BREAKING: Senator Jack Reed torches Hegseth for failing to warn Trump the Strait of Hormuz could close — and Americans are paying with their lives
At a Senate hearing Tuesday, Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, laid out the charge plainly. The Pentagon spent YEARS planning for a potential campaign against Iran. Every one of those plans assumed the Strait of Hormuz could be closed. Reed asked Hegseth directly whether he was unaware of that.
Hegseth couldn't dispute it. He admitted the Strait was "front and center in every single aspect" of the planning — then immediately pivoted to blaming the Biden administration.
Reed cut him off cold: "Listen, we're talking about the war you started."
Then he dismantled the excuse entirely. Under the previous administration, Reed noted, oil flowed freely, there was no conflict, and we weren't losing personnel to Iranian attacks. Falling back on Biden, he said, is an obvious excuse for what is "probably — as you described so often — gross negligence."
And here's the core accusation, the one that should be on every front page: Reed charged that Hegseth did not fully inform the President that the Strait could be effectively closed, that oil prices could surge, and that Iran would retain the ability to strike back — exactly as it is doing right now. "They just killed some of our servicemen last weekend."
Hegseth's response to being told he got Americans killed? He praised Trump. Said the President deserves praise for having the "courage" to undertake this.
Reed didn't let it stand: "He should be praised for starting a war without authority, creating a situation in which the world economy is suffering tremendously. We have to have extra money for our farmers, and we have no outcome — at least no realistic outcome — in sight yet."
Remember who we're talking about. First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25. Private Isabella Gonzales, 19. Both killed Friday in an Iranian missile attack on a base in Jordan. A third service member killed Saturday in northern Iraq. At least 18 Americans dead since this war began in February.
Nineteen years old. She won't see 20 because grown men in Washington started a war they had no authority to start and no plan to finish.
The hearing was about a supplemental funding request — including roughly $10 billion for American farmers devastated by the war-driven collapse in fuel and fertilizer supplies. That's the bill coming due at home while the caskets come home too.
Someone finally said it under oath, on the record: gross negligence.
