Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's first congressional appearance since the Iran war began produced cost, criticism, and still no authorization, with NPR's Associated Press account reporting that Pentagon numbers put the war's cost at $25 billion during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. [1]

Sunday's paper said Congress still had the Iran vote record and no war authorization, and Monday's update is not that Congress did nothing but that hearings, hostile questions, and budget numbers still do not equal a vote authorizing the war.

The hearing record matters because Democrats pressed Hegseth on cost, munitions drawdown, civilian casualties, the blockade, and shifting justifications, while Hegseth rejected the criticism as political and Republicans largely supported the operation or focused on budget details. [1]

MSM can file the exchange as partisan combat, X can call Congress decorative, and the public record is narrower but more damning: a war can have a price tag, a blockade, three carriers, and oversight theater while the next real artifact remains a vote, a floor schedule, or an authorization text that moves. [1]

That is why the story remains procedural rather than abstract, because authorization is not a mood in the hearing room but a public act with names, text, timing, and consequences.

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington