DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Bloody Weekend | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.Today we discuss:• Bloody weekend: Australia Bondi Beach massacre claims 15 at Hannukah event, gunman kills 2 Brown students and injures 9, director Rob and wife Michele Reiner killed at their L.A. home.• “Dewoked” coins commemorating the 250th anniversary of the US canceled Frederick Douglass and shackled and unshackled hands, women’s suffrage and a “Votes for Women” flag and the civil rights movement and desegregation. Instead, we’ll get the Mayflower Compact, Pilgrims, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the Gettysburg Address with Lincoln.• A tale of two presidential libraries: Awash in donations, Trump will probably use a foundation to avoid National Archives scrutiny. Biden has raised enough money to purchase a modest home on the beach.• Dude, Where’s My Nuke? A CIA nuclear device loaded with plutonium has been missing in the Himalayas since 1965. Now the glacier where it was lost is melting. What could go wrong?

And here's dead. I'm sorry, did that just happen? Did I just miss that? He missed it. Oh, that's so funny. All right, well, so did you bring us in, John? No. You missed it by less than five seconds.

Okay, well, welcome to D-Program with Jed Rawl and John Kiriaku. It's Monday, December 15th, 2025, as I knock my mic stand over. It's one of those days. Anyway, kind of a bleak weekend, John. Yeah, man, it sure was. I'll tell you, Ted, I went to bed at 11 last night. I kept hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, just to see what was new about Rob Reiner. And then woke up at three.

I was dreaming about Sydney and Brown and Rob Reiner and all hell's breaking loose. And I've been up since 3 o'clock. I figured I might as well write an op an op-ed and make a couple of $100. But otherwise, it was just such an awful weekend. It is. you know. Yeah, and we'll get into all that. And obviously, there's a lot of other stuff to talk about. I mean, you know, we're not, I didn't even put this in the rundown, but today is the deadline for the Affordable Care Act subsidies, enrollment. Oh, my God. The day is the last day for 2026 that an American can enroll for the ACA.

Tens of millions of Americans probably waited till today thinking that maybe Congress would have gotten their act together and they're not going to get done for thousands of dollars a month that they're They can't afford for health insurance. It looks like Congress is going to do what they do best. They're going to disappoint. And that's going to have political ramifications. I can see the Republicans getting more nervous than I even expected them to. Funny story about the coinage for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Presidential Library stories will sort of...

Of all things, yeah. Presidential libraries. And this funny story from the New York, well, funny, but terrifying story from the New York, New York Times about this loss of nuclear device that's been missing in the Himalayas in northern India since 1965. Crazy. So, and funny, I've actually been to that area, so we can talk about that. Wow.

So anyway, I guess we should probably talk about the main event here. So this was a horrific weekend. We'll start sort of like from granular and go meta. So granular, Director Rob. Reiner. It's hard to overstate what a gifted film director, an important influential film director he was. He and his wife both dead in their home in Brentwood. My first thought turned to O.J. Simpson, but I guess we can't blame him. And it's only like four-tenths of a mile from Nicole Brown's house. Weird. Very weird. And my first thought was to blame the LAPD. And their, I mean, their communication

was incredibly incompetent, John. They literally, like, nobody could understand what they were talking about. Like, we're not saying what it not is. And everyone was like, what? Well, the statement they released was a 78-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman were found dead in Rob Reiner's house. I was like, what the? So I go- I said, Google their ages.

I said, hey, you know, S-I-R-I, I don't want to say it because it's sitting right here next to me. How old are Rob Reiner and his wife? and it said, Rob Reiner and his wife were 78 and 65. I was like, oh, my God. So, yeah, we know what happened here. Then my thought turned to what happened to Gene Hackman and his wife. Because, you know, there's a similar age. Exactly my thought.

But then I thought, well, Rob Reiner is not incapacitated. No. Like Gene Hackman's wife. I just saw an interview with him three days ago. He just released a new film. You know, he just did a sequel to Spinal Tap. It's out now in theaters. And so, yeah, so it's crazy.

So it looks like the person of interest that the LAPD is seeking is their son who's had problems with addiction. And even Rob has indicated that he was less than sympathetic at times to, I mean, look, that's a very, very hard road for any, for any parent. So, but anyway. And it just goes to show you, you know, you really never know what's happening in other people. people's families you know that's that's really true never know behind closed doors it's always a secret right when you when you drive by people's homes it's like who knows what's going on there um so yeah and then there's this uh brown university student uh basically there's a classroom in the engineering school um a gunman still on the lamb by the way um he uh he comes into the classroom shoots at least 11 people

Two died. Nine are injured. And then last and certainly not least is this anti-Semitic shooting, father and son suspects who allegedly killed 15 or more. We don't know what this is going to happen. Victims at this Hanukkah gathering at Bondi Beach in Australia. Interestingly, though, the bookend of that is the hatred is also kind of a little bit countermanded by the, The Good Samaritan, who was from shopkeeper who witnessed the whole thing. He was unarmed because Australia doesn't really have a lot of guns, really, and anymore. And he put a stop to it. He was the person who, you know, single-handedly tackled one of the guns and brought an end to this horrible mass shooting. Did you see the video by any chance? I did see the video.

Wow. It's incredible. I was surprised at the restraint, actually, that the guy used. I know myself, and I know that I probably would have tried to disarm the guy, but had I disarmed him, I would have shot him. I would have either shot him or beaten him to a pulp for the simple reason that my philosophy, if I'm involved in a physical confrontation, is I'm afraid for my life and I don't want that person to get back up.

