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Warren Slams Trump for Iran War Costing 'American Taxpayers $11,500 Per Second'
According to more recent Pentagon figures, it's actually even worse.
Mar 13, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren took President Donald Trump to task on Friday for making life "more expensive" with his war in Iran.
"It's costing American taxpayers $1 billion a day to fund this war," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a video posted to her social media accounts. "That is $11,500 every single second."
This is, of course, not an exact amount. The figure is based on a preliminary estimate provided by Pentagon officials to Congress last week, estimating that the war would cost about $1 billion per day.
And so far, the war has actually been even more expensive than Warren initially claimed.
On Tuesday, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon gave a more comprehensive briefing, telling Congress that just the first six days of the war had exceeded $11.3 billion in cost, which puts the price tag at about $1.88 billion per day. That's nearly $21,800 per second.
The Times noted that this was a low-end estimate and that the pricetag did not include many other costs, including those associated with the buildup of military hardware in the region before the war.
Using just these conservative estimates, a live ticker shows that as of Friday afternoon, the estimated cost of the war that began on February 28 is already fast approaching $19 billion, less than two weeks later.
"If we took the money that Donald Trump is demanding to fund the war with Iran and used that money here at home, instead, we could help cover healthcare costs for millions more Americans all across this country," Warren said.
Indeed, an analysis published last week by the Institute for Policy Studies' National Priorities Project (NPP), based on the $1 billion-per-day figure, found that on an annual basis, the cost of the war is “higher than the appropriated budget of any federal agency except the Pentagon itself."
If all that money were spent domestically, it found, it would be enough to cover the daily costs of federal nutrition assistance for more than 40 million Americans, as well as daily Medicaid costs for the roughly 16 million people expected to lose health coverage due to the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last year.
As Warren pointed out, calculations of military spending do not even take into account the sharp hikes in gas prices Americans are facing as a result of the war, which has led Iran to retaliate by closing one of the world's largest oil shipment routes, the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the American Automobile Association's (AAA) gas price tracker, US gas prices have leaped to $3.63 per gallon on average as of Friday, up from $2.94 a month ago.
"We haven't seen gas prices jump this much since Russia invaded Ukraine," Warren said. "Some cities in Indiana and Ohio have already seen a jump of over 50 cents a gallon. In Texas and Virginia, prices are up by more than 65 cents."
Citing an image of a Chevron station in Los Angeles posted by a user on TikTok, Warren said: "California is seeing gas prices above $8." According to AAA, the average cost of gas in the state is $5.42.
Despite rising anger from voters—more than 7 in 10 of whom said in a recent Quinnipiac poll that they fear higher oil and gas costs as a result of the war—Trump has said carrying out his objectives in Iran "is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit."
In a post to Truth Social on Thursday, the president framed higher prices as a positive: "The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money," he wrote.
While this may be true for Americans who own oil and gas companies, most do not. For the average American, higher gas prices can raise the cost of transportation sometimes by thousands of dollars per year, cutting into spending on food, rent, medicine, and other essentials.
"For someone who campaigned on lowering costs on day one, Donald Trump is constantly raising the bar for how expensive he can make it to live in this country," Warren said.
Referencing Republican opposition to extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that lowered healthcare premiums for more than 20 million Americans, Warren implored viewers to "never forget that Donald Trump said we just can't afford to lower health care costs this year."
"These are about choices," she said, "and Donald Trump is making the wrong ones."
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One-Third of Americans Skipped Meals or Cut Back on Spending to Afford Healthcare in 2025
“No one is safe from making these trade-offs,” said a researcher at Gallup, which found even insured Americans in higher income brackets have avoided daily expenses to pay medical bills.
Mar 12, 2026
As the Trump administration spends an estimated $1 billion per day in taxpayer money bombing targets across Iran that have reportedly included an elementary school and healthcare facilities, Gallup released a survey Thursday that found one-third of Americans reported making financial trade-offs in order to pay for medical expenses last year.
