DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - CamerGoon Squad | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Are government goons at “shithole countries” on Trump’s payroll? Four journalists, including reps of the New York Times, AP and the BBC, investigating a secret Trump plot to deport migrants to Cameroon—none of them Cameroonian, all of them under strict protection by US court orders not to deport them—were arrested and roughed up in Yaoundé. The AP reporter was beaten up by the police, who also confiscated their phones, cameras and laptops. • Trump announced a $10 billion U.S. contribution to rebuilding Gaza at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace, describing the organization as the premier world body for international peace and harmony. What of the UN? Where will the money come from? • Backed by the IDF, Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian American man, 19, during an attack on the village of Mukhmas. • Rarely has the U.S. prepared to conduct a major act of war with so little explanation or public debate as Trump prepares to attack Iran again.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall/id1825379504

Good morning. Thanks for joining us. It's Friday, February 20th, 2026. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Raul and John Kiriaku. John, I apologize in advance for my cat. He's jumping around like crazy. And so he may well make noises, knock over my computer, attack the screen, walk in front of me. Or maybe none of that will happen. I don't know. But he's been going to hunt. He's hunting. Yeah, it's that time of the year. Yeah, he's got things to, he wants to kill. He should get a job with the State Department. Yeah, seriously. So, that's the primary duty to kill. Please, indeed.

Please like, follow and share the show. Thanks for your generous support so far. I don't even check, but, you know, we're doing great in terms of subscribers, watch hours and everything. So things are moving along in the right direction. And that's thanks to you guys. So we really appreciate you.

We're going to be talking about the situation in Cameroon where American reporters from prestigious press outlets were basically brutalized while trying to investigate some deportations by the administration of people who are not even Cameroonian who were basically dumped in Cameroon. The Cameroonian authorities decided their thugs decided to beat up reporters from the AP, the New York Times, and the BBC. really crazy. Also, John, I want to ask you about this $10 billion pledge that Trump has made to his own

Board of Peace. Where's the $10 billion coming from, I want to know? The Israeli settlers, right-wing goons in the West Bank, have murdered another American. This one, a 19-year-old young man, a Palestinian-American with a U.S. passport, during a violent thuggish attack on the village of Mukmas. We'll get into that. And it looks certainly last, but certainly not least, we're going to bring you up to date on the tensions with Iran

and where the administration looks like it's going. And I think we have some insight that you're not going to find elsewhere. So with all that, John, should we just get into Iran right away? And we can put that aside before we start answering some questions. and if you have questions, please post them in the Rumble Feed or the YouTube feed, and we will get to all of them if we possibly can. Make sure you make them as clear and concise as possible. Most of you are very good at that, but a few people try to use a lot of abbreviations.

And this is a fast-moving show, and we don't know what you're saying. You know, I'm not that intelligent, so we have to, like, I'm reading them and trying to figure out what you have to say. So be as lucid as possible. Not like, don't Joe Biden on this stuff. Okay, so let's do Iran, John. Yeah, so I have a friend, a former CIA officer, who is very, very well connected in the White House. And he said that his White House contact told him early this morning

that the United States is prepared to attack Iran on Monday or Tuesday. The president has said that the Iranians have 10 days to come to an agreement and blah, blah, blah. He always does that. And then he'll attack after two of the 10 days or three of the 10 days. The bottom line is this. My friend says that the only anti-war voices, the only anti-war voices are Tulsi Gabbard and J.D. Vance. That's it, that Marco Rubio and Benjamin Netanyahu are in charge of this policy. Pete Hegseth is a hangar on and the joint chiefs of staff.

And remember this, these are not the joint chiefs who were the joint chiefs a year ago. Donald Trump has replaced all of them with loyalists. And so they're just along for the ride. So the bottom line is get used to the idea that next week we're going to be at war. So last time we did this, we were at war basically the way it was. was for 12 days, the United States attacked military targets and the nuclear energy facilities that were buried deep underground. It doesn't look like we got them completely, even with the bunker busters in Iran.

That went on for 12 days. Iran retaliated in sort of a pro forma kind of way where they kind of announced in advance, watch out, here come some attacks, and they sent simultaneous drone and missile attacks to Israel. And basically, though, the Israelis, I think with the exception of one or two, basically were able, because they knew they were all coming, were able to get to knock them almost all out of the air. This is expected to be maybe a broader attack, maybe just military targets, but maybe also political targets as well in Tehran. And government buildings, that kind of thing. This feels a lot like a server.

conflict a little bit because the effort is regime changed by air war. And that doesn't work. It never worked. It did work in Serbia. It worked in Serbia. Okay, but that was an unusual situation. In Iraq, we started bombing Iraq in, what was it, late January of 1991. And I remember General Schwarzkopf bragging that we were bombing Iraq back in, um, what was it, late January of 1991.

