Paul Rieckhoff: Trump’s Assault on the Military

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Paul Riekhoff: Trump’s Assault on the Military" - To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes

Introduction

In the February 25, 2025 episode of To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes, host Charlie Sykes engages in a profound and urgent discussion with Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Independent Veterans of America and host of the Independent Americans podcast. The conversation delves deep into the troubling developments within the United States’ military and federal institutions, particularly focusing on President Donald Trump’s actions that are perceived as undermining national security and democratic norms.

1. The U.S. Vote at the United Nations Against Ukraine

The episode opens with a startling revelation: the United States, alongside nations such as Russia, North Korea, and Belarus, voted against a UN resolution supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion. This unexpected alignment has raised significant concerns about the U.S.’s role on the global stage.

• Charlie Sykes highlights the gravity of the situation: “the United States just voted in the United nations with Russia, North Korea, Belarus, a lot of these other Kremlin aligned nations against a resolution supporting Ukraine condemning Russia” (00:00).

• Paul Rieckhoff responds emphatically, stating, “We are the bad guys. We are the bad guys” (01:58). He emphasizes that the current administration's actions have placed the U.S. on the wrong side of good and evil, aligning with "the bad guys" like Russia and distancing the nation from its traditional allies supporting Ukraine.

Rieckhoff underscores the manipulation and misinformation surrounding this vote, stressing the importance of clarifying to both Americans and the international community that “the Russians are the bad guys, Putin is a war criminal, they are the villains. Ukraine is the good guys” (01:58).

2. Trump's Purge of Military Leadership and the Pentagon

A significant portion of the discussion centers on President Trump’s aggressive actions within the Department of Defense, often referred to as the "Friday Night Massacre." This includes the firing of high-ranking officials like Air Force General C.Q. Brown Jr., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

• Charlie Sykes expresses disbelief: “the Department of Defense…the purging of leadership…how deep can the purge go?” (08:56).

• Paul Rieckhoff elaborates on the strategic nature of these purges: “they are starting with the most valuable and the most difficult points” (10:21). He warns that removing key leaders creates a vacuum that allows for the implementation of a “radical agenda,” including bans on books, trans people, and press freedom.

Rieckhoff draws parallels to historical events, comparing the current military decapitation to the treatment of the U.S. during the Iraq invasion in 2003, where the U.S. shifted from being “liberators to...occupiers” (06:00).

3. Control Over Media and Information

The conversation shifts to the administration’s attempts to control the narrative by purging certain media outlets from Pentagon access, replacing them with more favorable or controlled channels.

• Paul Rieckhoff emphasizes the threat to truth and transparency: “it’s about the truth…they’re replacing objective outlets with Newsmax and OAN” (33:51).

• Charlie Sykes underscores the revolutionary aspect of this move: “you can remove the Washington Post and CNN…they’re consolidating a propaganda machine” (33:51).

By restricting access to reputable media sources, the administration is effectively narrowing the information ecosystem, making it easier to disseminate propaganda and obscure the truth.

4. The FBI’s Compromised Leadership

A particularly alarming topic discussed is the appointment of Dan Bongino, a controversial figure, as the number two person in the FBI, following Cash Patel’s appointment.

• Charlie Sykes questions the rationale: “why Dan Bongino, Bob?…it is beyond parody” (37:06).

• Paul Rieckhoff explains that these appointments are part of a broader strategy to “seize the levers of power,” describing it as creating a “new normal” that undermines the FBI’s integrity (37:06).

Rieckhoff criticizes the lack of qualified individuals in these positions, stating that Patel “hasn't taken an FBI background check” and Bongino is “an extremist…so radical that it's hard to even capture” (37:25).

5. The Role of Veterans and Independent Leadership

Addressing resistance against the administration’s actions, Rieckhoff highlights the crucial role veterans and independent leaders can play in countering the current trajectory.

• Paul Rieckhoff advocates for the empowerment of veterans: “we are recruiting, we are supporting, and we are going to help you get elected” (51:29). He emphasizes the formation of the Independent Veterans of America as a political mechanism to support candidates who prioritize country and community over partisan lines.

• He references historical figures like George Washington and Cindy Sheehan, illustrating how leadership and courage have always been pivotal in moments of national crisis (16:24).

Rieckhoff stresses the need for leaders who embody American values and are willing to stand against unlawful orders, ensuring the military remains honorable and disciplined despite internal destabilization.

6. Critique of the Democratic Party and Call for New Leadership

Rieckhoff does not spare the Democratic Party, labeling it as a failure unable to effectively counteract the administration’s moves.

• Paul Rieckhoff asserts, “The Democratic Party is a failure…they fail to stop Donald Trump” (41:56). He criticizes the lack of strategy, leadership, and the inability to present a cohesive alternative to the Republican agenda.

• He calls for new, dynamic leaders like Wes Moore, who can transcend politics and embody the integrity and strength needed to challenge the current administration (44:25).

Rieckhoff argues that both major parties are inadequate, pushing for a united front of independents and veterans to create meaningful political resistance.

Conclusion

The episode culminates in a fervent call to action, emphasizing the dire need for resistance against what Rieckhoff and Sykes perceive as an assault on American values, national security, and democratic institutions. Rieckhoff urges veterans and independent-minded individuals to step forward, support each other, and take active roles in safeguarding the country's future.

• Paul Rieckhoff encapsulates the urgency: “We need patriots. We need leaders, and they're out there” (51:01).

• Charlie Sykes concludes by reiterating the necessity for collective awareness and action: “we all need to be reminded that we are not the crazy ones” (51:29).

This episode serves as a comprehensive examination of the perceived threats to American institutions under the Trump administration, advocating for immediate and sustained resistance through independent and veteran-led initiatives.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Charlie Sykes: “the United States just voted in the united nations with Russia, North Korea, Belarus, a lot of these other Kremlin aligned nations against a resolution supporting Ukraine condemning Russia” (00:00).

• Paul Rieckhoff: “We are the bad guys. We are the bad guys” (01:58).

• Paul Rieckhoff: “they are putting Hegseth up first…using it as a vessel to move all the transformation that he wants to implement” (01:58).

• Charlie Sykes: “how deep can the purge go?” (13:54).

• Paul Rieckhoff: “Pete Hegseth is not going to talk about Ukraine. He’s not going to talk about the purge…he can command and even be effective” (34:54).

• Paul Rieckhoff: “The Democratic Party is a failure…and the Republican Party is a failure too” (41:37).

• Paul Rieckhoff: “We need patriots. We need leaders, and they're out there” (51:01).

