Messaging Guidance: Funding Fights on Capitol Hill

 

Department of Defense Supplemental Funding: Just five days into Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran, the White House and Republicans in Congress are already floating the possibility of appropriating additional funds for this unpopular and unnecessary conflict. That funding would be on top of the nearly $1 trillion Congress has already given to the military over the last year. 

In public and in private, the Trump Administration has repeatedly failed to define the objectives, duration, and strategy underlying these operations. Meanwhile, the administration is trivializing the deaths of six servicemembers, has abandoned Americans in the region, and is paying no mind to the already rising costs at home. Unless Donald Trump makes clear how and when we are getting out of this reckless war, Congress has no business funding it.

Don’t lecture anyone about “supporting the troops” when you’re the one sending them into a war with no plan.

  • Six American service members are dead. Dozens more are wounded. Tens of thousands of Americans are stranded after being ordered to evacuate. The conflict is not contained – it is spreading across the region and putting U.S. personnel and partners at greater risk.

  • The administration still hasn’t explained what success looks like or how this conflict ends. The real danger to our troops is this escalating war with no strategy or end game.

Giving Trump another blank check is dangerous.

  • Trump’s war is already costing taxpayers $1 billion a day. Congress blindly approving tens of billions more taxpayer dollars would give Donald Trump unchecked authority to continue an ill-defined, unnecessary, and dangerous war of choice in perpetuity. 

  • This is not what the American people want.

The Administration already has billions available to fund the military. 

  • Last year, Republicans passed legislation providing the Pentagon with an additional $150 billion on top of the Department of Defense annual budget, including $25 billion for interceptors and other munitions. 

  • The Trump Administration should use the funding Congress has already provided before asking taxpayers for even more.

Why should the American people fund an open-ended war with no clear endgame? 

  • No one in the administration can give a clear, consistent answer about why we went to war, or what success looks like and when this will end. The justification keeps shifting – from avenging protestors to stopping the nuclear program to self-defense or outright regime change. The administration even refuses to rule out putting boots on the ground. 

  • Republicans spent the past year arguing we couldn’t afford to pay for Americans’ health care. Now they’re asking taxpayers to fund billions for a war they chose and didn’t think through.  

DHS Shutdown: Republicans on Capitol Hill are also attempting to use Trump’s war in Iran as an excuse to pressure Democratic lawmakers to fund ICE and CBP and end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Talks between the White House and Democratic negotiators have made little progress as the administration continues to oppose commonsense reforms to immigration enforcement that would protect the American people. 

This is a Republican shutdown. 

  • Republicans control Congress and the White House, and they have the power to rein in ICE today. The real question is not why Democrats are blocking a bill – it’s why Republicans refuse to agree to even the most basic guardrails.

  • Democrats are open to compromise – funding the majority of DHS while negotiators continue working towards an agreement on ICE and CBP. But Republicans refuse. 

  • Democrats are ready to provide the votes needed to fund DHS if the bill includes better training, stronger oversight, and clear standards for enforcement. Republicans would rather play politics than meet the demands of the American people.

The Administration already has untouched billions to fund DHS.

  • Last year, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill gave DHS an additional $190 billion in advance funding – more than enough to keep operations running and protect the American people from harm. 

  • There is no shortage of funding to keep DHS functioning. What’s missing is the administration’s willingness to govern responsibly. 

The Trump Administration is undermining our safety. 

  • Even after two Americans were killed and dozens more caught in the crossfire, Republicans still refuse to put reasonable limits on Trump’s out-of-control immigration enforcement. 

  • If this Administration was serious about keeping Americans safe, they wouldn’t be purging a dozen FBI counterintelligence agents tasked with monitoring threats from Iran just days before starting this war – for purely political reasons.

Published: March 2026