DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - A Small Price to Pay | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Trump dismisses the economic costs of his war against Iran as a “very small price to pay” for—what, exactly, nobody knows. Fuel prices are soaring, and may stay high for months. That could make groceries and other goods more expensive. Consumers and businesses could spend less, triggering a recession.• Wary of low approval ratings, Trump calls his Iran War a “short-term excursion.” Will this be a walk in the park? Or will Iran become another Mideast quagmire?• America For Sale: 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion—19% of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, directly or through PACs. Before Citizens United, the share of billionaire spending was almost 0.3%. Billionaire families gave an average total of $10 million each, an amount roughly equal to what 100,000 typical political donors gave, combined. And that does not count dark-money contributions.• Republicans want the SAVE Act “show your papers” law so badly they’re willing to consider a “talking filibuster.” Ted’s done the math—and the GOP should be careful what it asks for.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall/id1825379504

Good morning. It's Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. You're watching the program with Ted Raul and John Kariaku. John, as you can see, is back. Welcome back. Good to be back. I'm exhausted. Did you have those crazy TSA lines to deal with that we've been hearing about? No, thank goodness. It was like nobody was traveling. It was the craziest thing. I just blew right through every stop I went, whether it was D.C., Miami, L.A., Indianapolis. I had. I got diverted and then back to D.C., no problems. Crazy. Excellent. All right.

So there's been some complaints. There's always complaints. Always. There's complaints that yesterday, Robbie and I didn't go through the rundown. So let's go through the rundown and talk about what we plan to talk about. As always, please put your questions into the live chat if you're watching live on Rumble or YouTube. For those of you who had been hoping us to continue the aha slides experiment, we may do that in the future. I don't know how we're going to do it, though, because it's hard to

come on to a show and have 60 questions backed up before you're going to start in a, you know, one-hour show. Even if we banged them out, we'd do nothing else. And I don't even know if we could get to them all. So, you know, basically we're trying to stick to the live chat at this point for the questions. But maybe we'll come up with some mechanism to allow super chats, you know, off, you know, during the other 23 hours a day, whatever. But thank you so. much. Obviously, this is a great problem for us to have. Seriously. And it's thanks to you guys. All right. So here's what we're talking about. We're obviously talking about continuing coverage of the Israeli and American attack against Iran. Trump is dismissing the economic impact of the war,

which basically we've seen securities and energy markets zigzagging all over the place. I think the energy futures market is foolish to be like really paying much attention to anything Trump does or says, it should be paying attention to what the war is actually doing. But that would be me. Anyway, so there is fear of a recession. We'll talk about that. Trump is calling the war a short-term excursion right now. But, you know, Iran gets a vote here, too, as to whether it's a short-term excursion.

So we'll see what happens there. John, two kind of domestic stories that we obviously have been focused more on the international stuff. But New York Times has this very interesting analysis that before Citizens United, the landmark corporations are people ruling in 2010, I believe that was. Only 0.3% of campaign contributions came in from billionaires. Now it's 19%. 300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated almost one out of five of all campaign dollars in the United States. It's crazy.

Billionaire families gave an average of $10 million each. That's equivalent to what 100,000 typical political donors, not average Americans, gave combined. And that's not even counting dark money. And finally, I wrote my syndicated column this week about the Save America Act, which Republicans are pushing for. And now they're talking about doing a talking filibuster, which John, I'm hoping you can explain, especially to people who are not Americans, what that is. and which would be interesting, like Mr. Smith goes to Washington kind of thing.

But I did the math. And let me just tell you, John, Republicans don't want the Save America Act, even if they think they want it, it'll be really good for Democrats. It's political suicide. But anyway, that's what we have. I pulled up the numbers.

When you first said that offline, I pulled up the numbers, and I agree with you. So this is going to hurt Republicans. In a big way. It's like redistricting is hurting Republicans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You turn every district purple because you think it's going to be good for you. And then you launch a war in the Middle East and everybody's going to be pretty pissed off.

Political suicide is a very interesting phenomenon. So before we get into all that, John, we were kind of marveling before with Robbie. I'm going to put on Robbie too. The three of us were kind of marveling at some of the commentary that we've all been getting from some of the, some of the hate. I guess it's like, you know, we know we're big now that we're hated. Because, you know, the first three, four months we were doing this show, nobody hated us, but then almost nobody was watching. So now a lot of people are paying attention and you become a international sensation. And everyone's, you can't go anywhere without being stopped and asked

for selfies. No. So anyway, John. I just sent you and Robbie a copy. of the picture that has caused so much controversy. Oh, let me put that up. Yeah, I didn't know if we could do things like that, but I sent it to you. Where did you send it? I texted it to you. I'll get it. So I was in Miami for most of last week to film episodes of my TV show.

We've dropped my old show, The Whistleblowers, and there's a new show called Deep State, so it was a new background, and we had to do a new opening, and I did the first five interviews. It was very busy week. But then I got this invitation to have dinner with Sean Penn at his house in Malibu. He had been binging on my videos and called a mutual friend and said, can you put me in touch with John Kiriaku? So a little more than a week ago, he called me one morning and said he wanted to invite me to dinner at his house. So I went to his house Saturday evening, one of the most magnificent.

houses I've ever seen in my entire life, first of all. But secondly, a lovely, lovely guy, completely and totally normal and down to earth in every way. We hung out in his like man cave and then we had dinner in there. This is his man cave, literally from the floor to the ceiling. It's just... Where's Sean from? Do you know, like originally?