• Charlie Sykes: “we all need to be reminded that we are not the crazy ones” (51:29).

---

Final Thoughts

This episode of To The Contrary provides a critical perspective on the current political and military climate in the United States, emphasizing the need for vigilance, resistance, and the emergence of strong, independent leadership to counteract perceived threats to national integrity and global standing. Paul Rieckhoff’s insights offer a clarion call to veterans and patriots alike to take actionable steps in safeguarding the nation's future against internal and external challenges.

Transcript

[Charlie Sykes]

Foreign. Welcome to the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. I. Look, we have a lot to talk about today, but I have to say that I never thought that I would ever be talking about the fact that the United States just voted in the United nations with Russia, North Korea, Belarus, a lot of these other Kremlin aligned nations against a resolution supporting Ukraine condemning Russia. I'm sorry. So we have a lot to talk about today. I'm really looking forward to this. Paul Rykoff, welcome to the podcast. We've done TV before. We haven't done a podcast before, so we're gonna have to cram all this into less than an hour.

[Paul Rykoff]

So it's great to finally talk to you without a commercial interruption for Cialis or whatever they run on msnbc. And it's great to have a more robust conversation about all the things that are on fire. Charlie, thanks for having me.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, and everything is on fire. So for listeners who might not be familiar, although I'm guessing you have seen Paul, you know, Paul is the host of the Independent Americans podcast. He is the founder of the Independent Vets of America and also vets for Ukraine. So, Paul, look, I know you have a lot of thoughts on all of this weird moment at the United nations where apparently the United States essentially sided with Russia and has been lobbying against the Europeans, the Canadians and the Ukrainians and ended up being one of 18 countries that voted against the Ukrainian resolution. On the third anniversary of Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine, they lined up with Russia, North Korea, Sudan, even China and Saudi Arabia abstained. But we joined with Russia voting against it. Deep breath. What do you make of this?

[Paul Rykoff]

We are the bad guys. We are the bad guys. Now, Charlie, I think this is what is most important to communicate to everyone in America right now. The lines are being drawn and we are on the wrong sides. The President has. Has now chosen to side with the bad guys and against the good guys. That's why I think it's important to cut through all the misinformation. Anybody who has a platform, whether it's big like yours or small, you know, you have to just pierce the truth and explain to people that the Russians are the bad guys, Putin is a war criminal, they are the villains. Ukraine is the good guys. And if you stand with the bad guys, you're a bad guy, too. And I think that's really what this moment is most about, Charlie, is the world is looking at us and they can't trust us. They are fearful of us. They are worried about our military they're worried about our president. They think we've lost our mind, or even worse, that we've been compromised. And for me, in my work over the last 20 years is about national security. And I've been ringing the alarm for the last few months, especially to tell everyone that the Department of Defense and our national security is Trump's top priority because that's where the most power is. That's why he put Hegseth up first. That's why he's going in so aggressively into the Pentagon. That's why the Pentagon is really the tip of the spear for him. He wants to capture the Pentagon and then use it as a vessel to move all the transformation that he wants to implement across not just the military, but across our society. So that means everything from stand with the bad guys to banning books and banning trans people and banning the press, everything they're doing around national security is a harbinger of what's to come. And this is just, I think, the most high profile, maybe the most shameful recent incident of how now America thinks the world thinks America is the bad guy.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, I want to get to the Friday Night Massacre and what he's doing in the Department of Defense in just a second on this UN Thing, because this is just blowing my mind. So the United States had its own resolution, but the Europeans amended it. So the amendments replace language referring to this, and this was our resolution referring to the Russian Federation Ukraine conflict. And the amendments passed calling it the full scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, adding a commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders, and then expanded wording about a lasting peace, putting in to a just lasting and comprehensive peace in line with the Charter of the United Nations. So once those amendments were tacked onto the American resolution, we couldn't vote for it. We abstained on our own resolution. And apparently Trump felt so strongly on this, is so anxious to appease Vladimir Putin that they engaged in a full scale lobbying effect all around the world, telling diplomats, go in, don't vote for the pro Ukrainian resolution. I mean, it's not just that, you know, he's backing off of support from Ukraine. I mean, he is trying to signal to Vladimir Putin in every possible way, I got your back, Vlad. Doesn't he?

[Paul Rykoff]

Yeah. I mean, I'm really reluctant to quote George Bush, but either you're with us or you're against us. And I think that's what Ukraine has been saying to the world. And really only the bad guys have been against Ukraine.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

So I think in this moment, you know, you and I talk to international audiences. We're on cable television. I think one of the things we have to prioritize is telling the world that Donald Trump doesn't speak for us. Donald Trump doesn't speak for most Americans, especially on Ukraine, doesn't speak for all Republicans, really. Right. Yeah. And that's where there could be some cleavage here. You see someone like Representative Bacon, right, from Nebraska today, coming out against Republican. Yeah, Republican. Right. So if there's an opportunity to create space, maybe this is. This is the right place to do it, because it really is about wrong and right. It's about good and evil. It's about massacring civilians and children and bombing cities or not. So I think the stakes couldn't be more clear, but I think we, as conscientious, patriotic, diverse, politically Americans, have to stand up and say that Donald Trump doesn't speak for us on Ukraine, and he definitely doesn't speak for most American veterans. That's why, along with some other folks, we created American Veterans for Ukraine, because we wanted to be a part of this narrative. We wanted to explain to people that the stakes at play here in Europe are like the stakes my grandfather fought for in World War II. And the line must be drawn. And America's always stood on the side of good, but now, until now, could have. Charlie is kind of like what it felt like to invade Ukraine. I'm sorry, invade Iraq. I was a part of that in 2003. And we knew very quickly that we had become the bad guys. We went from becoming the liberators to becoming the occupiers. And you saw the world be behind us on 9, 11, and then fragment and come against us on Iraq. So that's the only recent parallel I can even come up with to underscore what it was like when the world was aligned against us. But this is even worse.

[Charlie Sykes]

This. This seems so much worse. So. So to your point, though, you talk about, you know, okay, so he doesn't speak for us. He doesn't speak for vets. There are Republican. Up until five minutes ago, most Republicans in Congress, I think, still supported Ukraine. So there is the possibility of driving a wedge between what Trump is doing now and the veteran community and maybe some Republicans. I guess the question is, what will actually happen? Will we have more rolling capitulation, more despairing shrugs where we might as well go along with, or will we actually start to see pushback? Because the moral stakes are so clear, as you pointed out. What do you think will happen?

