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'Call Your Members of Congress': Pressure Mounts on Dems to Oppose Any New Funds for Iran War
"Both practically and politically, a vote to fund the war is a vote for the war—a war Americans cannot afford and do not want."
Mar 06, 2026
Democratic members of Congress are facing renewed pressure to oppose any Trump administration funding requests to help bankroll its illegal, open-ended war on Iran after congressional Republicans—along with a handful of pro-war Democrats—voted this week to defeat efforts to end the assault, which is costing US taxpayers roughly $1 billion per day.
In a statement after House Republicans and four Democrats voted down an Iran war powers resolution late Thursday, the ACLU implored Congress "to use its funding authority to block all supplemental funding requests for war funding from the Department of Defense while President Trump is engaging in this unconstitutional war."
"Without Congress authorizing additional funds, the military will simply run out of money to spend on the war," the group added.
The Trump administration is reportedly crafting a $50 billion supplemental funding request aimed at financing its war, which has killed more than 1,000 Iranians and counting. Politico reported Thursday that Republicans are "debating whether to attach wildfire aid and $15 billion in tariff relief for farmers" to the supplemental funding measure in an effort to attract Democratic support.
The National Priorities Project (NPP) has noted that $50 billion would be enough to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies for a year, restore federal nutrition assistance to millions who are set to lose it due to the Trump-GOP budget law, and expand Medicaid to nearly 2 million people.
"The question isn’t whether the money exists—it's what we choose to spend it on," NPP's Alliyah Lusuegro and Lindsay Koshgarian wrote Thursday. "There’s never been a better time to call your members of Congress. We need to oppose this war before it’s too late."
"Any member of Congress who rubber stamps another dime for this war of choice should expect to hear from our members."
Some Senate Democrats—including Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee—have not ruled out voting for a possible supplemental funding bill for the Pentagon, even as the annual US military budget cleared $1 trillion.
“We have to look at what they need,” Reed said earlier this week. “Some of it might be to fill in critical issues and other theaters of war they’ve taken things from.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told HuffPost that she "would like to understand the goals of the war before I decide how I feel about the funding of the war."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, wrote Thursday that "both practically and politically, a vote to fund the war is a vote for the war—a war Americans cannot afford and do not want."
The progressive advocacy group MoveOn said its members "consider a vote for the supplemental a vote in favor of Donald Trump's war."
"Any member of Congress who rubber stamps another dime for this war of choice should expect to hear from our members," the group added.
To break the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate, Republicans would need at least seven Democrats to cross the aisle.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) expressed emphatic opposition to the floated supplemental funding bill in a social media post on Thursday.
"I’m a hell no on funding for Trump’s illegal, disastrous Iran War," Murphy wrote.
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'Dismal' Employment Report Shows Trump Economy Lost 92,000 Jobs in February
“Month after month, the data shows Donald Trump’s economy is failing American families.”
Mar 06, 2026
President Donald Trump's self-proclaimed "greatest" economy in history took another major blow on Friday as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the American economy lost 92,000 jobs in February.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, described the report as "dismal," while noting that the US economy as a whole has actually lost jobs since Trump announced his "liberation day" global tariffs in April 2025.
"Total job gains since from May 2025 to February 2026 are now -19,000," she wrote. "Companies are not hiring in the face of all of these headwinds and uncertainty. And even healthcare is starting to slow down."
University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers argued that "the economic story just changed dramatically" because of the jobs report, which also showed downward revisions to the estimated jobs created in December and January.
"Recession questions are back on the menu," he said.
Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project, zeroed in on the surprise loss of healthcare jobs in February as particularly concerning given that healthcare has been the lone industry to consistently add jobs in recent months.
"This is the first month in years where healthcare jobs went negative, really changing the dynamic," he said. "Cuts to Medicaid, cuts to ACA... suddenly the thing that was 187% of private jobs since liberation day, holding it together, may be giving out?"
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said that the terrible jobs report was a direct reflection of Trump's economic mismanagement.
"Month after month, the data shows Donald Trump’s economy is failing American families," Boyle said. "The job market is weakening, costs remain high, and Trump’s illegal tariff taxes continue to hurt businesses and workers. Trump and his allies in Congress know their agenda isn’t working. Instead of helping working families, they are pushing more tariff taxes and more tax breaks for billionaires. It is clear Republicans in Washington simply do not care about working families."
