Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) cut through Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's budget demands on MS NOW Wednesday — and said he smelled a rat in the whole thing.
This comes as President Donald Trump continues to try to prosecute his war in Iran, without any clear plan to achieve a lasting objective.
Trump, Kaine noted to anchor Jacob Soboroff, "is asking for a 40 percent increase in the Pentagon's budget over last year, with no guardrails, in the middle of an illegal war, and coming to us and asking for an additional $67 billion to fund a war that is illegal, and that's deeply unpopular with the American public." Congress, he said, should find its spine and force an end to the war instead.
Soboroff noted that reports indicate the U.S. is low on interceptor missiles, and being forced to disclose a growing number of casualties for American troops. With that in mind, he continued, "is a standalone defense spending bill something that you would support?"
"Well, when the Pentagon says they're running out of money, they neglect to tell you something: that the reconciliation bill that passed last year, that gave $153 billion extra dollars to the Pentagon, $89 billion of that has not yet been obligated," said Kaine.
So when Hegseth demands another $67 billion round, Kaine continued, "What about the $89 billion you have sitting over there that we gave you last year that you haven't even spent?"
"This math doesn't add up," Kaine concluded.
And bottom line, he refused to commit more money to "an illegal war that's deeply unpopular with Americans that President Trump never should have started."