Rieckhoff says "they're not being truthful about so many things" and urges Congress to question Hegseth
Founder and CEO of Righteous Media, host of the Independent Americans show and founder of Independent Veterans of America, on his personal X account, cross-posted to his Bluesky account
“This should surprise no one. They’re not being truthful about so many things. Congress should return to DC immediately and question Hegseth. There’s nothing more important than getting the truth about America’s dead sons and daughters.”
Source and context
Original post
About this source
Original post on his X account, a long-form post at 20:42:54 UTC (4:42 p.m. EDT), found by paging his fxtwitter timeline. Exact text read through the fxtwitter API; the time confirmed from the status ID. It opens with a line in quotation marks that is the Post's own wording, which is excluded from the quotation, and it quote-posts a tweet by Post reporter Tara Copp that linked the report. The same words also appear in search snippets of his Threads, Instagram and Facebook posts (not opened).
Original post
About this source
Second post of a two-post self-thread on his Bluesky account (createdAt 2026-09-18T20:46:19Z). The first post (at://did:plc:xutiallhqatm5gtoinxcpvwl/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvszygdzl22q, 20:45:57Z) carries the quoted Post line, the first sentence of the passage and the article link. Read through the AT Protocol public API (getPostThread). The link card shows the Post's own description of its article, which is the Post's wording, not his.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Reporting
About this source
The Post's own report, time-stamped September 18, 2026, 2:23 p.m. EDT. The live page is not readable to automated tools, so the text was read in archive.today captures made September 18 at 19:32 UTC and September 19 at 15:18 UTC, which differ only by one added sentence about Sen. Duckworth's bill. Wayback Machine metadata records edits at 19:41, 20:48 and 20:49 UTC on September 18, all before Hegseth's reply; the edited bodies could not be read.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Original post
About this source
Read exactly through api.fxtwitter.com and the X syndication endpoint, whose edit_control lists two versions: the original (status 2101052475599937886, 20:55:20 UTC) and this edit; the edit window closed at 21:55:20 UTC. The post quote-posts the Post's 18:45:04 UTC X post and states no casualty figure. It was published on @PeteHegseth, not @SecWar, contrary to the case brief's note; that account's bio says the views are his own and names @SecWar and @DeptofWar as official accounts, and the fxtwitter timeline of @SecWar shows @SecWar reposting this edited post. Engagement when read: about 49.9K likes, 8.0K reposts, 6.9K replies, 3.17M views.
Before the quotation
According to six U.S. officials cited in a Washington Post report published at 2:23 p.m. EDT on Sept. 18, 2026, internal Defense Department data show at least 22 or 23 service member deaths since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, against 18 in the Pentagon's public casualty database; the Post said the Pentagon declined to address questions about the discrepancy. Rieckhoff's X post opens with one line from that report and quote-posts a tweet by Post reporter Tara Copp that linked it.
After the quotation
Rieckhoff cross-posted the same text to Bluesky as a two-post thread at 4:45 and 4:46 p.m. EDT, with the Post article attached. At 5:03 p.m. EDT, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded on X to the Post's report, calling it fake and a lie.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Is the Pentagon's public count of U.S. military deaths in the Iran war complete?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case's fixed reference point is the Defense Department's public accounting of U.S. military deaths since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, 2026 (18 deaths in the Defense Casualty Analysis System as of Sept. 18, 2026), set against the Washington Post's report, citing six officials, that internal data show at least 22 or 23. Relative to that accounting, Rieckhoff, in a post quoting the Post's line that the public database is four deaths short, says this should surprise no one, says the Pentagon is not truthful about many matters (the post does not name the group, but the quoted excerpt concerns the Pentagon's database and the next sentence names Hegseth), and urges Congress to question Hegseth to get the truth about the war dead. The closest competing label is challenges_characterization, because he disputes the truthfulness of what officials say. That loses because he goes beyond disputing a description to accuse the Pentagon of untruthfulness about the dead and to demand questioning of its head, which criticizes its disclosure.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Pete Hegseth, United States Department of Defense
Is the Pentagon's public count of U.S. military deaths in the Iran war complete?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full caseUnited States Department of Defense
“The Pentagon declined to address questions about the accounting discrepancy.”Read statement
“The Pentagon continues to lie about the number of troops and contractors that have died as a result of the Iran War.”Read statement
“This is possibly one of the most egregious acts yet by Hegseth. He has no honor. No decency. This breaks the most basic bedrock principle of our relationship with the American people and our military families. I am enraged by this. Hegseth must go.”Read statement