Mike Waltz said on Sunday that the U.S. military has everything it needs to keep carrying out operations against Iran, pushing back hard against reports that weapons stocks are running low. Speaking on NBC News’ Meet the Press, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said he had verified the situation “every which way” and added that the people leaking the contrary account “deserve to be in jail.”
He was responding to reporting that U.S. military commanders are letting some Iranian attacks get through defenses so they can preserve the Pentagon’s weapons supply. That detail matters now because the U.S. has been carrying out nearly two weeks of consecutive nightly attacks on Iran, and any sign of strain in the weapons pipeline raises questions about how long the campaign can be sustained at the same pace.
The dispute lands in the middle of a broader scramble over military production. NBC News has previously reported that U.S. weapons stockpiles are diminishing as the war with Iran continues, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked lawmakers for $67 billion in supplemental funding to expand production and speed delivery of weapons. In April, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee it could take “months and years” to rebuild the stockpile, a timetable that sits uneasily beside Waltz’s insistence that nothing is lacking.
Waltz said Hegseth inherited a depleted situation from Ukraine, the ongoing fight with the Houthis, and a depleted military under the Biden administration. He said the Trump administration is moving to new types of munitions, cheaper munitions, new technologies and new defense budgets to rebuild the military. Mark Kelly, in a separate interview on Meet the Press, said the situation was “by their own making,” adding, “They’re not keeping track,” and, “They, at this point, this president and the people around him are incompetent.”
The gap between the public line and the reported reality is the part that will follow this story. Waltz says the arsenal is adequate and talks are still underway, but the funding request, the months-and-years warning, and the reported decision to conserve interceptors all point to a military trying to protect supply while it fights. If the stockpile is as healthy as Waltz says, the $67 billion request becomes a buildup plan; if it is not, it becomes an urgent bridge.