Yeah, his father. He was born and raised in Malibu. His father was non-practicing, like vaguely, generally European Jew. His mother was Irish and Mexican. This is what he told me the other night. But he grew up, you know, an atheist and, you know, whatever people believe, he said, is their own, you know, God bless. No pun intended, they can believe whatever they want. He respects everybody.

He and I disagree on Ukraine. So what? I disagree with a lot of people on Ukraine. But we... I agree with most. I disagree with most people on Ukraine. With most people, yes. So we never ever talked about Ukraine, about Ukraine.

We never talked about El Chapo, which he took a lot of shit for back when that went down. We talked a lot about Haiti and about the Clinton family. But we mostly talked about the country and the direction of the country and about mutual friends that we have. It turns out we have about a half a dozen mutual friends. We exchanged phone numbers. We promised to get together again in the near future. And that was pretty much it. We talked about movies.

We talked about movies a lot. He told some very funny stories. But that was it. I said, hey, Sean, do you mind me? if I get a picture. He said, no, no, let's get a picture. So we stood up and his daughter took the picture of us. We just happened to stand up with the ghost of Kiev flag in the back. I didn't even notice it. But I posted it on Facebook and people lost their shit. Let me tell you. Ted, I am absolutely one of those live and let live people. always have been. You and I can be friends. We can be lifelong friends. And either I disagree with you

on everything or I don't have any idea what you believe on everything. I don't care what you believe. If you're a good person, if you're a good-hearted person, we're going to be friends. I had to block eight people in like one 15-minute period. Oh, and Metina, no. I'm I'm not starstruck. I've hung out with people way more famous than Sean Penn. I'm truly not the kind of guy who gets starstruck. I was with Pete Seeger because Pete was like a giant to me. But the fact that so many people on the left demanded that I end all communication with him

because they don't agree with his position on Ukraine. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Well, that would make every, I don't know. I mean, that would, John, that would make your life and my life if we had that rule very, very small. I mean, seriously, yeah. Making friends is hard enough as it is. I know, right? And then you have to put everybody that you know through some kind of ideological purity test.

Yeah. It's not for me. That's not for me. No, it's, I mean, it's just, it's an impossible. standard and it's dumb. Also, I'm open to the possibility that I could be wrong about things like Ukraine and, you know, and, you know, someone could, or about anything and just be like, you know, hey, they might convince me. I have been convinced that I was wrong. And that can't, that's, that's, that's, I love being convinced that I'm wrong. It's exciting to do. And I'm, and I'm,

and I'm the first to admit it, and I'll do it in a public venue. I was wrong. Yeah. You know, getting back to the original one of the things I like about Tucker, even though I've never met him. One of the things that is the most wonderful attribute of Tucker Carlson. And our friend Robbie here, I love Robbie. Robbie's a real friend, a true friend. We probably disagree on 95% of the issues. I don't care. He's a good guy.

I don't care what his position is on, you know, American intervention in Central Africa. I don't care. Right. Oh, my God. It's not important. It's not important. We probably agree on that one.

So the one thing we agree on, you come out against. But we have immigration, I think, would be better. Yeah, yeah, immigration. We disagree. I'm from an immigrant family. Like every single side of my family is an immigrant family. A lot of my immigrant relatives came here illegally by literally jumping off the side of the ship when it was docked in Norfolk, swimming to shore. Let me tell you about my cousin

Angelo real quick. I freaking loved Angelo. He was such a great guy. He was a marvelous cook. Angela was in the Greek Navy. And the Greek Navy docked in Norfolk, Virginia one time. I was a little kid. It was like 1968. And Angelo was doing guard duty one night. And he was specifically given guard duty to just march the deck because the captain said, I don't trust these other guys. I think they're going to go over the side. And as soon as the sun went down, Angela went over the side. And he was in some very clean water. Seriously, Northbrook, Virginia.

He was able to make his way to a Greek coffee house in Richmond. And he said, guys, he announces to the Greek coffee house. Guys, I jumped ship. I'm here illegally. But my uncle lives in Farrell, Pennsylvania, which is where my grandmother and grandfather lived. They all threw in money. they got him an Amtrak ticket to Pittsburgh. He took a bus to Farrell, called my grandfather.

My grandfather picked him up. I remember immigration agents banging on my grandparents' door. And my grandfather, God bless his soul. My grandfather had a third grade education. But he knew enough to go to the door and say, no warrant, no come in. Correct. And Angelo was literally,

a real warrant from a judge. That's right. Not a fake one. Angelo was hiding in the broom closet in the kitchen. Angelo just waited things out for an amnesty. There was an amnesty in the 70s. He got his citizenship and he ended up running the Pentagon Barbershop for 30 years. All he wanted to do was earn money for his family by working honestly, sending it back to Greece and pay his taxes.

and he became a hero in our family. And he was here illegally for years. And what you just talked about is really the only issue that I have personally when it comes to immigration. Because we keep, he had been being promised literally my entire life that this problem is going to be being solved. And it never has. Never. Rages are depressed. I mean, the country's a wreck.

And we can't take care of the people who are born here. We can't take care of the people who grew up here. I should have something invested besides what's in it for me. Yeah. But we can just sling the boards open and just bring in the entire freaking world. That's my problem. It's not a racial thing. It's just if I go one town over to Columbia Falls is dead.

