WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the U.S. House Budget Committee sent a letter to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday, asking its experts to determine how much the war in Iran could cost. 

“The Constitution grants Congress both the power of the purse and the responsibility of declaring war,” Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle wrote. “A timely and comprehensive estimate from CBO will support Congress in the conduct of its constitutional responsibilities. 

“Congress should ensure we are spending taxpayer dollars to improve the quality of life for the American people, not paying for another endless war in the Middle East.”

Boyle asked the CBO to detail how much the war would cost “under several scenarios, including scenarios of the war lasting longer than 4 to 5 weeks and deploying U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.” 

He requested the CBO to look at possible unintended costs of the war as well, such as how would “moving an aircraft carrier from near Taiwan to off the coast of Iran impact the United States responding to potential Chinese aggression?”

And Boyle asked the CBO to detail how the war in Iran could affect prices within the United States. 

The Trump administration has not publicly disclosed how much it’s spent on the war or what it expects the total price tag will be for what is dubbed Operation Epic Fury. A spokesperson for the Department of Defense told States Newsroom, when asked about costs, that they “have nothing to provide on this at this time.” 

President Donald Trump said during an afternoon appearance at the White House that Iranian leaders called to try to negotiate an end to the war, but didn’t say if he would begin talks. 

“They’re calling. They’re saying, ‘How do we make a deal?’ I said you’re being a little bit late,” Trump said. “And we want to fight now more than they do.”

Six US troops killed

Trump launched the war on Saturday, killing Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other top officials in that country’s government. The U.S. and Israeli militaries have continued bombing in the days since. 

Retaliation from Iran has, so far, led to the deaths of six U.S. troops, with top Defense Department officials expecting more casualties in the days and weeks ahead. 

Trump has said he expects the war could last between four and six weeks, or go longer. He hasn’t ruled out sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, though several Republican lawmakers left classified briefings earlier this week saying boots on the ground would be a step too far.  

Congress has not approved an Authorization for Use of Military Force or declared war against Iran, with both Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., saying they believe Trump’s actions are within his authority as commander-in-chief.  

Democrats, and a couple of Republicans, tried unsuccessfully this week to pull back U.S. troops by forcing floor votes on War Powers Resolutions that would have directed Trump “to remove the United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific authorization for use of military force.” 

Republicans in the House and Senate largely voted against the resolutions.

Trump expected to ask Congress for more money for Iran war

Congress approved $838.7 billion for the Department of Defense in January as part of its annual government funding process. Republicans approved another $150 billion for the Pentagon to spend on specific programs, like air and missile defense, as well as shipbuilding, in their “big, beautiful” law enacted in 2025.

But several GOP lawmakers said this week they expect the Trump administration will send a supplemental spending request to Capitol Hill in the coming weeks to bolster the military’s coffers. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to say Wednesday if Trump will ask lawmakers for more funding for the Iran war, though she didn’t rule it out. 

“I don’t have any updates for you on congressional asks from the president,” Leavitt said. 

Any supplemental spending request would need to pass the House and move through the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster to become law.

That would require support from at least seven Democrats in the upper chamber if all 53 GOP senators vote to advance an emergency spending bill for the war. 

WASHINGTON — The nation’s main agency for handling disaster response and recovery is shuttered for the third time in recent months and its workers are on the verge of missing paychecks, as members of Congress and the White House remain divided in a separate dispute over immigration enforcement.

Lawmakers are raising questions about how the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is affecting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is housed within DHS. FEMA already lacks a permanent administrator and has been under threat of a major overhaul by President Donald Trump. 

The agency is no stranger to shutdowns and keeps much of its workforce going without pay during a funding lapse, though several programs are paused until Congress approves a spending bill. 

The longer the shutdown lasts, the more likely it is to have repercussions on FEMA’s staff, especially when thousands of its employees miss their first paycheck Friday. 

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said she hopes that missed income will increase pressure on Democrats to strike a deal on the last remaining government funding bill for fiscal 2026.

“You think about the winter storm the South went through. Now you think of the winter storm that we just had. We clearly need this to be functioning and working,” Britt said. 

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said he doesn’t believe the Trump administration is “serious” about finding bipartisan agreement on guardrails for immigration enforcement. 

“We’ve sent them multiple compromises. They barely respond,” Murphy said. “I think it feels like they want the shutdown to continue, because they are prioritizing continuing their lawlessness at ICE.”

Minneapolis shootings 

Democrats held up DHS funding after federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in late January during a surge in Minnesota, just weeks after different immigration officers shot and killed Renee Good. Both were U.S. citizens. 

Democratic leaders have detailed several changes they want to make to immigration enforcement operations, including a requirement that agents wear body cameras and do not wear masks. 

Republicans have said they’re willing to negotiate with Democrats on some of those issues, but have requests of their own, including that cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal immigration agencies do so.

