DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Aw, Shoot! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Cole T. Allen, 31, is accused of trying to assassinate President Trump and other officials at the White House Correspondents Dinner. A CalTech graduate and a teacher with a close-knit family, Allen allegedly issued a manifesto that indicates a highly intelligent articulate would-be assassin with specific political grievances about Trump’s genocide in Gaza, murders of Venezuelan fishermen, etc. Is America breeding a new kind of presidential assassin?• The U.K.’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s state visit to the U.S. comes at a time of heightened domestic and geopolitical tension.• The centrist leader of Israel’s opposition, Yair Lapid, and a right-wing former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, will combine forces in elections later this year. The merger is an apparent bid to reconstitute a partnership that temporarily unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu five years ago.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

You are watching the program with Ted Rollin, Jamarle Thomas. It is Monday, April 27, 2026. Good morning, J.T. What's going home, man? How are you doing today? I'm doing pretty well. You know, slow news weekend. Nothing much going on.

Really? So, yeah. So another assassination attempt against President Trump. Cole T. Allen, 31 years old from Torrance, California, is accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump. And he seems to be fitting sort of a new profile for American presidential would-be assassins or assassins like Luigi Mangione, alleged assassins, well-educated from good families, and very intelligent, very articulate, not crazy and wild. We'll be getting into the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents dinner, as well as all the political ramifications. of that, King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the UK are visiting Washington, D.C. today.

There had been talk of canceling that visit, or delaying it due to what happened on Saturday night, but that is not going to happen. And in Israel, two minor parties are coming together. They're merging forces in an effort to try to get rid of Benjamin Netanyahu in the next to election. So a lot going on. I think we should obviously dive right into the White House correspondent dinner. Yes. I'm eager to discuss that with you. I'm clear. Go ahead. No, no, I'm curious on your take. I mean, I'll give me my take, but I'm curious on yours. My take is well, first of all, because we air on the internet on YouTube and Rumble, I suppose we should address the fact that one of the most searched for terms on Sunday was faked, staged, staged. That's

etc. People who are, you know, convinced that this is not really like, you know, whatever. This is, I mean, look, we have no reason to believe that. This probably is, I mean, usually most things are exactly what they look like. Not everything. I definitely don't want to say that. I don't want to be naive. But most things are exactly what they look like. And this looks like a case of a guy who was disgusted by President Trump and his policies. Yes. He fits the profile in many ways. He's used. young. He's a single guy. He's not a parent. He's not married. And he was very upset about the assassination of Venezuelan fishermen, about the genocide in Gaza. And I thought one, his alleged

manifesto that he posted online, one thing that really jumped out to me was basically no one else is going to take care of this. And I thought that was super worth exploring here. Obviously, we have to be super careful about the way that we talk about this. Yes. But, you know, what's going on with President Trump? I think a lot of people, look, people who love what he's doing, obviously, are not going to at all connect to what I'm about to say.

But for people who view him as a failure of the system, you know, someone whose manner, whose policies, whose approach to governance is really outside of the norm, they're going to view him and the fact that he's still president as a failure of the system. It's a failure of the Democratic Party to run a viable candidate against him in 2024 or in 2016. It's a failure of the Constitution in terms of not providing a viable path for, you know, we have a political means of removal in the form of impeachment. But basically, if the party in power in the House of Representatives is the same as the president, it's almost impossible that the president would ever be impeached, even if he got caught dog fucking.

In fact, I asked Trumpies on my Twitter feed, if one of them, if he was caught dog fucking, would they be in favor of removing him? Not one person would say yes, right? So that is, I mean, that's where we're at. And then there's the failure of the 25th Amendment, which is needs to be invoked by the vice president. And you can see why it never has been because the person who invokes it

then benefits from it by becoming president. And it would be viewed as extremely self-serving. It's a fair, I mean, it's a ridiculous mechanism. So you have a system that fails us. You know, I mean, you have a president who is out of control and reckless. in many ways, I would argue is mentally unsound and certainly temperamentally unfit to be president. That part, I think, is clear and should be impeached, should have been impeached over emoluments

a thousand times over, but certainly should be impeached over these wars of choice, particularly the one against Iran, but not only. So, you know, I mean, he's a terrible person. He's a terrible president, and he should be removed. That's not to say that, I, I think we would have been better off necessarily under President Harris. But this is where we are. And I think it's the only thing surprising about what happened on Saturday night to me is that it doesn't happen more often. Yeah, agreed. I mean, you said a few things.

For one, I suppose that the Trump, Trumpers, MAGA supporters, fake MAG supporters. And I'm saying this because real MAG supporters would be like Marjorie Taylor Greens and Tucker Carlson that actually care. about America first, right? But they would probably say, well, the dog was asking for it. I mean, that dog might have been putting off signals that Trump couldn't resist, right? So who knows? From the standpoint of the thing that takes place

at the White House correspondent's dinner, I'm conflicted. And I'm not conflicted about whether they should murder the president. It's not that. I'm conflicted about this idea of what do you do. I've mentioned this point before. If I was a German citizen in World War II that thought my government was full of maniacs and lunatics, I'm a psychopaths. What do I, as a German citizen, do?

And the irony of it is in his document, in the manifesto that he put out, one of the things he put out, as you point out, what am I to do? I'm a Christian. I believe in, it's not that I turn the other cheek. I turn the other cheek if I'm being oppressed. I'm not being oppressed. He explicitly put it out. I'm not being oppressed. it's other people that are being attacked by this lunatic maniac government.

