DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Battle of France | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!• France erupts in its biggest riots in years as education and living-cost protests explode into deadly chaos. Hooded rioters torch buildings and loot hundreds of shops while police blast tear gas; over 2,000 face arrest amid two deaths. President Macron vows accountability as unrest threatens to ignite Europe. Meanwhile, America’s “No Kings” rallies are subdued and hyperlocal, zeroing in on early voting, yet many Democratic candidates skip them.Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.Today we also discuss:• Israeli police arrest 10 suspects after masked settlers brutalize a Washington Post photojournalist and European diplomats during West Bank olive-harvest attacks. Levine suffers broken bones; international outrage mounts as violence surges ahead of Israel’s election. Trump delivers an unprecedented public endorsement of Netanyahu just nine days before Israel’s election, praising him as a “Great Warrior” and essential partner against Iran. Polls show Netanyahu’s coalition struggling. Is this election interference?• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visits Tehran after Gulf states ask Moscow to use its influence at the UN to press Iran to halt attacks on regional neighbors.• Putin proposes a November summit with Trump and Xi to forge a Ukraine War deal, excluding Zelensky. The idea, floated in an Oct. 9 call that also sealed a Russian diesel deal, alarms Kyiv and Europe amid warming Trump-Putin ties.• Trump’s WaPo approval poll crashes to a record-low 33%, with 66% disapproving, as a new poll hands Democrats a clear midterm edge two weeks from Election Day. Inflation and an angry voter mood fuel the GOP’s bleak outlook.00:00:00 Opening and Today’s Key Stories 00:02:18 Why France Is Rioting While "No Kings" Stays Quiet 00:42:11 Trump’s Record-Low Polls and the Midterm Outlook 01:01:09 Putin’s Summit Idea with Trump and Xi on Ukraine 01:01:37 Lavrov in Tehran and the Gulf States’ Iran Request 01:01:44 West Bank Settlers Attack Journalist and Diplomats 01:11:50 Israeli Election Mechanics and Closing ThoughtsMERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.comLIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShowLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

And I cut off the music a little early this morning. Good morning. It's Monday, October 19, 2026. Thank you for joining Deep Program with Ted Raul and Jamaral Thomas. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. Good morning, Jamal. Good to see you. Good morning.

And let's talk about what we're going to be talking about. Obviously, the lead story today is France. And the harsh, very stark contrast between the no-kings protests here in the United States and what's going on in France. We'll get into that, I'm sure, into in some considerable detail. Lots going on in the Middle East. Israel is finally forced to confront the reality of its West Bank settler terrorists who are on such a wilding spree that they're going after diplomats and Western reporters who are normally protected class. We'll get into that. Trump formally endorses Benjamin Netanyahu, so is that election interference.

Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is in Tehran today. The Gulf states are begging him to beg the Iranians to stop beating the shit out of them. I doubt that that's going to get very far. Vladimir Putin has suggested that there be a summit about the Russia-Ukraine conflict with Trump and President G. of China. That is – that idea apparently was floated about 10 days. days ago in a phone call. That's the same phone call that sealed the Russian diesel deal, such as it is. Trump's polls continue to tank. Now it's the Washington Post, which is now showing

Trump at its record low for Trump of 33%, 66% disapproving. If you like the show, please like, follow, and share the show. If you don't like the show, still like follow and share the show. We don't really care. It's not a democracy. Thank you so much for being here. We really do need your support. Please consider supporting the show with a subscription. Okay. Good morning, Jamarral. What should we do first?

Good morning. Good morning. Viva la France. Indeed. Vive la France. I watched that protests over the weekend. And there's one clip in particular that I said, this is the most French thing I've ever seen in my life.

and it is effing fantastic. I'm going to put it into the bottom just in case Robbie can put this clip into it. I saw that and I was like, that's fantastic. That's super French. And that is awesome.

And there were other protests, obviously, in France. But the protests weren't just in France, right? Italy. No. Fighting with cops. Albania was going bananas. I mean, they were like at the palace or whatever. But the French protests,

was so the number of people that were in the back of their protests on some of those videos was just astonishing. And I thought to myself, this is a rational act. Now, I know some people will look at it and say, well, they're burning stuff down. This is horrendous. And my thing will be like, do you think that those people on a random Tuesday wanted to be out there doing that? And they're doing that because there's something driving them to do that. And like, and I want to put like right beside this, meaning as these protests were taking place, you had Zelensky begging the Europeans for money and complaining on U.S. media that Trump has cut off

intelligence, right? And the Europeans are like on a hook for hundreds of billions of dollars. And they're talking about, we'll just borrow the money. Where are you borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from where your governments are already underwater? France has one of the worst economies in Europe, like meaning the interest rate for France is higher than even the interest rate for Italy. These countries are not necessarily the most solvent in the world. They're spending hundreds of billion dollars on a project that has nothing to do with them ultimately, meaning the people of those countries. And even up to the point of trying to ultimately feed them to the Russians in 2030, why isn't this a rational act? Right? Like, the elites have gotten to a point where they just

don't necessarily care what the public needs or for that matter once. And the public, is no, meaning, I guess from my point of view, they had the Yellow Vest movement. Yellow Vest was a peaceful movement. It went on for years. 70 to 80% of the public agree with it. The Yellow Vest movement ultimately ends. Does the state change to accommodate the fact

that you had all of these people protesting your rulership? And the answer is no. At a certain point, people are going to rebel. And France does it very well. They do. They do. That's, I mean, look, the thing is, it's like, it's so interesting. I watched Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, who basically sounded like opposite sides of the same coin,

complaining about Le Casseur, which is basically rioters. And, you know, look, there's no question that there are always when there's a political uprising, like Black Lives Matter, there are always going to be some opportunists who, I always wonder, by the way, where are these people the rest of the year, right? Like the people like, hey, guys, we've got to loot Soho. Like, they must not have anything to do most of the time, right? Like 99% of the time, there's no riots, right? So it's like, but, you know, but France definitely has, you know,

it has mobsters, it has gangsters. It has street thugs. You know, it has bad people. It doesn't, you know, French Americas may not think of France of that kind of country, but it does. And so, you know, there's been, there was looting of stores and some of that might have been by, you know, poor youth, but I think, you know, probably most of it is criminality, right? And, but I remember, you know, but I think of this,

like you walk around these beautiful streets, like where these luxury shops, like Hermes are. And those shops aren't for me. They're not for you, Jamaral. They're not for most of us. They're not for most French people. They're for the one percent of the one percent. Therefore, for the super elites. And you're expected as a French citizen to told every single day that you're in a country that elevates liberty, equality, and fraternity on its coinage and everywhere else,

on the front of public buildings. And you're told, basically, you're an equal. But these places, most of the country, most of these cities are, you know, the rents are unaffordable, they're not for you. There's no job for you. And even in a country like France that has far more social protections than the United States, it still kind of sucks.

So it doesn't surprise me at all when people decide like, oh, I might not personally burn this place that Armaz store down and steal one of their $2,000 scars for my mom. But I'm not going to give a shit if someone else does. You know, I'm going to lose no sleep over this at all. It's like if I walk by someone, you know, breaking into, you know, into a Lamborghini in New York, I'm going to be far less likely to interfere than if they're breaking into, you know, a 1970s Dodge Dart. Okay.

I mean, far less. And I mean, so these people, you know, it's kind of like the question always comes down to what is, in this case, what is France? Right. Like at the beginning of World War II, right as the Germans were sweeping in and were about to occupy the entire country, Charles de Gaulle, the future leader of the Free France, who was just a one-star general at the time, met with Jean-Philippe Petin, who was at that time about to become the head of the government of occupied France. And basically the old man and his protege, right? The man in his 80s versus his young protege.

And his young protege, DeKal, said, you know, we have to fight to the death. We have to, we can set up shop in Brittany. We're not going to, we shouldn't withdraw. We have to just fight until we all die. And Petin's like, you're crazy. It's like the Germans will do to Paris what they did to Warsaw, which they had just done months earlier. They had leveled it. and it looked like Gaza does today.

And it's like, you know, we can't have that happen to Paris. And de Gaulle said famously, but, you know, this is, France is not a pile of bricks. France is an idea better that Paris should be leveled than the idea of France be destroyed. Like, who cares about these beautiful buildings? Fuck them. And that's the same question now. What is France? Is France a country with a bunch of, you know, expansive, beautiful boulevards and monuments and places that only wealthy

people can live and shop, or is it a place for everyone to live with decency and dignity? And that's what an explosion like this is about. I mean, I just thought to me the contrast between the flaccid no king's rallies over the weekend, whose self-declared goal was to get people to go vote early for the Democratic Party, right? So the mask is off, right? if there ever was a mask. And that go vote for the Democrats, go team. And even the Democratic Party's nominees couldn't be bothered to attend these rallies anymore

because even they know it's a waste of their time. So that's what this morning, sorry, Jean-Rall, I'm on a rant about this. I could go on forever. But like on Facebook, one of my Facebook friends today showed a picture of herself in Brooklyn, you know, carrying some some social. to a no king's rally. And she said in her post, how much longer must we keep doing this? The signs keep getting reused. And I was like, France is showing you how it's done. Okay. Like, this is the way forward. The French government, whether you like their tactics or not of the protesters,

they are going to have to address these issues in some way. They're going to have to. And like, you know, there you are, you're wimping, you're winging about having to show up once every four to six months on a beautiful weekend day when you don't even have to take time off from work. You know, in a demonstration where you're not going to have, you know, riot goons from the government, you know, spraying you and throwing shit at you and arresting you and beating the shit out of you. Nothing's going to happen to you. And like, that's too much for you. You can't handle that. And the answer to your question is, if you ever actually start protesting, because you haven't. But if you ever start really protesting, the answer is you do that every single fucking day, the rest of your life.

Because the fight for democracy versus oppression and liberation and emancipation versus oppression never, ever ends. I have a question for you, Ted. You're talking about no France and no, and New, the Degaldi. So France is an idea. Well, can that idea survive if you're in a... a system like the EU that allows open borders. And if you have imported, God knows how many people from around the world. Can that idea survive that? Well, I think, you know, I mean, it's a valid question. It is the France of de Gaulle. Does Francis de Gaulle? This major problem,

immigration has been a stressor on French culture and the economy. But it's not the only thing that's going on here by far. This is about capitalism, first and foremost. Well, no, I get that. But here's the point that I'm trying to make, though. And how much of this is accurate? I don't know because I'm not in France. I'm in Calispell.

So I was like J.T. I was watching these riots over the weekend. And I'm seeing a lot of people who quite obviously are not native board Frenchmen looting stores. So my question is, are those people out there rioting because they want to make France better or they opportunists who should be rounded up by the French military and then sent back to the shithole from which they spawned? Well, there's a lot there, Robbie. And the fact is some of these people are opportunists. And I think so and some of them are, you know, I don't know what you call legitimate protesters, but they're politicals.

Some people are there to break shit and steal shit. But most people are there because they're really pissed off. And their needs and their desires have been ignored for years. and decades by all the major political classes. And therefore, you know, and this is what happens, right? Like, if you're the French government, if you're in a French elite, you have a choice and you had a choice all along. Every morning you could have woken up and said, you know, we don't do something for the

poor and the working class. Things could get spicy. Instead, you decided like, fuck it. Let's just, like, let's rape and pillage more. Every day you made that decision to do that. And so, okay, and so every now and then, something like this is going to happen. It's inevitable. And in terms of the board, and just for the record, I voted against the EU.