Exactly. I want them to be unconscious. Dead is fine. I'll tell you, in CIA weapons training, we had this session. I remember it as clear as as though it were yesterday. We had a session where one of the instructors said, listen, off the record, God forbid any of you should have to fire a shot in the line of duty. But if you do remember these words, I feared for my life. He said, repeat it to yourself, I feared for my life.

And they taught us that too. Only draw the weapon if you are prepared to kill the person. You're not going to aim at the leg or at the shoulder. You're going to end up. No way, man. I feared for my safety should be the first words that come out of your mouth. Yeah, I think was it hang him high or was it, was it the good, the bad, and the ugly where the guy has,

where Clint Eastwood's sidekick has a racket where he shoots the rope from far away. Oh, I remember that. And it's like, that was hang him high. Hang them high. I think so. And when movies like that came out, I think that was understood to be a joke, right? It was,

and because Americans and other filmmakers were familiar enough with firearms to know that that wasn't possible, and somehow it became a trope, like that you could shoot, you know, why don't you shoot? Even the president has said that at one point, like, shoot the protesters in the legs

or something like that. It's like, no, that's just not how, you're lucky if you shoot them at all, right? like it's like especially if you're in a stressful situation it's not the it's not the shooting range right now you don't have time you know things are moving people are moving things are you're moving that's right um so yeah so um obviously the blame game is a foot uh there was kind of a super i thought a little it was a little cringy to see how uh mayor elect zaron momdani responded to all this as if somehow he was well obviously they were anticipating that right wingerers were going

to say, look, this is because of people like you. And it's like, it just has nothing to do with New York City at all. And it has nothing to do with Mamdani. And just because he's Muslim, he doesn't have, he doesn't owe any explanations to anyone. If it, my, my take would have been like, you know, express your sympathies, like the same way you would express your sympathies for, for anyone. Exactly. But you don't need a fulsome statement.

Exactly. I have a friend from, from home, who posts right wing tropes on Facebook all day long. How the guy earns a living, I have known. idea. But when Mundani was elected, it was just meme after meme of the World Trade Center burning and saying, you know, we tried to keep them out. Now they've gotten all the way in. And I wrote back and I was like, I didn't know the Indians did 9-11 all this time. I thought it was the Saudis. We should take it up with Modi. Oh, my God. Yeah? Exactly. Like out with new information breaking news 24 years later

No I mean it's it's uh yeah so I mean do we yeah what do what do what do we we have a lot of questions to answer um we have a lot to I mean I don't know I mean I don't have anything to say about this other than I think we're going to see I hate okay we are going to play blame game here my blame game is going to be on Israel um so real anti-Semitism is way up for me because of Israel's action in Gaza. In fact, the first thing I thought yesterday, as soon as I saw this on the news, Benjamin Netanyahu made a statement and he just blasted the Australians that they've done nothing to rein in anti-Semitism. It's like, are you kidding? You caused this. You're the biggest

problem. You're the one that's creating anti-Semitism. Yeah. The Australians. Give me a break. That's a joke. Yeah. I mean, what are the Australians supposed to do? I mean, you know, Exactly. Are they supposed to personally hold the hands of every Jewish person in Australia and provide them with personal protection? I mean, they had a giant beach gathering. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like how are you supposed to protect that?

I mean, I'm sure they were there. The Australians do a pretty good job. I don't know. It's just they do. The Australians actually do do a good job. And gun violence is exceedingly rare in Australia. You know, they had a mass shooting, what was it, 10 years ago? and they instituted some of the toughest gun control laws in the world, and it really has resulted.

That's how it is down there in the antipodes, right? Like same thing after the shooting in Chris Church in New Zealand. So obviously, this is horrible. So we've got an ad. Robbie, can you just go ahead and put that up and we'll do it in the midst of our convo here? Okay, so in terms of the Rob Reiner, investigation. I don't have a lot to say about Brown because we just don't really know what happens there. And so when we have more facts to talk about, if they're of interest, we should

mention them. All right, here's the ad. And then we'll, we can talk about Rob. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech. And now there's Rumble premium. An easy way to upgrade your experience with premium. You get ad-free viewing across the platform. No pre-rolls, no interruptions, just the content you came for. Plus, premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos behind the scenes, drops, and more from your favorite creators. Right now, Rumble is offering 10 bucks off an annual subscription. Just go to Rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout. That's Rumble.com slash premium promo code studio. No ads,

more freedom and content you actually care about. That's the deal. So look, we don't want, we want to be careful here, but it does look, we do know what, here's what we know. We know that Rob and Michelle Weiner, both were killed. Killed in place, it's a homicide investigation. Stabbed. Stabbed to death. Crazy. You know, that tends to, you know, from a forensic standpoint,

tends to indicate something personal more than a shooting. The 32-year-old son had a problem with addiction. He's a person of interest. They had a fraught relationship, as parents often do. But apparently, you know, Rob admitted himself that he didn't. didn't handle it very well. And in the meantime, America has just lost one of its, I mean, seriously, the princess bride.

This is spinal tap. I feel bad about the spinal tap. I mean, that's a colossus. I can't even count how many times I've watched it. You watch it. If you've never watched it before, the number of lines that you've heard. Oh, my God. It goes to 11, like, is just amazing.

Yeah. And you may ask, how much more black. could it be? And the answer is none. None more black. Absolutely classic. Yeah. So great. So great. And only an hour and a last week, Variety Magazine had an article on the 100 greatest comedies of all time. And he had like five of them. Yeah. Well, that's five that were his. Yeah. That makes sense. The pacing is always just right. Oh my God. Yes. So yeah, no, I mean, It's seriously, I mean, you know, I mean, obviously he was 78 years old. He lived a full life expectancy.