And whether that's the murdering of fishermen, whether that's the genocide in Gaza, whether that's, I'm just war regression. All of these things, we speak of an empire gone insane. What am I to do? Right. That's this point. What am I to do? What is people to do?

Nobody else is picking up the ball. So this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to try to kill from the top down. I think he calls them pedophiles, rapists, and something else. Trader. Yeah. Look, he's right in that sense. The catch is, what do you do about it?

Right. And it's it productive to go and try to murder the president of the United States. He's even right about the Christian thing. Because he's like, it's like, look, man, as a Christian, what am I supposed to do with this? You're using my tax dollars and you're murdering people abroad in my name. You're backing rapists. Israel, I don't know if you remember this. They raped a man.

They gang raped the guy, the Israeli military. And when it went to Channel 4. for them to talk about it and discuss it and do a poll in the population about whether they're okay with it. 60% of the public says fair game. That's who we're backing. And so if you are a person of conscience, what do you mean? And if you're a pedophile in the United States and you're an Israeli national, the Israelis will welcome you back and not extradate you to the United States. Yes. So what do you do? And he came to the conclusion, I need to kill the top of the ticket. What he misses in that, though, is it's not just Trump, meaning this is U.S. policy. They act like Trump. Yes, his

manner is more grotesque. True. But Joe Biden had no issue getting us involved in a Ukraine war, like pushing NATO to the borders of Russia and everything else. Hundreds of thousands of people. Gaza genocide was mostly under his watch. Under Joe Biden. So it's like, I get it that Joe Biden is cancer and he's that long for this world. But if you're going to whack somebody, is that just Trump that you're going after? I guess my point is, it's an indictment of the system itself. It's not about any particular political party, both are run by psychopaths. Trump may be the fullest expression of that psychopathy, but all of these people are sociopaths. So I understand where he's coming from. I am sympathetic to what he wants, right? I just don't know

how you get it. And killing Trump doesn't get you there. No, I mean, let's, face it, what would happen? What would have happened if today we were talking about when the president was going to lay in state and his funeral was going to be? What would happen is that, of course, J.D. Vance would be the president of the United States. Maga World would be going absolutely insane and saying that like there needs to be retribution against the left. The, there would probably, this would create more of a, you know, sort of a Reichstag, fire moment. You know, for people who, you know, used to compare the Reichstag fire 9-11 to the Reichstag fire, let's be clear. Okay, the Dutch anarchist, he really did do it. He did set that

the Reichstag on fire. That guy was guilty. And what happened is that the Nazi regime used it as an excuse, right, as a predicate to crack down and finalize the clampdown against what remained of the Weimar Constitution. We would have that kind of moment here. where you could, you know, J.D. Vance could say, well, I'm not really sure, you know, I'm not really sure if we should have a, if we should have midterm elections given the, you know, heightened thing. The thing is, there is no outlet, legitimate outlet for taking care of what needs to be taken care of under the existing system, as previously mentioned. And there's no left wing, like, organization for a guy like Cole T. Allen to join and say, like, we're going to agitate for, real change, meaningful change. He went to a no king's rally, apparently. I'm sure he saw what a fucking waste of time that was. He donated to Kamala Harris. He saw what a waste of time that was, or waste of money. So, I mean, the truth is under this system, there is no way out. I mean, only this is why I advocate revolution. I think that the state needs to be overthrown. I think

we need to start from scratch as Americans. And, you know, I'm not saying, like, yeah, I have my ideas of how things should be done, but that's neither here nor there, right? Like, I think as Americans, we need to tear the whole thing down from scratch and start with a brand new system, new constitutional convention, and hash this whole thing out as Americans and figure out how, you know, a better, newer, more contemporary way to live. Because this system has no outlet. And to me, what happened Saturday is a reminder of that. violent country produces valent people what's ironic about this is that and do you see trump's truth

social that he put out late that night we must all live in peace but there's no space for political violence says the man who's authorizing drone strikes says the man who who currently has not only the president of venezuela but the first lady of venezuela sitting in a prison right now for no discernible reason who who assassinated the supreme leader as to head of state of iran and pre and always brags about killing the equivalent of colon powell the uh you know the salome salamane back in 2020 i mean he's i mean political violence it's like the commercial you're soaking in it mr president that's why i didn't have any feelings about this i saw this and was like interesting i mean i'm gonna look i'm just going to come out and say it. Back in 1981, when John Hinkley shot Ronald Reagan in front of the very

same hotel, the Washington Hilton, I was, just to be clear here, I hated Ronald Reagan with a purple passion. I protested him. I was really upset when he won not once but twice. I think Ronald Reagan, to this day, I think he was a scoundrel of the first order. He destroyed the social safety net. He destroyed the idea of America as a communitarian society where we all help each. I hated him. When he was shot, I was shocked and dismayed, and I thought this is not the way we're supposed to do things. Now, I don't know if that's because I was 18, and now at 62 I'm grizzled and hardened, but I don't think that's it. I think that I have to admit, if Donald Trump had been shot on Saturday, I would not have given two shits. I would not have

thought that I would have found it interesting. I would not have found it sad. I wouldn't have been happy about it, but it would have been to me like, you know, driving down the road and seeing a dead of possum, huh, dead of possum, I don't care. You know, I just don't want the, you know, the possum blood on my car. That's it. And I don't think, and there's something very, very wrong when an American citizen feels that way or maybe, or doesn't have feelings about this. And, you know, we're supposed to pretend to be sad about this or care about this, but at least half the country doesn't. Yeah. What's the point of being, look, how am I as a human being with a certain sense of integrity and try to be honest, come out and say that the man has been murdering people abroad,

as you point out, whether it's drone strikes, whether it's a war of aggression in Iran. They kill thousands in Iran and a war of aggression that never needed to take place to Donald Trump launch, the genocide and Gaza that he kept going after claiming that he was bringing it into it, the ceasefire that he's claiming exists, that doesn't exist. And as you point out, Maduro sitting in the prison. And that doesn't even touch Soleimani, that doesn't even touch sanctions on various countries in order to try to make those economies scream like Cuba being put into the dark. We have no idea how many people were injured or kill.