I don't think France should, I don't believe in the EU. I think under a nation-state system, the EU doesn't make sense. But, you know, I will say the idea behind it was, you know, was that they were trying to take on the United States as they were kind of like, it was like proto-bricks. they were trying to be a counterweight to American hegemony. It turned out that they just ended up being now the U.S. instead of having to call 27 different capitals and tell them to bark like a dog, they only have to call Brussels. Yeah. Yeah, I, look, I guess you can make an analogy of like water carrying refuse downstream.

Like, they know that in any notion of a protest that's going to take place, this is inevitable. Like, I don't have to think about any particular individual. It's inevitable that this is going to take place, whether it was a, I don't know what Robbie called them, an Arab or a Muslim or whatever that was in a quote, shithole country, whatever that country is. By the way, many of those shithole countries were rendered shitholes by French colonialism, right?

Well, that's what I was going to kind of make the point. France decided to colonize all of these countries. how can they bitch about the people who've coming back into their countries as a result of their own policies going back for all of these years? That's our friends. Meaning, if you didn't want these groups in your country, don't evade the countries.

It's even worse than the United States with like what we, you know, we bitch about the Honduran's after we broke the Honduran government, right? Well, it's like, okay, I mean, France is even worse because they outright colonized these countries. I mean, they didn't even just fuck with them. I mean, they went beyond that. And they were still fucking with them to this.

day using terrorists to try to overthrow Sahel states. The point that was making is I don't know how many, how much, what percentage of the protesters, you know, were people who obviously are not French. That's the point that I was making. I don't understand. Your ever, Tritchman looks like me. It looks like Ted.

They don't like. Well, I don't understand. Your point of view, your bias is going to immediately go to these people are obviously immigrants from somewhere else that is doing X, Y, Z. The reality of it is, this. started off because of schools. Let's start there first. The school protesters were not violent. They weren't burning shit down. They weren't doing any of that stuff.

They were protesting in schools. O'Kron sent the goons out in order to go after those particular protesters. The protesters get that much more vigilant. And inevitably, in any protests, even if France had no immigrants, do you really believe that people wouldn't be knocking down buildings or burning shit down? Like, do you honestly believe that even if...

Yeah, at BLM, it wasn't to him. immigrants who, you know, set things on fire and looted those stores in Soho? Yeah, it always comes about. It's just kind of an inevitable part of the protests. I get it. I guess my point is this started off as peaceful protests against schools and a failing capability of the state to do anything about schools. So you at least have to start there.

If you want to say, okay, there were provocateurs in the crowd or whatever. Fair enough. But what I'm... I think happens on the right, too, like with, in Charlottesville. you know, I'm pretty sure that the organizers didn't plan to have, you know, psychos show up with their cars and try to run people over. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, for sure. Listen, if I was in North Carolina, I would have been that Charlotte's riot because I think it's wrong to tear down no historical monuments. I think it's wrong to know, I think it's wrong to try to erase history. I'm not a Nazi. I mean, but I would have been, you know, I'm 100% would have been there. I guess the question that I'm wrong to. I guess, I guess the question that I'm asking.

And this just goes back to the point that you're making, Ted, is the whole reason it's come from, is that De Gaulle was right. We said that a nation is not a pile of bricks. It doesn't matter if it's France, England, America, Russia, it doesn't matter. A nation is an idea. What is that idea? We are a group of people with a shared history, a shared language, a shared heritage, and we are in this together.

And a shared set of values. In France, the shared set of values is the most important of those things. And the question that I'm asking. In France, it's like if you're willing to assess, assimilate, speak French, act French, dress French, even have a French name, change to, then you can become French. Because this is kind of my point, Robbie, where I was pointing out a bias. That's your idea of France.

That's not necessarily France's idea of France. I mean, you've added the racial component into it. And I'm saying the French idea may be more values driven, not necessarily racially identity driven. Maybe blessed her culture comes in, right? So if you go through and if you look at the, if you look at the record of live births over the said last 50 years, you're saying a lot more Mohammeds being born in Paris now than you were, say, in 1940. How does that reflect with the idea of a nation, which what DeGal was trying to say, France is an idea. It fits in well with the idea of the French nation going back to the very beginning. So let me, so for example, there was. a Haitian slave uprising. Haiti was a French colony under Toussaint. And Napoleon dispatched the French military to put it down. And there's a famous incident when the Napoleonic Army shows up and confronts, and it's

about to engage in battle against Toussaint's troops, where they hear Touss troops singing. And they assume that they're singing indigenous songs. and as they drew closer, they realized that they were singing the Marseillaise, which is, of course, the French National Anthem, the Revolutionary Anthem of France. This is only a few years after the revolution, and the French white Catholic soldiers rebelled against their officers, and they said, we cannot attack these people. They are more French than we are.

They know our values. They know that we're about liberty, equality, and fraternity. we're like they are more like us than we are like us and there was a and there was a mutiny there the point is that that's what france really and that's a storied you know that's taught in french schools it's like okay i mean obviously you know it was a complicated thing and it with the war went on and the french you know the french weren't done fucking with the Haitians but that's the ideal that's the ideal of France it's like these people are If they believe in our ideals, then they are like us.

I get that. I guess the question I'm trying to get here is from what y'all have seen over the weekend, is the media and the blogosphere going out and pushing the images of the migrants misbehaving to try and get a knee-jerk reaction out of people who are more nativist like what I am to try and say, look at French to know doing this. Yes, I mean, I've been reading social media all week for the last few weeks. And the right-wing talking point, even coming from quote-unquote mainstream politicians like Speaker Mike Johnson, right, is that we've, you know, oh, this is what happens when you open your borders. You know, they'll come in and burn things down.

Be careful that could happen here. If you vote Democratic, they'll open the borders and that'll happen here. Okay. I mean, what that ignores is that the French, white Catholics are really good at burning shit down and mixing. it up with the cops and rioting and looting without any help from dark-skinned people at all. I mean, they've been doing this throughout their entire history. So it has nothing to do, really, with that. So that's correct then. They're cherry-picking, and I guarantee you also, there are lots of white kids looting those stores, too. Oh, I'm sure there are. I mean, listen,

anytime you're, anytime to have social unrest, you're going to have people out there and no misbehaving. And that's going to happen. The question comes down, though, to motive. If you're you are there and if you're protesting, by the way, I support what the, what the French citizens are doing. I wish Americans to do that here. Me too. I'm in awe. I'm jealous. I'm jealous of them. Here's the, I'm like, you guys are awesome. Now, here's the pushback that I have, though. Soren is out there and is legitimately breaking stuff because your government actively hates you and you're fighting back is one thing. But if you're, but if you are out there and you're just taking advantage of a situation to hurt some store owner someplace, you should pay a price.

There's a difference between going and breaking stuff. Well, they're definitely making the protesters look bad. I mean, obviously, the mere fact that we have to, that we have to address this right here, you know, is evidence of that. For sure. And so for the people out there. And a lot of ordinary French people obviously disappro-they sit in their living rooms in the suburbs and they look at this and they say, oh, my God, this is terrible.

Right. Like this is, you know, of course. Yeah. The yellow vest effectiveness was because they didn't do shit like this. Like, this will be very clear. Now, it's also true that the French government did what they're repeating the mistakes of 1968, where they're sending in goons, right? There's a, the French have a, they have the gendarmes, which are local police.

They're not involved in this. Then there's the national police, which used to be called the Suridae, which are somewhat involved. But the CRS, which is basically the goons. squads of the state. And they are very effective of this because they're not based in the local community. They don't live there. So they're parachuted in from somewhere else, usually from more conservative parts of the country, to go in and beat the shit out of people, out of protesters. And that's what turns the protests. That's why I like the left, they call it police riots. In other words, it's the riots that started by the police. I mean, this would not have disintegrated

to this point if the police hadn't poured on the police. pressure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I agree with Bari in the sense of I don't want store owners and people like that hurt and injured by the protests. And I mean, there's no but to that short of the fact that it would be inhuman if that didn't happen. Like, meaning you, unless you have like just an organized protest where people are, how can I say it? Like during the civil rights movement during the civil rights movement those protesters were taught how to be protesters they went in it knowing they were going to take hit more suits and ties yes suits and ties it was very you know they had that stuff down to almost like a science this is chaos but this is more

honest in the context of chaos like it's how it's how people are right you put people under pressure for a very long period of time you have a government that doesn't pay attention to what they want and the catch becomes in addition to just decent people who are protesting for their their rights. You get the rioters. Now, maybe you can even make an argument that the rioters are almost a necessary part of it, even if they're the worst aspect of it, because at the very least, that's the level of, that's the teeth of a protest. But I don't know. I agree with the premise. I don't like the fact that businesses are being blown up, but I understand that they're protesting for France, for themselves, which is France. Macron may be a figurehead, but that's different.

the people in the population of the particular country, right? So, no, I get it. It's never, it's never clean, if that makes sense. Well, I mean, if it's clean, it's nothing, it's nothing. It's nothing. Exactly. That's exactly right. Like, if you want to see this, you know, hey, the No Kings organizers can pat themselves on the ass this morning and say, look at us. We're not like France. We didn't, you know, no store windows were broken.

No, no shops were looted. No store owners were inconvenienced. Hell, there wasn't even heavy traffic. Nothing happened. And the answer is, because it has no impact. The difference between an no kings, the difference between an ordinary Saturday afternoon and a Saturday full of no kings rallies equals zero.

There's nothing going on. They don't threaten the state. The French protests do. does a difference. That's exactly it. No, one thing I was thinking about, too, is just to contrast, the Tiananmen Square protests and how the Chinese government dealt with that versus what's going on in France right now,

Macron's dealing with that. Well, it's pretty similar. The CRS is like it's more of the Tiananmen Square Chinese government approach. Well, I don't see the French out there massacring people running over with tanks. So I'm just saying all things considered, the French should be really lucky. that they're doing this crap in France in these weak Western European countries and not in their serious country. There are a lot of protesters. Protesters have and will die in France as a result of brutal police tactics.

I mean, there's nothing to be, it's scary to be on the streets when the CRS is coming after you. They are fucking goons. And, you know, they're, they are despised by the labor movement, by the student groups, by working class people. everyone hates them. These are not like, you know, officer friendly. Do you want to put up that poster, that video? Yeah, I'll throw it up, but just a quick question. How long do you think it will be before the EU leadership out of Brussels starts blaming this on the Russians? That's just a question.

Or the Chinese or Iranians. Yeah. How long do you think it will be before they say this, these are, these protests are being whipped up by Iranian or Russian agent provocateurs? I don't think they're going to, I don't think they're going to do that. they can't get away with it. It's too obvious what this is. It's like student protests. Okay, the Russians whip the students up. Right?

Or the woman being dragged out of her house and dying as a result of them dragging her out of our house. Right. Like she was an Iranian sleeper agent. Italy is a little different, I suppose, but it's still the same issue. How it's like you guys are giving all of those money. You're right for this? Yeah. it is let's have it

i don't i'm sorry to i'm gonna kill the music rabbi kill the music but i'm still the music

you gotta kill the music i did have to kill the music dude i killed it the music is gone you also hear it i'll hear it we might get d we're gonna restrict this

because it's killed i am i No, we're hearing you. Let me. All right, well, we get it. Okay, hopefully we don't get struck with it. Dear YouTube gods, if it was showing muted on my end,

and I could not hear it. That is the most French thing that I've ever seen. And there's a part of it when he's in, like the finger to the cops and stuff like that. And I thought to myself, that is amazing. How does the state lose? I was having a conversation with Jake.

went earlier. Once you've lost Pink Panther, you've lost France. Yeah. Well, no, I guess I was thinking, how do you lose a population like this? Like, how does your population get to this level where they're this angry that they come out in order to just basically end up fighting cops? I mean, even if they didn't go out there with the intention of doing that, it escalates to that particular point where you get a large share. And again, this wasn't like a hundred people. He's with thousands of people. Well, this is also So part of it is that the French have a lower, they have a lower tolerance for bullshit than Americans do. So, you know, look, you know those schools that the French are complaining about, oh, most Americans would love their kids to go to a school that looked like that. They're in much better condition than ours, right?

