← Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
America Honors Memorial Day. Trump Pays Off Insurrectionists. Republicans Kill War Powers Act.
00:09:35
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.
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
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Jake Stauch
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- [00:32]
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- [01:00]
Jake Stauch
Jake I'm Jake Stauch, co founder and CEO of Cervel. We built Servl to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding password resets, access to applications. My laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. It desperately wants to automate this work and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expense of consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Cerval, it becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run it. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four week pilot. Go to serval.com tickets that's S-E-R-V-A-L.com tickets.
- [02:00]
Political Analyst
I think we have to be really mindful of the fact that he is. He knows that the midterms are a circuit breaker. He knows they will hold him accountable. And things like this are not accidental, they're quite intentional. Even if they fail, the signal he's sending with it is very important.
- [02:28]
Political Commentator
Is that there's a political calculation at all. It should just be wtf, this is wrong. Next request. Because the thing about Trump is, and this has always boggled my mind about the fear that Republicans have, he'll move on and ask for something else next week. I mean this is like he doesn't stay mad, he just asks for something Else ludicrous. And here he is. I mean, the thing with the fund, too, is that he doesn't think there's anything wrong with it. He thinks it's too, too small. Listen,
- [02:58]
Commercial Narrator
you know, it was the most violent thing I've ever seen in politics, what they did. And yet if I say, oh, let's look at this one or that one, they say weaponization. Weaponization. What they did in terms of weaponization will never be allowed to happen in this country again. So we think that those people, we think that anybody involved in that process should partake. And you're talking about peanuts compared to the value. It destroyed the lives of many, many people.
- [03:29]
Political Commentator
So it was the most violent thing. I think he's talking about the prosecutions of him. I played the sound of Mitch McConnell basically referring him for criminal prosecution. That's essentially a criminal referral. If he'd done that on paper, would have been asking the Department of Justice to investigate him. Describes him as practically and morally responsible for the violence on January 6th.
- [03:52]
Political Analyst
So it's memorial Day weekend where we honor the integrity, the sacrifice, the honor of generations of Americans who step forward. And a couple days before that, he wants to provide compensation. We shouldn't even call it compensation, a payout for people who violently attack the government, domestic terrorists who show the opposite of honor, integrity and courage. It's despicable. It's overwhelmingly unpopular. It's about time Republicans stepped up and drew a line and hopefully that will give them momentum on things like Iran and Cuba. But I also think is another part of this. The more desperate he becomes, the more dangerous he becomes. And I don't think this is accidental. I think this is strategic. I think he wants to incentivize people to stand up and oppose the government, to attack the government sites. The elections be a great focal point coming up in just a couple of weeks. And I called it Plan C. Plan A, if he wants to disrupt the elections, is the military, and they're likely to say no. Plan B would be ice. Well, we don't know where that's going to go. This is Plan C. This is the backup plan. This is a green light to every insurrectionist and everyone who wants to stand with Trump and against the evil forces that he conspires. This gives them a green light to do bad things and know that you will be pardoned and you will even get paid for it. So I think we have to be really mindful of the fact that he is. He knows that the midterms are a circuit breaker. He knows they will hold him accountable. And things like this are not accidental. They're quite intentional. Even if they fail, they the signal he's sending with it is very important.
- [05:16]
Political Commentator
Well, let me just press you on that because people have said this for a couple of days and I just want to put out some reporting from NPR because they have heard this, right? So the convicted insurrectionist who was pardoned and then went on to molest children and also be charged, convicted and sentenced to life in prison, told his child victim of molestation to keep quiet about being molested because he was coming into a lot of money restitution from Donald Trump for January 6th. And so I guess instead of debating whether or not that is the plan, that is what the insurrectionists have heard, right?
- [05:56]
Political Analyst
I mean, it's okay. The president wants you on his side. The president considers you a victim. And it kind of reminds me of, I don't know, maybe like when Saddam Hussein let everybody out of prison because they would disrupt things right before he knew the Americans were going to attack. This is what you do. You pick the worst of the worst, the people who are the desperate, the people who are most despised, and you give them a green light to do bad things. And he's been doing that throughout, every time he's been in office, since 11 years ago when he came down that escalator. And I think it's really, really important that we think strategically about how to combat that, not just dismiss it as a whim of something that Trump does and also recognize Republicans have actually stopped him on something that's really, really important. They haven't stopped him on Iran, they didn't stop him on Venezuela.
- [06:37]
Political Commentator
And now it's so lame that the bar is so low.
- [06:40]
Political Analyst
But now we need them to potentially stop him on Cuba because it is Memorial Day weekend and they want to make more veterans. They want to put more people in Arlington and they're already focused on Cuba. There's an aircraft carrier down there. They're sending all the messaging and they didn't stop him on Iran, they didn't stop him on Venezuela. And hopefully they can have a war powers vote on Cuba before he actually hits Cuba. That would be nice.