But we've lost some what probably, we probably lost some more great films that we would have. Yeah, you can say that. You can say that again. His dad just died, what, two or three years ago? Wow. So he was, so he's obviously longevity in the family. Yeah. So we'll see what, it's another tragedy.

And if it is the son, that means like basically three people have been lost. not really too um and uh okay so and then so yeah i mean look i'm not going to make dumb comments about like i mean you know violence i mean violence is part of human society it always has been it always will be um should we do some should we do some uh do something to add to that before we take some questions no there's really nothing to say i i will say i'm surprised and disappointed that here we are uh let's see he they they were for They were found yesterday afternoon at 6 o'clock Eastern time. So here we are more than 36 hours later,

and the NYPD still has not secured a search warrant that would allow them to search the house. I do not understand. I don't get it. No. No. I mean, we just don't have a very competent system here. All right. If you so, thanks for the donation.

RIP Meathead and they indeed reference to all in the family. Johnny Jackson, John, personal question. Do you like your mouse pad? Assuming it's arrived. I do indeed. And I'm using my new mouse right now. Is it better? It's much better.

And you know what? It's actually more comfortable, too. It's ergonomic. So it fits right in my hand. Or it's not the mouse pad. It's the mouse. Yeah. The pad is a whole different thing.

By the way, it's hard to find a good. Remember how mouse pads were everywhere? It was a thing. These to give them away and stuff. And now it's hard to find a good mouse pad. It is. I have this retro mouse pad. By the way, good luck replacing this with the little bump in the front.

So you can rest your wrist. And like, you know, that's a huge thing, especially because I broke my wrist about, well, it's just about a year ago, a little bit over a year ago. And it still hurts. So that support is really worth it. Another question for you, John. Okay, that's a multiple question for the same thing. okay there is a question about about sydney and and i'm going to give do we think the attack is

suspicious already used to manufacture consent for war with iran is that the question it's it's not a conspiracy it's an anti-semitic attack two guys went and just open fire to kill as many people as they can motivated probably by israel motivated by israel and israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and there it is. I don't see a conspiracy. Sorry, what was the question you had? Somebody asked a question about a speech that I'm going to give in Sydney. The answer is yes.

I'm going to Sydney around February 3rd. I'm going to be with Gabriel Shepton. We're going to go to Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and Hobart. and we're going to try to get the word out about an Australian whistleblower who has been incarcerated for about a year now after blowing the whistle on Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

But we don't have any of the details yet. So I don't know the exact dates and I don't know the locations, but I promise, promise, I'm going to put it on the website and my substack and I'll put it out everywhere. Okay. Okay, a question from Nicolas Francoz.

Did we see what happened in Syria? Yeah. Three U.S. soldiers killed by ISIS, presumably. I would agree with that. What do you think is really going on? Isn't the senior ISIS leader, the president of Syria now? Well, the former. That's a good question.

The former senior. Well, he wasn't really, he wasn't the leader of ISIS, right? No. He was one of the original co-founders. Yes. But left ISIS a long time ago. So, I mean, this is not, there was a similar incident at one of these like watchtower kind of facilities in the Syrian desert.

Wasn't this about two years ago, John, maybe? Yes. Where an American soldier, one American soldier, I believe it was, was assassinated or shot or whatever. I mean, look, this is the U.S. occupying an Arab. country. Exactly. And so it's not surprising that, you know, Arabs don't like it, and they're going to take pot shots at our troops. They shouldn't be there. I, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no reason for, yeah, exactly. There's no reason at all for us to be there. So, I mean, so, like, I mean, I think this is the responsibility of the Pentagon, Hegseth should pull them out, the president

should pull them out. It's just like, I mean, the only country prior to the fall of Assad that had any legal basis for being in Syria was Russia because the Syrian government invited them in because they were trying to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Hey, Ted, did you happen to see the swipe that Tucker Carlson took at Lindsay Graham over the weekend? No, I missed it. Oh, it was just perfect. Lindsay Graham flew out to wherever. I think it was Brussels to meet with Zelensky. And he's sitting across the table from Zelensky. And he's congratulating Zelensky on the number of Russians that the Ukrainians have killed. And he says, you're killing a lot of people. You're killing all the right people. It's the best money the American Congress has ever spent. And Tucker's like, what the

fuck? For Lindsey Graham, it's always about killing people. He's only happy when we're out killing people. And it just reminded me of Syria as well. Like, what in the world are we doing in Syria? For sure. I mean, yeah. And not to mention, you know, look, killing people, even if you're a heartless bastard and you don't care about human life, it doesn't really win wars or conflicts. I mean, you know, if that were true, you know, we would be currently occupying Vietnam. We killed two million of them. They killed 58,000 of ours, 10,000 of whom died in accidents, right? So they only really killed 48,000 of ours. I mean, you know, Ho Chi Men said that to John Foster Dulles when they met, right? He paid.

famously said, you know, like, you will win every battle, and we will nevertheless win the war. And he was right. They did. That's how this work. In almost every war that the U.S. has lost, in all of them, right? We killed a lot more of the locals than they killed us. A lot more people. Yes. Killing doesn't, killing isn't a metric. You know, you still hear that on NPR. Like, oh, Ukraine killed so many Russians, which first of all is unverified. We don't really know that, right? Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not true. But the point is, They're like, you know, oh, but so therefore Russia should make accommodations. It's like Russia won World War II.