What about people on dialysis in Cuba that no longer have lights that get treatment? Like, this is the stuff that we're talking about, right? You can say that- Care, refusing to do anything about health care. Americans literally die every day because President Trump refuses to address health care. Because we have worse the fight and we need to increase the defense budget by $1.5 trillion. So somebody takes a pop shot at a psychopath. Why do I care about the psychopath?

Why? Like, I'm just being honest. He is a guy. He is a guy doing horrible things around the world. And I'm supposed to feel concerned. Yes, there is something wrong with them. And I'm saying that's not the factor of us. That is a factor of the environment that is creating this point of view in us.

Yeah. And by the way, the ballroom. Trump came out and was like, hey, man, this is why we need a ballroom because the president isn't safe. Their irony of it is, it would never have been there. They didn't even have metal detectors. Yeah, as Cole Allen mentioned in his manifesto, I thought, you know, the hip, The hypocrisy, the self-serving, the self-dealing of all this. Like, you know, you're literally messaging the ballroom after, you know, someone was coming out to kill you.

That's your takeaway. That's your stick. It's, well, and so, well, I mean, what's fake is the response to the whole thing that, like, and, you know, look, you know who's guilty of all this, too. Both political parties, the system, the media has all normalized violence. like they say ultra-violence as they you know would say in you know clockwork orange um yeah you you you you it's it's kind of baffling they'll say things like oh they you know like a mainstream organization like the new york times will say like uh trump you know took out salamani don't he didn't date him he didn't take him out on it on for wine he like he he he blew him up he

murdered him and blew him into bits of protoplasm is what he did to him. You know, killed, assassinated, bombed, all works for me. But the point is, this reminds me of, did you ever see the Chinese movie hero that came out? Yes. It was so. Jetli. Yeah, Jetli. Good movie, great movie, actually. I've seen a movie, many times. It was kind of the Chinese, China's answer to a crouching tiger, hidden dragon, which was Taiwanese. Anyway, so it's about the first emperor of China, right? He spent. He runs his entire career as a warlord during the warring states period, murdering, assassinating, slaughtering, you know, and conquering all his rival kingdoms. And finally, after he kills the last one and murders, and God knows how many millions of Chinese people died, he's like, he's now unified China into one state.

And he's like, now we must all live in peace. of course how convenient for your ass right i mean that's that's that's don't trump like let's all live in peace except maybe he went straight back to the to the white house and signed off on a drone strike like two hours later i mean and and we're supposed to like you know you'll see you know democrats and you know mainstream liberal media people say like oh it's deplorable you know there's no place for political violence. No, there's only place for political violence in this country. I mean, this same administration murdered at least two American citizens, and God knows how many non-American citizens at the hands of ICE over the last year, a year and a half, and made fun of

them, smeared them, lied about them, covered up the murders. And I mean, literally, all these people were doing is protesting peacefully American policy. I mean, political violence, that's all we know. I think the thing, agreed. It's not just political violence internally, but externally also, right? And as you point out, the old days where it seems like protests matter, or where you got all of these people who would rally around a particular cause, where you get these movements pushing upon the system where the Nixon administration is like,

oh, my God, they're coming to get us. That is not there anymore. I mean, it just seems like it's ineffectual to make change. Maybe they look at it as, you know, we don't believe in your threats. Maybe it's that. We don't believe that Americans are going to get out and get aggressive with their government in order to make changes. Maybe it's that. But you know what it puts me in mind of a relationship where the wife or the husband just complains but never does anything?

In which case, the other just realizes, oh, they're bluffing. Maybe it's that. But they don't seem to respond. And to be honest, I don't remember a large protest that was sustained short of the Iraq war. Maybe going back to the Vietnam. That one wasn't even sustained. I mean, the truth is with the Iraq war, the protests basically came to an end after the beginning, after the invasion and the occupation began. And there were only like, I don't know, maybe half a dozen protests leading up to the war of any note.

Yeah, so. Yeah, so what is the government thinking in this case of like? They're not worried about us. They're not scared of us at all. Exactly. And that's the issue. That's the issue, right? It's one thing, meaning there needs to be leverage. I am a for believer that leverage is the thing that makes changes, not complaining, not asking for it or anything like this. And lone gunman's not enough. So this is a hard part, right? Like, I think I would like Cole Thomas Allen. I think I would enjoy his company. I think I would relate to him more. If it's the beer question, Gore versus Bush, I'd rather have a beer with Cole Allen than Donald Trump, much rather, assuming that Donald Trump was going to have a beer. I mean, that's fucked up too, right?

It is. Yeah. But that's environmental. That's not like, it's not like you woke up in morning and it said, I want somebody to knock off the president, right? In an ideal system. I want him to be impeached is what I want. I want him to be removed. I want to live in a country where Republican members of the House of Representatives and in the Senate,

we get together one morning, and they're like, look, guys, this is going to hurt our party. But we've got to take out the trash here. This is fucked up. You know, we have to, we have to get, we have to, you know, let J.D. drive the car and hope for the best, right? That's, that's literally the country I want to live in. Right. And I'd like to think that if I were a Republican member of Congress, I don't know how that would ever happen. But if I were, that that's the conclusion I would come to. It'd just be like, look, this was a president who found it necessary a few days ago to issue a formal declaration that he did not plan to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.

