a monologue he delivered prior to the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner, accusing the comedian of inciting violence.

Kimmel has refused to apologize for saying that Melania was glowing “like an expectant widow”, pointing out that he made the comment two days before the shooting and that the joke was about the age difference between Donald and Melania.

“Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I. Because under the First Amendment, we have, as Americans, a right to free speech,” Kimmel said last Tuesday.

The US’s top media watchdog, the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr, announced on Tuesday that it is accelerating the review of eight local broadcasting licenses used by ABC, in a move critics see as a clear example of political and regulatory retribution against a disfavored broadcaster.

Maine governor Janet Mills has dropped her bid for the US Senate just weeks before the Democratic primary in a race that reflected an internal party debate over how to win one of this year’s most competitive Senate seats.

“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight – to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said in a statement. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”

Mills, a two-term governor and longtime Maine politician, was seen as one of Democrats’ top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race last year. She had the backing of Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and prominent left-leaning advocacy groups hoping to unseat Susan Collins, a Republican senator, and help the party win control of the closely divided Senate.

But Mills struggled to outshine Graham Platner, a first-time candidate and her opponent in the 9 June Democratic primary. Platner has maintained strong popularity despite facing controversy over past comments he made online and a tattoo he had that is widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.

The contest between Platner and Mills was part of a broader debate within the Democratic party over how best to defeat Republicans and win back some power in Donald Trump’s Washington, where the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has vowed that Tehran’s control over the strait of Hormuz would ensure a future without US presence in the region.

“Today, by managing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will provide itself and its neighbours with the precious blessing of a future free from American presence and interference,” said Ghalibaf in a post on X to mark the national “Persian Gulf” day.

It follows Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khameini saying in a written message read out on state television that the United States had been defeated in its war on Iran, and that foreigners who act with greed and malice have no place in the Gulf, “except at the bottom of its waters”.