Episode

The High Cost of Hegseth and Trump's Forever War Hits Home

Podcast: Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
Published: May 3, 2026
Duration seconds: 937
Processing state: not_requested
Canonical source: https://bleav.com/shows/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff/episodes/the-high-cost-of-hegseth-and-trumps-forever-war-hits-home/
Audio: https://pdrl.fm/c39fb6/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/1385/injector.simplecastaudio.com/c67dcf2c-bdc6-42d2-91a1-db918b8e8626/episodes/4b1b0cdb-e0c2-4673-add4-787a7a96c596/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=c67dcf2c-bdc6-42d2-91a1-db918b8e8626&awEpisodeId=4b1b0cdb-e0c2-4673-add4-787a7a96c596&feed=8GTvjwcf
JSON: /v1/public/podcasts/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737/episodes/the-high-cost-of-hegseth-and-trump-s-forever-war-hits-home
Markdown: /podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737/the-high-cost-of-hegseth-and-trump-s-forever-war-hits-home.md

Actions

POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737/episodes/the-high-cost-of-hegseth-and-trump-s-forever-war-hits-home/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff-981737/the-high-cost-of-hegseth-and-trump-s-forever-war-hits-home.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

Summary

Sixty days. $25 billion. No open Strait of Hormuz, no enriched uranium recovered, no regime change, and gas prices up 42% since late February. That's the scoreboard on Iran, and it's the backdrop for Pete Hegseth's first real hearing — where combat veterans Seth Moulton and Pat Ryan finally put the Secretary of Defense through the wringer. Paul Rieckhoff joins the conversation to break down what oversight looks like when it actually shows up, why JD Vance and Dan Driscoll are watching, and why this war is metastasizing into something bigger than Iran.