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, declared that "the deterioration in the labor market is visible from space," and pinned the blame on "Trump’s reckless economic agenda."
"As the president piles on blanket tariffs and oil prices soar," Jacquez said, "today's report confirms he's sent the economy straight into a stagflation spiral."
University of Pennsylvania economist Heather Boushey said weakness in the US economy had been evident for several months, although Friday's jobs report showed the largest job losses of any month during Trump's second term.
"Today's data should not come as a shock as there have been signs of weakening in the US labor market for quite some time," she said. "The Trump administration’s focus on undermining the US economy rather than investing in America may be coming home to roost."
Daniel Hornung, policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said that the bad jobs report will make things even harder for the US Federal Reserve when it comes to making interest rate cut decisions.
"This morning’s report... comes at a difficult moment, with inflation still above target and an oil price shock threatening to raise inflation further," Hornung said. "The report complicates the Fed’s efforts to keep both unemployment and inflation low, and it makes it difficult for the [Trump] administration to argue heading into the midterms that their policies are leading to the kind of growth or improvement in living standards that they’ve long promised."
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Watchdog Demands Insider Trading Probe After ‘Highly Suspicious’ Bets on Iran War
"Several very substantial bets were placed in the last-minute moments prior to the February 28 attack," said a representative for Public Citizen.
Mar 06, 2026
A consumer watchdog group is calling on the federal agency that regulates prediction markets to investigate what it says are a series of "highly suspicious bets" placed on President Donald Trump's war with Iran.
In a letter sent on Thursday to Michael Selig, the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a representative for the group Public Citizen pointed out that users have been able to make off with six-figure winnings from betting on political outcomes using platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, which "advertise that you can bet on almost anything, anywhere."
"While bets on the future of the Iranian regime had been sporadic and imprecise for months before the invasion, several very substantial bets were placed in the last-minute moments prior to the February 28 attack," wrote Public Citizen's government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman.
"For most of the year, bets of [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] being removed from power were long shots and low-balled guesses," Holman said. "In just the few hours before public announcement of the February 28 attacks, the odds and amount of the bets changed radically, rising from small bets at less than 25% to a few very large bets at over 50%. In the end, a few anonymous bettors hit the nail on its head and became very wealthy."
Holman pointed to a report from NPR that an anonymous account with the username “Magamyman” made more than $553,000 placing bets on Polymarket just before the Iranian leader was killed by an Israeli strike Saturday.
The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, reported findings from the crypto analytics firm Bubblemaps, which identified “six suspected insiders” who had won a $1.2 million profit on a US strike through Polymarket. As the Journal wrote:
Most of them bet on a strike by February 28, which turned out to be the exact date of the operation, the firm said. One such user bet $26,000 and won over $200,000, a return upward of 657%.
These users’ bets were among half a billion placed on Polymarket alone regarding the precise timing of US strikes on Iran.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said "it’s insane this is legal" and that "people around Trump are profiting off war and death." He added that he was "introducing legislation ASAP to ban this."
Holman asked Selig to identify the users who placed the highly lucrative bets and who, within the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, may have been privy to insider knowledge about the strikes.
The Trump family is deeply intertwined with the world of prediction markets. The president's media company, earlier this year, partnered with Crypto.com to launch its own prediction platform called "Truth Predict." Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to both Polymarket and Kalshi.
The president's CFTC chair, Selig—who has appointed the CEOs of prediction market platforms as advisers—has sought to shield betting markets from regulatory scrutiny, describing his goal as ushering in "the Golden Age of American financial markets."
Last month, facing what he called “an onslaught of state-led litigation,” Selig made the legally questionable assertion that Congress had given his agency the exclusive authority to regulate these platforms, not as tightly controlled gambling hubs but as commodities markets, which have much looser rules.
The Iran war is not the first time that mystery users have walked away with massive hauls after placing fortuitously timed bets on Trump's military operations. In January, a user won $436,000 on a bet that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ousted by the end of the month, which they'd placed just hours before Trump's operation to remove him from power.
“Allowing prediction market platforms to bet on virtually anything, any time, is a recipe for disaster,” Holman said. “The American people should not have to wonder whether government officials are exploiting their access to classified information to make a quick buck. The CFTC must act swiftly to regulate platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket in order to protect the public.”
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