Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
Independent Americans is a daily news show hosted by Paul Rieckhoff. He’s a fighter, a patriot, and an independent political and media force to be reckoned with. After serving as a soldier in Iraq in 2004, Rieckhoff emerged as one of the most dynamic political and social leaders in America. In every episode, he breaks down the most important issues facing our country. And he interviews the most influential and compelling people. He’s taking on Republicans, Democrats—and everyone in between. If you’re in the angry middle, Independent Americans reminds you that you’re not alone. We’re all in this together. Join the Independent Americans movement and subscribe now. Produced by Righteous Media.
Episodes
Seven days out. The marathon is almost over, and the 90 million independents who have been written off, condescended to, and told they don't really exist are about to decide every close race in the country. Paul lays out why this moment belongs to independents, why the Democrats need Barack Obama as their closer, and why Republican incumbent Mike Lawler is in genuine trouble in New York's 17th against combat veteran Cait Conl...
Hegseth Broke Eisenhower’s World. Bloomberg - $80M to Dems. Vance Sells Out Ukraine and Continues to Suck.
The partisan machine is scared, and it's showing. In episode 658, Paul Rieckhoff goes solo to answer the growing chorus of independent-haters — from Hillary Clinton's smear of Matthew McConaughey on Kara Swisher's show to the online pundits recycling the tired "hidden partisan" talking point against the 45% o...
Something is cracking in the Midwest. Iowa farmers are staring at $1,000 fill-ups for their tractors, fertilizer costs through the roof, and a White House that only remembers rural America two weeks before an election. Meanwhile Donald Trump is spending $1.2 billion of taxpayer-adjacent money on an East Wing ballroom, a triumphal arch, a Garden of Heroes, and a plan to repaint the Eisenhower building because he thinks it shou...
93 counties, 200 events, and riding a wave McConaughey just supercharged. Iran, the USS Lincoln, and Christmas on a credit card. Plus: Friday Football picks.
Dan Osborn is back for a record sixth appearance, and he's walking into the final stretch of the most-watched Senate race in the country. Running as a true independent against Pete Ricketts — a sitting senator from a billionaire family that owns the Chicago Cubs &m...
Musk’s Starlink shutdown blindsides Kyiv. Bodnar, Osborn, Achilles, Bengs & the indy vets shaking up the Senate. Media Blitz Pod
Paul Rieckhoff joins Connell McShane on News Nation with retired Air Force Special Operations Commander Glenn Ignazio to call the Ukraine pivot what it is: a 180. Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff addressed Vladimir Putin as a "humanitarian" — a word for a man who has indiscriminately kill...
The Iran forever war, the McConaughey moment, no debates and a rigged fight by design.
Paul Rieckhoff sits down with retired Marine Colonel Matt Baker, the independent veteran running for Congress in Virginia's 2nd District — a shipyard-and-base-heavy stretch of coastline where readiness is being ridden into the deck and families are watching their sailors cycle in and out of the Iran war. Baker is a Naval Academy grad,...
The independent movement had a breakout weekend, and Paul Rieckhoff walks you through every piece of it. Matthew McConaughey went public with a message that lit up phones across the country — a Hollywood heavyweight planting a flag for the plurality of Americans who refuse to put on a jersey. In a deep-red state most pundits wrote off, independent veteran Brian Bengs is now tied with GOP Senator Mike Rounds at 43-42. An...
National Guard spotted at DC drop boxes. Four more years? The third-term flirt returns. Media Blitz Pod
Senator Mark Warner — the top Democrat on Senate Intelligence — just said the quiet part loud: the greatest threat to American election integrity is not Russia, not China, not Iran. It's the sitting president of the United States. On this episode of Independent Americans, Paul Rieckhoff and the panel break down ...
Paul Rieckhoff hits the news circuit for a rapid-fire breakdown of a week where the wheels came off the Trump foreign policy machine. Elon Musk throttled Starlink in the middle of Russia's winter bombing campaign against Ukrainian civilians — and Republican Senator Thom Tillis called it what it is: participating in mass murder. Putin keeps pumping the pedal down. Zelensky gets a hero's welcome in London while America lo...