Right. I mean, why? Because me and lots of other people thought he's that fucking crazy. if the American people think that their president is that fucking crazy, that he's a Greg Stilson in the Dead Zone character who wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to end the world, he's got to go. Yeah, agreed. And you know what it is?

Our system is based on bad, a good faith, which shouldn't be extended. No. Even the way that you point out, like the 25th Amendment, where you can take out the president. Okay, but that requires this notion that the vice president, is working in the larger interests of America, which I don't buy that. And the same thing with Congress, right? It's assumed that Congress would be working in the best interests of America. Okay, maybe that was true.

The Nixon era where Republicans were like, hey, hey, tricky. You're not going to make it through this. You're going to be putting the cage. Look, I was alive back then. I remember it and I watched it. Let me just tell you, it's true. They did that, right? In the end.

But, man, those Republicans, they went out kicking and screaming. Did they? 1973 and 1974. They defended the shit out of Richard Nixon until it just became untenable, and finally they came out of their Heidi holes, and they just, I mean, that's the difference, right? Now there's no sense that even two, one, two, three years in,

the bullshit, there's no end to it. I don't think there's, I think they would never. And like I said, dog fucking on TV, wouldn't matter. It does not matter. If it was not an defendant, that dog had it coming? it's like that that was a Democrat dog that dog was a slut look at the way that dog

pranced around with his cute fur yeah it's like what man can resist us right this was a honey trap that Democrats I mean literally the I mean of course obviously this president has betrayed his base and you would think that they would turn on him but they hate the Democrats even more

than they hate being betrayed and so and look right now that's just the lay of the land. You and I could have had this exact, and we did, have the same exact conversation under Joe Biden. The Democrats hated the Republicans more than they hated the fact that the president was senile. And which, you know, I ranted about all throughout Biden's administration. He was senile before he took the oath of office. But yeah, but the point is that, you know, it's so it's not, I want to be clear here. This is not a left versus right criticism. This is a system criticism. It's so it's so we have a lot of comments and we should

We owe it to them to get to them. Should we? Shall we? Agree. And by the way, I agree with everything it came out of email. Thank you very much. Paralegal, thanks very much for the donation. $5.

I am a MAGA supporter. Okay, well, I do want to hear more about that. Okay, but thank you. Moby Bluth. Thanks for the two bucks. Just want to echo Jamarl that these people are likely sociopaths. I saw this during my time in private equity consulting. For the same firm that Njahoo is at,

we shouldn't assume that they are like us. I think that's a good. They're not like us. And even if they start out like us, they don't end up like us. Let's see. Okay, this is a request for you, JT, from Wandi. Oh, my God, Jamarlemys to post a link or something when his show ends. I don't get notifications, and I have to search.

So one recommendation is if you subscribe to the show, you should get on YouTube or Rumble. You should get notifications. But anyway, a link is always good. I put at the bottom of my channel to know that they can come here. Cool, cool. Manchild, I'd never shed a tear for the goober, but could a Trump assassination create a martyr effect that strengthens his base, creates chaos,

and destroys any chance of the left making real political gains? I don't think there's any chance of the left making real political gains as it is, but yes, no, for sure, there would be a martyr effect. No question. Yeah, I mean, the hardcore mega supporters will fill some kind of way I suppose, kind of like the Charlie Kirk thing

where they try to effectively use Charlie Kirk as a lightning run into political space to go after the left, or specifically go after Democrats. I'm in general. Yeah, I mean, that could always be the case, right? For any president that gets killed. I mean, I guess that's kind of my, if I have any twang, it's...

Did you hear Trump talk about, like, on 60 minutes? All the best presidents get assassinated. That's why this is happening to me, because I'm a great president. I'm like, I don't think William McKinley was that great. You know, I mean, look, Garfield was a wonderful person, actually, but he was only in for a few months, and he didn't really have a chance to do anything. JFK always overrated. You think JFK is already? One, nay, we will go to the moon.

I don't know if I entirely agree. I know they have the dark side of Camelot. Fair enough. Well, I mean, you know, look, he was a little, he was squarely on civil rights. I don't think the Civil Rights Act would have passed under an ongoing Kennedy administration. You think it required his death in order to push that over the finish line? Yeah, I think LBJ really required it. Yeah.

I mean, that was LBJ's life work. Maybe Bluth, there was a photo circulating on Reddit of the shooter wearing an IDF shirt. I saw that. I didn't know what to make of it. Oh, let's talk about that. I saw that. And I was like, is that, my first thought was, is that fake? And like, nowadays, you have to ask yourself that about any image you see video or audio or, I mean, I know audio is not an image.

But any image you see online, you're like, is that real? I mean, that's, what role does that play in stuff? You don't even know. So, Jamar, one of the things I found fascinating when I did a deep dive into domesticated cats and how they're wired one time. So the difference between a domesticated house cat, and all house cats are descended from two breeds of wildcat, the Middle Eastern and the Central Asian wildcat. And those cats are unique among all cats in that they have a trip mechanism. Like if they're startled, they take a beat to assess whether there's an actual threat before they bite or claw. Osolades, you know, tigers, cats like that don't do that.

they just go straight to bite and claw mode. And that's why cats can be domesticated because they can live with us because they don't freak out every time a truck drives by your house, right? And so I'm thinking now we've become domesticated house cats. We can't react to what we see in the news. We have to sort of take a beat and say, wait, is this real or not? And that, I guess, is probably good. But on the other hand, it means that we're tamping down our emotional responses to things that maybe deserve a more intense emotional response.

