Senate Appropriations reported the administration’s $94.1 billion war supplemental to the full chamber on a 23-5 vote Tuesday evening, hours after a bruising morning hearing in which Veterans Affairs Secretary Patrick Hagan acknowledged a backlog of more than 11,000 unresolved post-deployment claims from the Iran campaign and accepted a $4.6 billion mental-health amendment that committee Republicans had resisted only a week earlier.

The committee markup, gaveled in at 2:15 p.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building’s main hearing room, ran nearly six hours and produced 41 recorded amendment votes, the most on any single appropriations measure since the 2021 American Rescue Plan. The bill cleared with the support of every committee Democrat and all but five Republicans, a margin that surprised both whips and that aides to Chair Susan Collins described as the product of “two weeks of quiet phone calls and one very loud hearing.”

The morning’s hearing, before the Appropriations subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, drew testimony from Hagan, Defense Department comptroller Karen Eaton and Joint Staff vice chair Adm. Marcus Rivera. Hagan, in his first appearance before the committee since the April 15 ceasefire, conceded under questioning from Sen. Marisol Ortega, D-N.M., that the department had received 38,400 service-connected disability and mental-health intake filings tied to the seven-week war and had completed initial adjudication on roughly 27,000 of them.

“The number is not where I want it to be, senator, and it is not where the men and women who filed those claims deserve it to be,” Hagan said. “I will not stand here and tell you the system is keeping up. I will tell you what we are doing to make it keep up.”

Hagan said the department had moved 1,140 claims examiners onto Iran-related casework through internal reassignment and was processing emergency hiring authorizations for an additional 600 staff under a March 28 executive order. Pressed by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., a senior subcommittee Republican, on whether the supplemental’s existing $9.2 billion veterans line was sufficient, Hagan answered, “It is sufficient for the claims we have today. It is not sufficient for the claims we will have by Labor Day.”

That answer, delivered shortly after 11 a.m., shifted the markup arithmetic. Within an hour, Sen. Patricia Lambert, R-Utah — one of the seven Republicans who voted to advance the Kaine-Lee war powers resolution May 1 — circulated draft language with Sens. Ortega and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., adding $4.6 billion specifically earmarked for post-deployment mental-health services, traumatic brain injury screening and survivor outreach. The amendment was adopted 22-6 in the afternoon markup, with Lambert and three other Republicans joining all Democrats.

“What the secretary told us this morning is that the bill we wrote three weeks ago does not match the war we just fought,” Lambert said in remarks during the markup. “This is not a partisan amendment. It is an arithmetic amendment.”

The mental-health add brings the supplemental’s total veterans line to $13.8 billion, up from $9.2 billion in the administration’s original request. Two senior committee aides, granted anonymity to describe negotiations still under way, said Collins and ranking member Patty Murray of Washington had agreed in a Monday-night call to allow the amendment to move without a leadership whip on either side.

The committee also adopted, on voice votes, a $1.4 billion plus-up for Strait of Hormuz monitoring, $820 million for Iraqi and Yemeni reconstruction oversight to be administered through a new Special Inspector General for Iran War Reconstruction, and a Murray-authored requirement that the Defense Department deliver quarterly written reports on munitions expenditure and replacement timelines. A Hoeven amendment that would have stripped roughly $2.1 billion from regional reconstruction commitments failed 14-14 in a tie vote that surprised the chair.

Hagan, in an exchange with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Iraq war veteran, was asked whether the department had the authority to begin presumptive-service-connection determinations for service members exposed to Iranian missile and drone attacks on Gulf bases. He said the department would issue a presumption memorandum “within thirty days,” with Iraq-stationed personnel exposed to the March 14 ballistic strike on Al-Asad Air Base the first cohort covered.

Eaton, the Pentagon comptroller, faced sharper questioning. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., pressed her on a Government Accountability Office working paper, obtained by his office last Friday, that estimated total direct military spending on the campaign at $97 billion through April 30, roughly $13 billion above the Defense Department’s own running tally. Eaton acknowledged a “reconciliation gap” of approximately $8 billion that she attributed to munitions-replacement accounting and said the department would brief the committee in closed session next week.

“We are not hiding the number, senator,” Eaton said. “We are still finding the number.”

The committee’s action sets up a Senate floor vote as early as Thursday, with Majority Leader John Thune telling reporters after the markup that he expected “two days of debate, a manageable amendment tree and a final passage vote before the weekend.” Thune declined to predict the final margin but said the supplemental “is going to leave this chamber with a number that the House has to take seriously.”

Across the Capitol, Speaker Mike Johnson convened a leadership-only meeting at 4 p.m. to assess the House schedule for both the supplemental and the May 1 war powers resolution, which faces a Friday discharge-petition deadline. Two senior Republican aides said the speaker was now expected to commit to floor consideration of the war powers measure before Memorial Day, with a formal announcement expected by Wednesday afternoon.

White House press secretary Marlena Cortez, at Tuesday’s daily briefing, said President Donald Trump “supports the troops and supports the veterans who served them” and noted that the administration had not objected to the mental-health add during committee negotiations. Asked whether the president would sign the supplemental at its expanded $94.1 billion total, Cortez said, “The president will sign a bill that does right by our service members. He will look at the final number when there is a final number.”

Sen. Whitfield, leaving the markup, told reporters the bill would now move “on a calendar the families of the fallen can live with.” The full Senate is scheduled to begin formal debate on the supplemental Wednesday at 10 a.m.