Independent Americans with Paul Rieckhoff
@independentamericans·13.4K subscribers·3.5K videos
Xi flexes vs Trump on Taiwan. The no-BS briefing on Iran, Ukraine & China with Preston Stewart
Posted
May 15, 2026
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May 15, 2026
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46:32Now PlayingThe Breakout YouTube National Security Star. How Do We Know What’s True? The Drone War is War Now. Independent Media and War Coverage. Air Force Saves 11 After Plane Crash.
Who can we believe on national security? That's the question driving this conversation. Paul sits down with Preston Stewart — West Point grad, two-tour Afghanistan combat veteran, field artillery officer, and the independent national security analyst who has built a million-plus YouTube following by cutting through the spin. They open with Iran, where the ceasefire is buying time but solving nothing, where Iran's missile and drone capacity is far less degraded than the White House claims, and where the Strait of Hormuz remains a loaded gun aimed at the global economy. Then they widen the aperture to Xi Jinping flexing on Taiwan, a Chinese regime that plays a hundred-year game while Washington burns through munitions in months.
From there it's Ukraine — where, for the first time since 2022, Kyiv has the momentum, hammering Russian air defense, oil refineries, and logistics deep behind the lines with homegrown long-range drones. Preston breaks down the kinetic sanctions strategy, the magazine-depth problem haunting the Pentagon, the terrorism threat we've quietly back-burnered, and the domestic deployments Trump is telegraphing for the World Cup summer. It's a no-BS conversation about what's actually happening on the modern battlefield, why independent veteran voices are filling the vacuum corporate media left behind, and why staying focused — on Iran, on Ukraine, on Taiwan — is now an act of citizenship.
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