I mean, we haven't got a drug epidemic that's out of this, out of this world. We can fight wars. We can do all these things. But we can't do anything about actually helping the people that live here. Yeah. And for me, that's the issue. I got that. It's because we spend a trillion.

dollars a year on on weapons and defense two billion dollars a day on the ira on the iran war two billion i think i told you last week in the in the in the 1990-91 gulf war i remember the president's briefer coming back to the office one morning and saying that the president was stunned to speechless when told by the secretary of defense in the briefing that we were spending a hundred million dollars a day well today we're spending $2 billion a day, money that could be spent fixing roads and bridges and the shit third world airports that we have all over the country. You know what? Somebody asked in the comments what I thought of Indianapolis Airport.

I love Indianapolis Airport. It reminds me very much of Akron Canton. It's small. It's easy to negotiate. And I'll tell you what, when I got off the plane, I was not 100 steps from a Starbucks, which I desperately need. Oh, by the way, you've been getting shit for your Starbucks online. I don't know if you saw that. People are like, John, you've got to stop with the Starbucks because of their shitty anti-union behavior.

Well, I will say there's other coffee you could buy that's like more worker friendly. I actually prefer Pete's to Starbucks. But all the pizza have closed. Whenever the workers at the Starbucks by me go on strike, I boycott Starbucks. And I respect the picket line. And I usually only drink Starbucks now when I'm traveling because my girlfriend bought me this like $1,700 espresso maker because she hates Starbucks. She told me that Starbucks gives 10% of its profits to the Zionist entity. I said, no, they don't.

I said, that is an old conspiracy theory that's been going around for years. No, they don't. I said, Google it. It's obviously false. But, you know, it's giant and corporate and anti-union. almost every day I make my coffee at home. Today I had a quadruple. Look at my ears.

My eyes are drooping. I had a quadruple shot this morning, and it still hasn't kicked in. I know that's a 1775 coffee man over there on the far right. I'm a Hampton company man. My girlfriend ordered the 1775. She said it's absolutely wonderful. Is that true? Yeah.

She said that it was smoky and rich like a real espresso. All right. It's got time to stop. reading those ads and time to start living it and I'll I'll drink it on the show for the first time. It's good coffee. Can I say something real quick? Please. There's a comment that came in for me from just filming really. This is aimed at me. You said your government is a problem, but Robbie still blames individuals. That's why I can't

listen to him. If you honestly believe that, you're not listening to a freaking thing that I've said. My vitriol, my anger is against my government that enables this. Listen, if I would was if I was some peasant in Ecuador, I promise you, I would want to do everything that I could to come here. My wanting to come here, though, does that mean I have the right to come here? And it is my government's responsibility to do what is in the national interest of the taxpayers of the country in which I live. If you honestly think that, you're not listening to a freaking thing that I've seen. I mean, Robbie, that is generally my complaint with your position on immigration too is that the government leaves the door open.

And then, in fact, they beckon us. They beckon the foreigners to come in. They say, please, please, please come and work in our chicken factories and blah, blah, blah. And then so people do, and it's like, what the fuck are you doing here? Get the fuck out, you fucking criminal. That's my problem with it. You know, and it's like those people aren't really doing anything wrong because they're just following the rules. that they were told.

And if you change the rules, you know, it's kind of like, you know, in vampire lore, like, you know, vampires have to be invited in. Invited in. But if you de-invite them, like, I revoke my invitation, whoosh, out the door. But that's not, you know, immigrants aren't vampires. They're people. And it's like, you know, that's my problem with it. But, I mean, I have heard you agree with me that the way deportations are being carried out

by ICE is wrong and too violent and cruel. and all that. So I mean, I think there's more nuance and you do have to listen to more than like a five-minute clip to understand like over the, I mean, these are complicated issues. And the three of us have been talking about these issues for hundreds of hours on air. And so, you know, and even not every little detail comes out in those conversations. I think that the biggest issue that I have, and you just talked about it and now go away because immigration is done on the docket today, even though evidently now it is. You talked about how the rules changed. That's the problem with a rules-based system versus a law-based system. That's the issue.

Because if you decide what the rules are and if you decide what rules matter and what don't, then why should I then have to follow tax law or gun law when other laws are disregarded and they're not enforced? Why should I? That's not part of the social contract. Either you have a law or you have a rule. A rule is enforced by someone stronger than you. That's That's one of the reasons why, you know, in the 1300s, the Ottomans were able to enforce their will on what was left to the Eastern Roman Empire. They were stronger. It was a rules-based system. I don't want a rules-based system.

I want a law-based system that was set up by the Constitution. Well, not everything should be a law, right? I mean, not everything should be a law. We have too many laws. Listen, I completely agree with you, but immigration is a law. If you don't like it, that's fine. Petition Congress to change it. But until then...

Look, I agree that the border should be carefully controlled and seal. and we should allow legal immigration, but judiciously and carefully. And that's it. I agree with that completely. But anyway, all right, probably I'm going to let you go off into the backstage, but we'll bring you back, I'm sure. All right, we have lots of questions piled up. May I jump in first to answer one real quickly?

Why don't I get LASIC and drop the glasses? Unfortunately, I've been told by several different, well, one optometrist, one ophthalmologist, that I'm not a candidate for LASIC for whatever reason. Really? But last week, I was approached by the Tom Ford, you know, whatever Tom Ford is, a fashion house. It's a modeling agency, isn't it? That's a different one. Okay. These are Tom Ford glasses, and somebody recognized that I was wearing Tom Ford glasses.

They're good-looking glasses. And they asked me if I would be interested in representing Tom Ford glasses. And I said, absolutely, yes. My life has changed completely in the last couple of weeks. I was signed by the, by CAA, the Creative Artists Agency, the biggest talent agency in the world. And it's everything. It's books. It's podcasts.

