On the week of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Paul Rieckhoff broadcasts from Lower Manhattan with the memorial lights going up over his shoulder — and a fresh wound reopened. A new report confirms what first responders, Stuyvesant students, and downtown families have said for a quarter century: city leaders knew the air was toxic and told the public it was safe anyway. They prioritized reopening the New York Stock Exchange over the health of the kids, the cops, and the firefighters. Paul’s message is blunt: outrage and sadness get old. We need an action plan. If people lied about a public health catastrophe, they should go to jail — no matter who they are.
This is a Media Blitz episode, stitching together Paul’s hits across News Nation, MS NOW, and CNN in a single week. He takes on Trump’s prime-time convention flop — scheduled up against NFL kickoff, the US Open, and September baseball — and breaks down why Trump’s sub-20% approval with independents is the real battleground of 2026. He connects the anniversary to Ukraine, where civilians live through a 9/11 every single day under Putin’s bombs, and calls out the fantasy that a war criminal can be negotiated with as a peace partner. Rigorous, personal, and unflinching — this is what independent analysis sounds like when the person delivering it actually lived it.
In this episode
- Broadcasting from Lower Manhattan with the 9/11 memorial lights being tested overhead — and the story of why the lights get shut off periodically to release trapped birds
- The new report confirming NYC officials knew the Ground Zero air was toxic and lied about it — and Paul’s demand that anyone who lied about public health exposure face jail time
- “They prioritized opening Wall Street. They didn’t prioritize kids. They didn’t prioritize firefighters.” — the structural indictment of who got protected and who got sacrificed
- Why there is still no formal statewide or national 9/11 curriculum in schools — and why Paul has been pushing for one for years
- Trump’s prime-time convention flop scheduled against NFL kickoff, the US Open, and September baseball — a TV guy losing the TV war
- Trump’s sub-20% approval with independents as the real 2026 battleground, from Maine to Michigan to Texas
- “Every day in Ukraine for the civilians is like 9/11” — connecting the anniversary to Putin’s ongoing war crimes
- Why you cannot negotiate with a war criminal, and why Putin can end the war any day by getting out of Ukraine
- The sirens that never really stopped — a personal reflection on living through 9/11 and COVID in New York
- A preview of Friday’s extended conversation with FDNY veteran and 9/11 first responder Rob Serra