We were bombing Iraq back into the Stone Age. Those were his words. And it's like, no, no, we didn't. We destroyed the civilian infrastructure, which of course is a war crime. But no, they recovered rather quickly. And Iran is more than twice the size. It's extremely mountainous. And air war is not going to win this thing.

No, it's not going to. I mean, so one thought, had is like let's knock off the supreme leader the venezuela model will decapitate the top but we'll leave the government in place not effectively basically um trying to terrorize the remaining government to doing what we want when we ask them to i don't know it's a that's a new world john it's not really there's no i don't think there's enough history here to really tell us or it's an old world it's like let's turn uh you know let's conquer a country and turn it into a vassal state um i'm not not really sure if there's much precedent here. The other thing is the Iranians probably are not

going to retaliate in a pro forma way. I mean, for domestic consumption alone, that just wouldn't work. No, that's exactly right. Listen, they're going to launch whatever they can launch at Israel. They'll send drones or whatever rockets they have. But I think that there's a real danger of the Iranians using missiles, including hypersonic missiles against American targets, whether it's Rashid Air Base in Qatar, whether it's one of several bases in Kuwait, whether it's the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, or, you know, there have been conversations that we've had about how do you defend against a hypersonic missile aimed at an aircraft carrier? And you can't.

So I don't think this is going to be some kind of cakewalk where the regime just, collapses under its own weight. That's not Iran. And if that's what people at the Pentagon and the White House think is going to happen, they know nothing about Iran or about Iranian history. Now, the other thing is the messaging, right? So the messaging to Iran through the press has been basically, we're trying to soften you up in preparation for inevitable negotiations. We are going to sit down and talk about these things that Israel has asked us to ask you for, right, Iran. No more or greatly limited medium range missiles, get rid of your nuclear program, you know, that kind of thing. Oh, and stop supporting your proxies in the Middle East. I suspect that

stop supporting your proxies is maybe an easy one for Iran because there's not many proxies left to support. They could probably say, okay, fine, you know, you're pushing on an open door there. But the missiles, I don't think they can let go of, at least not completely. No country on Earth would give up their missiles. Agreed. I mean, these are conventional weapons. They basically would just, you know, it would be like, it would be a death sentence.

It would be suicide. So, John, if, aren't the Iranians going to be, you know, this as basically this war as like a, you know, we need to bloody the nose of the Israelis a little bit so that they stop leaning on Trump. And, you know, this is like pre-negotiation posturing, basically. We're going to need to be a little more rambunctious ourselves. Yes. I think that's exactly what this is. But I'll tell you what, Ted, it seems to me that we're getting to the point where, where Americans, we're coming to a tipping point. where Americans are no longer going to be willing to just allow the Israelis to run our foreign policy. You know, I'm talking to a lot of people about this.

You've got Israeli lobbyists literally in every office on Capitol Hill. And in many cases, they just sit there on the couch in the, you know, entry area. And they don't leave. That's their office. They just sit on the couch and invite themselves to every meeting and every committee hearing. and everything. I'm not making that up. That's actually the way they do it.

Number two, they're in every state capital in America, lobbying for legislation at the state level, and they've done that very successfully. Now they're at the local level. You have APAC lobbyists weighing in on school board races, for example, or city council races. And I think that we're getting to the point where people are going to be tired of taking their orders from Jerusalem. And it's thanks to people like Tucker Carlson, who have finally stood up to tell the Israelis, enough.

Israeli interests don't necessarily coincide with American interests. To say the least. John, I'm glad that the New York Times finally caught up with something you and I have been talking about here on show for weeks, which is, you know, rarely has there been a situation where the United States prepared to go to war against a major adversary or a minor one like Grenada without any public explanation, any debate whatsoever. It's kind of like, you know, it's like Trump's side project. We haven't been told anything about it. I think we know more about the ballroom than we know about this. Oh, yeah.

Like, why? Look, there's a poll that was released yesterday said that 70% of Americans oppose an attack on Iran. 70%. If the internal Republican polls are already showing what Republicans are calling a bloodbath in the midterm elections with Republican losses of between 15 and 40 seats, attacking Iran is just going to hand Congress to the Democrats on a silver platter and will zero out the remainder of the Trump administration. I mean, yeah, I mean, you've got to hand it to George W. Bush. When troops marched into, you know, crossed the line from Kuwait, right, the berm in, what was it, March of 2003, you know, the American people had been conned into it. They believed in it.

