Martha Raddatz has spent decades doing the work most of Washington can't or won't — getting on the ground, walking with troops, sitting across from presidents, and refusing to look away. And she’s known Paul for two decades. The morning after she received the Lifetime Achievement Emmy, ABC News' Chief Global Affairs Correspondent returns (previous appearance on episode 61) to the show to talk about the state of journalism, the blackout on military coverage, and her new book The Hero Next Door. This is the conversation that doesn't happen on cable news anymore, because the access has been cut, the embeds are gone, and the briefing room has been handed to the MAGA machine.
Paul and Martha go deep on the propaganda Pentagon press corps, the eerie silence around 50,000 troops staged near Iran, the bridge between civilians and the military that keeps collapsing, and the human cost of forever wars that most Americans have tuned out. Martha shares the stories of the veterans in her book — a paralyzed Marine Raider turned founder, an Army doc operating on the wounded in Dnipro — and makes the case that curiosity, empathy, and a touch of outrage are still the only way to get to the truth. Marta Raddatz is in a class of her own. This episode shows why.
In this episode
- What it felt like to receive the Lifetime Achievement Emmy with journalism under attack
- Martha's advice to her younger self — and to the local reporter she shouted out from the stage
- Why the 2012 VP debate she moderated put foreign policy back on the map
- The propaganda Pentagon press corps: no embeds, no access, 50,000 troops in the dark
- Iran going dark — and where Martha still goes to find the truth
- The story of Marine Raider Derek Carrera, paralyzed in 2012, and what he built next
- Army neurosurgeon Rocco Armando operating on Ukrainian wounded in Dnipro
- Why America is tuning out — and what it'll take to bridge the divide
- "Please never ask a veteran if they killed anybody" — Martha on listening better
- Curiosity, empathy, and a touch of outrage as a lifelong reporting code
