Pete Hegseth faces bipartisan retaliation that would freeze his travel budget: report
Senate lawmakers voted to freeze Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's travel budget unless the Pentagon answers for an Iranian school bombing and Caribbean boat strikes, Politico reported.
The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the measure last Wednesday as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027, passing 18-9 in the Republican-led panel.
Under the provision, no more than 75 percent of Hegseth's office travel funds could be spent until the Pentagon complies with more than a half-dozen congressional requests for information, according to Politico. The full bill text has not been made public.
The move signals continued bipartisan frustration with a Pentagon that lawmakers say has stonewalled Congress on major national security decisions.
Chief among the demands: unedited video of U.S. military strikes against suspected drug traffickers in Latin American waters, and answers on the bombing of a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran.
More than 200 individuals have died in U.S. boat strikes against suspected drug traffickers since September 2025. Lawmakers were particularly alarmed by a "double tap" strike in which survivors of an initial Caribbean Sea boat attack were killed in a follow-up strike.
The Minab school strike killed at least 165 people — most of them children — on Feb. 28, in the opening hours of the U.S. assault on Iran. Preliminary Pentagon findings determined the strike was likely a U.S. Tomahawk missile, but officials have not publicly confirmed responsibility.
Pentagon officials have said the incident is under investigation but have not publicly confirmed U.S. responsibility.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) called for Hegseth's resignation over the strike, telling CNN: "I don't think we have had the oversight and accountability that we are entitled to. We have yet to have an open hearing on the Iran war in the Armed Services Committee. So, I have a great deal of questions, and I think Secretary Hegseth should resign because of this failure in being more precise."
In a letter to Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Gillibrand and colleagues wrote that the strike "…may be remembered as one of the most devastating and tragic errors in modern American military history."
Wicker reviewed the double-tap episode and concluded there was no evidence the U.S. committed a war crime, though his panel has continued demanding full footage and the orders authorizing the mission.
The competing House version of the NDAA does not include similar language, meaning the travel-freeze provisions would face lengthy conference negotiations before they could become law.