So they don't, so the French basically don't put up with bullshit. They're like, they know, they internalize the fact that the idea that the government is there to serve them. that that's why they pay taxes and they expect their government to deliver for them. They also know that they shouldn't trust their government and that their government can't, you can't just outsource, you know, in the case of France, every five years, to the president. And okay, well, we voted for you. Now we hope you do a good job and you go back to work. It's not like that in France.

I want to address something Robbie said, saying, you know, they should be lucky that this is not the Chinese government and Chinese government just mowed them down. I just had a guess who was on the show talking about China. And, you know, if you talk to the Chinese and you ask them how they feel about their government, they would say it's competent and we basically believe in it because the government has effectively raised so many people out of poverty over the course of the, I don't know, what, 20 years. The mandate of heaven, you're competent, you're doing your job, you're getting us out of poverty, you've made us a world leader in this particular case, you have a blessing for it.

But they're liberal values, right? And it is a benefit of friends that have liberal values in that way that they don't bring out tanks and mow people down. That's not a positive, right? Like, that's not something that you should try to emulate. Hey, we have people who are very angry at the things the government has been doing. And so let's murder our population because they're angry about the things that our government is doing. There is something to be said for, quote, liberal values in the way that they call them,

and restraint is built into it, especially in the context of people who are rioting against their government. That's not a positive. No, I'm glad that you brought that up. I mean, here's the thing. I mean, okay, so in the Tulip Revolution, that was basically a CIA operation

against the government of Kyrgyzstan, they overthrew President Akayev, who was the first democratically elected president of a Central Asian Republic. Basically, the CIA recruited a bunch of Islamists and they marched on Bishkek and overthrew him. He was, you know, had the opportunity, he had the option to order his troops, his presidential guard to fire on the crowd before they rushed the presidential palace. He forbade it. He said, no Kyrgyz should die because of my government.

If the Kyrgyz people don't want me, I will not be here. And I think, honestly, I don't think any government should really be, I don't know if, if, if, if, you're not. If, you're not, if, it's ever appropriate for a government to use force like that against its people. I mean, if things get to that point, because I mean, the government's supposed to serve the people. If the people are that pissed that you feel compelled to go and shoot at them, you're the problem, not them. And I mean... And this is why color revolution are so effective. Well, the color revolutions were, you know, pulled by, you know, they were puppets, right?

They were pulled by external. They were manipulated by the U.S. That's my point. You have a huge amount of the population that is either being manipulated or for that matter paid with all sorts of NGOs, all sorts of media. So I'm not counting that.

But like in France, that's not the situation, right? I mean, there's no evidence or accusation of foreign interference here. I know. I'm not saying that. Yeah. So I'm just saying, like in the case of France, if you have, if you have,

If I'm President Macron, you know, waking up every morning with my, you know, my former teacher beating me up, I'm like thinking, you know, like, if this, if they don't, okay, look, I had a job as a tutor in East Harlem. And the kids were spicy. They were middle schoolers. And like, I remember, like, they would throw chairs at each other. They'd break windows. And I just hated it. At a certain point, I was like, I don't want to be a cop. I want to teach these kids math.

And if they don't want to learn math, then bless them, I'm out. Right. And so I quit. Right. I can't be effective here. Right. Yeah. And if they don't want me, okay, fine.

You know, I'm not going to shove math down their throats, right? I mean, okay. And I kind of feel like if I were a Macron, I would feel that way. Like, hey, if they don't like me, if they don't like the cut of my gym anymore, okay, bye. I'll quit. I'll resign. That's what he should do. And his party kept losing.

There's that. Yeah. And the prime minister should. And he's at like 10% in the polls, too. Yeah. And even with the prime ministership, right, where he effectively gained it to where he was in control of something that the public did necessarily want him to be control of because they voted for the AFD and they voted for the, what is it, unbowed. I think so about. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like, yeah. He doesn't even have political legitimacy in real terms. It's like, yes. And he's a lame duck on top of it. And he's a lame duck on top of it. So, yeah, it's like, okay, dude, this doesn't look good for you, right? No, it does not.

I was saying, Jayton, I think that you might be right. How I asked y'all, how long will this be before they blame these protests on the Russians or the Iranians? They blamed them? No, no, they haven't. I don't think that they can because remember back before Trump started his war against Iran, what did the American and the Israeli government do? They whipped up all these riots, basically tried to foment a rebellion against the Iranian. government yes and then the Iranian government does what governments do government is not a teddy

bear government is force they used force they stacked a lot of bodies and they put it down yes i mean that happened but but and just be clear though that happened because those protesters that you pointed out was whipped up by the Israelis and the americans in order to destabilize the government 100 percent and you know like and a force of sorts for sure and that's why the french could not blame this the Russians because if they did they would have to start stacking bodies of their own people in their own streets and then make that same argument these people are not protesters they're rebels and i don't think of the french you got the spine to do that other way the french from where rebels from where the french definitely know their history got it well i'm talking i mean the

thing about i just now said the iran protesters started because they were whipped up by american and israeli agent provocateurs to try to overthrow the government of the state The Iranian government responded in an act of self-defense and started stacking bodies because that's all governments do. Government is force. It is fire. That's what it does. Right, but nobody's whipping this up. These are just French.

I understand that. And that's, I was answering my own question. This is why the French, this is why the French could not go out and say this is the Russians because then the national, then the response would have been. If that is true, if these are Asian fricateurs working for another nation,

why are you not stacking them on a main street there in Paris? That's why they can't do it because the optics doesn't make any sense. No, I don't think, yeah, I agree with you. I think it would be hard. I mean, these people are idiots. They made all sorts of weird arguments in the past, but that will be a tough one. Yeah, it's impossible. Removing the agency of the people who are basically doing the protests and the reasons that they were doing the protests.

And again, they started off students. I have a theory of protests. that they always escalate, that if it's, if you can't snuff it out very early on, that the people in the demands start to get higher and higher. Because at that point, they start to confer. They start to talk. They start to engage each other. And in engaging each other, they become somewhat of a movement in and of itself saying,

this is what we want. Whereas before, it might have started off as something small. But we care about the schools. And then it becomes, we want the state to fail at some point, right? Right. It never fails. And if these protests continue on, like the yellow vests movement, their demands will escalate. Agreed.

We have a lot of comments, so we should like hit them. We're the gopher tortoise Rome. Hey, Ted, what about the Maga Chuds who beat the fuck out of the Rotund woman with the release the Epstein Files shirt at the Trump rally? That was very disturbing. Yeah. That was that was here. That was when Trump was here in Calisville here on Thursday.

Was it? It was here. That's the first I've ever seen it, saw a No King's Rally. It was about, I don't know, maybe 20 boomers with their little signs standing there in front of the majestic arena. There on Highway 93, just standing there. It was talk about flaccid. It was really sad. It was really sad.

It's really the right word. So what about this woman? I mean, I thought Republicans believed in traditional values, which, you know, protect me. not beating up women seems like at the core of that. Where did you get that? I did from. Carlson, it's unfortunate to see decent white men acting that way. It was something like that he said that they caught him on the arm tape at January 6th.

He's right. He's a white man, decent black man, like you're not supposed to act like that, you know? Yeah, he's a woman. What the fuck are you doing? Yeah, they beat shit out that woman. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, if you look at a Trump rally, watch the overwhelming demographic of people at a Trump rally.

It's it's white dudes. I mean, that's the majority of it. They have women with them. Sure. I get that, but I'm talking about just a majority. Like, you didn't have break down. There were people from my church. Oh, yeah.

There's no question. It's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, we got to go see the God emperor of Trump. But also, who lives in Montana. By the way, they didn't really see it. Like, I can't get into the mind. of people when they look at Trump sometimes. And sometimes it blows my mind and hear people say stuff like that.

When I've seen interviews or like debates and stuff and people, like for example, there's this guy who would go to like a bar. He would be talking to people. All of these people are Trump supporters. And they would be saying stuff like, no, Donald Trump is doing this. And it's like five dimensional chess because he's trying to do this. And the guy points out to him like, dude, you do not make it sense. But they believe it.

Are they really like that in Caledsville, Montana? Like meaning there's are they still true believers in that way? Some are. I mean, not as many. It's Trump has lost Trump has lost the working class here. Listen, there's a reason why he was here in the redest of red districts in a red state. It's because the ranchers are not going to turn out for them. They're pissed off because because because diesel prices and then Trump importing millions of tons of Argentine beef. the workers are not going to turn out for them because most workers are having to leave because they can't afford to live here just because of the house there or the else is so high it's the entire coalition that he built that he built is falling around and you have aaron flint here said oh we need to build more data centers here in the middle of north us montana when we do not have the infrastructure to support it from an electrical standpoint forget about just the just how much many thousands of makers of force so you're going to have to cut down and make this thing happen

the power grid can't do it and then trump said we got to have aaron flint we got to do with iran iran's got to be defeated very quickly meanwhile three quarters a little late for that but meanwhile no half of half of the arena is empty and people like dude screw you wow well i'm glad you brought up, Robbie, I wanted to talk about that anyway. So we should talk about the poll, right? So we talked about the AP Nork poll hitting a record low about a week ago, 32%. All the polls are a little bit different because the measurements, they, you know, there are different. But the Washington Post, if so,'s poll is now down to a record low also 33%. I mean, that's just the trend across the board. And that's not going to change. It's going to be.

a 66% disapproval rating, right? So the president is 33 points underwater. Democrats basically are projected now to take back the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. You know, obviously these, you know, those polls have been less reliable in recently than they happen in the past. But yeah, I'm on team Jamaral here. I think there's no question. You know, the Democrats are going to have an amazing night, you know, a couple of weeks from now. I think it's going to be historic. I don't even know the argument. Like, when Mike Johnson and these guys are making the arguments that the polls are obviously wrong.

Obviously. All of them? It's like every last one of them. It's not like they're telling a different story, right? It's not like there's a problem. No undecides, right? That's what went wrong in a lot of these polls that went wrong. Like with Saeed, it's like there were shit tons of undecided.

And we just focused on the spread between the, the, the, the, of the, the, the, of the, the, the, of the, pros and the cons, right? But when there's not a shit ton of undecided's here when it comes to the midterms. Yeah. And I got to be honest with you. I wasn't even paying attention to the individual races. It just, it's a model. How the president goes, especially if he's a luminary like Trump, so goes the party. People are furious. The president is always on the ballot. That's my argument. I've always made the argument. The president is always on the ballot. And the public, especially for somebody like Trump, doubly so. Because Donald Trump is everywhere. Donald Trump was like, as Robbie was saying, he's out there giving his stump speeches while he's at 33% approval.

And he's like hamming it up to the audience. Like he's like, I beat the shit out of Iran. Okay. Gas prices are low. Yeah. Prices are low. You know, like everything is great. And it's like you're making this argument of people who are suffering.

Yeah. Like you're literally like, you're welcome. I'm awesome. You should be thanking me. And he's monetized. into tune of billions of dollars. So it's like, not only are you making other people poor, you're getting richer while they're getting poorer,

and you're out here. And everyone knows. On the stage, good sense would be, if Donald Trump gave a shit about anybody other than himself, did you just shut up? Honestly, yeah, big cup of shut the fuck up. Yeah, he doesn't do that. He goes out of him.

Kempit. Thanks for the five bucks. I hope they burn it to the ground for what they did to Africa. England is next. what's happened Mr. A. Lee says what's happening in France isn't immigration as the economy. True. And, um, okay. Blake, it's milk me Monday with Ted Rawl.