I don't think it's good. I mean, okay, let me, let me split this. Yes, you're right. It's good for people to take a beat to assess, right? It's bad that they have to do that. And what I mean by that is we are reaching this kind of weird age where truth and reality are very nebulous things. It was bad enough from the standpoint of just media where media will put a story in order as propaganda to get the audience or the public to move in a particular direction that may be against the own self-interest. Now, and you can expect in 10 years with sufficient technology, what's real and what's fake are going to be very difficult to ascertain.

And the idea that you can say X, Y, Z took place. Like, for example, the Reichstadt fire. Let's take that, for example. Okay, those are right shot fire. Okay, we're going to blame Poland, and we're going to use that as a pretext going to the war. Okay, what if you could see the guy set it? And you can see him wearing, I love Poland T-shirt while he is setting it, and all of it's fake. And I'm saying you can get to the point now what technology is what's real and what's fake.

Or what's fake is indistinguishable from what's real, because A, it's being reported to you. And B, as you're looking at it, everything in it will look indistinguishable from reality. terrifying. And like trying to figure out what's real would be difficult. So even if you take that beat and you're looking at it, the people who are looking at it, it's always going to split. If I have an argument with you about beating your wife, half of the audience is going to be like, Ted beats his wife, with no evidence presented, right? What does that look like when it is presented to you and it's indistinguishable from real? And even worse, just one more point. 30 years into the future, 40 years into the future, when documentaries are being made, how would they be able to tell

what's faking what's real when they're looking back. They won't. It's sad fun. I mean, because the thing is, there's still stuff that's ancient propaganda that still flies, right? I mean, there's the anti-Semitic tract, you know, the protocols of the elders of Zion. It's a forgery. It's not real. It's not true.

Some people still think the Hitler Diaries are real. They're not. They're a forgery. There's, you know, there's that famous video, that movie. of Hitler celebrating the fall of France and he does a little jake that was that's allied propaganda they put him on a loop he just stepped back once to let someone walk by and they put him on a loop to make him look like he's doing a solilojic that pops up in documentaries about the fall of friends uh so i mean it yeah the thing is the so back then there wasn't nearly as much you know fake news as there is now

It's like, I can't even imagine. It's terrifying. I mean, it makes you question reality. And a lot of people are just going to check out more than I've already checked out. A lot of people have checked out of the news because they're disgusted. And now they're going to be like, why fucking bother? It's the reason that I never got into the WWE because it's fake. So it's like, I'm not interested, you know?

It's like when I stop. following baseball because I realized like, oh, you know, they're not really, the Cincinnati Reds aren't really from southwestern Ohio. They're like, they don't really care about it. And they'll just go work, it's a business and they'll just go work for someone else. And, you know, half of them are on steroids and the whole thing. I was like, it's fake. Fuck it. I'm out. So people will do that with politics. They really will. Well, I would argue they already have. I mean, when you get 50% of the people checking out of the elections, that's pretty wild, right? Also, this other thing that's very strange.

Like, it's almost like the laws haven't caught up. Or how can I say this? We haven't caught up with our technological events and what the technology means. Because it's one thing to create something. It's another thing to be like, okay, what does it mean in our society now that this stuff is being created? Technology is a beautiful thing, right? Like this idea of eliminating work, eliminating the need for people to do laborious jobs. I don't want a human being who has a capacity to understand the universe.

dropping for a truss. By the same token, it doesn't seem like we've caught up with it. And some of this stuff is sprinting well beyond our capability to control. No doubt. This next question, Robbie is part of it. So, Robbie, by the way, do we have an ad, buddy? We do. We do go and throw it up.

Maybe, wait, let's do this first, then you can do it afterwards. So, Sean Lewis, thanks for the question. If you could choose anyone alive to be the next president of the United States, Who would you choose? And why? Would like to hear Robbie's thought, too. For me, it's easy. Tucker Carlson, because he's willing to apologize whenever he's wrong. That is huge. And I think that the guy's honest. I don't know how well that works in D.C., but he's my pick. President Ham Sandwich, because I don't think it's a person issue. I think it's the office issue. Meaning, what does Tucker Carlson, and probably I'm not going happy. I'm just pointing out.

What does sucker look like in a presidential role when he has a Congress to deal with, when he has a public to deal with, when it's public, like, I don't think it's the person. I think it's the position. I think part of it is the person, agreed. But the other part of this is the pressures that are put on people in that office. And I don't know how you get around it. I don't know if it's a person thing or an office thing. I think it's an office thing. I agree. But here's what the president's able to do. He has one thing Congress doesn't have. He has the bully puppet. Yes. So you can get elected. And then you call a press conference. So, okay, here's where I want to. to do and Congress is going to fight me every step of the way. So every single one of you that's sitting on your on your ever spreading back sides needs to get on your phones and call your congressman and raise hell because I'm not here to play games. I'm here to burn the system down. And I need you to be the gasoline. It's easier to hijack a plane that is to build to build one. Agreed. And so that and so that's what Tucker has. And control the broken though. Oh, boy, for sure. I mean, listen, don't get me wrong.

I mean, am I saying that that's a surefire thing? No. But what I'm saying is that if you're able to get someone in who literally cannot be bought because you're already rich, seriously, we're going to offer Tucker Carl some more money? That's the last thing that the man needs. And I think he legitimately, honestly cares about the American people because he's the only one, even on Fox News, who is going. out actually addressing real issues because that one thing that Tucker Carlson does,

and this is pretty wild, he's a sportsman. He goes all these places to go hunting and fishing and stuff. So he sees these small towns in the middle of America that are literally being decimated. He sees the hopelessness. I mean, he's there. He sees it. I mean, J.T. If you came here to Calispell, Calisville exists right now because it's a tourist trap. That's it. There's some reason that is here. The next town over, Columbia Falls, the aluminum plant closes, all the jobs are outsourced to China.

