Podcast App Documents and Data Taking up storage space

I have looked and looked, and have found nothing to help me. My podcast app has over 5 GB of "Documents and Data" that I can not clear. I don't download episodes (aside from two or three that I have saved for later re-listening if they get removed from the servers), and yes, I have tried completely deleting the podcast app and reinstalling (which messes up my "listen next" and changes all episodes to "unplayed"), I restored my phone from both an iCloud and desktop backup, and still the documents and data remain. Not only that, but over time this chunk of data grows. This has been an ongoing issue for years and Apple should be embarrassed that they haven't come up with a better fix than shrugging and saying "have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling?" This is a native app, you have complete control over it, there is no way for the user to see what this phantom data is and no way to delete it either. Please fix this!