Blah, blah, blah. What a legend. Sent Senali back last year and expel every non-Indigenous French person from France leaves today. Let's go. Five dollars. We're getting closer. Keep, keep them fibers coming. We need a little graphic that we can show every time.

that comes up and just like to... Yeah, we're going to have to develop that. Yeah, thanks a way. Yeah, we got to be crap. Okay, Douglas, as the Sahel states in Central Africa, have kicked France out and now they're improving rapidly. France is funding terrorists to send back into those countries

trying to destabilize them. France needs more rioters. By the way, France was fucking that country over royally. Like, the money that that government was, the amount that France was paying for, let's say, like, uranium was like pennies. on the dollar for what it was called. The concessions were incredibly low.

Yeah, the local... Anything. If you so, thanks for the buck. Robbie, most of those French protesters look awfully white to me. You're regurgitating right-wing Trump propaganda. Well, it's also been cherry-picked, the ones that right-wing media puts up. Phileas Fav, the EU, has open internal borders, but pays warlords in countries like Libya to stop immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa to Italy.

success. In a Syrian war, they were paying Turkey to keep the, basically don't allow the Syrians to come through to Europe. Yeah, and the Greeks kick them back into the, into the Mediterranean. If you so, but it's okay for the French to force their culture forcefully all across Africa. Right. This is not, this is just French policy. They decided to colonize. And now they're being, quote, unquote, colonized in a way that the right wing says it. Okay, but they did that. Right? Nobody told him to go to Africa. They went to Africa. Yeah, not to mention, they had a policy for years that if you were, you know, an African citizen of a French colony like Cameroon, that you could immigrate freely to France.

This is not really a new thing. They wanted the cheap labor. Rod and goo, the violent protest of this weekend looked staged by the Macron regime. They knowingly let the rioters run wild by putting TV cameras on. on, I would say it's more like they provoked the rioters with the CRS cops. Well, that's a good point, though. What do you think of that, though? This idea of provocateurs that are added in order for the state to be able to say,

hey, look how violent they are. Aren't they dangerous? Don't you want the state to put down this violence? Or do you think, no, I think there's a strong cost. I think there's a, well, I think it's mostly organic, but there's also a possibility that, like, I mean, obviously there's a desire on the state to have an, they want the, they want the pretext, the excuse to crack down on all the protesters and quash them. Right. Well, we know they're agent procateurs on January 6th. I mean, one of them is, I mean, it's all over the place.

I agree with it, by the way. So the word, Jean-Provacquetel is a French word. I know. I mean, this isn't a new tactic. This is something the governments do all the time to manufacture to make an opposition look bad. So that way when they do start busting heads, that have a valid excuse to do it. Yep. This has happened all throughout history. This isn't new. No.

With one caveat, depends on how sustained the protesters. Because you may have protesters who need the government to kill in order to legitimate or legitimize the protests that much more so. Like meaning if you can get the state to murder a lot of people, then you've, depending upon the country, you may piss off a lot of other people. Nepal is a really good example of this, right? But there are protests through the protests. The state comes out, kills several of the kids that were at that protests.

And the Nepalese start burning down buildings belonging to the state and burning down houses that belong to the people who were part of the state. Like, they didn't take that shit. They lost their shit. I jumped into the country immediately after they were doing this. And the guy explained it to me, said they killed the kids and the people lost it. Yeah. And that makes the point about why I brought up about France earlier. if they were just burning out government buildings and things like that, I would say rah, rah,

ra, go at it. Yeah, but you may create a civil war, which is the kind of point I'm making it in Nepal. When they killed those kids, the respond to the public was fire. Right? Like, it was intolerable. The state fell as a result of them doing it. And don't forget. These were in France began with kids also and the cops and they sent in riot cops to, you know,

blow off the hands of kids. Yeah. You know, shoot them, blind them. I mean, these are children. I get that. And I guess what I'm hoping for is that the protesters are able to start self-policing and keep the thugs from looting grandma's corner store. I think that's a trap, to be honest.

You think so? Yeah, and I think part of like what offers a threat. I mean, I think, first of all, if you're part of a left-wing protest movement or any protest movement. You can't be self-policing. Once you do that, you're going to start, you're tearing yourself apart. You've got to keep moving and expanding and be dynamic and keep the powers that be guessing. I mean, at a certain point, you're riding a tiger, right?

I mean, it's like, shit's just happening now. Now it's like you're not in control. The government's not in control. It's a pre-revolutionary situation. Anything can happen and will happen. And you shouldn't try and you're not the state and you shouldn't act like the state. So then if Fawles Cantina, so then Frolous Cantina gets looted, burned to the ground, you should just say, oh, well, my livelihoods up and smoke because these people are pissed off because of. That's why God invented insurance, okay.

If you can afford it, you'll be all right. Can you afford insurance if you are a business owner in France? If you don't, if you can't afford insurance, it's like eating out and you can't afford a tip. You can't afford that they in business. If you can't afford to, yeah, you need insurance. I mean, are you kidding? Like, if you have a business, a store in France, you've got to know that it could burn down at some point.

Like, yeah, you should have insurance. Okay, so there's insurance in France. You know, people in Ferguson, they try to file insurance to get compensated for the rights that happened over there after Michael Brown got taken out. And those claims were not honored because. Doug's burning down your store wasn't covered in your policy. Well, their mistake, but they should have burned down the insurance company.

But okay, anyway. That's my point. I mean, there comes a point where you got to have the public with you. Actually, I think it's both. I mean, things can be both, right? It sucks that grandma lost their business. Yeah, I don't want that. It's like she only sold cookies and she was a very nice person and get they burn that shit down because ultimately she was just there. It's like a hurricane. By the same token, yeah, I don't think you can police your people like talking about.

At a certain point, you lose control in general. Like, let's say, like, in 90, what is it? It was like 90% of the protests that took place for Black Lives Matter were peaceful. The other 10% less so. And it's like, okay, how do you really, yeah, how do you police that 10%? And do you? Yeah, I don't think you can't. Because I mean, you don't.

Then you just become cops yourselves. I mean, it looks bad when people lick a store. and of a protest claiming that they're doing it for the rights of blacks. Yeah, it looks bad. That looks horrible. I don't want that on Fox News. But how do I stop the thugs and the goons from doing that as I'm trying to prosecute my case? You can't.

I don't know if you can't. No, I mean, you just can't. I mean, you, you, you, it's kind of like this is just kind of party to the process. It's what a revolution in the protests looks like. Rod and goo, thanks for the 10 euros. The goal is to scare the normies and push. them to ask for a NATO authoritarian regime and shut up

about the incoming austerity. McColl doesn't want anyone to bring up how he has bankrupted the country. He has bankrupted the country and of course Nord Stream did not help. Yes, great point. But see, from my point of view,

if they don't do anything, Europe is trying to push these people into a fight with the Russians. Rebellion might be the only way up, unless they a political solution to the issue. Well, I mean, so, yeah, and I don't know if, like, yeah, I mean, I don't know if electoral college, I mean, right now, if we had, you know, the, the election, the French elections,

which are scheduled for the, I think, spring of next year, you're going to be looking at, it looks like there's not going to be a significant centrist, a component there. It's going to be a battle between Marie Le Pen and Jean-Luc Menoncheon of La France and Summism. And so it's going to be left versus right, which means the French people are going to have a clear, decisive decision to make at the polls. I'm envious of them. It's going to be super exciting. They're first going to have a two-part election. So there's going to be dozens of parties. But those two are going to be in the runoff, probably. she certainly will be whether Menlo Chon makes it

I mean right now of course it's so interesting because the powers that be like Macron are blaming the left but not the right for all the problems and so you can sort of see where their bread is ultimately buttered centrists are basically conservatives what do you think

what do you think the public would go over with that I'm very curious Like, do you think they would go the unbiote direction? Do you think they would go to the national rally direction? I don't. Right now, if the polls indicate that it would go to the, it would go to the, it would go to the, to the, to the men. But, you know, it's a long way between now and, you know, the elections. It could, yeah.

I mean, the LFI has to be able to put together a platform that seems that it combines the sweet spot of a better life. optimism as well as law and order. That's kind of the thread, the needle that Milauchon is going to have to thread. And he can't really talk about law and order right now while this is all going on. But there would have to be sort of a, you know, I mean, if I were him, the argument I would make to the French people would go something along the lines of, you know, look, law and order is useless if people are poor and starving. And peace will naturally restore when these issues are finally addressed. It's like people, the people are not really to blame for getting angry after years of provocation.

That would be my thing. But how is my show? You kept poking this bear and like finally it bit you. Now, how is he going to deal with the French budget? That's the other issue, right? Well, they have one idea that he has is to write off part of the debt. Countries have done that. They've defaulted on their debt.

I can't imagine he would do that. Look, the French have, they have things they could do. You know, first of all, the French economy is, is, is the economy itself is vibrant. They have high productivity. They have, you know, they have a, you know, they have a, you know, they have a, lot of great industries. They absolutely, what they have is they have is serious problems with perpetual long-term unemployment. You know, they have, they have, you know, a lot of companies have trouble paying their retirees because of the demographics, because of the low birth rate.

So they have to address issues like that. But, you know, for example, can you imagine if, I mean, if the LFI were to come to power? And by the way, Melanchon could say this. One of my first acts will be to, you know, get to make nice with Putin. I'll, you know, restore France's traditional friendly relations with Russia, which go back hundreds of years. It's like, we're not, you know, we're not going to keep doing this way. I mean, let's finish, let's rebuild Nord Stream. Let's, you know, let's get, make an energy, get our, get affordable energy into the, into the French economy. There's a lot of things they can do.

Well, also, they don't control their own. currency, which is the main point, right? It's the euro. Well, the LFI would definitely, both made the left and the right would break away from, they would definitely break away from the monetary union if they could. Really? So, yeah, they might stay in the EU politically, but they would probably want more kind of the deal that the UK had before Brexit,

where they have their own currency and they're in charge of their own destiny. I mean, that's the thing too, right? France and Germany, they still, it's so funny because technically the mark, and the Frank still sort of exist in an abstract floating zone. And those back up the euro far disproportionately more than like the, you know, the Mediterranean countries like Greece and Italy. They're subsidizing the rest of the EU. And they can't afford it.

True. But are they going to do anything about it as to catch? Like meaning if Melanchon Ola Pen gets in the office, A, they're going to have to deal with the debt. They're going to have to deal with the fact that the interest rate in France is basically higher than anywhere else, which means they have so much money to pay back. And they're going to have to deal with the fact that that's not, by the way, we have the same issue here in these states, right? Our interest rate is low because we are the world currency. But 40 trillion in debt, two trillion

a year that we're paying on it. That number is accelerating, by the way. That number is going up with Trump. And the moment that the big beautiful bill comes into full fruition, that number is going to go through the roof. It's like 50 trillion in debt. Right. And nobody is saying, how do we pay this back? And I guess I'm saying, is it France in the same? spot, especially for somebody like Melchon coming in. France has made, they do have major problems and they're going to have to deal with it. And they don't even control their own currency. Yeah. So maybe he does something dramatic. But if

France does something dramatic, that destroys the European Union. Well, France would have to end his pension system. I mean, that's what people don't want to admit. That's what's going to have to happen. If you don't have enough, if you have told your population, you no longer need to have kids because they're an inconvenience. convenience and then you don't have those kids anymore to continue paying taxes for the old people.

Then it, the entire thing just implode. So either A, you got to sell telling French East, so having more babies, or B, you got to cough, got to cough grandma off of her pension checks. It's a binary choice. Why don't have more kids to it? They don't like having sex. It's supposed to be the city of love. I think they would be country of love, right?