[Paul Rykoff]

You know, it's nice to be out of the weird world of msnbc, quite frankly, where I feel like they're so disconnected at times from, from the ground truth of what's happening beyond the left of America.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

And I think what I really want to want to remind folks is I say this in my podcast all the time, the Democrats are not going to save you, and the Republicans are obviously not going to save you.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yes.

[Paul Rykoff]

And if there's some hope that I think we can hold out for and that we can invest in, it's really the American people. And you saw that with General Milley. Right. It was General Milley that held the line in the last administration. I think you're seeing it now with these federal layoffs. They're laying off millions of people around the country, 30% of which are veterans, many of which are Republicans, and they are the guardrail. It's not going to be John Fetterman. It's not going to be Susan Collins. It's going to be the American people, the majority of which are independent politically right now and don't want either party. And I think when it comes to national security, the opportunity for a real resistance, and I'm reluctant to call it that, is going to be all the fire generals. It's going to be people like CQ Brown, and probably not him specifically the chairman of Joint Chiefs that was fired in the Friday Night Massacre, but the colonels and the captains, a generation of Colonel Vindman's, who will come forward now and I think will also be augmented by FBI agents and FBI.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, so, because let's, so let's go back to the point you made just a few minutes ago, though. So we had this Friday Night massacre. You have Pete Hegseth, obviously, at Trump's direction, firing a lot of the generals, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Air Force General C.Q. brown, Jr. Highly respected individual. They've been going through a lot of, there are gonna be a lot of flag officers, admirals, generals who are going to be purged. And so the agenda here is very clear, that Donald Trump wants the military to be stripped of any resistance. The other thing he did that was also very significant, and I don't want people to miss the significance of this was he fired all the top lawyers in all of the branches. These are the guys who will tell the generals whether or not an order is legal or not. And I think I saw the quote from Pete Hegseth basically saying, yeah, we had to get rid of the lawyers so they don't stop us. From doing what we want to do. Well, wait, wait. The lawyers just tell you what the law is. They don't make up the law. And so they are creating a scenario in which Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth gives an order of questionable legality. And they wanna make sure that the generals then do not have a lawyer telling them, you can't do that. That's illegal. So what happens here? I mean, how deep can the purge go?

[Paul Rykoff]

Oh, it can be complete. It can be complete. And we can look to history and everywhere from, you know, Iraq to Venezuela. Right. To look for parallels here. But I think it's important to take a step back because I feel like some folks are kind of are shattered or fragmented. They like the shell shock. Right. And I think they underestimate the strategic calculations and that there is an actual plan on the Trump side. Right. And the strategy is very clear. They are seizing the levers of power, and they're starting with the most valuable and the most difficult points. The places that stopped them before, the places that have the guns, the places that have the nukes. That's why you lead with Hegseth, who is a culture warrior, and I've said that a lot when we're on TV before, but he was designed for this moment because he is a culture warrior. He's designed to go in and change the entire culture of the Pentagon and then use that to be the forward tip of the spear on this train of transformation that is Trump's radical agenda. But they want to seize the levers of power. So you do that by taking out the Sec Def and putting in someone who's a loyalist and a culture warrior. Then I'm surprised CQ Brown lasted this long, right?

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

But I think they wanted to be methodical, and now they are. Every Friday night, there's a new announcement from the Pentagon, whether it's the trans ban or banning the Washington Post or this. This Friday Night Massacre. And we knew the purge was coming. They were lining it up. They were getting momentum. And that's what a lot of this, I think, is about, Charlie, is about momentum and timing. Because they want to keep moving forward without friction. And after they got Hegsett through and they got Patel and they got Tulsi Gabbard and they got Kennedy, now they can move back down to the Pentagon and take off. So you take out the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you take out the head of the Navy, you take out the JAG Corps, now they'll move down there from there, take out anybody who was associated with dei, they'll say they're for efficiencies, but what they were doing is removing the resistance. And then you'll see a parallel track at va, at justice, at FBI, at every other agency to consolidate the power so they can do whatever they want. It's not just unlawful things. Right. It could be the Insurrection Act. It could be deploying federal troops to round up migrants. It can be violating war crimes. It can be supporting Russian troops in Ukraine. They can literally do every. Anything and everything they want when they've removed the opposition. So I want people to keep their eye on the ball. Right. The momentum is, in my view, gaining. Right. His train, his steamroller is picking up steam. And what you have to do is focus on the 5 meter target, whether it's blocking Cash Patel. Okay, you lost that one. Now you got to move back over to the Pentagon and stop the purge. You can't stop the purge. Okay, let's get the people who were purged out to stop the next purge. But you've got to try to put blocks in front of that steamroller. And whatever the steamroller is focused on next is what we as Americans should be focused on.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, but. But is there any way to block the steamroller? Is there any way? And again, I guess the question is the military has a culture. The Department of Justice has a culture. I think what we found out with the Department of Justice is that many of the. Much of the culture was based on norms and a, you know, an honor system that. That they're kind of blowing through. So I guess the question is, in the military, can you blow past all of the culture of the military? Can. Is there anything that stops the purge? Or will at some point other senior officers, less senior officers say, no, sir, we're not going to do X, Y and Z? No, sir. You know, we take an oath to the country, not to the man sitting in the Oval Office.

[Paul Rykoff]