The town is dying. It is literally dying. Our governor does not care. Our congressmen do not care. Our senators don't. No one gives a single solitary flying fuck whatsoever. And you can repeat that same story to small town, to small town to small town all over the entire country.

And nobody cares. That's our Trump. got elected. Listen to me on this. Trump got elected because he says, I hear you. He'd get elected because he says, I can fix it. He made that claim. But his big thing is that he is that he said, I hear what is you're saying. I care about what you're saying. And by the parenthetically, that's why he's losing approval now because no people no longer think he hears them. Well, he says he doesn't. I mean, think about this. Ben Shapiro famously on a clip last year said, if you cannot afford to live in the town that you were born,

then you should just pack up and leave because you don't have any right to be there. So you should go and be a migrant. It doesn't matter if your great, great grandparents built that place. It doesn't matter that your family's buried there. You should pack up and just go. Because frankly, you are too inept. You're too stupid. You don't deserve the legacy that was left to you.

Meanwhile, this same guy is the one that says Israel needs to exist. And we have to protect it because it's God shows. because it's for God's chosen people, even though by themselves, they can't, they can't afford to stay there and protect her to defend it. Trump is exactly the same thing. And that's what sets Tucker Carlson apart from everybody else, but luggage and all. He is the only person in the public space with a big stage that will look in the eye and say, I was wrong. Please forgive me. I mean, I hate to be snotty.

And this is paraphrases something that Trump said about John McCain, liking prisoners, you know, pilots who don't get captured. But I kind of prefer my political figures to be those who were right from the beginning. And I mean, you know, there were a lot of, there were millions, tens of millions of Americans who were against invading Iraq. And Tucker Carlson was a high profile example of someone who relentlessly was in favor of it. Look, I agree with you. You know, I grew up Catholic, penance is the most, is the defining sacrament of Catholicism. And I think it's really important to apologize when you fucked up. We all fuck up.

I fuck up. But, I mean, I do think, and, you know, I don't trust someone whose judgment would lead them to make such a colossal mistake. Because we all had the information needed to make their correct call at the time in 2002, 2003. and Tucker Carlson, for whatever reason, his brain failed him. Or he was full of shit and being paid to lie. I don't know which it is. Well, he came out and said because one of his interviews, one of his people on the shows, I remember which one was,

asked him that very same questions. Why did you do this? He said, a couple of reasons. He said, one, the paycheck was good, and I was drunk and stolen all the time. That sucks. I mean, yeah, horrible excuse. Well, he wasn't making any excuse.

He's being honest. I mean. I appreciate that too. I mean, one of the things that... But it still sucks because many of us were not drunken stoned. And many of us who were drunkenstone still didn't make that. I still knew who was wrong, right? No, I agree.

But now for the two of you, I gave you all my answer. J.T. I mean, you kind of went with ham sandwich because that's not an answer. Is there anyone else that y'all can say that you think would be a better choice than someone who is able to get up and humiliate himself publicly because that's what an apology is yeah that's true i was wrong although i don't view it as i don't view it as a sign of weakness at all i view it as a sign of strength well a lot of people but things i mean a lot of people do though americans know we know in our culture you never apologize we never apologize we never ask for forgiveness there is there's nothing you cannot be a christian without first admitting i

screwed up. I'm a sinner. And the first thing you do is that you apologize to God and ask them to save you. The second thing that you do is that if you've wronged somebody, you've got a person face-to-face I'm sorry. I wronged you. Please forgive me. We're a churlish people, us America. Very much so. And I remember like the only time I ever apologized for a car, over a cartoon, man, that was a mistake. Never should have. I got eaten alive. It's like I lost a lot of business as a result. If I had just held firm and never rolled Donald Trump. style and never apologize, it would have been better. I hate that.

I still think I was right to apologize, but it was a bad move tactically. I know, but the mistake that you made, though, didn't cost of death of over a million people. Tucker's did. Well, that's true. And all things is the scale, right? Yeah. No, I mean, look, I hate to say it.

I'm going to go with, you know, ham sandwich also because, look, here's, you got a picture. President Robbie West walks into the Oval Office on January 20th. And they show you around, they show you with a resolute desk, and then they're like, Mr. President, we have an urgent meeting right now in the situation room. You know, crisis in Mozambique. We need you to come downstairs. And then it's like you're surrounded by dudes with lettuce, as they call it in the military, right? Like on their uniforms and stars and, you know, big macho-looking dudes. And they're like, you know, like, and they're threatening you, basically.

If you don't do this, you'll look weak. If we don't kill these people, you'll look weak. The United States will look weak. Our national security interests are at stake. We will not implicitly. We will not respect you. We will not follow your orders in the future. Our allies will think that you look, will say that you're weak.

You have to act decisively, boldly, violently. Do you want to know what President Robbie West would do? And I mean this sincerely, because I've thought about this a lot. Ted Me and you've talked about this. If someone came into the Oval Office said, President West, I need to come, and my Justice said, she's Mozambique. I would point to a map of the United States on the wall and says, show me where Mozambique is on this map.

Well, Mr. President, it's not there. It's in Africa. I said, that's not my problem. I don't care. My problem is right here. These 50 states? That's my problem. Okay.

