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  "path": "/post/207686/donald-trump-iran-war-cost-one-week",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-12T15:44:18.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republican Party",
    "Donald Trump",
    "Foreign Policy",
    "Middle East",
    "Iran",
    "War",
    "Money",
    "defense spending",
    "multiple outlets",
    "previously estimated",
    "reportedly used",
    "to make health care more affordable",
    "rescinded",
    "gutted",
    "$500 million",
    "at least $12 billion"
  ],
  "textContent": "The Pentagon estimates that it spent more than $11.3 billion in the first week of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran. And every cent of that was spent without congressional approval.\n\nDuring a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Pentagon officials told lawmakers that the cost of the first six days of America’s aerial bombing campaign exceeded $11.3 billion—not including the cost of the buildup ahead of the strikes, multiple outlets reported.\n\nThe Pentagon previously estimated it spent $5.6 billion on munitions alone during the first two days of the war—significantly dwarfing the Pentagon’s preliminary cost estimate of $1 billion per day. Some GOP lawmakers said they’d received estimates that were closer to $2 billion per day.\n\nElaine McCusker, who served as deputy undersecretary of defense during the first Trump administration, estimated that it cost an additional $630 million to assemble the largest force of U.S. military assets to the Middle East in decades before the first shot was even fired.\n\nMeanwhile, a Tomahawk cruise missile, like the one the U.S. military reportedly used in a deadly strike on an Iranian girls’ primary school, costs $2.2 million each. It may be worth keeping these figures in mind as the Trump administration argues it doesn’t have enough money to make health care more affordable.\n\nThis exorbitant spending on a military campaign the American people do not support and their representatives did not authorize cancels out billions supposedly saved by sweeping cost-cutting measures. In order to fund his war, Trump has laid waste to federal programs.\n\nLet’s do some quick math: The $1.1 billion Trump rescinded from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the $7 billion from foreign aid, added to the $2.7 billion gutted from medical research and the $500 million slashed from food banks, is roughly equivalent to the $11.3 billion the Trump administration has spent bombing Iran.\n\nOr to put it more simply: In his first year back in office, Trump disrupted at least $12 billion toward K-12 education. Rather than fund schools, the U.S. bombed them.",
  "title": "Here’s How Much Just One Week of Trump’s Iran War Cost Us"
}