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Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff

Chaos in and Around Iran. Kash Patel’s Drinking. AI Job Losses - Tax the Bots? Andrew Yang.

Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff

Righteous Media | Bleav

Politics, News, National Security, News Commentary, Daily News, Veteran

4.6907 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 78 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff, Episode 499—an all‑new, all‑gas, no‑brakes conversation with entrepreneur, anti‑poverty activist, Forward Party founder, candidate for President and NYC Mayor, and Noble Mobile CEO Andrew Yang. From Nas and Knicks heartbreak at Madison Square Garden to Mets misery at Citi Field, Paul and Andrew break down why basketball, baseball and hoops culture offer a positive, global vision of the America we could be—while Trump’s chaotic presidency, Iran war “mayhem,” and a broken two‑party system drag us backward. They talk New York fandom, James Dolan’s facial‑recognition surveillance, pricing regular people out of the Garden, and why the NBA is one of America’s best cultural exports right now.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The temptation is to say, wait, you know, speed efficiency, the human just slows things down.

0:06.1

Let's cede it to the bots.

0:08.5

And then if you have both sides doing that, you could wind up in a nuclear conflict that no one even chose. Welcome to Independent Americans. Welcome to episode 499.

0:36.0

Tomorrow is 500. Holy smokes. I'm your host, Paul Reichoff. Today is Tuesday, April 21st,

0:43.8

and I'm coming to you from New York City, USA. And the weather here is cold again. Damn, a little colder

0:52.6

after a brutal Knicks lost last night here in Madison Square Garden and New York.

0:57.5

More on that later.

0:59.1

But it was in the 40s this morning for my run, and it's supposed to warm up and be in the 70s later this week, but not before some rain.

1:07.1

Because up and down is our normal for 2026. And that is definitely what we're going

1:13.1

to dig into today. But first, today's artist of the day, the artist I introduced my little

1:17.9

boys to each day is different. And today's artist is the great and powerful Nas. Nas, one of the

1:25.2

most important lyricists, hip-hop artists and artists of all kinds of our time.

1:30.2

And why?

1:31.1

Because 32 years ago, this week, Nas released Illmatic.

1:36.5

And everything changed after that.

1:38.8

He was signed to Columbia Records, if you don't know, after the help from MC Search from third base. That masterful

1:46.6

album was produced by DJ Premier, large professor Pete Rock, Q-tip, L-E-S, and Nas himself.

1:54.4

It got a platinum certification after the first million and has sold over two million

1:58.7

cents, maybe one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever,

2:02.2

definitely one of the greatest of all time, including New York State of Mine, life's a bitch,

2:08.7

and yep, the world is yours. And it is yours, the world is yours, even though Trump thinks it's his.

2:16.2

And I'm going to bring you a certain type of energy today that I always try to bring you

...

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