It's Hollywood. It's everything. So they want me to keep the glasses. But I'll tell you one thing I turned down, Ted. I don't think I told you this last week. I've been approached for several different commercials, but I was approached last week by Viagra. And I said, I'm listening.

And they said they wanted to put me with an only fans model, Ted. Oh, my God. And they wanted me to say, being with her wouldn't be torture. And I said, absolutely not. I am not a clown for your entertainment. I have worked all my life to be taken seriously. And I'm not going to be a clown for you to laugh at. So I told him to go screw themselves.

No, you're right about that. I mean, yeah, years ago, when I had my cartoons in Time magazine, they wanted to do a photo spread of me on one of those opening pages like, you know, a day in the life of Ted Raul. And they sent a photographer to my studio. And they said, and the guy's like, I want you to take this cartoon and put it. in your mouth. I'm like, what? And he goes, yeah, put it in your mouth. I'll take a picture of

you, like, biting your cartoon. I said, what? I'm not doing that. He goes, why not? I go, because it'll look stupid. And he's like, but, so I'm like, take other pictures. I'm not doing that. And so I didn't do it. And he told the photographer bitched to my editor. And they didn't run the piece because they were pissed at me for being, for refusing. And I was like, fine, because I don't want that in the, I don't want that in the magazine. No problem. No. That's right. It's your magazine. you. It's my body. I do me. You made the right call. I had a boss who used to say, John, that you're defined as much by the things that you refuse to do than the things that you agree to do. Oh, man, isn't that true? That's profound. That's absolutely true. So, all right, let's get to it.

All right, let's talk about a little bit. We have, I know we'll get to as many of your questions as possible, especially the super chats. We'll do all of those. Okay, so Trump says the economic cost of the war are no big deal. The price of oil hit $120 a barrel. Then it popped, it dropped down, drooped down into the 80s down, of course, from where it was. It was 60, two weeks ago. So gas prices are already up over $1.25 a gallon nationally since the beginning of the war. I think it's safe to say that the price per barrel is going to go up once the futures traders realize that this is an ongoing thing, but Iranians aren't playing. This is, you know, they tried playing with us the first two times and, you know, third time. So not going to happen.

Trump says it's going to be a short-term excursion because he's obviously trying to calm the markets. No, it's not. Remember last week, Ted, we said, what we have to do to win in Iran is we have to overthrow the entire Iranian government and impose a pro-American, pro-Israeli government in Tehran, which will never happen in a million years. Nope. All the Iranians have to do to win is to survive. So either we're going to have to commit to killing half of the people in Iran over the next 20 years or just walk away.

Which you and I both know what's going to happen. Yeah. But it's going to take a while, right? Now, the Iranians issued a statement yesterday saying, you know, well, we have a few surprises up our sleeves, too. I bet they do. I bet they do too, right? Hypersonic missiles, anything else? The hypersonics, they have not yet used.

I think that the United States, I think that the U.S. and Israel have been taken by surprise with these suicide drones. You know, I researched this. These drones only cost but $5,000 or $6,000. That's it. And you strap explosives to them, which are also cheap. And then you just fly them into an oil rig or into, you know, a defense ministry building or into the middle of an American air base or the control tower of an airfield or five grand. Yeah, easy. And then our-

Nothing for a nation state. Yeah, our surface to air missiles cost at least, the small ones, at least $150,000. We're spending $150,000 every time we try to shoot down a $5,000 drone. and it is unsustainable besides the fact that it's hard to shoot down these drones, and that's why so many of them are impacting all of the six GCC countries. Let's talk a little bit about Bahrain. So Bahrain, it declared force majeure, which is a legal term in contract law that says we are no longer, basically in case of force majeure,

we're no longer able to honor our commitments under this contract. They're saying we can no longer supply. energy as the state Bahraini oil company said that they could. That's a huge deal, right? Their oil refinery system is crippled. Their ability to transport oil is crippled. If this goes on even a couple of weeks, that's a major problem for a country like that, isn't it? It's a major problem for Bahrain, but it won't be a major problem for the global economy because Bahrain only produces about 100,000 barrels a day. They consume about 100,000 barrels a day.

But the Saudis have gifted Bahrain a small offshore oil field, and that's the oil that they sell. So it's like a little bit of a little bit of free money, just to make sure that the Bahrainis can keep up with the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Still, Bahrain, relies on the income from this offshore field. And if there's force majeure and they can't export it, which they can't, because for all intents and purposes, the Strait of Hormuz is closed right now,

then it's going to- Although Trump says, like, we're, you know, we're going to take it over. Yeah, good luck. What does that mean? Let us know how that works out. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Just bullshit, basically. All right, we'll get to the, we're going to get to the pack money and the save back a little bit later, but we have so many questions, John. You okay with us? Yeah, let's go for it. All right. Let's do this. This is going to be super, got to be super fast. Okay, Desert Fox. Have we seen any of Zhang Shui Chin's analysis on game theory? I don't know anything about it. You know, somebody last week told me you really need to read this guy's game theory. And I wrote myself a note in my phone to do it. I haven't yet done it, but I appreciate the tip.

And I like game theory in general, so I will check that out too. Okay. Good morning, Benjamin Griffin, love the show. Question. I've read reports from the IAEA that Iran has enriched uranium up to 60%. Can you talk a bit about what they claim the purpose of this? They say it's for nuclear energy. In part, and also for medical research. Yeah, and that would be the appropriate uranium enrichment level for both of those things.

