# Pentagon In Chaos. Driscoll Out. Promotions Frozen. Hegseth Paying Trolls On X. Plus: Independent Senate Candidates Achilles, Bengs And Bodnar On The Rise. Media Blitz Pod

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737/pentagon-in-chaos-driscoll-out-promotions-frozen-hegseth-paying-trolls-on-x-plus-independent-senate-candidates-achilles-bengs-and-bodnar-on-the-rise-media-blitz-pod
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Podcast: [Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff](https://stenobird.com/podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737)
Published: 2026-09-03T09:45:00+00:00
Episode link: https://bleav.com/shows/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff/?post_type=gp_podcast_episode&p=642
Audio file: https://pdrl.fm/c39fb6/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/1385/injector.simplecastaudio.com/c67dcf2c-bdc6-42d2-91a1-db918b8e8626/episodes/1dc4d362-7468-4667-bed7-0dfead452b9c/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=c67dcf2c-bdc6-42d2-91a1-db918b8e8626&awEpisodeId=1dc4d362-7468-4667-bed7-0dfead452b9c&feed=8GTvjwcf
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Duration seconds: 831

## Resource

The Pentagon is in open chaos and the man in charge is the reason. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — a Ukraine hawk, a drone-defense innovator, and a close ally of JD Vance — just walked into the Oval Office, resigned to President Trump personally, and told him exactly why. Pete Hegseth has frozen flag officer promotions, is reportedly paying people inside the Pentagon to troll Americans on X, and is dragging senior leaders back to Washington for another culture war TED Talk while the Iran war goes sideways. Paul Rieckhoff has been warning about this since the confirmation fight, and on News Nation with Connell McShane he lays out why Hegseth is on thinner ice than anyone else in the cabinet.

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## Transcript

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