- [07:01]
Veteran/Political Critic
These chicken hawk are going to send us home for Memorial Day weekend where I'm going to honor my fellow veterans that I served 27 months in combat with. And they are going to not even give an up or down vote on continuing this war almost three months in while Americans are paying almost $5 a gallon at the pump. It is pathetic. They use this procedural argument. And every American should just be absolutely outraged about this. It's a disgrace.
- [07:31]
Political Commentator
We need to get him on a podcast so we don't do all that bleeping. That was Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan last night, visibly outraged. But it didn't seem too surprised because naturally, what do House Republican leaders do when they are afraid of being rebuked by members of their own party over Donald Trump's increasingly unpopular and unaffordable agenda, including the war in Iran? Well, they call the whole thing off. Last night, House Republicans scrapped the war powers vote. It was meant to force Donald Trump to withdraw from the war in Iran or at least try to get approval from Congress for it. After, as the New York Times puts it, quote, it became clear they the Republicans lack the votes to defeat the measure. More from that report, quote. The decision to shelve the war powers resolution came after Republicans had lost control of the floor during an earlier unrelated vote, with several of their members defecting and several more absent. As the House chamber descended into chaos, leaders wary of risking another public defeat on a far more politically consequential vote, abruptly scrapped the Iran war measure. We're back with Paul and Michael. This is perhaps one of the biggest political stories in the second Trump term, that Trump doesn't have the political juice to continue to wage war in Iran.
- [08:47]
Political Analyst
I think you're right. Pat Ryan's a friend of mine and he speaks for so many people. He also is a West Point grad, a combat veteran. He represents West Point. It's in his congressional district, and he understands what he's talking about. And I think he's touching on something that a lot of Americans feel, especially veterans feel right now that there's a generation of chicken hawks that are sending other people's kids to die all over again. And I think Iran has become a dividing point, especially within the Republican Party, especially within the veterans and national security community, with people like in the manosphere, the podcasters like Joe Rogan and Sean Ryan. But I also want to say that who are out, who are out, they're done. They said we're done. That's it. He said no regime change wars. And now Tulsi Gabbard's out. Who her entire platform. She said no regime change wars more than any politician I've ever seen in the last two decades. Right.
- [09:32]
Political Commentator
But it's J.D. vance.
- [09:34]
Political Analyst
Yeah. And it's also, but it's also Congress is also the dog chasing the car because Iran's already underway. The question is, can they stop Cuba? Because he said Cuba's next. They're communicating it, you know, like there's probably an over under on the Polymarket now, whether he does it before or after July 4th. But they didn't stop on Venezuela, they didn't stop Monroe on. They have an opportunity stop before he starts combat with a new country. And Cuba is that dividing line. I think we have to try to push that to the forefront and see where Republicans stand on that, because in some ways, Iran's already underway.
- [10:02]
Political Commentator
Well, the thing that people say, and they point to Indiana and they point to Cassidy and I guess Massey and say, well, he's still really powerful in the Republican Party. You can't say that without pointing out how small the Republican Party is right now. It's shrinking by the week.
- [10:15]
Political Analyst
Yeah, I think Massey is really, really important. I've been talking about this a lot this week. I mean, he just carved out a whole new lane for a presidential campaign just by running against Iran, against the tariffs, in favor of releasing the Epstein files, and against Trump. That's a presidential platform that's pretty popular in either party. In either party or no party at all. He could also run as an independent and galvanize a lot of people. And he's worked across the line with Ro Khanna and others. So something's happening here whether, whether the movement is going to be within the Republican Party to challenge Trump and whoever his successor is if he leaves power or to actually break away. And they're representing a majority of the country that is against all those things, but also doesn't want to go to the Democrats. 45% of the country is independent and unaffiliated, and they're looking for voices who represent that angry majority, especially on national security and regime change.
- [10:59]
Commercial Narrator
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- [11:07]
Political Analyst
grow and it's not cool to believe in school but if I can say
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Commercial Narrator
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- [11:16]
Veteran/Political Critic
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- [11:18]
Commercial Narrator
attitude an island in the sea of rhetoric and. And when you wait it's time to
- [11:31]
Political Analyst
grow Powered by Righteous Media
- [11:36]
Jake Stauch
I'm Jake Stauch, co founder and CEO of Cervel. We built Cervel to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding password resets, access to applications. My laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. It desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Servil you just tell Servil what you want to automate in plain English and it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Cerval, it becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run it. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four week pilot. Go to cerval.com tickets that's S E-R-V-A-L.com tickets.
- [12:36]
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- [13:07]
Political Analyst
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