It lost 28 million people. It's like they still won. It's not about that. You know, even in Afghanistan, I remember in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, General Tommy Franks, who was the commander of Sentcom at the time, would say things like, you know, we have killed a hundred Al-Qaeda. leaders, we've almost wiped them out. And then six months later, it's like, we've killed 1,500 al-Qaeda leaders. We've almost wiped them out. And then a year later, you know,

we've killed 5,000 al-Qaeda leaders. It's like, dude, al-Qaeda is growing because of you. Right. I kind of only had but a couple of hundred people in the beginning. It's the, yeah, that that's right. I mean, was it the Friday night follies? It was the something Follies during the Vietnam War where the Pentagon would announce their casualty figures and the media would dutifully traips in to listen to these numbers that may or may not have been true as if they were meaningful, right? I remember as a kid, the numbers of like, you know, Vietnam and Viet Cong and all these things killed, they were announced literally at the same time as the results of that day's

NASDAQ and Dow Jones Industrial Average. Today on the Dow Jones Industrial Average down two points, 220 killed in Vietnam, three Americans, 240, you know, like, that's how they were. It had, it meant absolutely nothing. Nothing. Ted, I'll tell you another funny thing. I worked for a guy at the agency when I was a brand new junior analyst. He told me the funniest doggone story. It was about how he really made his career as an analyst.

He was working on Vietnam, specifically on North Vietnam. And he's looking at over. head imagery one day and he says oh my god it looks like they're going to that they're starting to clear land in the jungle to build a road and if i follow the trajectory the road is going to china so he writes this article for the president's daily brief page one the north vietnamese are building this road it's going to china so over the course of like a year he's following the construction of this road and indeed he's right. It's going to China. Next thing you know, the director of the office comes to him and says, the president wants a briefing on the road. He gets in this chauffeered car. He goes to the White

house. The president's there with the vice president and the CIA director. This is during the Nixon administration. And he's like he's got these top secret overhead satellite photos. And he's showing the construction of the road. Okay. Years later, we're friends with the Vietnamese. and he makes his first liaison visit to meet with Vietnamese intelligence. And at the end of this, you know, three days of dinners and receptions and such, he says, I got to ask you guys about this road. You know, I made my career. I briefed the president.

I got five promotions. It was all about the road. His whole career was about the road. And they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Chinese gave us some money. And they said, listen, since trade would be so much easier with the road, why don't you just use the money to build a road? road. They were like, oh, okay, they built the road. That was it. That was the great chief. Intelligence. Intelligence was all over the new road. That's insane. And totally, totally like

classic and all the time. Unsung Pat, thanks for the money. We reserve the label, this is just more commentary. We reserve the label, horrific bloody weekend for acute, narratable tragedies close to home, while the chronic, horrific bloody reality of ongoing global conflict becomes a normalized backdrop. Well, that's true. I remember I spent a couple of weeks in Karachi, Pakistan. At that time, there was a roughly 20 to 30 bombings a day in Karachi, terrorist bombings, probably from Islamists. And it was, they weren't in the news anywhere, including in Karachi, because it's just part of the scenery if something happens all the time by definition it's not news yep yep um i've said before if i could interrupt you for one second i said before again when i was a junior

analyst i used to volunteer for weekend duty all the time so i could make a little bit of overtime save some money for a house so um there was a there was a bus bombing in israel one weekend and like two people got killed and whatever a dozen injured and i had to call the analyst in and the analyst had to write something for the president and i put it in the the weekend notes that you used to leave on everybody's chair before the days of email and uh the sri lankai analyst came up to me monday morning and he says so he says bus bombing in in israel huh and i said yeah he said two people got killed i said right he said you know how many sri lankans were killed this weekend 65 65 people

We're killed in Sri Lanka this weekend, and nobody gives a shit. Yeah. It's the life, it's the world we live in. Sudan right now. Yeah, Sudan right now. For example. Because Sudan doesn't have oil or diamonds. It just has sand and gravel.

Nobody's interested. Yeah. Mania the cat. Yeah, mouse pad merch for D-program. That's a good idea. I like that. Okay. Yeah.

Polar plunger is saying that the, according to the Syrian Interior Ministry, the gunman was a member of the Syrian government's own security forces. That's what happened in Afghanistan, about a thousand times. All the time. Yeah, people would join the Northern Alliance. I always called them the Northern Alliance military, but they would join the puppet government regime. And I don't know if they were radicalized before they went in, probably some.

Probably. And they were probably Taliban agents. And then, you know, but others probably were recruited. like, hey, do the right thing for your country. Question for you, John, from light fixing. Could you please explain the difference between Sunni and Shia as it pertains to radical Islam, or is there not really a meaningful difference? At the end of the day, the difference isn't meaningful,

but there's a chasm that separates Sunnis from Shias. Rather than talk about it for an hour, which we could. Easily. The easy way to look at it is thusly. And I used to push back on this, but I don't anymore because I've come to believe it. The Shias are akin to the Catholics of the Muslim world. They have a hierarchy of Ayatollahs. You could be an imam, above him is the Hodgatoll Islam, above him is the Ayatollah, above him is the grand Ayatollah.

It's like the Pope, right? The Sunnis don't have any such formal structure, any way. can be the prayer leader. Well, they need now, now, post-World War I, right? Well, no, I mean. What about the Caliph? Yeah, that was more political, though, than any. That was a political leader who had religious credentials.

Okay. There are still people with religious credentials, like the members of the Saudi Ullama, for example. Oh, because like Bin Laden and other radicals, they always wanted the return of the caliphate. They hold the West responsible for that, rightly so. Yeah, but bin Laden at all had zero religious credentials. Nothing is nothing. Never studied the religion, never.

Okay, so as it pertains, sorry, you were saying, as it pertains to, sorry, you were saying, as it pertains to. Yeah, so, and, you know, the differences are even more stark physically, where Shia mosques are absolutely gorgeous. They use a lot of mosaic tile and geometric designs. They're absolutely beautiful. just like Catholic and Orthodox churches are so beautifully decorated. Sunni mosques are just generally a great big, empty room painted white. They're austere. Osteer.