Yeah. There's two things that stop it, Charlie. And it's interesting because I'm going to turn it back on Pete Hegsett. Pete Hexev said you can't shoot values. Right? You can't bomb your enemy with values. It's actually our values that are going to be critical here, complemented by leadership. Right. So CQ Brown is out. Right. And I'm going to use him as a very important example because he's the new general. Millie. He just got Millie. Let's call it Millie. Right? Or foul. Sheed, whatever you want to call it. And I'm going to speak directly to CQ Brown, you can't go to ground. You can't go off to retirement. You can't go work at a defense contractor. You can't be quiet. You should be on 60 Minutes this weekend, and you should be everywhere this weekend. Because this moment calls for your courage to communicate an alternative narrative to what's happening. And that means reminding what our values are, continuing to uphold them, whether you're in uniform or not, and then expressing your own personal leadership and extending a call to action to others. Because there are. I'm hearing from a lot of folks inside the Pentagon who are just waiting to be fired, and they're saying, what do I do? How do I protect my family if I get named by Tucker Carlson? How do I pay my bills? You know, all these components that have to be a part of a movement. CQ Brown can be that flag in the ground that says, okay, I'm over here. I'm going to be lawful, I'm going to be peaceful. I'm going to build a political resistance to what's happening, even if it's only in the Pentagon, so that when you are fired, there's a place for you to go, right? Not just tweeting or going to ground, but consolidating a legitimate political opposition that does not have to be affiliated with a party. And I think that's what I think you and I might be aligned on here, Charlie. It's not going to be the Senate Democrats. It's not going to be Chuck Schumer. They're not all of a sudden going to become the strategic leaders that this moment requires. But there are strategic leaders that will emerge. And I'm going to use CQ Brown as an example, because he's going to be on the outside. Then on the inside, you're going to have the chairman, the Joint chiefs who weren't fired. You're going to have senior leaders who weren't fired. And you hope and you pray and you insist that they uphold those values and they resist unlawful orders. They try to do what Mattis and others did in the first term to resist Trump, slow him down. It's going to be an inside and outside game. And for everyone who's not in the mix here, I would tell you, you got to support those courageous leaders who do come out right when the next Colonel Vindman ends up on tv. You've got to support him, you've got to donate to him. You've got to give him political. We might have to give him personal protection. But when those brave leaders come forward as they Always do in American history. We as a culture have to stand with them and their values and. And encourage and protect their leadership because those.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, unless all of them are. Unless all of them are. Okay, now explain this to me, because this is where it gets, I think, from an outsider. We need to walk through and explain this. The President of the United States is the commander in chief. You know, you have a chain of command. And if you are in the military, you obey the chain of command. You obey orders. You obey orders unless, and correct me, anywhere along the line, unless you have reason to believe that that law order is unlawful. But they've also now purged the lawyers or anyone who would tell the general that order is unlawful. So how does it work? If the President, United States issues an order? If you're in the military, do you have any recourse other than to follow that order or to resign at this point?

[Paul Rykoff]

Yes, you actually have an obligation to resist an unlawful order. And this is taught. I was an infantry officer in the schoolhouse at Fort Benning. Everybody gets taught about Lieutenant Callie, right? The example from Vietnam where Lieutenant Cali shot civilians. And the question is, every officer, even non commissioned officers, junior enlisted, run through a scenario. They say, okay, the colonel comes in and says, all right, everybody shoot those kids over there. The kids are playing in a playground. You have an obligation to say, no, I will not shoot those kids over there. And you have to resist that unlawful order in whatever way you can. You put down your weapon, you say, I'm not going to do it. If everybody puts down their weapon, you don't shoot the kids. They come for you and put you in handcuffs. You take the handcuffs and you go and you make your stand that that is an unlawful order. And as an officer or an enlisted soldier or member of the military, you have an obligation to resist that unlawful order. And I do think that will come, right? You'll see it in small pieces. You may see legal challenges from the outside, of course, from the ACLU and others like that, but I think you will see flashpoints where officers say, and maybe enlisted as well say, I will not do that. And it's different from being a conscientious objector. They're not saying, I'm against all war. They're saying, this is an unlawful order. That's the tricky part here, right? Because we've got to show that it is an unlawful order, which is really against our values, for example, a war crime, while they're simultaneously rewriting the laws or trying to circumvent the laws. So it's really going to come down to, like, basic American values, and it's going to come down to courage. Right. Let's use a National Guard unit from Mississippi or Alabama is going to get sent somewhere to round up kids and they're going to say, okay, go into that school and drag the migrant kids out. 20% of them might say no, one of them might say no. But I think what we're close to is a breaking point moment where one or a number of those people say no to something and become kind of like a Cindy Sheehan. Remember Cindy Sheehan during the Iraq war, who stood outside of President Bush's house, protested the war. We are very close to satisfying the country's starving hunger for leadership. That is different. And there's been people like AOC and Jasmine Crockett. We can go down the list of people who are fighting back, but what hasn't happened is a new leader that emerges. And I have confidence that in this time, especially young people, I'm not looking for people over 40, Charlie. I think it's going to be young people who are going to step up.

[Charlie Sykes]

It's going to have to be become.

[Paul Rykoff]

Those transformations, because that's what always happens, especially in America.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, I'm gonna try to remember where I'm going here. But you mentioned something about, you know, the obligation to resist war crimes. One of the real bright lines, I think, with this president is his attitude towards war crimes. You know, he's talked about the army as, you know, being just killing machines. And of course, he has used his power, his pardon power, to let people who've committed atrocities off the. Off the hook. And remember, in his first campaign, he talked about, you know, going in and killing the families of terrorists and things like that. And people say, well, you know, what if the military resists? Well, no one will resist. So clearly here is a president who is prepared to have a very different attitude toward honor, law and war crime. So here's my big question to you, Paul, and I think you've been getting at it, though in real time, as this plays out. You have the Friday Night Massacre, which is the beginning of, just the beginning of. Of the decapitation of the leadership of the Pentagon. Also 5,400 civilian employees in the Pentagon. How is this actually playing out within the military and the veteran community? What is actually, because a lot of these folks probably might have supported Donald Trump or been willing to give him a little bit of grace period, or maybe even kind of enjoyed watching this. But what's happening now, you know, through the ranks as they're watching respected leaders being fired for the lack of loyalty and all of this uncertainty, I think.

[Paul Rykoff]

The most important thing you said was uncertainty because what it becomes is destabilizing. Yeah. I can't think of a recent event that's more destabilizing to the overall integrity of the military than what we're seeing right now. Right. Because anytime there's an attack on the military, you know, whether it's a 911 type event or even something controversial like don't ask, don't tell. Right. Nothing is as disruptive across the board as the constantly moving targets and leadership. Right. And the thing I've been saying in my podcast everywhere else is our enemies are celebrating. When you look at this and flip the table and say, okay, you're Vladimir Putin or Osama bin Laden is somewhere in hell smiling right now because he can only dream of a scenario where our political leadership is attacking our military and the military leadership is decapitated. And the enlisted ranks are worried about who their bosses are going to be. If you're a trans person, you're getting kicked out. If you're a woman, you're worried about your rights being eroded. If you're in the National Guard, you're worried about being deployed to the border. If you're in the 82nd Airborne, you don't know where you're going. It's just a constant environment of instability. And that's why in his first term, I called him President Mayhem. Because in the midst of what I do believe is a real strategic agenda and a focused strategy that we have never seen before, not like we saw in the first term.

[Charlie Sykes]

They have very different roles.