Suros Davari, love your show. What do you think of Mostaba Kameni, new leader of the U.S. Islamic Republic. Thanks for asking that question. Yeah. I don't think the only criticism is that he's got the same last name as his dad. You know, I think that just makes it, you know, it opens Iran up to the criticism that they're basically setting up a North Korean like hereditary system. But I don't think, John, I don't think that's knowing what I know about Iranians. I don't think, I think this was an act of defiance. We're going to choose someone that you guys really don't want us to. That is it. only because Donald Trump said it's not going to be this guy because I don't like him and I'm going

to choose the next leader of Iran. They were like, oh, yeah. And then they made Moshtabha Khomeini, Khamenei, Grand Ayatollah. Yes. Iranians have been compromising and compromising and compromising and they're done. Yes. That's it. That's it. He's a young guy. He's 54, 56 years old, but he's highly respected from what I've been told. Highly respected. Scott Holmes, what's the status of Netanyahu? I don't know what that means, status. Well, you know, Nanyahu ran off to Germany to hide when the war first began. He's back in, reportedly back in Israel. I read a report yesterday.

He's actually in Cyprus. He's hiding is what it comes down to. Well, I have to add one other thing. You know, somebody posted a video on wherever TikTok last night that I watched while I was laying in bed. And it was inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. which was completely empty. They're standing right next to the Etiquil,

which covers the tomb of Christ. And all you can hear are air raid sirens. Wow. It was just very sad. And there's a lot of video coming out of Israel from Israeli sources saying, we're really in trouble. They are in trouble.

They're not dancing in the bomb shelters anymore. No, sir. No, sir. You know, somebody pointed out to me over the weekend, too, that, you know, there was this spike in support for Netanyahu when they first started bombing the Iranians, it's back down to the point where his popularity is nil. Maybe the Iranians need to, I mean, the Israelis need to stop thinking about like how they feel

about their own situation and think about the situation that they're creating all over the world, which is then coming back to bite them in the ass. That is right. Is there a, the war of escalation, is there an end game in sight Arnab wants to know? not in sight, I think. Yeah, agreed. Kusovic, hot take, but I think if oil shoots up high enough, the U.S. will lift the Russian oil sanctions and get oil from them.

They're going to have to. And they already started that. They already told the Indians, yeah, yeah, go ahead and buy all the Russian oil you want. Yeah, there's back channel communications with the Russians right now. Yeah, there are. Absolutely. It's the beginning of the end for those sanctions. I would say timeline on the oil sanctions is a week. What do you think?

I could see that. 10 days maybe, sure. Soden, thanks for the 1999. Always a generous supporter. Good morning, Jens. John, do you think former CIA officer Mark Polyeropoulos bashing the agency about the Havana syndrome is valid? And do you think it was our plan all along?

And how do you feel about Cuba allegedly bending the knee? Mark and I became friends in 1995. Terrific guy. Terrific analyst. He switched to operations about two years before I did. and rose very quickly through the ranks to become actually the station chief in Moscow. If Mark Polymeropoulos says that he has Havana syndrome, if Mark Polymeropoulos offers up, you know, copies of his MRI,

which show a traumatic brain injury, which he has done, I believe he has Havana syndrome. I believe Havana syndrome is real, and I believe it's a directed energy weapon. I don't know who's... You don't think it's crickets? It's not crickets. Could be the Russians, the Chinese.

It could be the Americans experimenting on their own people. Because God knows, we did that from 195 to 1975, at least with MK Ultra. But Mark is such a serious guy that if he says it, I believe it. It's like fibromyalgia. You know, there's too many people who have it to brush it off. That's right. And about bending the knee to Cuba, or the Cubans rather, bending the knee to the United States. it deeply saddens me.

It really does. It's about day-to-day survival there. And with Marco Rubio, you know, wearing a hat the other day saying Cuba's next or whatever it was that it said, it just, it makes me profoundly sad. Well, they're just setting the stage for 15 years from now, from now when there's another revolution in Cuba again. Yeah, and then the mafia can go open up all the casinos again. Yeah. It'll be great. Baptista the third, call your office.

Adams Ark, thanks for the Emirati Diyarams for 50. Hey, if the U.S. initiates a ground invasion of Iran, do you think missile and drone attacks on GCC countries will stop? And if they do invade, do you think IDF troops will join them there? Seems only fair. Not the second part. Yeah, that's not the second. Yeah, not the second part.

I mean, ground troops, in my view, ground troops would be this, start of World War III. I really believe that. Plus, you know, Iran, let's contextualize this. Iran is the size of the whole of Western Europe. That's true. We can't invade and occupy a country like that. With more rugged terrain. With more rugged terrain than what is in Europe. That's right. Yeah, you can't. You just can't. It's too big, it's too big to bite off. I don't think, no, I think the missile and drone attacks would only continue or accelerate. I agree. Ari Anderdy, hey, John and Ted, good morning. What are your thoughts on Putin's threats to halt natural gas exports to the EU?

Seems like it could be harmful to the EU. Thanks for everything. Pardon John. Thank you. Yeah, this could be a serious problem for the EU. Over the last couple of years, over the last couple of winters, I've gone to Europe. And you stay in hotels. And it's freaking cold in the hotels.

Like in Greece, they won't even turn the heater on. your way down. Yeah, because they just don't have enough natural gas to keep everybody warm. Putin's not really won for idle threats. Uh-uh. That's right. Not like us. Maxwell Smart.

Question for John and Ted, if this campaign was miraculously won, would the U.S. have enough control over the world's oil supply to starve Russia and China? That's a good question. That is a good question. The answer is no, I don't think. No. No, I don't think so. I mean, it is a global market.