The West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America polled nearly 20,000 US adults between June and August 2025 and found that roughly one-third of them—equivalent to about 82 million people in the richest country in the world—were forced cut back on at least one expense in order to afford healthcare.
Eleven percent of respondents—equivalent to 28 million Americans—skipped a meal or intentionally drove less in order to pay a medical bill. Fifteen percent, the equivalent of nearly 40 million people, said they prolonged a current prescription or borrowed money, and 9% cut back on utilities.
Those numbers were strikingly similar among people who have health insurance, with 14% of insured people prolonging prescriptions to avoid paying for a new one and 9% skipping meals. Among insured Americans, 29% made at least one trade-off to afford healthcare.
The crisis is also not exclusively affecting low-income people. A quarter of people in households earning $90,000 to $120,000 per year skipped meals or other expenses to pay medical bills, and 11% of people in households earning $240,000 or more did the same.
“No one is safe from making these trade-offs,” Ellyn Maese, a senior researcher at Gallup and research director for the West Health-Gallup Center, told The New York Times.
Sixty-two percent of people without healthcare coverage were forced to make trade-offs, and 55% of people with household incomes lower than $24,000 per year as well as 47% of people earning $24,000 to $48,000 avoided expenses.
Gallup also released the results of a separate poll taken between October and December 2025, which showed how Americans are delaying major life decisions as well as altering their daily lives to afford healthcare under the for-profit insurance system.
As the Trump administration's policies slashed healthcare for 15 million Americans and raised healthcare premiums for tens of millions of people—and as the White House demanded that families have more children—6% of respondents said they had postponed having or adopting a child due to healthcare costs, equivalent to about 16 million Americans.
Nearly 30% said healthcare costs led them to avoid taking a vacation, 18% said they delayed finding a different job, 15% said they postponed pursuing education or job training, and 14% said they postponed buying a home.
The polls are “telling a consistent story here,” Maese said.
The survey results were released weeks after the Trump administration proposed new regulations for healthcare plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace that would charge deductibles as high as $15,000 for individuals and $31,000 for families to offset lower monthly premiums—underscoring how the healthcare law passed 16 years ago has left American households vulnerable to rising costs under the for-profit health insurance system.
A survey taken last November by Data for Progress found that 65% of voters support expanding the Medicare system to everyone in the US, a proposal that would save an estimated $650 billion annually.
But as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—who has sponsored Medicare for All legislation in the House—noted on Wednesday, Republicans and establishment Democrats continue to claim the proposal is unaffordable.
"When we ask for Medicare for All it’s 'too expensive,' and we 'don’t have the money,'" said Jayapal. "When the president drags us into his own personal war, no expense is spared. Our priorities are backwards."
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Group That Convinced Wyoming Supreme Court to Block Abortion Ban Fights New Law
"This new law is part of a relentless campaign by anti-abortion extremists who continue to push restrictions regardless of settled law, patient safety, or basic compassion," said one critic.
Mar 11, 2026
A reproductive rights group coalition that recently got two anti-abortion laws overturned in Wyoming's Supreme Court filed a legal challenge on Tuesday against the insidiously named "fetal heartbeat" legislation signed earlier this week by the state's Republican governor.
The advocacy groups Chelsea's Fund and Just the Pill; Wellspring Health Access, Wyoming's only abortion clinic; and three physicians filed a motion seeking to block HB 0126, the so-called Human Heartbeat Act, which was signed Monday by Gov. Mark Gordon.
The law bans abortion when there is a "detectable fetal heartbeat." Critics note that the term "fetal heartbeat" is medically inaccurate and misleading, as what can be detected with a transvaginal ultrasound at around six weeks of gestation is not an actual heartbeat, but rather electrical activity in fetal tissue that later develops into a heart.
The legislation contains an exception to “preserve the woman from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health, according to appropriate medical judgment," but forces victims of rape and incest to carry their abusers' fetus to term.