[Paul Rykoff]

They have clear targets. They have leaders lined up, they have resources and they are rolling. But what we have in this moment is a time where people are all kind of shell shocked and they're looking to starving for that leadership to rise up. But what you will see, and I think it will be in the next couple of weeks, is those first colonels or captains that are fired. I'm talking to them all the time. We're on closed chats and Signal and WhatsApp. And people are saying, I think it's coming this week, it might be coming next week. You know, I'm not a friend of Pete Hegseth. I'm not in the cool kid club. I'm just waiting. And I think what we as leaders, especially nonpartisan leaders, have to do is create those landing points for them. Right. And elevate those leaders. Because it is coming and what everybody's worried about right now is just being fired. They're worried about how are they going to pay their bills. And a lot of the folks that are getting fired in this round are civilian Department of Defense employees. So they're going to two weeks notice you're gone or maybe one week notice you're gone. And then those are a lot of support personnel. So it can cascade down the ranks. So we will see actual readiness, recruiting, retention impacted. And that's an important point too, Charlie, because the people who want to join the military right now are very, very narrow. They're going to be the people who really, really need to, who really, really believe or really, really buy in Pete Hegseth's shit, right? And buying Donald Trump shit. And it's going to look a lot more like the army of the Confederacy than it does the army of 2025. And that's the long term danger here, is the people we're bringing into the military are going to be a very, very different kind of person. But to answer your question, most, most directly, it's chaos. And chaos is good for our enemies. Chaos is not just good for Donald Trump, it's good for everyone who wishes America harm. So if we're laying off people who are responsible for our nukes, or we're laying off people who are responsible for aviation, or even laying off people who are responsible for logistics, the fuck ups are going to disrupt our machine.

[Charlie Sykes]

So this, this, this is, this is, this has been the pattern. It's not just the military, right, where you have Elon Musk, who's slashing all kinds of things, you know, running through the china shop with the hammers and everything. And there doesn't appear to be necessarily a prioritization or an understanding of the damage and the risks of the various cuts. I'm guessing in the military they're seeing the same sorts of, okay, I know there's fat, I know there's waste, I know there's fraud. But this is something else because I know that, that I rely on that person or the country relies on that person to keep us safe. And for reasons that I can't understand, they've also been decapitated.

[Paul Rykoff]

And it's crazy disrespectful. I think that's really important because the military is a place that prioritizes honor and respect and discipline. And this is undisciplined. This is disrespectful. This is mean, this is stupid. Like, if you're going to fire some people, okay, let's do it on a strategic plan. Right? And that's the question here is people in the military want to see a strategic plan. They want to see clearly articulated goals. So even talking about the percentage, right, is it 5%? Is it 8%? Is it 10%? Who picked 8%? Why did they pick 8%? There's 11 categories that are off limits, but the rest are not. So there doesn't seem to be a clearly articulated plan, which creates even more consternation, indecision, anxiety. Right. And I think that's really what you don't want, is a fighting force. No matter how you feel about this, even if you're Trump and you want a really strong fighting force that kills all the bad guys, they're not feeling real confident right now. They're not feeling like everything is stable and we can take on the North Koreans if we have to. So I really come back to the military as more than a canary in the coal mine military. And our veterans are supposed to be the superheroes in America, right? We're the ones who put on the front cover of magazines and everybody salutes at a baseball game. If they're treating them like this, how do you think they're going to treat you? How do you think they're going to treat city employees? How do you think they're going to treat garbage men? How do you think they're going to treat teachers? They are treating the military this way. And I think that's why I will continue to say, charlie, it's really important everyone understands. It's starting at the Pentagon. That is the beachhead. That is the spearhead. That is the proof of concept that will cascade down across the rest of our country if we don't slow them down and stop.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, okay. What about the vets? You mentioned this a little bit earlier, speaking of people who are also, you know, people who deserve respect. And I know that you were talking about cuts to the staff of the folks that deal with 911 survivors and veterans. So so much for never forget what's going on there.

[Paul Rykoff]

Yeah. Apparently Elon Musk thinks that letting more of us die would improve efficiencies because I'm a 911 first responder myself. I live in lower Manhattan, a couple blocks from where I was on 9 11. I actually got a phone call last week and again today from the 911 World Trade Center Health Registry, which is at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Tens of thousands of us, maybe hundreds of thousands of us now, you know, going for an annual checkup, and they are firing 20% of the people associated with that program. Now, this is the sort of thing you do either. Yeah. Either you don't care or you're just sloppy. Which is also something I think we should never underestimate about Trump administration. They're often incompetent. They're often not good at doing the things they want to do. So they have secondary effects, like, for example, removing people from 911 health registry. So we've had to fight for this so many times, Charlie. We had to fight for it in the beginning, despite opposition from some in the Senate, to pass the James Zadroga bill to establish the 911 health registry. Then people may remember Jon Stewart went down to fight to protect it.

[Charlie Sykes]

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

Three times. Well, that's who they're coming for now. And that should be, you know, an alarm bell that crosses partisan lines. And I think it is also getting to that point about if they treat 911 heroes this way, how are they going to treat everyone else? Also, last week they fired 1,000 people at the VA.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, I was gonna get to that VA. I mean, to me, that's one of the third rails of American politics. When you start fucking around with that, then you have stories and stories that if you are an elected official, you do not want to be on your local evening news. Right.

[Paul Rykoff]

