Veterans Sue New York Over Closed Primaries. Hegseth Purges 20% of Generals. Iraq Ends After 20 Years — Iran Just Beginning. Media Blitz Pod

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 — Osborn has outworked, out-hustled, and out-organized a $50 million machine. Fourteen counties left on a ninety-three county tour. More than two hundred public events. Small-dollar donations from all fifty states. And a message that is cutting through: less than two percent of Congress comes from people who punch a clock, and that is exactly why nothing gets done.

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 killed civilians from Odessa to Bucha and is still shipping lethal aid to Iran. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports Elon Musk himself ordered the Starlink/Starshield throttle that blindsided Ukrainian forces mid-fight, a precedent Glenn calls unprecedented and dangerous: a civilian defense contractor unilaterally shutting off a battlefield capability. Zelensky is signaling openness to freezing the front lines to get to a ceasefire — not to surrender territory — but only if Putin stops the bombing and shows up to the table.

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, a combat veteran of Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and a battalion commander in Afghanistan who's now running against a Republican incumbent and a Democratic former Navy commander — two candidates with roughly $7 million each. Baker's campaign has $6,800. The local paper didn't bother to mention him. There has been exactly one formal debate across all 12 Virginia congressional races. By design.

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. And a new report says Elon Musk personally asked Donald Trump to throttle Starlink speeds in Ukraine — hampering drone defenses while Ukrainian kids were dying. If true, it's treasonous. Full stop.

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 what that assessment actually means, why National Guard troops standing near DC drop boxes should alarm every voter regardless of party, and how the MAGA machine is priming the public to accept a stolen outcome before a single vote is counted.