France is the country that like has porn. on their regular TV show or channels, right? Are they able to show women's, like, press was only on regular TV? Yeah, we don't do that in America. Like, so how does that country not have enough babies? I mean, the real problem is that to be, if you're, you know, 18, 19, 25 years old in France, you're fucking poor. You know, it's impossible to find a job or even, and if you find a job, to find a good job. So basically it's kind of like an extreme version of what happened to do.

Gen X here in the United States when, you know, Gen X got out of high school and college, and they found that, you know, they had to postpone marriage and having kids and buying a car and all that because they were so fucking poor. So, you know, by the time they're able to afford to get into the work, you don't really get into the workplace in France until in the real workplace until you're in your 30s or even 40s. That's the problem. Yeah, Japan and South Korea have my same problem. Yeah, we do have the same problem, I think. Yeah. I mean, that would be, I would be full on 100% supporting people, people calling me that commie. I will gladly get the hammer and sickle. If you have marched on the Marseilles, burn Paris to the ground, burn the imperial palace and Tokyo to the ground, burn the presidential palace and soul to the ground, and say you are going to end this. We are going to take our futures back. We do not live for you. You work for us. We are, you're going to fix this economic problem. We're going to have kids. Eat a deck.

That's a revolution I could 100% get on board with. So. It's not money in their pockets. They had more money in their pockets. We should keep talking because we have a lot. We should move on. We have a lot more to talk about. By the way, just a little bit of housekeeping.

On Thursday, later in the week, we will have Thaddeus Russell, the author of Savior and Seducer, Renegade History of the United States in the world. His thesis is basically that the U.S. likes to brutalize foreigners through its foreign policy and seduce them through their pop culture. And this one later in next week, we're going to have Steve Kinzer, author of Boiling Point. I just finished it, how America brought the war to Ukraine. Okay, so you know he's spot on because he even talks about how the Biden administration shut down RT and Sputnik. Does he?

He does. Does he? And not approvingly. Not approvingly at all. Oh, I love them already. Yeah, no, he's totally spot on talking about, you know, about how the U.S. pulled the strings at Maidan, you know, cowtowed to neo-Nazis, you know, propped up neo-Nazis,

and how Ukraine, U.S. support for Ukraine is a giant fucking scam. But, I mean, what I did not know was how far back this went that the United States has been using Ukraine as a lever against the USSR and then the Russian Federation going back at least to the 1940s. And this has been a CIA project from day one. It's fascinating. And so he's a big get, by the way. So we are here until 11 o'clock today.

So please stay tuned. We are two hour show Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, one hours. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Okay, question. Oh, we have a couple more comments. I see some of these comments. These comments aren't. Don't see here.

All right, P.W. Walker. Dems have the 2016 Hillary Rotten Clinton problem. Media keeps saying Dems will win, so Dems will think we're winning anyways, so I don't need to bother to vote. And thanks for the $5. I appreciate that comment, but I don't think that's going to happen that way. And the reason I don't think it's going to happen that way, because I think people are going to be very enthusiastic to vote against Trump, especially with the numbers.

That's what I think, too. Also, it's a whole different world now. Most voters are now casting their vote by mail. It's so much easier to vote. I mean, a lot of municipalities send you your ballot. It just comes in the mail, and you're like, all you have to do is put that back into your mailbox with the little flag up, and that's it. You don't have to go see the old ladies down at the precinct in the church. or in the firehouse. It's like, I mean, voting is easier than it used to be. I think that's a huge thing.

I can vote in my underwear. It's frictionless. Yeah, I want to do everything in my underwear. But does voting matter? That's the question. Well, that is the answer of court. Oh, well, you mean like next year when the Democrats have the House and the Senate and they're talking about how they can't change anything and they can't do anything

and how the economy still sucks? and that prices are still going up and that wages are still going down? You mean, like, in that way, is it going to mean anything? Correct. What's the point, sir? Well, people are, because in France, you would go out and go out and burn down your city hall. But here, you either have the choice of a flaccid march or, you know, every two to four years, you can rant at the party, the incumbent party, and vote against them and turn them out,

and then end up hating the party that you voted for. People are flailing. Americans are basically, we're lost. We are disorganized and we're lost. It's like a married couple where one side yells at the other, but the other knows that the person who's yelling is not really ever going to do anything. It's like, okay, I have to accept you being pissed off at me, but you're not going anywhere.

We hate each other, but nobody's getting divorced. Yeah, but no way to get divorced. It's that, right? Which is very frustrating. But it's because that one side doesn't necessarily know where to go. And I think that's the way with the Americans in politics. They've been taught for the longest time. There are two political parties, Democrats and Republicans,

and you have your choice of one or the other. That's what you've been taught. That's what you've been programmed to believe. Propaganda. And as you grow up, you just believe it. And the idea of something beyond the boundaries of these two things don't even really come into contact. Like it doesn't really apply. And you would get people who would fight vigorously. We shouldn't talk about third parties because we need to focus on this particular election.

They've been saying this year for like 30, 40 years and probably longer. Well, we shouldn't talk about third parties. Third parties are interesting, but we should talk about those later after the election. At some other point in the future, not this time for this, during this very important election, the most important election, important election of our lifetimes. We cannot talk about it this time. Every year they say it. Every year they say it. Every time.

It's very possible. Like Nancy Pelosi, I remember, I would never forget it because it shows how cynical they are. She was like, they'll come back. They would get tired of them. Where else will they go? Where else will they go? And you think to yourself, I suspect that's the position that Americans are in. Where do we go?

And they haven't come to some kind of consensus that there's, more beyond these two. Correct. Well, then to answer your question, this is like one of those dystopian sci-fi movies or shows where people are living in a bubble city, and they're told we can't go outside. It's all irradiated due to World War III.

It's like if you go out there, you'll die. It's all cannibals. Who knows? And then you're waiting for that moment for someone cool to like, you know, to break out. And say, you know, I'm going to check that out for myself. I'm not so sure I believe you. So basically what you're saying is right now it's like a bad marriage where the people are screaming each other.

I think where you'll see if something changes. And I'm sure that you both have known people who are married who are in bad marriages and getting a divorce. It's not yelling and screaming. It's when they stop screaming at each other. That's when stuff gets bad. And I wonder. Well, that's when the divorce is in. Yeah, I wonder when or if the American people can browse themselves from their slumber to even be bothered at this point.

Yeah, at sufficient pain levels, I suppose. Look, I think the RFK quote that's attributed to him is right, which is before revolution, revolution seems impossible. After revolution, revolution looks like it was inevitable. Yeah, I mean, we just, right now we just can't see it because we don't. know what obviously we don't know the future um okay yeah 50 minutes left okay shall we talk about uh i'm interested in this uh in putin's idea for a summit um oh between trump and fiji ping yeah so putin decided it has apparently they are currently considering having a summit meeting next month between uh the leaders of russia the united states and china to try to

figure out a landing for the Russia war. Obviously, Trump's really, Trump's relationship with Zelensky has had its ups and downs. This is one of its biggest downs, I would say. He's really upset. There's been a lot of drone warfare back and forth between Russia and Ukraine. And my take on this, Jamar, is that the urgency for Trump comes down to the effect on global energy prices. His advice, Theizers are telling him, look, it's not just the Strait of Hormuz, it's not just the Houtis, but also, you know, the effect of Russia as a major exporter of LNG and crude oil. It's like, and if they are not able to, if their facilities are fucked up to the point where they have to focus entirely on supplying domestic demand, then that's more of an effect on the

global energy market and prices here will continue to go up. And that's just one more factor that's a fact that's beating us up in the polls. And that's what this is ultimately about. Yeah, I agree with you. It's Donald Trump can't admit the honest reality that the war in Iran has created all sorts of headwinds for him and himself, meaning he can't come out and say, look, this war has increased prices in regards to inflation and has created a crisis in regards to diesel. Because ultimately, that's Donald Trump is effectively accepting blame. for war that they need to take place and the pain that everybody else is causing. I think he looks at Putin as somebody, I can make a deal with Putin.

But I don't think fully understands what Russia needs for that to be a deal. I don't even know if he cares. And I don't and I think it's a faculty of the US. In the old days during the Cold War, we could negotiate deals. It may take years, but we can do it. We can sit down and we can do it. These days, we've gotten so hegemonic that the idea of us having to make a deal with anybody just seems off the table, we dictate. And now we've come up in multiple. Because we don't know, we can't possibly put ourselves in the position of the people that we're negotiating against, right? We don't care to is the point. I mean, in this book, right, he taught, in Kinzer's book,

he talks about how there's, how, like, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were baffled over the course of 20 years at how shitty relations between the United States, which started out fairly well at the, you know, when Russia became independence, how shitty they became over the course of the 90s and the aughts. And, you know, and they, and internally, they were both like, well, we, we want good relations with Russia. They really told their internal advisors that, like, they were really confused. They, they wanted it. They didn't want to, but Russia can, I'm telling them over and over and over. Don't expand NATO.

It's really our red line. It's the one thing we really need you to not do. Just don't expand NATO. As Mediadev said at one point, you know, like no country would be happy about having a military alliance, a military block on its own border that it's not a member of. Right. Okay. And continuously spreading to its border.

And after assurances that that. would not happen right and then basically the americans played cute like well you didn't get it in writing you know you didn't say we didn't say simon says so so like basically it was a handshake deal corbachev was an idiot he had a handshake deal with the with the first bush administration to not and and the reagan administration not to expand east or eastward and they just kept fucking doing it. And I mean, I feel like that's what this is about, right? Like, it's kind of like, well, we want good relations with you, but we're just not willing to give you the things that you want and need. Yeah. It's right. Because a lot of people think that

Donald Trump, especially in the alternate media, that Trump doesn't want to deal. I don't think that's true. I just think he wants to deal on American terms, which is impossible to get. Right. Losers don't get to dictate terms. You lost the war. You don't get to dictate the outcome of that war. Even if we spin this from an American point of view, at best you're going to say it's a stalemate. Okay, at best, you can say, look, clearly you might, you could certainly argue that Russia hasn't closed the deal. They haven't deposed Zelensky.

They haven't captured Kiev. Okay, fine. But like, they can't. But there's no world in which Ukraine is ever going to get Crimea back or the Dombas, right? No way. It's like, so it's like, at best, it's a stalemate. And in a stalemate, if you want to resolve a stalemate, you both sides have to give something. I mean, the Americans, it's not just Trump.

And by the way, the entire American foreign policy infrastructure is infested by people with ties to Eastern Europe or Central Europe. People who, including Trump himself, who fucking are, who come from, who are sort of, paranoid of of Russia and have you know reasons to historical reasons to just trust Russia but I mean you mean that way yeah not yet not Trump

Trump's from you know Trump is a German I thought you meant like financial ties I thought you meant like many of the people there no no no I mean like the Victoria Newlands of the world and Brzynski and all those kind of people they're all you know they're all a bunch of central and eastern Europeans who you know come from who have

heritage from places that have been invaded by Russia and, you know, historically and don't like Russia. So what he can't get. And that's going to be true in Iran. That's going to be true in Ukraine. And any deal that he makes, as the Russians keep saying, and I think they fully, they fully are standing by this with guns in hand in order to ensure that such is true, are going to deal with the problems that started the war in the first place, which is the expansion of NATO. Like Putin, God, man, he had been out there over and over and over. over again, basically begging these guys for new security architecture of Europe that would ensure the safety of Russia and Europe. And their point of view was, you lost, Russia fell, or the Soviet Union failed. We don't have to listen to you. We don't have to listen. And it's like, okay. That's exactly what they thought. Russia is a beaten country. It's backwards.