Yeah. Well, let me take a step back and tell you, I do believe that veterans, while they're not a silver bullet, they are gonna be an important part of pushing back against this. They're gonna hold the line. It's always been true. I mean, George Washington was our first citizen soldier, Right? And he said, when we lay aside the soldier, we not lay aside the citizen. Right. He was the first independent president, the last independent president we had. So we started a group called Independent Veterans of America last year because we wanted to create a political mechanism to help independent veterans get elected. Dan Osborne in Nebraska came really close to knocking off Deb Fisher. We ran 11 candidates nationwide. Four of them won, two lost by 200 votes or less. But we think that this is a part of the pushback is, is we actually have people who are willing to cross partisan lines to focus on country and community first and run for office. And they're running this year, not just in 2026. They're going to run for mayor, they're going to run for local school board, and they're going to bring respect, they're going to bring integrity, they're going to bring experience, and they're going to bring, you know, this trans or post partisan approach to things that we're going to need right now. And that is especially true at va, Right, where. Where I think it's more than a third reel, Charlie. It's kind of like the beating heart of the federal government, because the VA didn't used to be a federal agency, but now it is the second largest federal agency in the government. So if you're going to start with ripping apart the government and changing the culture, you start with the Pentagon. And number two is the va. And that's why they put forward an equally radical culture warrior who's gotten almost no press. Doug Collins is now the VA secretary, and he's kind of like a Southern, folksy, more charming, more likable version of Hegset. Okay. He's kind of got a little bit of a Tommy Tuberville to him. But also under qualified, extremely radical is an election denier came out again, has been ferociously against women's rights and abortion rights his whole life. And now what you have is a parallel track. So everything they're doing at the Pentagon, they're now doing at the VA, which has hundreds of thousands of employees, you know, $300 billion budget. If you want to trim fat, there's plenty you could trim at the va. Sure. But they have sloppily started with, for example, a dozen people who support the Veterans Crisis line. So those people were fired last week. Right. Because when you're using. It's not even a hammer, it's just like a flamethrower to everything. And you don't have a respect for what you're cutting and what people do. You do things like lay off some people from the Veterans Crisis line. And that is, again, another flashpoint where I think the American people will stand up and say, no, this is not acceptable. And that's why we have to speak truth. We have to counter the misinformation. And keep in mind, Collins is doing exactly what Hegseth is doing, but nobody's paying attention. He's putting video straight to camera. He's not talking to press except Breitbart. His number one agenda item was canceling a relationship with Politico. Then he went to attack the press. And he went to attack the press and support Doge. Those were his priorities. Right. And he's going down the list. Similarly, he's going to fire leadership that's not loyal. He's going to. He's removed everybody who's associated with dei. They're going to attack all diversity initiatives. They're going to remove rights for trans people, and then they're going to go down from there. And I think it's important that people understand that Hegseth and Collins are kind of like a thunder and lightning of bureaucratic disruption. And I think are the two most important places to keep your eye on FBI, too, now, because they've got guns, authority. But these are really the main thrusts of total cultural transformation because of how many people they employ, because of their symbolic value, and because if you capture the microphone, you can spin it as you hear Hegseth doing, right. As you will see Collins doing, said, hey, man, you could trust me. We're not fire. We're not cutting anybody's benefits. No, you're not cutting anybody's benefits, but you're cutting people who work on benefits. He's saying, we're not cutting anybody who's working on the veterans crisis line. No, we're not cutting crisis workers. No, but you're cutting support workers. They're playing this game with the way they're communicating and not answering hard questions and driving forward a really extensively extreme agenda. And the VA is going to make the Pentagon look docile because the Pentagon's long had the military industrial complex. What Trump has been creating and wants to create again is the veterans industrial complex. And how you do that is you lay people off, you shrink it down, you privatize the shit out of it, and I'm going to put a marker down. Charlie, I don't think he's actually going to cut the VA budget. I think he's going to do the politically smart thing, which is increase it, but expand the privatization so then the private market can get more of the va. Trump still gets the optics of saying, hey, I'm raising the budget. I care for our vets. But it's going into different places and radically changing the structure of the entire thing.

[Charlie Sykes]

So you made a passing reference to the way that they were dealing with the media. And I know you've talked about this, you've written about this. One of the first things that Pete Hegseth did was kick out certain media outlets out of the Pentagon. They're rotating them in. Why should we care about that? I mean, what, what, what is the significance of either Politico being there or the New York Times, you know, having an office in the Pentagon. Why is that important?

[Paul Rykoff]

Because it's about the truth. So you can remove the Washington Post and CNN and anyone who's objective, and they're literally replacing them with Newsmax and own. Okay, so now Dan Lamoth, the great national security reporter who's been on my podcast before, Hard Hitting Guy, you know, he. And people like Barbara Star, folks may remember Barbara Starr from cnn, they had a room where they could get WI Fi, where they can do a standup if CNN calls or NBC or PBS calls. Right. They're cutting their legs out from under them. They're denying them access. They're denying them basics like WI Fi. And they're not doing press conferences. So what they're doing is not standing up in front of the cameras. Pete Hegseth is not going to talk about Ukraine. He's not going to talk about the purge. He's going to go directly to Fox. He's going to go directly to Newsmax, he's going to go directly to Own, and then the other networks are going to have to steal the footage from there where it's not objective, it's not hard hitting. And what also Hegseth is doing, and this is where it's so important to see the, the integration of the strategy across X and all the other media platforms is he's just talking straight to camera.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

He's sitting behind his desk and sewing. Hey, guys, I'm going to tell you the real truth. Don't listen to the media. Listen to me. Right now. He can command and even be effective. Yeah. And if he went to the press pool, right, because he's got the amplifiers of, of X and, and he's got all the cascading synergistic media outlets ranging from OWN to Newsmax to Joe Rogan. And that's the part of this that I still think most Americans don't understand is how they have consolidated a propaganda machine. When you and I go on MSNBC, we're talking to like, what, 1 20th, 1 50th of what they are at Fox. So they're just shrinking the places that people listen to that aren't theirs. And that consolidates a propaganda machine and allows them to distort the truth.

[Charlie Sykes]

And that is as revolutionary as anything else we've been talking about here, changing the entire information ecosystem. Okay, so let's just shift to the FBI, because we talked about that a little bit earlier. This is a very concerted effort to seize all of the critical high points in the federal government, the Pentagon, the FBI. You have Cash Patel who used to work in the Department of Defense. I don't know if you ever ran into Cash Patel, but I remember that people were shocked when Cash Patel. Patel was appointed. And yet I think equally as shocking, the fact that the United States Senate then confirms Cash Patel and then what do you get. If you don't draw a red line for Cash Patel, you get Dan Bongino.

[Paul Rykoff]

Dan Bongino.

[Charlie Sykes]

Which. Okay, I wrote about this in my newsletter yesterday. I'm gonna toss the ball to you because that is so absurd. It is beyond. It is beyond parody of any kind, that you would have a blowhard idiot like Dan Bongino as the number two person in the FBI. And it seems as much of a fuck you to the institution of the FBI as it is to the targets of the administration. So your thoughts on that? I mean, there were a lot of qualified, like. At least, like, facially qualified individuals you could have put in there. But, I mean, why? Why Dan Bongino, Bob?

[Paul Rykoff]

Because they're running the table, Charlie. They're running the table. Like they knew that Hegseth was going to be the hardest one. And I said this a lot last year. I said, we. You had to stop Hegseth, because if you get Hegset through, the others become easy. And that's why they went all in on Hegseth. And that's where you really saw the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, which I think is important to bring.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, I want to get to that again.

[Paul Rykoff]

Right. Because I'm an independent. Most of the country is independent. The Democrats are not going to save you. Because if the Democrats had their shit together, they would have focused everything on Joni Ernst to protect her. Right. Because Joni Ernst was the linchpin here. And Joni Ernst was kind of on the bubble. She was open to voting against Hegseth.