Yeah, and Shia carpets are much more flamboyant. Oh, my gosh, yes. And they allow imagery of animals and plants and stuff. That's how you can tell if it's an Iranian carpet. That's exactly right. Like an Afghan carpet is going to be geometric. Yeah, and for the Sunnis. So culturally

Yes Yeah Stick is further up ass with Sunnis I think that's exactly right They're the Missouri Methodists Yeah that's right You know this is radically simplified For the purpose of Robbie's going to get mad at us

We have to make sure we don't go too far No we won't go too far No need I don't even know the answer to this question yet But plans for New Year's Eve question And thanks for the money me home alone as always i'm generally tried to be alone for new year's eve i feel like new year's eve is amateur night and it's full of drunks on the road uh so i you know for me if i want to go out to a bar drinking i'd rather go like on a cold tuesday when no one's around and the place is

quiet and dead that's just how i know like the place you and i went drinking the first time we got together oh fantastic we started the show so great yeah um you want to answer that question or You know what? I'm going to a wedding in Sydney, Australia on New Year's Eve. That sounds lovely. Yeah, I'm very excited, actually. All right. I got a good Australia in December and again in February. We're holding you personally responsible for fighting all anti-Semitism in Australia.

Yeah, exactly. It's going to be on me. Of course, I am, according to the political director of the Israeli foreign minister's office, I am a noted anti-Semite. Of course. Well, you know, if you're going to be an. anti-Semite. It should be a noted. It would be a noted one at least. Yeah, yeah, always. By the way, this is sarcastic. Yes, sarcastic everybody. Yes.

Elliot Covert, I can't believe we have to say that, but yeah, we do. Elliot Covert, did you hear Tucker, so this is for you, John, obviously, because you're the Tucker connection here, say that he was going to buy a house in Qatar, Fox. He also wounded Palestinian refugees in Doha this weekend. Yeah, I did hear him say that. You know, the last time I spoke to him, He talked about buying a house in Dubai, but I took that as kidding. I did hear him say that he was going to buy a house in Doha. I think he's still kidding. He lives so far out in the sticks in, like deep in the forest in Maine.

When I flew up there the last time, it took me two hours to drive from the airport in Portland. it was ridiculous so and during the snow it must be rough to get in and out and i'll tell you what he was a half an hour late for our dinner because he had been fly fishing and when he pulled in his um his reel uh and turned to walk out of the river there was a moose staring at him and he said he just stood there in this stare down with the moose for a half an hour because they're big and they'll get up and they'll go like this and they'll clubby at a death yeah they're they're dangerous yeah yeah And so... Territorial.

So he just had to stand there in the river until the moose got bored and walked away. Local problems. I had a friend who attended the University of Alaska. He said there were, you know, mooses, plural, mees, all over the campus. And that students had to learn. Like sometimes you're late for class

because of a showdown like that. Yeah. And you're not going to win. By the way, even John Deere will do that too. They will probably not kill you, but they can really hurt you. But they'll stomp you. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, most people think of deer as shy and they'll just run away and mostly. Roby Bang Bang. What's our take on Candice talking to Erica? Ah, they're having their big tete-a-tete today. I think it's today, right? It is today. Tucker said something over the weekend on his podcast that just threw me for a loop.

He likes to make fun of Candace. He likes Candace. But he thinks Candice is a little nutty, as do I. I think Candice is a lot nutty, actually. Yeah, for sure. But anyway, he said that Candace has been very specific in saying that the Egyptian Air Force has been following Charlie Kirk's wife and has been following her for many months. And he says, I know that to be 100% true. I was like, what?

How? What are you talking about? Yeah, why? The Egyptian Air Force doesn't give a shit about Charlie Kirk or his wife. Yeah, why should they? And what are they just flying around Arizona, right? Hovering over her house? Yeah.

Why Egypt? Come on, man. Well, but I'm glad that the subject of Erica Care came up because rumors are flying all throughout the world of American politics. Yeah. That basically she'll become the JD Vance in order to become the heir apparent to Maga world in a post-Trump situation will divorce Usha, who is an immigrant and or, you know, It has dark skin and therefore won't fly as well with Maga World and marry the sainted widow, Erica Kirk.

I have one problem with this theory, which is that like me, J.D. Vance is from southwestern Ohio and from a poor family and therefore are not stupid. And whatever else we think about him. And the thing is, he can get divorced and get away with that. But Erica Kirk loses her position as sainted widow if she gets with, she becomes the home. homewrecker of the Vance family. So even if, and I'm not even, I'm just assuming that these two are attracted or interested in each other. I don't even know that to be true at all.

None of us do. It may be a complete crap, you know, just because of that one photo that, you know, everyone, you know, talked about, about them, you know, hugging. That could just be a misplaced hand on her part. It was, it was the photo. And then his completely unrelated comment that he hoped that his wife would, you know, come to Jesus someday or some, such thing. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, look, for all I know, all is well in Ushah J.D. world, although

there's rumors that it's not. You know, apparently she's a Democrat, so she's maybe not, but, you know, she knew what he was doing? I don't know. It's just, but what do you think of all, what do the rumor, I don't, I don't care about the substance of the rumors. What does it mean when these kind of rumors go around, this kind of, you know, not really palace intrigue, but like when this kind of gossiping is at the center of the world of politics. Honestly, I think they're just meaningless distractions. See, I think it's, I think it has meaning. Do you really?