The two parties were unable to broker an agreement before stopgap funding for the Department of Homeland Security expired, plunging all of its agencies into another shutdown that’s dragged on since Feb. 14. 

This marks the third funding lapse for DHS this fiscal year. The first, which affected large swaths of the federal government, lasted 43 days and ended in mid-November. The second shutdown was partial since some of the full-year spending bills had become law. It lasted about four days, ending Feb. 3.

DHS’s contingency plan says about 20,975 of FEMA’s roughly 24,925 employees will keep working during the funding lapse. 

In general, any federal employee tasked with the protection of life or property keeps working during a shutdown, while those assigned to other programs are supposed to be sent home. Neither category receives paychecks until Congress and the administration come to some sort of funding deal. 

FEMA’s disaster relief fund is somewhat unique among federal programs since Congress has granted it the authority to deficit spend; it cannot run out of money, even during a shutdown. 

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service notes that FEMA’s non-disaster grant and training programs tend to halt during a shutdown, possibly leading to “delays in awards, possible delays in grant drawdowns, and deferral or cancellation of training and exercises that support state and local preparedness.”

Staffing is also an ongoing issue for FEMA, not just during shutdowns but in general, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog. 

“Recent FEMA workforce reductions may reduce how effective a federal response could be in future high-impact disasters,” it states.

FEMA didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from States Newsroom to share exactly how the shutdown has impacted the agency and provide a list of which programs are running during the funding lapse and which are on hold.  

Noem criticism

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine., said she’s apprehensive about how the shutdown has affected several agencies housed within Homeland Security. 

“My concerns are that FEMA, the Coast Guard and TSA are all bearing the brunt of this shutdown, which is why it is vital that we get an agreement and get one fast,” Collins said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration, which protects the nation’s transportation systems.

Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said there were issues with how DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was managing FEMA before the shutdown began. 

“Well, let’s be clear that Noem hasn’t been good about sending out any FEMA emergency grants anyway,” Murray said. “So I’m always concerned about how she operates her agency.”

Trump has spoken repeatedly about overhauling or even doing away with FEMA and established a review council to provide him with suggestions, though they missed their deadline last year and have yet to release their report. 

Trump also hasn’t nominated anyone to lead FEMA during his second term in the White House, opting instead to use a series of people to temporarily run the agency who didn’t need to go through the Senate confirmation process. 

Cam Hamilton, one of those FEMA leaders, said on a podcast released in mid-February there was “so much political volatility” during his time working at the agency, in part, because of Noem. 

“The talking points were not coherent. I will say that my former boss was not as elaborate and sophisticated in team building,” he said. “So there was not an easy time understanding, what is the message, what is the platform.”

Hamilton worked as the senior official performing the duties of the administrator at FEMA until he was ousted in May after he testified before Congress he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

‘We’ve had all this snow’

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a senior appropriator and Republican Policy Committee chair, said she’s not happy with the FEMA shutdown. 

“I’m not comfortable with what’s shut down at FEMA, and it should put pressure on the Democrats to push this through,” Capito said. “We’ve had all this snow, we’re going to have other disasters, and we rely on FEMA a lot in our state.”

Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said there is money available for disaster relief but that he’s concerned “whether or not people are going to be there to be administering” it.

Peters said he believes leaders at DHS, including Noem, are trying to make the shutdown more problematic than necessary.

“I think she’s trying to create pain,” Peters said. “She’s trying to create pain as opposed to trying to put in safeguards for ICE. It’s really pretty outrageous what she’s doing.”

WASHINGTON — Some congressional Democrats boycotted President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, opting to attend counter-programming to protest the administration’s actions.

Lawmakers took to alternative stages in Washington, D.C., in rebukes of what they see as Trump’s lack of regard for constitutional norms, immigration enforcement tactics and response to the affordability crisis hitting American families.  

“Our democracy is wilting under ceaseless attack from a president who wants to be a despot,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut at the “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall.

“Millions of Americans are losing their health care because the president has chosen corruption to pad the pockets of his billionaire friends instead of helping average Americans,” said Murphy, who serves as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. 

The rally, hosted by progressive media company MeidasTouch and progressive advocacy group MoveOn, countered the president’s address to Congress. Lawmakers brought their own guests to the event, who rebuffed ongoing actions by the administration. 

Tuesday night also featured the “State of the Swamp” at the National Press Club, hosted by DEFIANCE.org, a resistance effort against Trump; the Portland Frog Brigade, a coalition of “artist-activists” and COURIER, an advocacy media network. 

The “State of the Swamp” event brought in several Democratic lawmakers, former Trump administration officials, current and former Democratic state leaders, as well as leading voices against the administration. 

‘A lawless president’

Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, described the State of the Union as a “state of denial” during the event on the National Mall. 

