WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, joined colleagues in a bicameral letter urging U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to refrain from mindlessly pouring resources into the Trump administration’s unproven and ill-defined “Golden Dome” comprehensive missile defense shield. The letter emphasized how Trump’s proposed Golden Dome program would be technically unfeasible, strategically unwise, and overwhelmingly expensive. Instead of making the U.S. homeland safer from missile threats, this program sets the stage for the Trump administration to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, open the door to enormous corruption, and set off a destabilizing nuclear arms race that would make Americans less safe.

In the letter, the lawmakers wrote, “The Trump administration’s plans for Golden Dome could make it prohibitively expensive, operationally ineffective, massively corrupt, and detrimental to U.S. and global security by igniting a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. We are concerned that Golden Dome will be much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than countering missile attacks.”

The lawmakers continued, “Countering a possible Russian or Chinese attack involving hundreds of warheads would require a much larger, more technologically advanced, and more costly system. That is why Congress, since 1999 on a bipartisan basis, has specifically said that U.S. national missile defenses should aim to counter only ‘limited’ threats, not Russian and Chinese arsenals. Golden Dome would overturn that long-standing consensus with the stroke of a pen.”

The lawmakers requested responses to the following questions by July 21, 2025:

  1. What is the intended purpose of Golden Dome? How many missiles (and of what types) is it being designed to intercept? What system architecture will be used? Has the threat been validated as a requirement by the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
  2. How does the Administration plan to spend the proposed $175 billion on Golden Dome?
  3. What is the 20-year estimated cost of Golden Dome?
  4. How does the Administration plan to deal with known and anticipated countermeasures to space- and ground-based missile defense, including nuclear detonations in space?
  5. What aspects of the system would be based in space?
  6. Will the Administration propose a third missile defense interceptor site on the East Coast?
  7. How does the Pentagon plan to meet requirements for developmental and operational testing of the elements of the proposed system, given the very short timeline for deployment?
  8. How will the Administration award contracts under Golden Dome? Will SpaceX get preferential treatment?
  9. How does the Administration expect China and Russia to react to Golden Dome? How does the administration plan to reconcile its arms control goals with these reactions?

The letter was co-signed in the U.S. Senate by U.S. Senators Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and in the U.S. House of Representatives by U.S. Representatives Don Beyer (D-Va.-8), John Garamendi (D-Calif.-8) Bill Foster (D-Ill.-11), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Greg Casar (D-Texas-35), and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas-37).

The full text of the letter is available here.