It's, you know, the sad man of Europe or whatever they want to call it. It will never be a superpower. And you know, by the way, Kinzer. have a challenge this again. And so this was also part of, Kinser points out that there was this longstanding theory among American policymakers down at Foggy Bottom that they needed to, that basically Ukraine was a key to Russia being an empire, that if you separate Russia, if you separated Ukraine away from Russia, it wasn't really an empire anymore. And therefore, that was really key to keep Ukraine away from Russia.

And I would imagine they also knew that the gateway into Russia, that was happened multiple times by the Europeans was through Ukraine. Yeah, most famously in 1941. Over the course of those two wars, through infusion through Ukraine. So yeah, it's like, will they be dodgy about their borders, when their borders being breached in that specific area ends up killing 50 million people?

Yes, they will be. Obviously. As anyone would be, I mean, as Kinzer says, you know, you could argue that Donald, that what, that, you know, that Putin should, that Putin's invasion of Ukraine was illegal under international law, but the fact is no leader of Russia would have ever done anything else,

regardless of their ideology, the form of government, anything. No one. I agree with that. I mean, if I were the president of Russia, I would have done the same thing. There's no fucking choice. There's no choice. Yeah, no leader of America would have done anything different.

There is a, there's a, no, they invaded Grenada because they thought the commies were coming. They were going to end the world over Cuba. Yeah. Right. There is a premise in international law called preemptive self-defense based on a, I forget what the name of the ship was. It was a British ship back in the 1840s, if I remember correctly. And the British attacked first, citing preemptive self-defense because they did not want their ship to be captured by a hostile power. You are not obligated to be hit the face first before you respond. I don't think that principle would have operated, though, in the case of 2022, because that would have required the Ukrainian. military to be masked on Russia's borders and present that kind of imminent imminent threat of invasion. Wait a minute.

They were on the Russian borders. Oh, okay. No, the Ukrainians were not masked on the Russian borders. No, they were right. Well, the trigger there was honestly, was when Kamala Harris said, we are going to bring you in, we're going to bring you into NATO and we are going to start establishing NATO bases like a week before the Russians went in. Yeah.

Well, by the way, they kept trying until the. the very last minute, the Russians kept saying, all we want to hear is like Zelensky, for example, say, we will not join NATO. And this whole thing is not going to happen. It'll be fine. People need to realize this war that's going on in Ukraine is not, sure, it's Russians and Ukrainians who are dying. This is a war between Russia and the United States. It's a proxy war. It is a proxy war. And the preemptive strike was not against Ukraine per se. It was against American and Western interests in Europe, in Ukraine specifically. That's the trigger. It was never about you train.

If what you mean by the best expansion of NATO, even in de facto or operative sense. It doesn't matter. I mean, no, listen, if you're training an army to NATO standards, and if you are training it with NATO tactics, and if you are sharing intelligence, and if you're giving them weapons, does it really matter what the lapel is that you have on your jacket? You're a NATO army. Exactly. That is exactly. That's the point.

That is true. That is the point. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, like the thing is, it's like the U.S. has been like, well, we don't believe in spheres of influence anymore. What a bunch of fucking hypocritical bastards. We still stick to the Monroe doctrine, right? I mean, of course we believe in spheres of influence.

We don't think Mexico and Canada are in our sphere of influence. Bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Talking about the money we're stealing from Venezuela. Venezuela is no way. near our border and they say this stuff so openly like like it's it's amazing to me the way that some of the stuff they say is accepted it's like they're antithetical to the values that you're

taught as kids it's like yeah we we still this we took even Trump when he's out there making a speech the president cursing saying we beat the shit out of somebody is rather amazing it's like so So if I'm going to bring my kids to the presidential speech now because the president's going to be cursing like an alligator. I mean, it's not the argument that Netanyahu and now Trump has been making them. Netanyahu for the last 20 years and Trump ever since the Israeli started paying his legal bills is that Iran is weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon. We must strike them first. That is the exact same argument that Vladimir Putin made. That is the exact same argument that Vladimir Putin made.

Matter of fact, that in Yahoo, over the weekend, after Trump endorsed him, what a pussy, is just like, the Iranians are going to build ICBMs and hold American cities hostage. It's the exact same thing. Sure, I'm sure they are. Why does Israel get a pass, but Russia's the villain? It's the same principle. Well, except there's no credibility on the Israeli side. All right, we got to talk about that.

We have a few more comments to do. Okay, here we go. Ray, thanks for the donation. And yes, I love the Ramones, too. MacRall has no children. No, F-you-so, he never knocked up. His husband, indeed. Bad cookies.

That's much bad. I was laughing at. Can I ask the two? So horrible. And can I ask the two hosts a question, is it just me or are the Democrats doing absolutely nothing to try and stop Trump? Is it me? Or does it sound like seeing what the Democrats are helping the Republicans?

That's. Not you. No. The idea was straightforward. Let Trump be Trump. I think that was the Democratic plan. The thing was, don't get in the way of Trump effing it up. For once, the Democrats finally did something, right?

Macadent. Gorbachev himself said there was no deal not to expand NATO. Why do you guys keep insisting there was? Because there was. Gorbachev had numerous meetings with the West, with Western leaders, and they had a handshake agreement. he received assurances from all sorts of European leaders saying, don't worry, these are all NATO members.

They said, you know, we will not vote to support that. And so when he said before he died, there was no deal. What he meant was there was no written deal. And that's true. There was no written deal. But they had, I mean, even Western people, like, was James Baker? If I'm not in a second, and maybe I'm getting the name wrong, I'd even noted that this was true.

That's right. It's James Baker, yeah. God, man, I have such conflicted feelings about Gorbachev. Oh, me too. As an American, right? And Americans are like, oh, he's such a great leader. And then any Russian you talk to him, they'd be like, fuck that guy. No, I kind of say fuck that guy too, you know. I do too.

I was reading the book collapse yesterday. And he, God, he was incompetent. Yeah. Like, it's just like some of the stuff, right, where the people are like, how are you trying to at once have a strong state and strong individual states that are like a strong central government strong individual states? And the point is you can't have both. They're going to immediately try to get independence because they're strong states, right? And yet, like, he would not listen to anybody on that stuff and would get rid of people and just like, no,

we're pursuing this course. This is the course that we're pursuing. And it all fell apart. And people I kind of hate him. I think it was a catastrophe for the world. It really was. It really was. And Americans have no idea, right? Like when they talk with, you know, I mean, like Putin, I mean, you know, look, he's far to my right. You know, and politically I'm not aligned with him and his ties to, you know, religion and all that stuff.

You know, I don't relate to. But I got to say, I mean, the man is a fucking colossus as a political leader. I mean, he turned a country that was discered. destroyed with like where there was widespread famine that had been completely vaporized by the West and you know rebuilt it from scratch modernized it strengthened it you know brought it back onto the world stage as a superpower I mean it's so fucking impressive what that guy did I mean there's no cause I mean it's no wonder Russians like even people who are not on the right vote for him Because they're like, he's the George Washington of the Russian Federation.

He is defending his state. Full stop. It's that. He's defending the integrity of state. He's so impressive. And he's taking muscular action to do so, realizing that muscular action was required. The worst thing in the world would have been to the pussy style with Yeltsin. That didn't work.

It didn't work. It just made it worse. I mean, for God's sake, they put, they overthrew a country on the border of Russia and filled it with lunatic. and Nazis. Yeah. What, you know, as a Russian, what do you think about this, right? You're looking at this and you're seeing what the West is doing. And you look at what they did to Iraq and Afghanistan, meaning you've seen this entity knock

over country after country after country and now they've knocked over country on the border and they're looking at you and your first response is no further. Yeah, enough. It stops here. You guys don't take my word fair enough. Here are my werewolves, it will call them. Go after you. So is this war summit going to happen?

Who knows? Yes, it probably will. I strongly suspect that Donald Trump is going to want the gravitas of meeting with the world leaders, the strong leaders, the ones that have military. Now, of course, already, all the Ukrainian, I mean, it's such a fucking infection. Even people who are on the left and smart, like still support Ukraine, it's fucking maddening. But anyway, so Trump is going to catch shit. this idea is going to catch it for the fact that Ukraine's not going to be involved. Why would they?

These are about the world leaders. Yeah, this is like Yalta, kind of, right? The big boys are taking care of this. These are sovereign leaders of countries with militaries that can use those militaries and they're sovereign. We'll let you know what we decide, Zeletsky. Yeah, right, right. Zelisky's upon, listen, if this happens, and I mean this, this is not snark, this is not sarcasm. I hope it happens in Pyongyang.

And the reason is... I understand it won't, but it should. Because if you look at the flashpoints that they're going on right now in the world, because this involves interests for the three superpowers on the planet. It'll be in China. Well, wait a minute. I thought this was at a summit coming up where all three were going to be at the summit. I don't remember where the summit was stationed.

They haven't decided where it's going to be. Well, that's what I'm saying. China should be the host country. Well, no, I don't think so. Because look at how the Republicans and the Democrats both paint China. They don't pay China as an adversary or as a competitor. They paint China as an enemy. They paint Russia as an enemy.

Yeah, but Trump doesn't care about that. Well, you're assuming Trump has agency. He doesn't. I mean, look, also, look, the thing is Putin has to be able to travel safely. Well, and he went to China. He can easily travel to China. Sure. Trump went to China like a few.

And also China, it makes sense because the adverse, this is a proxy war, as you yourself said, between Russia and the United States. So China is kind of the intermediary. I just wonder, would he be allowed to do that, though, by the people who control him? I don't know. I don't think Trump is a robot. Trump's demeanor. He's incompetent.

I don't think he's a robot. But either he's already been to Beijing. And the question is what comes out of the summit, hopefully. What are the possibilities? I mean, the summit likely will not. succeed but because of American intransigence but could I don't think you're going to find a way out the war if that's the conversation yeah I mean that's the conversation they don't seem to be really pissed off as Olensky I mean like the intelligence thing is

fascinating to me like if I don't know if you saw Marco Rubio when he was giving an interview and Rubio they asked them hey did you do anything about intelligence and they even asked them the question about Starlink he was like I don't know what they're talking about the Starlink stuff scene that just went off like so they are arguing it just happened. It might have just been a book. It just happened. And from the standpoint of Intel, because Zelensky has gone on TV, once again, crying about the fact that he's not getting intelligence. And you think to yourself, so how are you bitching at anything? You are so reliant on the U.S. either giving you information for ballistic missiles coming into the country

or for using the technology that the U.S. provides for your missiles and for your technology. By the way, not even supposed to be using it for this, but whatever, the U.S. terms of blind act, to attack them. So your ability to defend and attack is entirely dependent upon the United States, and you are bitching at every turn about Trump. Yeah. I don't blame Trump for having had enough. I'd say he's been very patient.

He should have had enough a long time ago. He should have walked on day one. Meaning he is stuck in a war now, where as opposed to him walking on day one, now they're attributing this up to him. Yeah. And Trump's paying the price, and he's about to get jolacked.

Yeah. So, all right, do you think this, so yeah, so basically this will just be. I think the meeting happens. I mean, it depends. But nothing, but it won't have the war, though. No, it's not going to end the war. But I thought they were going to meet at a summit somewhere. Like, I thought there was going to be a summit that already been pre-planned. Oh, no, no, no. This is like about a new. This is something separate. Oh, okay. I don't know if they're going to meet.