You work for me. But countries have missiles, countries. I mean, I agree with you fundamentally. But, you know, it's like, but we have security interests. So what? But the point is we can go down this rabbit hole, and we do have a couple more topics to talk about if we want to get to them. I mean, I do think this is interesting. I don't know that one person, even as powerful a person as the president of the United States with the bully pulpit, as you mentioned, can really change anything of note.

They all end up getting swallowed by the Borg. They all do. It would depend on the American people, because here's the thing. And they'll go away because I know we got to go. People think that the presidency is more important than it actually is. In a lot of ways, it's kind of a figurehead because you do the will of the blob because the blob can out wait, can outlast you. You've got to have Congress. And the only way that you get Congress is by burning down the system.

That's why I voted for Trump. You cannot, listen, you cannot negotiate with the cancer. You can't negotiate with it. You can't ask it nicely to stop growing before it kills you. you have to cut it out and you have to kill it our government is a cancer you have to cut it out you have to kill it agree you have to extract question is how to do that by pissing off the american people and getting them i think yes going in as they well there's choices you can do it either one is that you can do it internally which is what hitler did or you can roll the dice

and you can try to have a violent revolution in which case maybe it'll work after 30 years and a million people dying. Let's try the overthrow first from within. If that doesn't work, then no, the cartridge box is always an option. But should be the last one? Well, that's the argument. Mechanical. I mean, meaning I think suppliers go up to the point where they can't go anymore.

And I think a population like the U.S., it would have to get to the point where it is so beleaguered and strain that changing things is, takes more, I'm saying this weird, standing steel takes more energy than changing it. Meaning, I think imperial overreach will have feedback consequences that would affect how we engage. That sounds cynical, but I don't see the American public getting up in animal like talking about. I can be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I don't know who would go through the gauntlet of political entry to get to the level of the president and can withstand the forces that are going to be pushed against when that person gets in office. I think it will be hard. I think people like you, Ron,

we get weeded up before you ever even get to the premise. Oh, I would get assassinated. Well, I guarantee you that's what would happen. Oh, for sure. Listen, I mean,

I would love nothing more than to run for, run here in Congress, run for Congress here in Montana against Ryan Zinke. The man's a tyrant. That's a complete and total waste of carbon. If there was ever a perfect example of a failed abortion, it's Ryan Zinky. All right.

That being said, even if I even if I was able to raise a million dollars to take a seat here in western Montana think about that for a second oh that's not enough oh I know you know if I if I ever got to got to Congress they would give my life a colonoscopy try everything they can to try to destroy me if that couldn't work then what they would do is that they wouldn't put me into a committee if that didn't work I have a tractor fall on me like traffic hand did I mean I understand What, no, what the process is. People like me don't have a future in politics.

But someone like say, Johnny Cockapelor over there on the Rumble chat is very eloquent, much smarter than I am. Do it. There will be questions about his name, though. But, no, the school board election is the most important election, though, in your county. Run for your school boards. Take those over first. And the way that you eat in elephants, one bite at a time. Don't think global.

Don't think national. Think local. Guys, let's go ahead and, okay, so let's have that ad, Robbie, and let's move on. Let's ask a, there's a few more questions we have to get to. Let's see. Oh, they're not available. We lost it.

Oh, we lost it. Okay, all right, all right. Okay, so maybe blue. I just want to echo, okay, we talked about that. Notice how the media never talks about civilian casualties of our war crimes. we've been desensitized to our violence to no end. You're here. Agreed.

Hey, you can look at Reuters this morning. Either Reuters or the AP talking about the Western back putch attempt in Mali. And the way to talk about it is kind of like opposition forces, raid Mali in an attempted coup. It's like, dude, you're pushing terrorists to try to overthrow a government that you lost. Talking about Mali. It's popular as the health states now with, you know, Iberam Chiori and Burkina Fasel, Niger, and Mali as a unit. It's a brief.

No point you said. It is like spreading like a cancer. All right. Let's talk about the royal visit. I don't need a lot of time on this. I don't know about you, JT. I guess it's like if I were King Charles and I was fighting cancer, probably like hanging out with someone as toxic and annoying as Donald Trump would probably not be on the top of my list of personal priorities.

But interestingly, Prime Minister Kier Starrmer wanted this visit to take place and wanted to shore up the relationship across the pond, as they say. Kier Starrmer is like looking a little bit cucked here, isn't he? I mean, Trump treats him like dog shit. And then instead of sort of distancing himself and giving him the cold shoulder, he's like, I'll send the king and queen over to suck your dick. Wow, that's a hell of a Passover, Ted. It's like, all right, Jamalwood. What is he a woman after? Well, it's true program, you know.

Right? I mean, when you get Rudy calling Trump daddy and you're like, one grown man, calling another grand daddy, it's pretty astonishing. But that tells you the dynamics of the relationship. And this is the UK supposedly we have a special relationship with the UK in this case. Yeah, the special relationship from, as you point out, one man's penis to another man's mouth, which seems to be the relationship between the two. No, in all seriousness, obviously Britain is having difficulties, right? I mean, the block 80 is having a serious effect on Europe and the cost of energy in Europe. We don't entirely see it in the U.S. because the U.S. is trying to manipulate markets.

Not yet. But the gas is going up, and it's only so much market manipulation you can do by claiming Iran is offered a deal and then the U.S. not saying anything. We are close to a deal, etc. A point is, the U.K., whether it's from standpoint of the Ukraine war, or whether it's from standpoint of the blockade, is being affected by U.S. policy. And with this disassociation with the European Union, obviously, they are in need of some kind of trade deal with the United States in order to shore up their economic. let's say the economic center. So, yeah, they are, you know, the moment that you said, we're going to uncouple from Europe, you've got a couple to somebody. You're just a tiny little Allen, right?