And it's interesting, right? Like you can be energy independent, like the Republicans we're pushing for for years. And we are, but it doesn't make any difference because it's a global market. So anyway, let's see. Have we considered doing an extra show, Jason Walton wants to know, perhaps on Saturdays that's just Q&A, not to impose on your personal time and lives, but it's an idea to address both the questions and the talking points. You know, I'd be willing to do that.

Maybe not Saturday. that might be a little bit of inconvenience, but maybe, you know, after we did this show once a week, twice a week, we could do another one. I'll say that on my other podcast, Deep Focus, our one year anniversary is tomorrow. And I'm proud to say in one year, 175,000 subscribers. I can't believe it. But anyway, besides that, I do a Q&A once a week. We're going to catch up here, John. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. That's right. And it's been very ably managed by Robbie, thank God. That's true.

So I do Q&A's on Deep Focus once a week. And when we started, it was like, put your questions in the comments. I'll answer every single one of them. It quickly went out of, spun out of control where I have time for 9, 10, 12 questions. And I'm getting now like 200 questions. Yeah, I mean, you have to worry that people are going to. get mad or frustrated. Yeah. Your questions aren't being answered. Yeah, I would totally consider that though. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Yeah, I'd be willing to do that. If you said, thanks for the dollar.

I think the photo is hilarious and not mad at all. It's glad it's good that you will now have an influence on him. See, that's the proper way to look at it. John Quesack, 10 bucks. With Iran decapitated, Russia's targeting Intel is the only way, the only strategic brain left guiding IRGC strikes is Moscow steering a headless Iran to destroy GCC oil for them. What's a tough one? I'm not sure I would say Iran is decapitated yet either. I don't think it is. No, I don't think so.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to just like brush that. Even, I don't know. I think Russia's approach to Iran is more direct than that. They're providing targeting information. They're an ally that they would do more. they could. And I think it's basically that simple. They're just honoring a commitment. Steve, thanks for the 10 Canadian. Mark Carney's pathetic. Not ruling out involvement in Iran,

cowtowing to NATO demands that we pay 2% of our GDP on arms. Why to defend Europe from the Europeans, to defend Asia from the Asians. Fuck that. Good morning. How did you guys end Katie Catastrophe once you know, how did we and Robbie meet? Oh, there was a gay bar. No. We were, Robbie was reached out to Manila and a middle channel for the TMI show. And that's how that all started. And so I met Robbie through Manila and then that's how that happened. Andre Wahat said, thanks for the 99. John, you should continue, you should reconsider doing Hassan Pikers show your,

Hassan Pikers. Your audiences overlap more than people think, especially on U.S. foreign policy, propaganda, of censorship and corruption. Why not do it? I have an idea about Hassan Piker and his show, as well as two other kind of controversial young, successful broadcasters. I have an idea, and we may do something all together in April. Okay. Hint Hint. Desert Fox, I've asked this months before, but I'd like more advice if possible, John or Ted. I'm a history major at my last semester at Seton Hall. Congratulations. Congratulations.

And not sure what to do for a career. Any advice? Thanks. Well, the typical answer would be go to grad school. Really. But I don't know. John, I mean, is the CIA interested in history majors? I mean, it was before 9-11. It should be.

It should be. I mean, that's who I would hire, right? You want people with rich backgrounds in the humanities. I was a major. Yeah. For whatever that's worth. The guy sat next thing. I was in cartooning.

I mean, but a cartoonist, they would hire in a heartbeat. Really? Yeah, because you have artistic ability and they would train you to be a forger. Oh, and you know, I used to forge in excuse notes for my friends in junior high school. I had quite a business. Not to get too far afield, and I apologize because I know we're a little tight on time, but I was in prison with a guy named Art Rachel. You can Google him.

He, he, art was a cat burglar and spent more years of, of his life in prison than outside. Art became famous, and he ended up doing 10 hard years in prison in the UK because he stole the biggest diamond in the world that has ever been stolen, called the Star of Marlborough. He never said where it was. They never recovered it. And I asked him in prison, Art, what would you do with that diamond?

And he smiled and he goes, I lived a lot of good years off that rock. So anyway, the reason I bring him up is that he was a gifted, artist. And so he was able, by freehand, he was able to draw a U.S. bearer bond. Right? And then he was able to copy them on very high quality paper. And he printed millions of dollars of bearer bonds and then would just cash them in. And the only reason he got caught is because his girlfriend's sister got arrested on a DUI charge. And she was like, hey, I'll give you a multi-million dollar forger if you dropped this DUI charge.

And she ratted him out. And he got 20 years in prison because she couldn't do three months on a DUI. Bitch. And you know, the irony is if she had reached out to him and said, listen, I'm going to do this unless you take care of me. I'll give you a million bucks. Exactly, right? Let's see Do we think it's possible to persuade Pakistan to give up its nuclear weapons?

Fuck no. Never. When they're living next door to India. Absolutely not. Steve, thanks for the five Canadian bucks. Why do you think America and Canada has an easier time integrating immigrants than Europe? We don't have a fraction of the problems they do with immigrants. That's true.

That's a good question. Canadians are a local legacy. Do you think it's the fact that like, you know, the Europeans had those colonies and they were used to that influence. I think so. And I think that the Canadians, just by and large, are just more progressive. Even Canadian conservatives are progressive on some of these issues. You know, the only countries. They need that Canada is so empty.