“What’s going to happen under that Capitol is a bunch of lies — lies that Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to tell us about how great this country is doing right now,” he said. “But what is true, what is happening right now, is that Donald Trump and the Republicans have made this country sicker, poorer and less secure.”

Democratic lawmakers continued to blast the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Those criticisms grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis. 

The Department of Homeland Security is shut down as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“Now we know the state of our union,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat. “We know it is under attack from a lawless president who is shredding our Constitution and who is attacking our democracy — a president whose private (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) army executes Americans and then calls the victims domestic terrorists.” 

Epstein files

Democrats also lambasted the administration’s handling of the files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which faced criticism for its piecemeal rollout of the files and heavy redactions. 

Several Democratic lawmakers invited survivors of Epstein as their guests to Trump’s State of the Union address. 

“We should be crystal clear about right now what is happening in our country,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, during the rally on the National Mall. 

“We have a president who is leading the single largest government cover-up in modern history — we have the single largest sex trafficking ring in modern history right now being covered up by Donald Trump and (Attorney General) Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice,” Garcia said. 

Trump, who has appeared in several of the files, had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, but has maintained he had a falling-out with the disgraced financier and was never involved in any alleged crimes.

Brent Ganger, far left, and Luke Ganger, second from left, brothers of Renee Good, watch a forum on Department of Homeland Security use of force organized by congressional Democrats on Feb. 3, 2026. Good was killed by a federal immigration officer Jan. 7. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Renee Good’s family, distraught and in disbelief over her killing, took some comfort in the past few weeks thinking her death might prompt change in the country, her brother Luke Ganger said Tuesday. 

“It has not,” Ganger told congressional Democrats at a forum on the disproportionate use of force by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. “The deep distress our family feels because of (Renee’s) loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation for change.”

Brent Ganger, another brother of Good, also appeared at the forum, saying Good “had a way of showing up in the world that made you believe things were going to be okay.”

Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by a federal agent Jan. 7 in Minneapolis. 

Her death prompted widespread outcry over the immigration enforcement tactics of President Donald Trump’s administration. 

“The completely surreal scenes taking place on the streets of Minneapolis are beyond explanation,” Luke Ganger said. “This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents — these encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours, forever.” 

Backlash over the administration’s immigration efforts grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti, also a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. 

Administration officials have defended the immigration crackdown, including the aggressive tactics used in Minneapolis and other cities.

“The president is never going to waver in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws and protecting the public safety of the American people in his ardent support of” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

First-hand accounts

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California hosted the forum. More than 20 Democrats in the House and Senate joined them. 

The unofficial forum is one of several events put on by congressional Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers, over the past year to protest a host of actions from the administration. 

Three witnesses across Illinois, Minnesota and California — all U.S. citizens — offered harrowing accounts of their encounters with immigration agents in recent months, detailing the trauma, fear and mental distress as a result. 

Marimar Martinez was shot five times by an immigration agent in Chicago. Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident with autism and a traumatic brain injury, was dragged out of her car by agents while on her way to a doctor’s appointment and said she was later refused medical care in DHS detention. And Martin Daniel Rascon was shot at by agents while traveling in a car with family members. 

“Why do we continue to wait for more public executions when we have already seen the evidence in our TVs and computer screens?” Martinez asked the panel. “We have heard the testimonies, we have watched the pain unfold in real time — how many more lives must be lost before meaningful action is taken?”

The meeting came the same day the House passed, and Trump later signed, a funding package that includes a two-week stopgap measure for DHS, as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following Pretti’s death. 

Many Democrats in Congress have vowed not to support a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that does not include such restraints. Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security, made that explicit Tuesday.

“Some day we should have a truth and justice commission to investigate the systematic failing,” he said. “But for right now, I can promise that I will not support another dime for the Department of Homeland Security unless there is this fundamental, far-reaching reform and restraint in effect — a rebuilding of the agency.” 

Report blames DHS tactics for fatalities

Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released a report ahead of the hearing Tuesday on Democrats’ findings regarding the deaths of Good and Pretti.

The report claims that the administration’s “extreme policies, violent tactics, and culture of impunity led to the killings.”

The report also argues that “the available evidence suggests that the Trump Administration is attempting to cover up misconduct” and is also “continuing its cover-up by impeding thorough and impartial investigations into the shootings.” 

“We’re seeing ICE, CBP, other parts of DHS, all across our country, terrorize communities,” Garcia said at the forum, pointing to warrantless searches, arrests and detainments of individuals with no prior criminal history and people being sent to detention centers and released without explanation. 

“Now, American citizens — innocent people — have been brutalized … and to be clear, we’ve seen people dragged from cars, beaten, gassed, attacked with crowd-control weapons, blinded, like back in my home state of California, left with broken ribs, run off the road, beaten, injured, disfigured and shot,” he said.