Yeah, I think the meaning of it is the fact that it's happening. And that that's, those are the kind of discussions that people have in non-democracies in, in, in, that's a good point. Think about it, right? Like, if you're in Qatar, like, oh, what's this, what's this one doing? What's that one doing? This one's cheating with that one. And it's, you know, we're not having discussions about politics, about policy. We're having discussions about, you know, who does J.D. Vance want to fuck.

Yeah, that's a good point. Anyway, so to me, that's it. Well, let me ask you, though, for people like Candace, somebody, Frazmatas commented that Candace is now, she's the new Alex Jones. I think that's probably right. Yeah. But is she doing this for just for clicks? the thing with Mrs. McCrone,

Brigitte McCrone, or the thing with Erica Kirk or these fights that she's having with different people, is that just for clicks? Or do you think she really believes this stuff? If she, well, you know, either way, she's the Alex Jones. Because Alex Jones now says that, oh, no, no,

he never meant any of it. It was all about entertainment. I don't know, you know, John. I mean, I've been asked that about myself. Like, do you really believe the things you say Ted. And it's like, of course I believe the things I said. If I was going to come up, if I was going to come up with beliefs that I didn't really believe in, I'd come up with some that would have me on MS now every night. Exactly. Or Fox or something. Exactly. I mean,

these beliefs are not making me wealthy. These are, and like J.D. Vance, I'm not stupid. You know, I could definitely do a better job sucking up to the power elite. So I don't know. I mean, I, because of my own personal experience, I, and also my personality, I'm very literal and to a fault. And like if someone just sort of says, like, this is what I believe, I take them at face value unless I have proof to the contrary. Now, Rush Limbaugh, for example, I know did not believe. He wasn't even a conservative. It was all an act. All of that. He voted Democratic. Completely an act. Which to me is bizarre. I mean, it must be the level of psychological, you know, dissonance in your, you know, it must be ripping your

soul apart to get up every morning unless you just don't really care about politics and it's just like an actor reading lines the the the the Republican woman the blonde with a really long hair she's kind of out of vogue now because she was a neocon she wrote books and books and books about you know and Colter thank you thank you who I threatened to sue once but well one of my one of my closest friends from college lives in L.A and I was out in L.A. And I called him and I said, hey, I'm in town. Let's get together for dinner. He says, awesome. Let's meet up in Korea town. There's this restaurant that he loved in Korea town. Do you mind if I bring a friend, he says? I said, no, the more the merrier.

Sure. He walks in with Aunt Colter. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So it turns out they were dating at the time. Oh, yeah. She got, she got around. She could not have been any lovelier, which threw me for a loop. And it made me realize that it was all in action. She's very shy, too. She's very shy. Very, very me. She and I are both distributed by the same syndicate or what we were.

And there was a syndicate party, and I saw her at the party, and I wanted to pitch, and I still think this would have been a good idea, a Ted and Anne left versus right, yell fest show. Awesome. Right? I mean, you know, I mean, far left versus far right. She's very intelligent. She saw me coming. She ran away. I think, you know, I'm like, I'm tall.

I think she was thinking I was like physically threatening or something. Oh, for heaven. I wanted to just talk to her and have a drink and pitch it to her. And later I learned like, oh, she was scared of you. And I'm like. That's nuts. And so she's like a little bird. I was, she dated Bill Maher, too.

Yeah, she dated Bill Maher too. She's since broken up with my friend. But I was shocked at, like, all through the conversation, completely mainstream positions. It was all about selling books. It was all about getting on TV. She had some newsletter that she was trying to sell, you know. And she's a firebrand. Oh, yeah.

It's all an act. I mean, yeah, I have a hard time. I mean, obviously, you went to prison for what you believe. Seriously. I mean, there's no, your, your, your credential. are unimpeachable. So, okay, so let's talk, well, we have, we have another ad. 18 minutes left.

Let's put up an ad and get to our other stories. Looking for smarter ways to browse and enjoy your favorite content without ads. Get the Perplexity Pro bundle with Rumble Premium for just 1999 a month. When you sign before at December 31st, normally a $29.99 value. With Rumble Premium, you'll get an ad-free viewing experience across all your devices and access to exclusive premium content. like the show that John and I just recorded over the weekend about our favorite books. No interruptions, just the videos and streams you love anytime, anywhere,

plus perplexity pro boosts your productivity with unlimited research, unlimited uploads, exclusive member perks, and access to the latest and most advanced AI models for faster, smarter answers every day. Save over 30% on this powerful bundle. Head to rumble.com slash premium before December 31st to sign and unlock your premium experience. all right john we got a well we will continue to answer your questions um i'm scared that we wouldn't get to this so i want to skip to dude where's my nuke the new york times reported this did you know about this story no and and three different people sent it to me saying you've got

to see this did you know about this no i never knew about it so do you want to do you want to tee it up or the CIA in the 1950s in response to what appeared to be a Chinese nuclear test had a group of CIA officers who were experienced mountain climbers climb like one of the tallest mountains in the world on the edge of Tibet with a nuke and with these some kind of testing equipment in order to set up a camp up there pointed at China so they could they could spy on Chinese you know nuclear testing and they lost they lost the nuke yeah I mean so so so they had they had Indian partners yes basically their Sherpas yes so they go they climb up there with the CIA team goes up there presumably they had the best climbers they could but they weren't like the climbers like the Indians were no they go up there and as anyone who's ever watched into then there knows can happen the weather turned bad.

So they're in a panic. The Indian commander is told, you know, basically has to decide what he's going to do. He pulls his men out. He's like, get the fuck out of there and leave the thing there. We'll get it later. Like, just leave it. Now, so it's a generator.