[Charlie Sykes]

Nobody thought she would. Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

The Republicans did millions of dollars in ads against her. The Democrats didn't. The Republicans went behind closed doors and tried to influence Joni Ernst and give her things and threaten her with things. The Democrats are talking on msnbc, right? Like there was a failure from the Democrats to focus on the lever. That would have been the difference. And it wasn't the American people, because he kind of lost them already. It was those critical members of the Senate. And the same was true for Kennedy. The same was true for Patel. One vote difference. Right. Was the key here. Patel was a 5149 vote. Right. And that's where I challenged the Democrats and really changed the American. Challenge the American people. Focus on Mitch McConnell. Focus on Thom Tillis. Focus on the people who've shown you the right. Cassidy. Cassidy. Focus on them because they are movable, because the Republicans have moved them. And that's where the center of gravity has to shift. Otherwise you get cash. Patel, who himself wouldn't pass an FBI background check, hasn't taken an FBI background check, hasn't taken a polygraph, which is required of every FBI agent. Right? And now you've got Dan Bongino, who is an extremist, who is so ridiculous and so radical that it's hard to even capture. I think a lot of people are waking up saying, holy shit, who is this Dan Bongino guy? You and I know who Dan Bongino is like. He is the worst of right wing talk radio.

[Charlie Sykes]

That's right. Whatever you think of is worse.

[Paul Rykoff]

I thought Bongino, I'll tell you, Charlie, I know these guys. You know these guys. I figured Bongino was going to be CIA director because Bongino had been in the Secret Service, right? I think he was in the Secret Service or maybe head of service, right? Put them somewhere like that. But they are so unencumbered right now. They are running so easily over the Democrats and over everything that the long shot move like Hegseth now doesn't seem so radical compared to Bongino.

[Charlie Sykes]

I know this.

[Paul Rykoff]

This is the new normal. So what you've got to do is you've got to resist and stop them. You've got to try to slow them down legally and the lawsuits will do that. But I think right now Bongino is a great example. This is a moment for the press and for the opposition party and for the American people to really elevate how fucked up Dan Bongino is, right? How unexpected.

[Charlie Sykes]

And there is video, There is video and audio where you can like use his own words like, this is the guy. You just listen to this for a few minutes.

[Paul Rykoff]

And I do think what you're gonna see is a pushback from the FBI, which is not really built for this. And they're gonna cry about it and they're gonna whine about it and they're gonna sue against it. And then some people are going to come out. And then the most effective opposition to Patel and Bongino is going to be former FBI people. Right? All these people who are rooting for Robert Mueller and Jack Smith and Tish James, right? They're the next generation of those people who are either going to quit or be driven out in the next couple of weeks. And they, I hope and I will support will coalesce into what should be not just an opposition, Charlie, but an alternate narrative. And I think that's where the Democrats have failed us the most. There is no alternate narrative every day to what's happening. Msnbc. I'm sorry. Guys doesn't cut it. But we have to elevate leaders who are responding to every fucking crazy thing he does every day. And you can't say, oh, it's too much for us, or, oh, we can't keep track because when they're shooting in your house, you have to account for all the bullets. You have to.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, so this, this is the. You've been very, very critical of, of the Democrats. And again, there were some Democrats who would say, look, look, we can't go hair on fire on every single outrage. We have to separate the signal from the noise. We have to calibrate all of this. So what should the Democrats be doing now? We can't change the first month where they were kind of weird, I guess. I'm a little surprised. I think you were as well. How ill prepared they seemed that even though we had been on a regular base saying, you know what's coming, you know what's coming, you know what's coming. They actually have a blueprint. You've read the blueprint. You've read the blueprint. And yet they seem flat footed. So what should they be doing now?

[Paul Rykoff]

The Democratic Party is a failure. Let's start with that. Right. And I would argue the Republican Party is a failure too. That's why the next generation doesn't want to align with either one of them. That's why young people want something different. And it's not that they necessarily even want a third party. They just don't want to be aligned with these two parties. Right. They want options.

[Charlie Sykes]

What do you mean? You say it's a failure, though. What do you mean?

[Paul Rykoff]

They fail to win elections. They fail.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yes.

[Paul Rykoff]

Stop Donald Trump. They fail to stop his agenda. They failed to stop Pete Hegseth. They failed to stop. We literally have a daily example of how they're failing.

[Charlie Sykes]

I think it's objectively true at this point, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it is objectively true.

[Paul Rykoff]

But I think it's also like they. I did not support them nominating Kamala Harris. I said that Kamala Harris was gonna lose. I said that I could see the negative reaction across. And that's not because of her personally. It's because I know the independent community. I know the right side of this country, and they hated her with a vitriol that was parallel with like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.

[Charlie Sykes]

So who could have won?

[Paul Rykoff]

Well, if Joe Biden was healthy, he could have won, but it wasn't a joke.

[Charlie Sykes]

That's a big F. Yeah.

[Paul Rykoff]

In my view, they should have had an open process where they could have vetted, at least had a visible commitment to transparency, because then they would have gotten more independence, they would have gotten more Republicans, and in the end, the Democrats would have been better off, too. But the point is that the Democrats right now are failing to have a strategy, and they are failing to have a leader. And I think that's what you see as a totally shattered organization that can't even figure out who their leader is. And I think this is really important, too. They're all trying to claiming for it, right? Like, some people think it's aoc. There's an article in the Times say Chris Murphy is going to be the leader who saves. And I don't see any of that happening. I mean, I had Wes Moore on my podcast this week, and I think Wes Moore is actually the kind of transformative leader that could be the leadership of what the Democratic Party looks like, because the Democrats, nobody knows what the Democrats stand for anymore. They don't know what they are. And I think how you solve for that is with a leader, they need superheroes. They need people like Wes Moore, who served the 82nd Airborne and dragged himself out of poverty and is turning a state around and looks good and sounds good and can do all the multimedia things that Pete Hegseth can do. And think about it this way, like a steel cage match. I said, like, if the Democrats were going to put somebody in the cage with Pete hegseth or with RFK Jr who are they going to put in Chuck Schumer? Who are they going to put in Chris Van Hollen? Like, who are they. Are you going to put in Westmore? Or you're going to put in maybe aoc, Right? Like put. Choose your fighter and put them in the ring every single day against those people. That's what they wanted Gavin Newsom to be. And I don't think he squares that circle. I don't think Gretchen Whitmer is going to be it. So in the meantime, what you see is a Democratic Party that's leaderless and strategyless, and so they are shattered and easy to beat. And that's what the Republicans are doing now. They're just beating them every single day. So what should they do right now? They should stop every nomination they can. Half of the Democrats voted for Doug Collins. Charles.

[Charlie Sykes]

Oh, that's just. I know. That's. I can't get past that.

[Paul Rykoff]

Yeah, Dick Blumenthal came out and said, you know what? I wish I didn't vote for him. Well, no shit. Now you Say that only you been.