It's not about meeting an existing summit, like, you know, behind the scenes. This is about setting up something completely new. Okay. Yeah. Okay. If it's the sideline meeting at the conference that I'm thinking about, then yes, it's going to take place. If this is just something separate, who knows? I don't know. Yeah. It's a who knows situation. All the three schedules will have to. Well, also, what's the point? Why would you move to the Americans? You can't trust them. Yeah, but China. Yeah, but you're not going to end this war any other way because the United States is behind it. Oh, you can go on and the Russians can end this war if Putin would be off as blessed assurance and let the military do what? militaries do. Russia did it. I mean, that's the rub, right? Like, I guess from my point of view, it's like, because I've been on that bandwagon too. It's like Poud needs to take the gloves off. What the F is he doing? He's done that. Like, what is happening to Ukraine right now is they're getting

taken apart. Their infrastructure is just being completely demolished. St. Petersburg just got chained plants. St. Petersburg just got bitch slapped yesterday. True. True. Because St. Peter's, because the U.A. Yes, because the European countries allow their air. space to be used to hit Russia in a weird angle. True. That's true. So then what you do is that you is that you occupy Ukraine all the way to the Denebra River. You take Odessa and then you let the little rump state known, formerly known as Ukraine, no. If you don't stop, we will not stop to reach the Polish border. Well, look, I think that's what they're going to do anyway. Meaning, I think the policy is to

take Odessa. It's been five years. How is it going to take? Robbie, how can I answer the question? I know, but that's the point that I'm making. Putin is too soft. He has let the werewolves loose. He's giving you what you want it. It's going to take a little more time. It's just time, right? Like it's not like, please, I don't see

that has, for one, drone warfare has changed a lot of the way that military can organize themselves, right? You can't have like a mega man just lined up like they did in German. It just kind of rushed to do it. Two, they've been fighting multiple militaries that have been rebuilt over and over again with European money where hundreds of billions of dollars of European money and American money has gone into a dumping ground for Ukraine. Like, I guess what I'm saying, it's not that easy. That's my point. I feel like I'm arguing the other side, because I used to press mark on this.

I mean, if it's only, he has left from Elwood's loose. He has shut off the ports. He has not. encroaching on Slaviance Kramators. They're going after Zaporosia. They're probably going to take Odessa. They're doing all of those things. They're destroying Kiev. Kiev is now in Frontline city many words before this stuff was happening in dumb ass now this stuff is happening in kit every day in this it's the valve that matters oh it matters so it matters because that's where the international press is don't think it matters oh i think it does not the capital of the country here's the point that i'm making though from a logistical standpoint wars are won or lost based off logistics that is a statement of fact going back to the romans that's why the carthaginians lost

and a little lost because of logistics as long as as long as as as long as the valve is untouched as long as the railways coming in from Poland and Lopia and Estonia, the bridges are still standing. As long as you keep on allowing these intelligence infrastructures where you know that they are to continue operating with impunity because they have foreign because they have foreign contractors, operators that are working on them and you don't smack them. The Ukrainians can continue to reconstitute and reconstitute and reconstitute. That's the point. If you want to end this thing, you cut off, you decapitate the logistic system and poop.

and Putin is not willing to do that because of the bad optics. He's this senior statesman. Oh, I don't think it's bad optics. Oh, I think it is. Ukraine is in. No, he's afraid of bad optics. Like, if Putin goes in and if he turns Lavov into Gaza, it's bad optics. But he doesn't want to do that.

I don't think that's my point. But that's why he needs to do to end the war. I know, but for one, I don't know if that ends the war. Because Ukraine is not necessarily functioning under the power of Ukraine. is functioning as a proxy. Meaning when Zelensi is the reason that they like him as a dictator is because you don't have to dictators don't have to negotiate with parliament. Dictators are dictators.

Zelensky is unelected in this case, in which case he is doing the bidding of a foreign country against his own country, meaning the overwhelming majority of the population of the Ukraine says stop the war. Under normal circumstances, that should matter in this case. But it doesn't matter. Right. Which means that even if you decimate, let's say Levolve, it doesn't necessarily. really mean the war stops.

No, it does. And I got to be honest, no world leader wants to act that way. I understand that we as Americans have gotten very used to decimating the leaders of countries or just turning countries in the glass like we did in the wars in either Iraq or for that matter. I think of Mosul. But they shouldn't act that way. Like that's not good. Listen, I'm not saying that you got to turn your friend.

I think that I think we're getting a lot. I think we're both speaking English, but I'm speaking a different language here. I'm not saying turn Ukraine into a parking lot. The reason why there were no Patriot interceptors intercepting the missiles over the weekend over Kiev is because Ukraine doesn't have them. Right. So if you want to put the war to bed, you deny the Ukrainian military the ability to continue to reconstitute itself. How do you do that by destroying the logistical hubs, allowing the reconstitution of that military? I guess I would argue that they're doing that, Robbie.

I mean, when they're going after, let me answer this. Sure. When they hit that building and the building exploded. Which one? And people were like, hey, it looks like you were holding armaments in the candy factory or whatever the fact, whatever they want to call it, right? Okay, those things end up killing people who are around the area because of the Amundition Depot that was blown up, meaning that's a logistics hub.

When they're hitting many of these places, like the places that do like a little bit, or the places that do chemicals or places that do metals and the place they keep hitting these places preventing the places from ever coming back those are logistics hubs they're doing that i get your point your point is stop the trains if the trains are bringing things in stop those trains you close the border make ukraine almost like a separate universe from europe i get your point i mean no listen the the russians have the ability to do to ukraine what the united states has done to geography is on their side it's it's the it's a straight of Hormuz and iran do you have the geography do you have the military to do this my question is is are you

so afraid of looking bad in international press that you're not willing to let the wolves out to do it needs to be done know if it's looking I don't know if the issue is yeah I just don't buy that I mean there's too many people that have been killed Guys, I'm calling, I'm repetition alert here. We're going in circles. We're moving on. Oh, sorry. I'll go away now. Okay.

So, okay, so on the same point, Lavrov, he's the foreign minister of the Russian Federation, is in Iran right now. I assume this is just basically a consultation visit, just to catch up. And basically, the Gulf states are asking Russia to please, please, please ask your Iranian buddies to stop beating the shit out of us. Why would they ask him and why would he comply and why would he pass that message along? Like, I don't understand that story at all. Well, the Gulf states are living in a fantasy world. Okay, that's where I have a problem. They believe that the shit that they're peddling is going outside of themselves.

Like meaning, I don't know if they are trying to sell something that is unsellable. It's like, hey, I know we're in Alaska, but would you like to buy some ice? Yeah, no, not really, right? They're pretending as if they have nothing to do with any of us. And it's like, dude, not only where you're protecting Israel, when Iran and Israel were fighting one another, which is bad enough. you also were allowing your bases and your countries to be used as platforms to attack Iran. And Iran strikes back.

They're like, oh, my God, I can't believe we're being attacked like this by Iran. Are you serious right now? And I keep thinking, is this for their own domestic consumption? Because this is ridiculous that they're even making this case. How on earth are you looking at me with a straight face asking me, why is my country being attacked? Because your country is attacking my country. right over and over reason they're trying to sell this nonsense like oh my god i can't really iraqqqqq state's what the polo states want like what it's like what have you little

pipsqueaks done for me lately right now russia will carry the message it was like hey by the way the gcc state said this and rome said okay thank you for telling us hey let's go get some Yeah, let's get some of those fancy chocolates. Yeah, bye. Yeah, it's absurd. I mean, now the catch becomes, and a lot of people would say, in the association between Donald Trump and Putin, is Russia selling Iran out for its own self-interest?

And I have to say, I think that would be insane from the Russia point of view. Yeah. You can't trust what the U.S. is telling you at any particular moment. And v. Ron is a linchpin in regards to the safety of China and Russia. If anything happens to Iran ultimately, whether the government changes or anything else, it dramatically affects China and Russia's positioning in the world, meaning how they see the world. So I don't see it as being this kind of overt realist, even if we have to put a knife in an ally, except. I don't think it's that.

But will they carry the message? Yeah, but the Gulf states are living in a fantasy. And so Saudi Arabia. But also the fact that the Russians can't protect their refineries from Yuki drones, so it would not surprise me at all if the Russians are buying a nice amount of Iranian fuel diesel. There's that too. So, I mean, that goes to my point. Yeah.

So, I'm sorry, Rob. Yeah, I mean, that's my whole point. I mean, until the Russians can figure out how to put this war to bed and win it, they need Iran. they need Iran because the Russian military cannot protect its refineries. And Iran wants to export its supplies, so it's a win-win. And the Kashmir's like right there. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

Like, I think a lot of people are looking at, oh, Iran is going to fall. Iran is going to fall. Whoever is talking to Trump, I think they're telling him the wrong thing. I mean, I can see the Israelis, what? I could see the U.S. or the Israelis attacking vessels in the Caspian Sea. But that would open up a can of worms, too, with the Central Asian republics. Like Turkmenistan is, yeah, and Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan all have part of that sea. And, you know, they have studied policies of neutrality, and they would be pissed off.

Oh, the Azeris wouldn't care. They're Israel's lap dogs. They don't have no problem. It would be the other country. Well, the Turkmen and the Turks wouldn't like it. Oh, for sure. The Kazakhs have oil, they have oil refineries there. Oh, yeah.

I mean, listen, I agree with you. But I would not put the Azeris in that list. And they do whatever the Israelis tell them to do. But the other countries, though, they would have that. They would have serious feelings about their ships being hit in the caskine suit. Right? Like, it's not like Russia's going to look at that and be okay with that. Yeah, nobody's going to be okay with that.

Yeah, really, I'm furious. We put it mildly. No, these are relationships. Yeah, these are relationships. relationships and so and they have a shared interest in the future moving forward yeah so this is obviously i think we're on the same page about that um okay so let's talk about oh yeah let's talk about israel did you see egypt entering the war with yemen yes i did see that that's wow that is wow to me like if because people like to put it in context Saudi Arabia has been making this argument that shia is

specifically at the Ansarla, somehow lesser Islam or heretical, and that the Sunnis need to come together. And in some response, the Mecca pack, right? You have all of these countries that are supposed to be Sunni Muslim nations coming together. And Egypt was like, well, I don't even be a part of it. Fair enough. But if you notice, they didn't form the Mecca pact to go after and protect Gaza in a sense of Israel, murdering and mass, you know, mass killing in Gaza.

they formed the Mecca pact to deal with a Muslim country. It's like, what? And then Egypt has quotes where they're like, we're not going to risk ourselves in the pursuit of Gaza. I'm going to stand in for Egypt. This is LCC. And then for this, it's like, we are going to go after and protect Saudi Arabia. So you would not protect this other Muslim nation

or this other Muslim enclave right on your border. However, you will protect Saudi Arabia at all costs. Okay, somebody's being exposed. And some countries are being exposed. Like, that's outrageous. They were saying in the Egyptian parliament, there was like people pissed off, like yelling and whatnot. This is just wild.

And the UAE apparently is also trying to get back involved in this war. Answera La made a different point very clear. We will hit your cities. We will shut down the Suez Canal. Do not mess with us. Yeah. Yeah, well, the lesson has, the lesson clearly has not been learned. It has not.

So, you know, wow. It'll just have to get spicier. Speaking of which, so in the West Bank, we all know about the Israeli, the Jewish settler terrorists who've been, obviously, for years, violently brutalizing the local Palestinians.

Yes. And now they've, with, you know, I guess, they just feel like nothing could ever, ever stop them. They beat up a Washington Post photojournalist lady, and a bunch of European diplomats when they went to visit during the olive harvest season, the photographer had broken bones.

They beat her up for like 10 minutes. It's on video. And with all of that, Netanyahu said, oh, we will look into it, but we're not really sure what happened. I think everyone's sure what happened. But he's claiming they're going to investigate. They have to pay attention

and pretend to care about all this. But anyway, in the midst of all this, the elections are in nine days, and Netanyahu is about, just got endorsed by Trump. I don't know if that, I guess that probably helps him in Israel. In Israel.

