2: David Rothkopf and Paul Rieckhoff on The Iran War
The Al Franken Podcast
The Al Franken Podcast
4.6 • 8.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
America is at war with Iran. It's the eighth time that Donald Trump has attacked another country since he began his second term (despite pledging "no new wars" during his campaign). To break it all down, we're joined by foreign affairs expert David Rothkopf and Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq War vet and CEO of the Independent Veterans of America.
We take a look at the difficult history between America and Iran along with the current military campaign Trump has started in the region. Trump and his administration have yet to outline exactly WHY we are fighting, and with Americans already dying, it's no surprise that this war is extremely unpopular. Not to mention, this is costing our country a billion dollars a day and will only become more expensive as the war expands.
David and Paul discuss the long term impact this might have for America and the Middle East and how it may escalate in the region and could signal a scary moment for the global nuclear arms race.
READ David Rothkopf in The Daily Beast: https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/david-rothkopf/
SUBSCRIBE to David's Substack "Need to Know": https://davidrothkopf.substack.com/
LISTEN to David’s podcast "Words Matter" with fellow friend of the show Norm Ornstein:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dsrs-words-matter/id1420216970
LEARN more about Paul's organization, Independent Veterans of America: https://independentveteransofamerica.org/
LISTEN to Paul's podcast, Independent Americans: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/independent-americans-with-paul-rieckhoff/id1457899667
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. It's a great one today. You know, for a change, foreign affairs analyst David Rothkoff returns. |
| 0:11.9 | And Paul Reikoff, a rock vet and host of the Independent Americans podcast, join me to discuss Trump's latest war. |
| 0:24.1 | What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. |
| 0:33.5 | Say it again. So President Donald J. Trump has taken us to war. This is his eighth, this term, |
| 0:42.7 | but by far the biggest one. We are at war with the horrible, horrible regime in Iran, a regime that we have decapitated, maybe, maybe literally, but I'm guessing Supreme Leader Comenay |
| 0:50.2 | was probably just crushed. I would have been fine with that if we if we just stopped there. |
| 0:56.8 | That wouldn't have changed much. They would just have selected a new Supreme |
| 1:00.4 | leader and probably retaliated with some terrorist attack. Thank God we waited until after the |
| 1:08.9 | Super Bowl. But we are at war. |
| 1:12.1 | We are not exactly sure why. |
| 1:14.2 | The goal of this war does seem to change. |
| 1:17.4 | Trump did at first say the goal was regime change, but Pete Hegeseth is now saying, no, not |
| 1:24.2 | regime change. |
| 1:25.9 | It's to eradicate the nuclear program, but maybe not that either. I mean, |
| 1:32.1 | didn't we obliterate it? Are they enriching? All we know for sure is that Trump says we're going to be |
| 1:41.4 | there for about four weeks or maybe longer and maybe maybe we will put |
| 1:48.3 | boots on the ground in the meantime our air force and israeles are continuing our air |
| 1:54.8 | assault which we are are very good at though it's expensive it's about a billion dollars a day. Now, for those of you who |
| 2:04.4 | have been following this war, like I have, it's very confusing because we don't really seem to |
| 2:11.9 | have an official reason or a coherent strategy. We don't know if the folks on the street, |
| 2:19.2 | the ones who were out protesting in January and getting murdered, |
| 2:23.6 | we don't know where this is going to end up for them. |
... |
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