Oh, yeah. And there's a lot of space. That's right. Oh, I'll tell you a funny thing. I was talking to an Iranian-Canadian guy that I know the other day. And I said to him, so how are things? things in Canada. Now that you've been there a couple of years and he goes, oh, John, not good, not good like that. And I said, why? What's, what's wrong? What's happening? He goes, it's so cold. In days, I want to kill myself. That's not going to get better. No. Here in New York, it's going to be 70 degrees today, though. We have 81 today, which is nuts to me.

Holy shit. Yeah, I still have snow, but it's melted, almost gone. 3,500, I think these are rupees or I don't know what they are. She cash, thank you so much. It seems that the president is betting on a victory by attrition, sparking a revolution. Yeah, that is what he said before in a new U.S. friendly regime. Does you really think we're going to manage it successfully? Is there any chance this will not result in a complete disaster? It could result in a partial disaster. Yes, it could. It's not going to work. It's not. It's not. It can't. As he says, thanks for the two bucks. My T.Ls, my timeline's been full of Shia posts, mostly chanting amongst other things. Aesthetically and ritually, they're up there with orthodoxy for me. Where's your top denominations and sex for aesthetics and rituals? That's a cool question.

That is a cool question. We have to go with Buddhism for part of some of it. You'd probably have to. Hindus have some cool shit. You know, I will say, and I've never told anybody this, at night when I'm laying in bed and I'm trying to relax. Sufis. Sufis are, and the way they spin around, it's awesome to watch.

When I lay in bed at night, I listen to Orthodox chant, which is from between like the 5th century and the 18th century, the Russian Orthodox chant to me is the most beautiful. The Ukrainian is pretty beautiful too. The Greek is too familiar to me because it hasn't changed in 1,500 years. I hear it in church on Sunday. So, yeah, it's so beautiful and so mystical to me. I just love listening to it. I have this app on my phone called Ancient Faith Radio.

It's an Orthodox, like 24-hour-a-day Orthodox Christian station. It has three different channels. It has Orthodox talk shows. It has Orthodox chant in English and Orthodox chant in all the other languages of the Orthodox country. So it's Greek, Arabic, Romanian, Bulgarian, Russian, you know, Ukrainian. etc, et cetera, et cetera. I love it. Cool. You know, it's so funny, a lot of right-wingers have been talking about, like, all Muslims have to leave. I don't want to hear the call to prayer.

I think the call to prayer is one of the most beautiful Muslim call to prayer. I love hearing it in Muslim cities. Especially when it's all over and coming from different directions. Yes, yes. When I was living in Bahrain, I lived literally next door to a Shia Muslim mosque. and the Shias chant all day long. And I have to say, I never got tired of it. I loved it. Yeah. Is San Bull.

Oh, my God. No questions. I love your streams. Thanks for the $5. Bayat. John and Ted from a yes please. I think you might have discussed this before, but any theories,

if you can comment about what happened to Robert Bob Levinson in Iran? Oh, poor Bob Levinson. You know, I am in 2008, I had occasion to meet with 117. family several times. Bob Levinson was a CIA officer. I'm sorry, Bob Levinson was an FBI agent who retired and who was secretly hired by the CIA as a contractor to go to Iran to investigate the family investments of the Rafsanjani family. Ali Akbar Hashmi Rafsanjani had been the president of Iran, very conservative, very much an enemy of the United States. States. Bob was on the island of Kish, just off the coast of Iran. He was getting ready to catch a

puddle jumper flight to Dubai and come back. But a junior CIA analyst called him from a CIA telephone to his cell phone while he was on Kish. We have to speculate that the Iranians intercepted the call, realized it was a CIA phone. he checked out of his hotel on kish he had to kill several hours before going to the airport so he asked the front desk if they would hold his suitcase while he went for a walk nobody ever saw him again so the CIA told the family in 2008 he's most likely dead and then in like 2009 a terrorist group that we had never heard of, released a photo of him, holding a newspaper so that we knew what date it was.

He had a beard down to the middle of his chest, long hair. He looked horrible. And then we never heard anything again. This was so long ago now, he's most likely dead. Maybe they tried to negotiate, and it's just like the negotiating just sort of never got off the ground. There were several people that reached out to the family, and the family paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for like a meeting in Cyprus with a middleman.

It was all, they were all scams. That happens a lot. Yeah. As a Guthrie, in the Guthrie case, we're sort of. That's right. Oh, my God, that case. So yeah, they never found him. They never found the body.

Nobody has any idea who had him, who took him. It was most likely the IRGC took him and turned him over to a private terrorist group. All right. Let's do an ad. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee. Now's your shot. The 1775 starter kit just dropped. Only a thousand units.

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Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. John, I do want to talk. I found this very amusing. We talked briefly at the beginning of the show about the Save America Act. So if you look at X or any social media, you see Republicans and their influencers pushing hard for the Save America Act, they keep saying 88% of Americans are for voter ID. And that's true. Voter ID is a popular, the voter idea is you show your driver's license or state ID to show that you are the person who's qualified to vote. That's not the Save America Act.

The Save America Act is you have to prove you're a citizen, not who you are, but you have to prove you a citizen. And that means you show a passport, I guess maybe a passport card, although it's not clear whether that would work. Or you have to show a birth certificate and ID that matches the name on that birth certificate. And John, that's second. So that's second part. So it's when you do the math and you're trying to basically, it's been assumed that this is an attempt to disenfranchise poor people. And that poor people are more likely to vote Democratic. Right.

And therefore, this is why Republicans are pushing it. and they think it's going to help them in election. But I rolled up my slaves last week and looked under the hood of this thing. Turns out it's going to screw over Republicans. So things have changed. We're not living in 1980 anymore. And as it turns out, most poor and working class voters are people are actually Republican now. The Democrats have become a party of coastal elites and upper middle class and rich people.