It's not a bomb, but it's a generator that's analogous to the nuclear generators that's used for long-distance space probes that, like, for example, Voyager in 1976 that's still working all these years later. And basically, it's just power that goes on forever, kind of. So it's got uranium 238 and plutonium 239, both of which are highly, obviously, radioactive and highly toxic. No detonation device, because it's not a bomb. But it's very dangerous, and it's not going to blow up, but you can get a major radioactive leak. in 1960. So they leave it up there. In 1966, there's a mission by the Indians to go up and try

to get it back. It fails. They go back in 1967. Again, they can't find it. And when they go up there, they find that the ledge where it was is completely gone. All everything's gone. They just find like a stray cable wire. And it's like, oops. They basically figure it fell a couple thousand feet down a crevasse. There's no fucking way to get it. It's up there forever. Adding to the fun, this is at the headwaters of the Ganges River,

which is, aside from being a major tributary, like the Mississippi River is for the United States, it's also, you know, sacred for Hindus. Yeah. I've been up there. I've been to that area of India and Pakistan, the northern areas. I've crossed a rope bridge over the Ganges up there.

Let me tell you it's one of the most terrifying experiences I have. It's one of the most terrifying experiences you can ever have. It's literally thousands of feet over. You can barely see the river snaking below. And a lot of the boards are missing. Some of them have been stolen for firewoods by the locals. It's three, it's basically four ropes. So there's two ropes to hold the boards and two ropes that are your handrail.

Oh, my God. And the wind is something fierce. So the wind, you know, so the rope's going back and forth, 30, 40, 50 feet, like, creaking. It's old. And you're holding on to both of these things. Anyway, the point is, that's the kind of place where they were. And so now, because of climate change, the glaciers are melting. And that's causing all sorts of problems that, like, for example, the Lake Saras problem in Tajikistan, that we can talk about some other time.

But with the water's melting, there's concern that all the radioactivity could get out and into the Ganges. That's right. Now, as a former physics student, I have to say, John, I'm not that worried because water makes radioactivity go away. And if it goes into the water, it's not like you're going to have radioactive Ganges all the way out to the Indian Ocean. That's not going to happen. But what you could do, you really could have a major Chernobyl type event, like in terms of radioactive release in northern India, that could, you know, kill people and elevate massive cancer risk and all that. I mean, it could be a giant disaster. It could be leaking right now.

That's nuts. But totally believable. So I don't know. So the question now is, what should, I mean, the Indian government has been concerned about that. They showed an image of some report that the Indian government commissioned back in the 1980s in the New York Times article. So obviously they're well aware. It seems to me like if for no other reason, but for, I feel like for just because it's the right thing to do, but also it would be great PR for the U.S. to say, we clean up our messes.

And we're sorry about this. But we're going to send in, you know, team from the International Atomic Energy Commission and our top nuclear experts. And we're going to try to retrieve this thing. Make it right. Yeah. But we won't. We won't do that. And even if we did, they probably wouldn't announce it.

Although I would because it's been made public. Yeah, it's public now. There's nothing classified about it. It's crazy. Well, hey, just a little bit of news. perhaps on the, partly on the strength of our call-in show on Friday, which did very well, by the way. So if you guys want more Collins, let us know, because we're thinking of doing that again. We are now number eight on Rumble. We have finally beaten Alex Jones on Rumble.

We are ahead of them. That's not my metric. That's Robbie's metric. So I'm just quoting here. But anyway, okay, I have to laugh, John, about this story of about the presidential libraries. Yeah, it's pretty funny. So Donald Trump, you know, as a sitting president, unsurprisingly, and he has a great facility for fundraising, is a wash in donations. Yeah, no surprise.

Like Obama, who he copies in more ways than I would like, he is taking it, he's likely not to want the National Archives to administer his presidential library, because if they did, researchers like you and I, John, could go and, like, pull up stuff that is appropriate for us to have. So in order to, for Obama, in order to avoid that, and basically has set up a personal foundation to control his hideous, so brutalist Soviet-style library in Chicago. One of the most disgusting buildings in the United States. It's a big fuck you to the city of Chicago. But anyway, Trump is likely to do the same thing. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, poor guy, he's raised only $11 million for his presidential library. No one wants to donate money. I'm like, I'm pretty sure his house in Delaware might not be worth a lot less than that. I know a guy, I know several people who have houses that are worth more than that. The houses aren't that impressive. And he's had an

ocean front house at rohoboth beach for decades and i know what those houses go for they're like three four million oh no no no if if you're a quarter of a mile in from the beach it can be three or four million yeah on the beach yeah serious house where is where where you keep your classified documents next to your muscle car yeah exactly exactly so so i mean what what does this i mean should we care i mean First of all, I think there should be a law that you shouldn't be able to create a national, a presidential library that's not under the control of the National Archives for the simple reason that all the documents, both paper and digital, that are created in a presidential administration, are created and funded by the American taxpayer. And subject to the Government Documents Act. They belong to us, to we the people. Yes.

And no former president should be able to deny access to those. That's right. So to me, that's just a simple, that shit belongs to us. I agree. And then there's, so, but that's, Congress would have to act and you'd need a president to agree with it and sign that into law. So that's not likely to happen anytime soon. I think, I think once, you know, presidents accrue power of any kind, they keep it and their, and their successors keep it as well. What do you make of the fact that Joe Biden can't get any money for his library? Joe Biden, in my view, is the Herbert Hoover of our time. You know, in the late 18th century, I'm sorry, the late 19th century, we had a string of, you know, forgotten one-term presidents. That's Joe Biden. That's how Joe Biden's going to go down into history. Nobody gives a shit about the Biden presidency, just like nobody gives a shit about the Calvin Coolidge presidency or the Warren G. Harding presidency, you know? Although Scott Stentis would argue that that Coolidge is a very underrated president.