And with the U.S., that special relationship is going to come in handy even more so. And yeah, obviously the UK is a dream partner in that relationship. Yeah, if you're calling it cut, I will go with the same phraseology. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think maybe thanks for the donation. guys, to be honest, how much do people actually care about the scandals of these politicians? E.G. Did anyone care about Clinton and Lewinsky, or was it just a media plot?

I'm a woman, and Monica didn't bother me. Well, in old days, I think they did. People care about the Monica Lewis thing at the time. Yeah. Yeah, it just seems like we've gotten used to them. Yeah, I think that's the thing. I mean, it's true. I mean, can you imagine if Richard Nixon came back? And it's like, oh, yeah, You know, so they basically, they were going to impeach me because I tapped 120 phones. And, you know, Edward Snowden will be like, well, now he tap all of them, right? Like in the world.

It's like, I mean, the scale, I mean, it's breathtaking. Think about poor Spiro T. Agnew, right? Vice President Under Nixon, forced to resign because as governor of Maryland, he accepted a $10,000. bribe from the milk producers lobby. That's how he resigned from the vice president. Like, can you imagine now? That's like five seconds in Donald Trump's grifts. I mean, he's literally making billions of dollars. He's grifting his own assassination attempt on the ballroom. It's crazy. So, I think we were on the same page there. Flandarina, JT and Ted, I wish you'd named an actual person. Does that mean?

mean you think the system is so absolutely broken that there is no one? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's why I don't have a name. Like even if I said Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders is too weak to even run a decent race against another mania. Right. Like I don't, and even if he was in office, I think he would be milk toast at best. Like, meaning I think the system corrals. I think even the process of getting into that particular position damages the individual or requires a certain individual to take that role in order to go through that gauntlet to get to that particular position. I mean, you can say FDR. I thought FDR was great. But that's my own bias from a historical context. Who knows what that looks like in today's modern

times? I just, I don't have a person. The issue is the system. This needs to be demolished. And whether this climactic, whether the Iran war is the climactic end, the last gasp of a a dying empire. Who knows? I hope that's the case. It's not to our best interests. Do you really believe spending $1.5 trillion dollars for military is in the best interest of the American public? Honestly not. With 37 trillion dollars in debt? No. Yeah. Not as long as a single American is suffering. Seriously. Not as long as a single American is even slightly mildly worried about one bill not being able to get paid. I do not want to waste that money on defense. Agree. I mean, like $37 trillion that, $10 trillion was the Iraq War and Afghanistan War.

And $2 trillion a year, like under the Biden administration, the Trump administration, et cetera, et cetera. This stuff is outrageous. It's not like it's coming to us. No, it sure. It sure fucking isn't. We should, we have a few minutes. So changes of foot and perhaps in Israel, but not big change. So, Neftali Bennett and Yeir Lapid, who are both opposition figures on the center right, there really kind of is no liberal politics in Israel anymore. They're going to merge their two parties, and there's going to be elections later this year, and they're going to try to throw out Netanyahu. The only time Netanyahu has been out in about a quarter of century as prime minister was when something like this happened earlier. And of course, you know, you can look at Hungary and see the effect of, you know, sort of getting together with the opposition and unifying behind the opposition candidate. Question, is that likely to succeed and then be, if so, would that have any meaningful impact on Israel's behavior in Lebanon and so on?

No. No. Well, will it succeed? Maybe. Would it affect policy? Probably not. I mean, it may. The restriction here is that like, oh, Netanyahu's the bad guy. If we get rid of him, everything will be fine. Yeah, the issue is a colony. It's not, you know, it's like, yeah, Nanyang is a bad guy. True. He's a psychopath. True. Putting in two other psychopaths or putting in another party led by a psychopath is not entirely going to change Israeli policy. Will they pull back in some respects maybe in order to show some difference? But the Israeli population firmly agrees with Nanyahu's policy. Let's be honest. So it's not the leader. It's the entirety of the entity. itself. It's the existence of the entity. That's the problem. At least that's my point. No, I totally agree. Yeah, so we'll see what happens there. I mean, I think Israel is kind of a lost cause because, you know, it's kind of like what's going on in, you're looking at the United States from the outside. If you had a restive population with 30 million protesters in the streets

of American cities every day, Americans could credibly look at the world in the face and say, listen, we don't like our country and what it's doing. But we can't do that. And Israel's in the same exact position. They are, they're on board. They're complicit. And the polls show that. And even when there was opposition to Netanyahu, it was just over like, oh, you're not bombing Gaza enough or you're not doing enough to get our hostages back. It wasn't about the genocide. Exactly. Yeah. They were firmly, to the tune of like 80, 90 percent, the population. and grip with government policy. So we have this logistical issue, J.T, where I need to hit a button, and then when I do that,

I go silent as I go into TMI show with Manila Jan. So I'm going to need you to close out the show. But before we do, let's end with a very nice positive comment from the real Tim Bot. You guys are kicking ass since John left. Jamarro. I'm sorry I haven't made time to welcome you. You're a perfect fit and a pleasure to listen to each day. Thank you. Have a fantastic day, guys. I appreciate that. All right, we are closing.

This is Deep Program with Ted Raw, Jamal Thomas. We will see you bright and early. In fact, we have Q&A this evening at 12 o'clock. We will be there, so definitely check us out if you have any questions that you want to ask Ted and I. This is Jamal Thomas, Ted Raw. D-Program, Robbie, signing off. You guys have a fantastic day. We'll see you at 12.

Thank you.