Category: Episodes

Fifty thousand troops. Zero reporters on a ship. Zero reporters on a base. That’s the reality of the Iran deployment under Trump and acting secretary of culture war Pete Hegseth — and it’s the kind of information vacuum that’s never existed in modern American conflict. Paul is joined by ABC News chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, one of the most respected and trusted voices in military journalism, for a no-BS briefing on what happens when the Pentagon shuts the press out of a shooting war.

It’s episode 535 and Paul Rieckhoff is flying solo on a Friday — no guest, just a no-BS rapid-fire briefing on a week where the wheels kept coming off. Trump is still dangling a tentative Iran deal that looks suspiciously like the Obama agreement he tore up, while the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, the regime stays in place, and the nukes stay unsecured. Fourteen wounded American troops are at Walter Reed. The president walked the same halls for his own physical and didn’t stop in. Meanwhile, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania — NATO territory — and the silence from this White House has been deafening.

Martha Raddatz has spent decades doing the work most of Washington can’t or won’t — getting on the ground, walking with troops, sitting across from presidents, and refusing to look away. And she’s known Paul for two decades. The morning after she received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy, ABC News’ Chief Global Affairs Correspondent returns (previous appearance on episode 61) to the show to talk about the state of journalism, the blackout on military coverage, and her new book The Hero Next Door. This is the conversation that doesn’t happen on cable news anymore, because the access has been cut, the embeds are gone, and the briefing room has been handed to the MAGA machine.

The spin machine is at full tilt. The Strait of Hormuz still isn’t clear, oil is hovering around $90, gas is pushing $5 a gallon heading into summer, and the president of the United States is telling Americans not to worry while his cabinet takes turns praising him on camera. Paul Rieckhoff joins Connell McShane on News Nation for a no-BS breakdown of what’s actually happening — and what the MAGA machine doesn’t want you to see.

Memorial Day is not a sale. It’s not a barbecue. It’s a debt. In this special episode, Paul sits down with Bonnie Carroll — Medal of Freedom recipient, veteran, and founder of TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) — for the 31st annual National Military Survivors Seminar and Good Grief Camp in Arlington. Bonnie has spent three decades building the community that catches Gold Star families when the country looks away, and she brings the kind of clear-eyed, hope-forward leadership the Angry Middle is starving for.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. Americans are visiting Arlington, honoring generations who stepped forward with integrity, sacrifice, and honor. And days before that solemn marker, the President of the United States floated cash payouts to the domestic terrorists who violently attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Not a pardon. A payout. Paul Rieckhoff and the panel break down why this isn’t a tantrum or a distraction — it’s strategy. Call it Plan C: when the military won’t move and ICE is uncertain, you incentivize the insurrectionists themselves. You signal to every desperate, despised foot soldier that violence against the government will be rewarded.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and Paul Rieckhoff is in no mood to soft-pedal. Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as Director of National Intelligence — the second Trump appointee to defect over Iran in months — and the administration is already telegraphing its next war. The Justice Department just charged Raul Castro with murder. The USS Nimitz arrived in the Caribbean the same day. Stephen Miller is on Fox doing the warm-up act. Meanwhile, the president is downplaying the 13 American service members killed in Iran, pausing a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, ignoring Ukraine, and telling a Coast Guard Academy audience he won’t be leaving in 2028. This is a solo briefing for the angry middle, delivered with the urgency the moment demands.

In this special quick-fire episode, Paul takes you out of the studio and into the streets of Midtown Manhattan with highlights from two back-to-back media hits — one left of center on MSNOW, one right of center on NewsNation — same independent read on both. He breaks down why ten thousand Americans are walking out of the Republican and Democratic parties every single week, why Thomas Massie just got elevated by Trump’s attacks, why the Democrats are the actual spoilers in Senate races in Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota, and why the rigged two-party system is finally cracking. Plus a Memorial Day shout-out to Stephen Colbert on his last show, and yes — a Knicks pick.

Congressman Tom Massie lost in Kentucky last night — sort of. Trump and the MAGA machine spent tens of millions to take out the GOP Congressman who crossed him, and in the process made Massie a household name with a ready-made presidential-grade platform: no war in Iran, no tariffs, no Trump, and no stopping the release of the Epstein files. Paul Rieckhoff opens Episode 528 with a no-BS solo briefing on what last night’s primaries really mean, why JD Vance is lying about Ukraine, why January 6 rioters may now go from prisons to pardons to payouts, why James Murdoch buying Vox Media’s podcast network should put every independent voice on alert, and why the NY Knicks comeback and leadership is bigger than basketball. 

It’s Tuesday, May 19th — a huge primary day in Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Alabama — and 3,557,000 independent Americans are being locked out of the elections deciding their representation. Paul Rieckhoff runs a solo briefing on the closed-primary problem nobody in the rigged two-party system wants to talk about: taxpayer-funded elections, run in public schools by public poll workers, that exclude anyone who refuses to put on a jersey. With 93% of House races and 80% of Senate races already decided by primaries, this isn’t a procedural quirk — it’s a structural assault on representative democracy.