Oof, I disagree. I think Cooper, I think Herbert Hoover was a very underrated president. That's true. And it's a little unfair that he was blamed. I agree. It is unfair because it was Coolidge's economic policies that gave us the, anyway, that's neither here nor there. But I think that Joe Biden was a bad president. Terrible.

There's nothing to show for his four years. years as president except you know he would he would argue that like he that he fixed the pandemic but the truth is it's for trump policies i don't believe i don't believe i don't believe that biden would have authorized operation warp speed i think democrats would have wanted too many tests they would have like they would have been like we really have to make sure everything is like tip-top shape and i think that's right i think that's right i mean talk about a flip-flop huh well not to mention political suicide on Trump's part. He would have been reelected if he hadn't done that. I think that's what made so many Republicans sit on their hands on Election Day.

Yeah, for sure. But Joe Biden, I mean, what's his crowning achievement? War with Russia? Yeah. I mean, that's what it comes down to. Supporting Netanyahu and his genocide. Supporting Netanyahu? He was a terrible president. And not to mention, there was no one at the helm. I mean, literally he never spoke to the American people. There were no press conferences, no speeches. You know, he literally, being a communicator is an important part of the job. And, you know, think of it this way, too. If you're a rich guy, what do you get out of making a million or multi-million dollar donation

to the Joe Biden presidential library? Nothing. I can see what you'd get with Donald Trump. You'd look like a fool. Yeah, you would. I mean, although, you know, Bill Clinton raised money for his giant crazy, uh, although it's It's a great looking library. It is, but Obama just looks, I, I'm afraid of it when I look at it.

It looks like, you know, it's like Pyongyang called it wants its building back. Seriously, exactly. Yeah, so by the way, Phil Chats is asking me if I made it through the Salon Tunnel when you went to Afghanistan. And yes, I did. The Salang Tunnel connects northern Afghanistan to southern Afghanistan through the Hindu Kush Mountains. It's a miracle of Soviet engineering designed back in the 50s and finalized in the 70s. And it's been through hell. There's been battles fought inside the tunnel.

Sections of it have collapsed. It's got dirt, it's got a dirt roadbed still. It's like full of dust. There's no ventilation shafts. Oh, my God. It is a fucking beast. And you go through there and you're dodging trucks coming the other direction that are trying to pass people in the tunnel and it goes on and on and on it's a monster it's one of the funest things i've ever done

in my life but like holy shit what a weird experience there's hardly any lighting in most of it because it's a piece of shit because it's afghanistan they're not being his name gained it's a miracle that it's still standing and john let's see quick question uh we left a message last he left this message uh ali said did you know that kuwait has implemented the death sentence for drug dealers as of today yeah They had the death sentence back in the 80s, and then they did away with it after the liberation in 91. I don't know why in the world they brought it back. Even the Emirates don't have the death penalty unless the drugs are destined for the Emirates.

When I was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff, I went to Abu Dhabi to meet with the chief of the national police. And he told me that. I thought it was just so nuts. But he said every single day they arrest or intercept. Nigerian drug mules transiting Dubai airport and if they have onward flights they take the drugs

and just let them go and then they destroy the drugs but if the trip ends in the Emirates they execute them do they shoot them or yeah they shoot them wow okay yeah crazy unsung pat thanks for the five bucks aren't these artifacts

the peoples yeah Yes. They are. Yes. Quick, very quickly, we got a minute left. I'm sorry we didn't, but maybe it only deserves a minute. Next year, 250th anniversary, nickel dime quarter. Basically, they've whitified and de-wokified that the Biden's plan,

Biden's plans were for Frederick Douglass, women's suffrage, civil rights movement, commemoration, and desegregation. Instead, it's all going to be back to sort of the history that you and I grew up with in high school. Mayflower Compact, Pilgrims. I mean, to me, the part that I really object to is Washington, Jefferson, Madison. Washington Jefferson have been on lots of money already. Madison, no. But, you know, I mean, Madison was on one of those commemorative dollars, I think it was.

One of the quote-unquote gold dollars that are not made of gold. But, I mean, those guys have had their, have been on money. James Madison, not so much. So, I don't know, what do you think? I mean, I guess the symbolism of a country does matter. It does. And I think it's disgraceful. One of the things that I really love.

Surely we could have done both. We absolutely could have. And, you know, Obama wanted to take Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with Harriet Tubman. Yeah. Trump nixed that. Biden did nothing to reverse Trump's decision. And now Trump's in again, and people are already forgetting who Harriet Tubman was.

I think we could, yeah, we could create a, I mean, seriously, we could create a new bill and put Harriet on there. Absolutely. She deserves, she deserves a place. Andrew Jackson's had a nice run. I'd rotate them out. You know, that's what I would do. Yeah, sure. Why not?

I mean, it's weird to me. Lincoln's losing money. Yeah, I feel bad about that. But he's got the five. He does. Yeah. And the five is my favorite bill, by the way. Like if you have like sometimes I go to you know when you can choose your bills at the bank we got to go I'll get like you know like 50 fives and then it's so convenient because like everything's now all small things are in fives now so tip for the tip for the car for the car lot guy five bucks you know a lot of fives anyway john always a pleasure looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow good to see you ted Monday through Friday 9 a.m. Deep program with ted roll and john care you always here thanks for watching following and

sharing the show. Don't forget to donate. You guys have been slacking on that, but we appreciate you. It shouldn't have said that, but whatever. Speaking of stuff, we shouldn't say, TMI show with Ted Roll and Manila Chan coming right up where Robbie's about to raid the show. If you're on Rumble, it's going to be automatic. If you're on YouTube, you've got to do it yourself. Bye, all. Bye, bye, John. Thank you.