So disproportionately, only half, roughly half of Americans have a passport. Overwhelmingly, they're Democrats, not Republicans. So those people can go vote easily. But, okay, all right, so you don't have a passport. You can use your birth certificate. Fine. But poor people are far less likely to know where their birth certificate is than rich people because they move around more.

They lose things. It's not asked for it. doesn't come up much. And then among the people who have the birth certificate, a lot of those people who are women have gotten married and changed their surnames. Republican women are 20 percent, sorry, are twice as likely as Democratic women to take their husband's names. If the name on your birth certificate doesn't match the name on your current ID, you're not allowed to vote. You're out. Now you can go and you can go to a court and presumably spend, hundreds or maybe even thousands of dollars to get a court order saying that, you know,

I'm the same person who was on this birth certificate that proves I'm an American citizen. If you really care that much about voting, I don't know how many people are going to do that. Poor people, not that likely to do that. But here's the real awesome part. The Save America Act contains a provision that says that if a local election official looks at all this stuff and says, yeah, okay, you know, Ms. Jackson is a allowed to vote. Ms. Jackson was born Miss Jones. And it turns out it was not true. There was a mistake, an innocent mistake even. Even let's just say she really was a citizen. But it's a mistake.

That election official can go to prison for up to five years and pay a $10,000 fine. So the election official is naturally going to be incented to say no, right? Just because there's no penalty for saying no in bureaucracy. There's always penalty for saying yes. So the point is when you look at all this, I don't know, John, why the fuck Republicans ever wrote this law or why the fuck they're promoting it? And Democrats should get on board. Democrats should be like, this is a great idea.

Let's do it. And I don't know why Democrats are fighting it. What the fuck is going on? Ted, I went to this website for the bipartisan policy center. Very, very good website. I found an article that they published called Five Things to Know about the Save America Act. And there were a couple of things that jump out at me. First of all, do you have any idea how many votes, what percentage of all the votes that were cast in the last election were by non-citizens who were voting improperly?

Oh, it has to be like single digits, not even percentages, just as individuals, right? It comes out to four one-hundredths of one percent. Yeah. And it's a non-exist, it's not that it doesn't ever happen. It's just that it doesn't happen in numbers enough to make a difference in election. No. No. And the funny thing is that almost all of those votes were cast in Texas. It's just not, this is not an issue. It's not an actual issue. It's made up. People don't know that they're not allowed to vote. Right. And that's what, that's what it is. There was another thing, too, only 27% of Americans have a valid. passport. 27%. Well, there are a lot of Republican voters, conservative voters, in what Democrats

sometimes derisively call the flyover states. They don't have passports. They don't have passports. And poor people are less likely to have passports because they don't travel as much. And poor people are more likely nowadays to be Republican. That's exactly right. Thanks to Donald Trump. Donald Trump changed. Yeah. Billionaires have successfully convinced them that billionaires are their best bet to government. But so, but yet they're still living in the past. I don't know. I think the whole thing's fascinating. I agree. What do you think they just don't they just, it's just, it's just a mistake, it's just dumb. It's just dumb. It's one of these issues like George H.W. Bush's biggest issue against Michael Dukakis was the Pledge of Allegiance and flag burning. And he was able to convince

enough voters in America like, yeah, damn it, the most important issues that our country is facing, are flag burning and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. So Americans are stupid. Yeah, it's not like people. Yeah, I remember during that election thinking, you should be looking around and seeing flags burn all the time. But, you know, I've never seen anyone burn a flag. Maybeth, and I go to protests, thanks for the two bucks.

Do we think it was a possible selling point to Trump for this conflict that this could have extremely negatively affect China? That's an interesting angle. Maybe. Maybe. it's possible. That's a secondary issue. Ritu Patil, 499, thank you very much.

Do we think this was done so that a market for Venezuelan oil, had done this as a market for Venezuelan oil? Also possible? Also possible? Totally possible. John, 300 billionaires, donated $3 billion plus 19% of all contributions in federal elections. That was in 2024, directly or through political actions.

committees. Scandalous. Are we ever going to do anything? I mean, I don't think you can take money out of politics until you take money out of the system. Well, you remember McCain-Feingold, which was the best hope that we had to get campaign spending under control. And the Supreme Court not only threw it out, but then gave us Citizens United, which

said that corporations are people and billionaires can donate as much money as they want. And almost all of that billionaire class. money benefits the Republicans. So until the Democrats have a majority in the House and a majority of at least 60 in the Senate, nothing's going to change. And the last time that happened was 2009 and 2010. It's really, yeah. Well, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, it's just the point is that it's certainly, I don't know if there's anything we can do about it because, I mean, it's a capitalist system and capitalism has this tendency towards, you know, monopolization. As, you know, Marx and Engels pointed out, you know, 200 years ago. But is there, but it is certainly like illuminating, you know,

when you wonder like why, you know, the decisions are made in our political system to do what they do. It's sort of, it explains a lot. It does. Yes, indeed. John, thank you so much, as always for a great hour. Thanks for covering for me. Always fun. Oh, our pleasure. So you'll be back tomorrow, I assume. Yes, sir. I'll be right here. 9 a.m. Eastern Time with Ted Roll and John Kiroaku here on Deep Program. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for liking, following, and sharing the show. Please state, we'll be talking about the request for an additional show, because not like John and I have enough to do as well. And in the meet, speaking of stuff to do, I've got TMI show with Manila Chan coming right up. So if you're so inclined, stay tuned for that.

See you guys tomorrow. Bye-bye.