The “uNfOrTuNaTe fLaW” he's referring to is that the state's abortion ban has no rape or incest exception. 🤬But this is no accident; these policies are DESIGNED to violate our basic human rights. For the extremists who champion these violent laws, this is a feature, not a bug.
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— Center for Reproductive Rights (@reprorights.org) March 11, 2026 at 7:51 AM
Gordon called the glaring lack of exceptions for rape or incest "an unfortunate flaw."
Wyoming's Republican-dominated Legislature passed the law after the state Supreme Court struck down two other pieces of forced-birth legislation in January.
One of the overturned laws outlawed abortion in nearly all cases, except when the pregnant patient’s life is in danger or for victims of rape or incest. The other banned abortion pills. Both laws were passed after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing half a century of federal abortion rights.
In striking down the laws, the state's high court ruled that they violated residents' ability to make their own healthcare decisions—a right enshrined in the Wyoming Constitution.
The groups challenging the new law echoed the ruling in their motion, arguing the legislation "transgresses the constitutional guarantee of plaintiffs’ and individuals’ to make healthcare decisions without interference from the government."
Chelsea's Fund executive director Janean Forsyth expressed dismay over state lawmakers' relentless attacks on healthcare.
“I'm thinking about everyone from the 15-year-old that we supported, whose grandmother actually reached out, a victim of sexual assault,” Forsyth told Wyoming Public Radio on Wednesday. “I'm thinking about a family with a very wanted pregnancy that we supported in eventually seeking an abortion for a severe fetal anomaly.”
"It's not only affecting access to abortion care, it's affecting reproductive healthcare access generally for parents and children, which is really unfortunate,” she added, referring to medical professionals who are leaving the state for fear of prosecution.
On Wednesday, Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), said in a statement:
A mere two months after two abortion bans were struck down by the state’s Supreme Court, Wyoming’s anti-abortion leaders have enacted yet another ban despite clear judicial rulings and public support for the constitutional right to make personal healthcare decisions. This new law is part of a relentless campaign by anti-abortion extremists who continue to push restrictions regardless of settled law, patient safety, or basic compassion.
“But as they have before, providers are standing firm and fighting back," Fonteno added. "NAF is proud to support Wellspring Health Access and the advocates challenging this ban, and we remain committed to ensuring abortion care is not only legal, but accessible and protected for every person, in every state.”
Abortion access has been tenuous in Wyoming in recent years, with bans and a 2022 arson attack on the Wellspring Health Access clinic in Casper—the state's only full-service abortion facility—causing uncertainty and delays.
Lawmakers in Wyoming considered putting the issue before voters in a referendum but decided against doing so, as such ballot measures have repeatedly resulted in the protection of abortion rights—even in deep "red" and conservative-leaning states including Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, and Ohio.
Wyoming is the fifth state to ban abortion at around six weeks, joining Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and South Carolina.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13 states currently have near-total abortion bans, while 28 other states restrict the procedure. Numerous forced-birth bills are pending across the nation, and—while unlikely to pass—the most severe proposals including punishing the medical procedure with lengthy imprisonment and even the death penalty for healthcare providers and patients.
Wyoming’s governor signed into law a so-called “fetal heartbeat” ban. Abortion is now banned in the state when “cardiac activity” is detected, around 6 wks of pregnancy. WY now shifts from “Restrictive” to “Very Restrictive” on our interactive map. Learn more: https://gu.tt/4985P4S#AbortionAccess
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— Guttmacher (@guttmacher.org) March 11, 2026 at 6:00 AM
On Monday, the Center for Reproductive Rights published a report examining the human and economic toll of abortion bans, which a separate study last year by the Population Reference Bureau has linked to 478 excess infant deaths and 59 excess deaths of pregnant people since Roe was struck down nearly four years ago.
It's not only state-level bans that harm patients. Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, contains the biggest cuts to Medicaid in the program's 60-year history. Dramatically decreased Medicaid funding has resulted in the closure of at least 50 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, and the reduction of services at many others.
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