[Charlie Sykes]

Warned by his whole life.

[Paul Rykoff]

How many times do the Democrats have to fail you before you realize that there has to be an alternative? So for, for all, all this is to say, Charlie, that there has to be a daily drumbeat of resistance, of clarity, of narrative, of, of superhero alternatives. And I'm going to point to Wes. I have a lot of friends who are Democrats. They're like, hey, I'm so disgruntled. I'm so sad. I'm so shattered. Like, you know what? You need a pop, Go watch Wes Moore go to his.

[Charlie Sykes]

Okay, sorry.

[Paul Rykoff]

I call him, I call his Instagram page Wes porn. Because I need to sign up. It's west with his sleeves rolled up. It's west catching passes from Lamar Jackson. It's west doing all the things that Republican leaders do. And that's where the Democrats have to lean towards someone who can be like him. Maybe Pat Ryan is another sort of an example. There are others out there, but they need tough, dynamic, multi sport athlete leaders who can transcend politics too. And that's the key here. That's what the Republicans have been doing so well. They got the culture. So the Democrats, and I would argue the independents more and more so need to get people who get the culture. That's what Dan Osborne got in Nebraska. That's why he got so close, because he was authentic, he was real. He was a union guy and a tough working man, a mechanic. Like people are starved for those kinds of leaders and those are the people who are going to help push back against Cash Patel. It's not going to be Chuck Schumer.

[Charlie Sykes]

So let's engage in a little bit of speculation here because one of the big challenges of Democrats is to understand what exactly is the challenge, what is coming down? Because we've spent virtually the entire discussion talking about how Donald Trump is consolidating his power in the Pentagon, consolidating his power in the FBI. All of these levers of power. Paul, what's the end game? For what purpose? What? Yes, where, where are we going on all of this? Do we know to do what? What does he want to do?

[Paul Rykoff]

Whatever he wants. This is like, this is so simple in my view. This is non villain. This is, this is minions, right? It's like, it's, it's the bad guy wants to steal the moon. He wants everything. He wants total world domination. He wants as much power as he can get so he can do whatever the fuck he and his friends want. And it doesn't have to be a whole lot More complicated than that. It doesn't have to be like, well, he wants to implement this policy toward LGBTQ people, or he has. That's all baked in. Okay, the religion.

[Charlie Sykes]

I think you put your finger on it. Because if anyone thinks that Donald Trump is motivated by some sort of an agenda, agenda that doesn't involve him, his own aggrandizement, then they have not been paying attention to him, you know, in his brain. Hotels in Gaza is a thing, an actual solution to the Middle East. What the fuck? I mean, you know, I mean, but I think that's.

[Paul Rykoff]

It's really. It's really very simple. It's about power and profit and influence, and that's how you get people to subscribe to fascism. You say, you know what they might get, but I'm going to do great. And that's everybody who's in this administration right now, they're like, you know what? I'm going to compromise my values, going to compromise my integrity, but I might be director of a government agency. I mean, that's everybody from Trump to Vance to Tulsi. And that's the other part of this, Charlie. I know these people. Like, I worked with Tulsi Gabbard pretty closely when she was more moderate, rational, co authored an op ed with Pete Hegseth back before he totally turned into what he is now. So these are people who have J.D. vance, we all know J.D. vance. He did the coffee shops and he did the book readings, and everybody had been around him. They've all turned to the dark side, and you have to call it out at some point. They compromised their integrity. They sold out for the power or the profit, or maybe it's because of their distorted principles, which is some of them. Right? They are true believers here. And so for now, what the Democrats have to do, and I think this is important and everybody should do, is slow him down. And let's just see. What would the Republicans do if Kamala Harris got elected on day one? They would have dropped articles of impeachment. That's what they would have done. Right? That's what they did to Joe Biden. As soon as Joe Biden got elected, they started articles of impeachment to slow him down, to wrap him up. And it doesn't have to be the whole party, but I'm just using that as an example. Pick a radical person. Have Jasmine Crockett or someone who's to the far left or the squad or whoever else, just to tie him up with that for a while. Right? Tie him up there. Slow down his donations slow down his momentum. Continue to support the press that's driving the narrative. Continue to support the leadership. You have to kind of do all of it. But what the Democrats are lacking because they're lacking in leadership and strategy is priorities. So there's nobody who comes up and says, okay, everybody, today the priority is stop Cash Patel. Okay, we lost that one. Now it's stopped on Gino. Okay? Then after that, it's stop this defense bill. Right? There has to be a prioritization, and that's really what leadership is. Is. Is laying out goals and strategies. And the goal is save America, okay? From this crazy lunatic that wants to ruin our country and compromise everything that we've fought for for hundreds of years. And here's how we're going to do it. Today's warning order is Stop Cash Patel. All right, we lost that one.

[Charlie Sykes]

It sucks.

[Paul Rykoff]

Tough noogies. Let's move on. You got to get to the next one. Yeah, but it's got to be all.

[Charlie Sykes]

Hands on deck for the. For. For today's Jones.

[Paul Rykoff]

It doesn't have to be all hands on deck. It just has to be clear. It has to be as many hands as possible. You don't like fucking with Cash Patel? Okay, stop. Kristi Noemi. Right? Or if you're a health expert, let's focus on RFK Jr. Right? Like, this is where people can take a lane. If you're a health professional, focus on slowing down RFK Jr. Focus on HHS, focus on donating to organizations and candidates that are challenging him. You don't have to do all of it. I am focused on defense and veteran stuff. That's my bag. And I'm encouraging other people who have that background to do the same. And don't wait for the midterms because the midterms are too far away. Right?

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah. It's not about too much, too much, too much damage between now and then. Absolutely. Right. Paul Rykoff, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it very much. You can find Paul Rykoff. He's the host of the Independent American podcast, founder of the Independent Veterans of America, and an all around great American. Paul, thanks for joining me today.

[Paul Rykoff]

Thank you, Trigger. One last thing to say. If you are an independent veteran who would like to run for office from dog catcher to U.S. senate, we are recruiting, we are supporting, and we are going to help you get elected. If you respond to this message and you're not an independent veteran, help us get them elected. We're going to run 25 and 25. It's not a silver bullet, but it's a part of pushing back on the longer term change that this country needs. We need patriots. We need leaders, and they're out there and we're recruiting for them and we're going to support them and help them win.

[Charlie Sykes]

Absolutely. And thank you all for listening to today's edition of the to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes, and we do this several times a week because we all need to be reminded that we are not the crazy ones.