The drone revolution is here. F1, Cadillac, and the sports-defense overlap. Plus: Friday Football Picks
Kevin Baron — founder of Elevation Global Strategies, former Defense One executive editor, and one of the sharpest national security minds in the business — joins Paul fresh off the AUSA conference in Washington. Forty thousand people. Seven hundred companies. Anduril and Palantir surrounded by throngs waiting f...
Indiana isn't supposed to be where the independent movement breaks through. It's a deep-red state, 41st in voter turnout, where 95% of the legislature is effectively decided in May primaries by a sliver of the electorate. That's exactly why Greg Ballard — Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, two-term Republican mayor of Indianapolis, and now independent candidate for Secretary of State — is running. Paul Rieckhoff sit...
Donald Trump is in full spray-and-pray mode. One day he's threatening Iran and Cuba, the next he's cutting a diesel deal with the Kremlin and backstabbing Ukraine again. Vladimir Putin ignored Trump's latest ceasefire within hours, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board noticed. Most Americans and most American veterans still stand with Ukraine. The president does not speak for them. In this media blitz episode, Paul Rie...
PLUS: Newsom, the 25th, and a failure of imagination by the democrats heading into the midterms.
Trump floated the idea that Ukraine needs a new president because Zelensky keeps hitting Russian oil refineries and that's driving fuel prices up. Paul Rieckhoff flips the frame: Ukraine doesn't need a new president — America does. From a creek in the Catskills, with his boys skipping rocks in the background, Paul lays...
Texas is still red. But Ken Paxton is a scandal-plagued candidate standing on that stage only because Donald Trump put him there — and Trump knows it. With a forever war in Iran dragging on, home heating oil hitting six dollars a gallon in the northeast, and a barrel of crude at $105, Republicans are watching their own base turn on them. Paul Rieckhoff joins Katie Phang alongside The Atlantic's Jonathan Lemire and Linco...
Paul Rieckhoff walks his kids to their public school on primary day in New York City — and has to explain to his seven-year-old why Dad, an Iraq veteran and 9/11 first responder, isn't allowed to vote. That's the story behind the Let Vets Vote lawsuit, and in this crossover special with the Independent Voter Podcast from IVN.US, Paul sits down with Chad and Sean to lay out the full strategy. One million veterans in New ...
Adam Kinzinger is back. The former GOP congressman, Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, January 6th committee member, and founder of Country First sits down with Paul to answer the question nobody in corporate media wants to touch head-on: will Donald Trump attack the 2026 elections, and if he does, what will it actually look like? Kinzinger lays out why a blowout is the best defense against an authoritarian steal, where t...
Pete Hegseth wasn't on the USS Abraham Lincoln when sailors were stuck at sea for more than a year, running short on rations, reporting suicide attempts, and watching supply bases get taken out by drone strikes. He showed up for the homecoming photo op. Paul Rieckhoff joins Connell McShane at News Nation to call it exactly what it is — a 2028 presidential campaign being run out of the Pentagon, with internal camps alrea...
President Mayhem is off the rails, and he's getting more desperate by the day. On this WTF Wednesday edition of Independent Americans, Paul Rieckhoff breaks down Trump's unhinged Iran remarks — publicly suggesting it would be "a very small price to pay" to let Iran take out Los Angeles and San Diego — and why that kind of talk about American cities can never be normalized, no matter how numb we've become. This is ...
Trump is retreating to friendly turf while the ground shifts under the whole rigged two-party system. Paul Rieckhoff takes you inside a Media Blitz week — a CNN hit with Erin Burnett and a News Nation sit-down with Chris Cuomo and independent Senate candidate Seth Bodnar — to lay out what the polls, the propaganda machine, and the president's travel schedule are actually telling us one month out from the biggest e...
The last American troops have left Iraq. Donald Trump actually did what Obama and Biden wouldn't. But the present under the tree is a new, unauthorized, never-ending Iran war that most of the country opposes, 19 Americans dead since Operation Epic Fury began, carriers hung out to dry in the Gulf, and a Congress that has been steamrolled for a generation. Paul lays out the uncomfortable truth no elected leader wants to say out...
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