MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
One of the lawmakers who will question Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later today is Senator Chris Murphy. He is a Democrat from Connecticut and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Good morning, Senator.
CHRIS MURPHY: Good morning.
MARTIN: So what are some of the questions you have for Defense Secretary Hegseth today?
MURPHY: Well, the first and most obvious question is, what is the endgame? It appears that the war goals have been reduced to one, getting the Strait of Hormuz reopened. At this point, there seems to be no hope to significantly degrade their missile capacity or their drone capacity. And so, right now, I think all that can happen is that Iran once again agrees to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But their price is probably higher than it was a year ago. And one of the most important things we can do today is simply confirm that the administration has decided to narrow its war aims to simply getting that strait open. And we'll be asking the secretary what - the price that they will be willing to pay to get that done.
MARTIN: NPR has confirmed a New York Times report that the Pentagon has withheld or, at the very least, slow-walked dozens of military injuries in this war. The administration argues that this is strategic, this is for operational security. What do you say to that?
MURPHY: Well, there's no excuse to withhold from the American public the full cost of this war. Obviously, the American people know what the cost is, as gas prices are back over $4 a gallon. Diesel prices and fertilizer prices are through the roof. We've seen the biggest increase in rate of bankruptcies for farms in the last 10 years over the course of the war. But the cost is also American lives. It's not just in those that have been killed - and that number is rising. It's also in those wounded, those lives that are permanently changed by the injuries of war that they'll bring back home.
We also don't really have a great sense of the battle damage that's been done. There's reports now that, you know, we don't have the ability to protect our troops in theater because so much of our air defense and interceptor capability has been damaged by the Iranians, that the casualty numbers may be increasing at an exponential rate over the next few days and weeks because the Iranians are able to more easily pierce our air defenses, as they have been substantially damaged by this campaign. So the worry is that these injuries and these deaths for our troops are going to accelerate as we have less of an ability to protect them.
MARTIN: So let me go back to this question of the appropriations because you're on the appropriations committee. Analysts have been raising concern for months that the U.S. doesn't have enough missiles or interceptors to engage in a high-intensity conflict or a full-blown war, if you want to call it that. Do you share those concerns?
MURPHY: I do share those concerns, but it's not just a concern relative to this theater. Our other adversaries are watching us right now as we significantly deplete our missile stocks and our interceptor stocks. For instance, obviously, we know that China is contemplating making a move at some point on Taiwan. Now, it'll be up to the American public as to whether the United States steps in and defends Taiwan. But there's a vulnerability because if that conflict were to break out today, the United States doesn't have an ability to fight another front.
It's going to take us maybe the better part of a decade to replenish the interceptor capacity and the missile capacity that we've lost. So this is not just about an exposure for U.S. troops in the Middle East. This is about a signal being sent to other adversaries around the world, like China, that it might be time for them to move. We've opened ourselves up to a massive vulnerability, not just in the region, but globally.
MARTIN: Well, isn't that a reason, then, why Congress should provide the supplemental defense funding?
MURPHY: Well, again, as I mentioned, the problem here is that we can't replenish our stocks, you know, in a way that will adequately protect our troops in the Middle East today. And the reality is, they're going to use those munitions not to shore up our global defenses, but to continue the war in Iran. And the American people don't want this war. It's an illegal war. One of the only mechanisms that Congress has to stop an illegal, unpopular war is to deny the administration funding. And so, for me, I am not going to support any additional funding that's going to be used to carry out a war that's making America less safe, that's getting thousands of people killed in the region and is driving up costs for Americans back at home.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, just briefly here, are you at all worried about the politics of that? I mean, that defense authorization bill that the Senate Democrats blocked last week is one of the few pieces of legislation that normally gets bipartisan support. Could holding up raises for troops and investments in things like child care, their families, any worries that could backfire?
MURPHY: I mean, right now, this is our only mechanism to end this war. And the American public have weighed in very clearly. They don't want this war to continue. They don't want to bear the cost of it. They don't want any more Americans to die. They don't want the Middle East to continue to spiral out of control. So if denying funding for this war is our only mechanism to end it, I think that's exactly what the American public wants us to do.
MARTIN: That is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. He is a Democrat. Senator, thank you.
MURPHY: Thank you.
MARTIN: I do want to mention that NPR has reached out to Senate Republicans for their perspectives on the war in Iran, and those invitations remain open. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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