Gallego: Congress boosting Iran war funding ‘like giving a drunk more money and hoping that they’ll stop drinking’

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) on Sunday expressed strong opposition to Congress giving the Pentagon more funding amid the Iran war.

During an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” Gallego pivoted when host Martha Raddatz asked him about the Trump administration requesting from lawmakers $17 billion in military operation costs.

“We are more focused on making sure that we are supporting the American warfighter and trying to … get us out of this war,” said the Arizona Democrat, who sits on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. 

Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, requested $87.6 billion from Congress in June. Included in the request was $21 billion for the Defense Department to support critical capabilities, procure munitions and strengthen the U.S. industrial base, as well as $17.3 billion for operational costs. 

Amid the war, which will soon hit the six-month mark, the Pentagon has reportedly depleted its stockpile of critical munitions — such as long-range missiles and interceptors.

But Gallego, echoing the views of a vast majority of Senate Democrats, said Sunday that President Trump “planned nothing” with respect to the war, including an endgame. 

“What is our mission? We still don’t quite understand why we went to Iran,” the Arizona Democrat remarked. “We don’t know exactly how we’re going to get out of Iran.”

“So, for us to actually give more money to something like this is extremely dangerous. It’s like giving a drunk more money and hoping that they’ll stop drinking,” he continued.

Gallego, who served in the Marines during the Iraq War, added he does not want Americans to find themselves in “another 20-year war” and called the Iran war “illegal.”

Both chambers of Congress have passed war powers resolutions ordering Trump to wind down the conflict, but the president and administration officials have argued the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.

Throughout the last five-plus months of war, Trump has oscillated between strategies, going from threatening severe damage to Iranian civilian infrastructure, to saying the two sides are on the verge of a lasting peace, to engaging in economic warfare on the Islamic Republic.

But in order to get Gallego on board for a discussion about additional Pentagon funding, the president has to outline the “end goal” of the conflict, the senator said.

“How are we going to get out of this quagmire? What is actually the mission? Because so far the mission has changed and the objective has changed so many times,” he told Raddatz. “And then we could potentially talk about the funding.”

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