Yeah. Yeah, Trump is popular there. But, like, whatever happened to election interference being a problem? I mean, this is his election interference in Israel, isn't it? world like the only Middle East democracy like you know the the the US which is the big funder of Israel the president is endorsing a candidate in your in your campaign I mean it's kind of just it's even more disgusting than usual well they beat that what it was like 80 or more settlers that were involved in that raid or the pogrom if you want to call it that they

beat the reporter apparently with bats and whatnot or sticks or whatever they using a beat of shared broken ribs, part of a finger had been ripped off. Yeah, they put her in the hospital. I mean, she's in the hospital as we speak. They have doing this with impunity. And what's wild to me about it, my mom told me about it the other day, right? She was like, hey, did you see what they did to that reporter in the West Bank? And I said, they do that every day. I've been doing that every day for decades, right? Yeah, like this is only because for whatever particular reason, this has become a focus of news. And when the news media goes there, they're like,

oh my God, I can't believe they're beating us and other people with bats and taking our stuff. Yes, that's what they've been doing. That's what we've been saying they've been doing. They've been doing that every day. You just didn't have your reporters on the ground. And now from their point of view, no consequences. And guess what? They're right.

Beating that reporter is a rational act. If there are no consequences for the act, what stops them from doing so, right? They're trying to get lost. But you know there's protected classes and, you know, a Washington Post reporter is generally a protected class, which is why, although nothing really happened with the killing of Jamar al-Kashoggi, but it did cause inconvenience to Saudi Arabia, right? I mean, they still catch shit about it. Well, I mean, but the settlers, from their point of view, there is no consequence. There are not protected classes as far as they're concerned. From their point of view, we want people to not come here.

We don't want people videotaping this. We don't want people reporting on what's happening on the ground. So we want to intimidate by beating the shit out of every report that comes into the location. That's their point of view. And until there's like some kind of consequence for doing that, they will continue to do that. Like I give you another one, the flotilla. And how attacks on the people in the flotella got increasingly worse up until the point of one woman that says she was sexually assaulted in their prisons. Like they were doing that stuff where they were.

escalating the violence on the people because they didn't want it to continue. And I would put to you, the settlers, the same. The cops ends up coming, I'm sorry, the military police to oversee the beatings as they were taking place. Right. These guys are working in tandem. This is not like one or the other. All of these guys are working in tandem with one another. Nanyahu, yeah, it is election interference, kind of, but it's, is it interference if you're okay with the interference? Israel seems to be okay with the fact that the U.S. president is interfering in. into their quote-unquote into their elections. I know Nanyahu is okay with it. Did you see something about a behind-the-scenes deal with Nanyahu stays in office for two years and then leaves gracefully or something like that? No. How would that work? I saw some reporting about it, that Donald Trump was in, again, take the reporting with a grain of salt, that there was conversations between the White House and other elements of the Israeli government to allow Nanyahu to stay in for additional two years and then

allow him to leave with somebody else coming into fruition because Trump apparently prefers Nanjahou to be in office. I don't know if that's true. Who knows? That doesn't sound right. Yeah, but he is openly saying he wants Nanjahou to stay in office. And for whatever reason, Israel seems to like Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they do all because he did so much for them, right? I mean, he moved the capital, the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and all this other stuff. By the way, I should point out that tomorrow, just as a reminder, we have an expert on the Israeli election system coming on to the show. Professor Gideon Rahat, he's a faculty member of the Political Science Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an international fellow

at the Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine, and the co-author of a book called Reforming Israel's Political System, also published. by the Israel Democracy Institute. Now, this is not going to be some referendum on Zionism here on D-Program. We all know where we stand on that. This is about understanding the mechanics of the Israeli electoral system and questions like,

you know, you just mentioned Jamaral, like what exactly can we expect to see happen in the election and the immediate aftermath with coalition building and so on. Yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting. I mean, it should get a real, window view in regards to Israeli politics. Yeah.

I want to get shows I want to get your opinion on this because you're all both professional political talking head types. Netanyahu is about as popular as AIDS, maybe herpes here in the United States. He then gets on

his soapbox and starts to lecture the American people about complaining about cost of living and high fuel prices. And then immediately after this foreign leader, who is less popular in herpes, gets endorsed by the leader of the Republican Party who's out campaigning in deep red places that should be a shoe in. What is, what are the Republicans thinking here?

Is that really the closing message that you want to have is a foreign leader telling the, telling you're electorate, your people, sit down, shut up, stop crying, be thankful that we're fighting these radical Islamists for you. suck up your or that seems to be what the Republican Party wants the message to be. I think that's insane. I agree with you. I agree with you.

It's like this guy less popular than herpes. At least with herpes, you had sex to get the herpes. Okay, that's not bad. You had some fun. You had some fun. Or you had the police. Oh, the Republican Party has this incredible.

I mean, both parties do, but the Republican Party. even more so than the Democrats, the gap ideologically between what the elites who run the party believe and what the voters believe is unfucking believable. There's just absolutely no relationship whatsoever between what ordinary Republican voters like and what the direction that the party keeps pushing in. That's not quite as true with the Democrats. Is it? It's not quite as true. I mean, you know, like, well, like, for example, I mean, Democrats are a little more in sync ideologically with their, with the rhetoric coming out of their leadership. I don't think so. I mean, okay,

with the rhetoric coming out of their leadership. Yeah. Okay. I don't, I'm not even sure if that's true. Like, like, let me answer to this. Would you prefer to be lied to or would you prefer for them to tell you the truth? I always prefer to that. Yeah. Yeah. But when they're given their rhetoric and they're talking about, but we need to ensure that the inflation is too high and that we need to bring down the gas prices. Okay, well, what are they talking about? Right. And Joe Biden, they were perfectly fine with gas prices going up and they call it Putin's price act. Right. And now they're trying to exploit the fact that Donald Trump is involved in a war, even though they also hate Iran. If you listen to like, they wouldn't necessarily give Iran credit for fighting back when

Rokana was asked, you know, about whether Iran had a right to defend itself. He was like, Like, yeah, kind of, but not the way they kind of did because, you know, they blew up American bases. Okay, is that really right? Yeah, you can't use violence to defend yourself in a war. Yeah, of course. I'm trying to make the point of saying, though, are liberals, I agree that liberals, basic liberals are. That's what I'm talking about. That is the party, right?

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, but like 90% of Republicans are not in favor of the policies that are pushed by the, you know, in open by the president. I don't think that's true. Because he said it was, well, I think it is true because Trump said the exact opposite of what he's doing right now on all counts. Like me, everything that they voted him in for, he is doing the opposite. Correct. But what I'm saying is that I'm not talking. talking about right wingers like me. I'm talking about Republicans. I think that they are all in

like the Magistyle Republican. Trump can do no wrong. I know I got executed from my church on you think you're in a cult. Oh, 100. Oh, God, yes, 100%. No, because we were talking about pride and and as well, saying that America is an exceptional nation is pride and pride is one of things that God hates and i was immediately ted you all love this they called me a communist what well we already know we already know you're a north korean communist that that's fine right but but yeah i mean no it it's it's just it's wild as like it's like so why is it that y'all that y'all do this wait just to be clear you had this fight in church it's on friday morning prayer meeting every friday morning at 6 a m i go to church and and i'm there for like 30 minutes because i have to be here

before seven. So we go there, we sing a hymn, we read a, we read a book, the proverbs of the day, based off the date, and then we have a discussion about it. And one of the things we're talking about is pride. It's like, so here's my question for y'all. Because you're going to keep my mind. Trump was just in town the day before. is just like we're talking about how you want this up i'm not just what i'm glad you want this up i did i 100% brought this up listen i have no problem punch it to my right like at all like not you all know me i'm not the most diplomatic person it's just funny to me that you put this up in the middle of church but go ahead well because well because the principle is the same right if if god hates pride then you can't just you just can't flip on a dime and so i'm so proud of what Trump has done. America is an exceptional country and all this other stuff because if God hates pride and if God establishes and brings down nations, then if you live in a wicked nation,

which we do, then God's going to judge this country. I may as well have just said that that I was denying the faith or something because it was that outlandish. The pastor took umbrage with me and actually made that the topic on last Friday's prayer podcast said it. It was wild. And so just like, no, if we do not bless Israel, then God's going to judge America. I said, I can't find it anywhere in the Bible. Now, I can't see, I can't see where if a nation lives by the sword or dies by the sword and that God takes a special, has a problem with hands that shed innocent blood, rather than a nation or a person. And so our nation does both of these things while actively supporting things that God says

he hates like violence, understricted warfare, and collective punishment. So that's a problem that you have to make. Well, I'm curious. Did the church, the pastor just get angry at you? Or did he have a difference? Oh, no. No.

It was me against eight other dudes and it was off to the race. Did, were they just? Yeah. They were mad at me. Were they using, you know, the Bible? Were they using what were, or were they just yelling at you? They were yelling at me? Like, did they argue?

Like, I mean, I guess, trying to get it did they make an argument as to why you were wrong or did they just get angry like no it was an argument or was it a fight yeah it was a full-on fight it was just like no robie if you don't love america you can leave it that uh you're you're you're too much you're influenced much by your left wing hosts as like no yes yes and it's like it's like no bad influence it's just like no the no the issue is that i actually believe what the bible says them reading it and one thing that god hates that's the bad influence influence it's that bible of course it is well 100% it was like so y'all let me know how many atheists it is that you bring on to that you bring on to bring on to a podcast of you to come talk to you and get challenged on things and then you let me know how i'm wrong whenever i'm taking scripture out the out directly from the bible and not just cherry picking verses showing where you are wrong i said it said you are making the united states donald trump and is an idol you should be ashamed of yourselves wow

And I was removed and I was removed from my ministry position on Saturday as a result. Were you really? I was. Wow. Oh, I'm really starting to hear that. That sucks. I'm not. That's,

listen, that gives you more time to sit in the congregation with my wife and hold her hand. But listen, no, people who think, though, people who are on here and you'll just see one part of me. You don't understand I'm like a full person.

I've always tried to be very consistent with what is that I believe. It doesn't matter if I'm talking to y'all, talking to Tedder J. talking to Sonali calling you a heifer or going to church. I always try to be consistent. I have to tip up because I haven't needed to be coming up. You're good. Okay, you go.

I'll wrap up. I'll wrap up. I'll see you in an hour, JT. All right. It was wild. So let me, we'll wrap up with the comments and then we'll be on our way here because I've got to get ready for the pre-tape. Bridget often tag teams me with Miriam,

except she doesn't need a crystal ball crystal strap on please don't piss her off i don't need her trying to open the straight of trumpoos owl from zaldavar thanks for the ten dollars i'm not going to address any of that if you so i cannot believe there is genociding in this establishment i'm shocked a serious question for the two hosts is there anywhere in the world bad cookies wants to know where someone can go to escape the reach of the american empire or are we screwed from here on out no i don't anywhere. Yeah, but still. Yeah, China, maybe.

Or Iran. Ted, is Clovis a Russian blue? Even your Katzakami? Yes, Makkaden. Clovis is a Russian blue. Dead meme club, thanks very much for the $10. And happy Monday back to you. And Bad Cookie says, we'll wrap it up. Let him have the last word or her.

Robbie, your contrast in ideology is welcomed and wanted perspective. even if I don't agree with you, you're at least willing to talk about it. Some others will just shout you down and call you a limb. And that is very true. With that, Robbie, I'll see you and JT in about 57 minutes. As for everyone else. We'll see you guys at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, 9 to 10 for Tuesday's regular one-hour D. Program. You'll have me for about 40 minutes because I have to do Jeff Dornick's show at 11 my time.

So one. Okay. All right. No worries. See you soon. Bye. Bye, y'all.