It had an, the war had an over 80% approval rating. The president. had a 90% approval rating. You know, basically Dick, the Cheney administration got it done. In this case, we're not even starting out with any kind of support. It's basically, what do you attribute that? Do you think, I mean, is there no one in the administration who says, listen, we're going to have to message on this? You know, it comes down to something that Trump told a CBS reporter two weeks ago.

when she asked him, who are your closest advisors? He answered, I don't have any advisors. I do whatever my gut tells me to do. That's it right there. Well, why? Okay, so, I mean, look, I honestly think Donald Trump's gut got him where no other man has ever gotten before, you know, elected presidents of the United States without holding previous political officers serving in the military.

His gut is not to be trifled with. You know, his $2 million worth of gut in 2016 beat Hillary Clinton's $7 billion of gut. So I respect the man's political instincts. I really do. But surely he, but I don't understand how he's not aware of the fact that, you know, you can't fight. The American people need to be on board politically in order to have the will to fight through a war. because wars are ugly. They inevitably turn south.

You know, they cost lives and treasure. They get their hard. You know, you need, there's negative ramifications. You know, it's going to probably become less popular, but you want to start out high and then, you know, watch your political capital go away. I mean, he ran against the Iraq war and he, and it was successful. I mean, so why isn't his, why, you know,

why isn't the president's gut telling him? him, yeah, I'm going to need some propaganda here. You know, this, this comes down to, to the question, what is MAGA? Is it whatever Donald Trump says it is? Yes. Or is it a movement that is headed by Donald Trump? Nope. At this moment.

That's what this, this fight is about. And Donald Trump says that MAGA is whatever he says it is. And if it was anti-war, what? nine years ago and it's not anti-war today, that's because he says so. And everybody else is just going to have to accept it. All right, John. Do we have anything we want to add on that before we talk? I just want to mention the breaking news about the economy speaking of the GDP fourth quarter

numbers are out. Very anemic growth. Basically, the economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annual. rate in the fourth quarter of last year. That's not great. Economists like to see two to three percent at least. Generally speaking, incumbents politically don't do well if the GDP expands less than 2.5 percent.

You know, I mean, they're bragging about the economy, but it's not looking good. More, you know. Yeah, and we haven't gotten the full effect of. of tariffs yet. That's going to come, I think, in the next quarter. Yeah, no, for sure. That's going to take a while. We've been told that all that it was going to be foreign suppliers who were going to

absorb that, but it seems like it's mostly the almost overwhelmingly the American consumer who's paying higher prices. That's going even worse than I would have anticipated. All right. So let's, shall we do some questions? And then we can maybe talk about this poor, palestine. Indian guy, this kid. Okay, Elliot Covert. What does it say that Jeffrey Epstein may end a centuries-old monarchy in the UK, but not a president with 30% approval in the U.S.? Now, now,

now, it's 35%. Stop that. Well, we don't even know anymore because the Gallup is not going to keep track of that anymore. I think another polling organization will pick that up, don't you think, John? I do. I do. Yes, somebody's going to pick it up. All right, but so the monarchy, yeah. I don't think the monarchy is, I mean, the monarchy is on the ropes, but I don't think the monarchy is dead. I think the monarchy would have been in far bigger trouble today if Charles hadn't come out with his statement yesterday

that Andrew's on his own and we're not even wishing him good luck. I think that's exactly right. That's exactly, that was the right take. It was just like, we're not doing anything for you. And I don't blame Charles. I mean, Charles is literally like he's haggard, he's fighting. cancer. He's trying to save the man of the monarchy. You know, he's like, I have no time for your bullshit anymore, Andrew. That's exactly right. He just doesn't care. Andrew has been

nothing but a thorn in his side for years now. And another thing, too, Charles wanted to take action against Andrew years ago. But Andrew was always known as the Queen's favorite son. Liz watched, Liz covered for him. Yes, she did. And so there was nothing that Charles could do. Well, the queen's dead. And now Charles is the king. So Andrew's on his own.

Indeed. Okay, John, the question for you from Jackson McGrath, who was your favorite scholar to read about in Islamic studies like Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Matrudi as your favorite subject was theology? It was Sayyad Hossein Nasser. You know, one thing about Jose Nasser, and believe it or not, you know, I just Googled him the other day, just out of curiosity. He is still alive. He's 98 years old.

Wow. He was on loan to George Washington University from the University of Pennsylvania. And so he was there just for an experimental course. It was a 700 series course. Like, you know, 100 is freshman year. 200 to sophomore year. This was a 700 course on Islamic theology. And I had to apply

to be accepted to it. So I was one of only six students that were allowed into it. This guy was a genius. He assigned us, and I'll never forget this, he assigned us 12 books and he had written all 12 of them.

Oh my God. I still have them. It's a good way to sell books if you're a professor. I mean, I'll say. But he was I think he was the 20th century's greatest thinker on Islam and Islamic theology. I was honored to study under him. Pink Lady Apple, I'm going to blush here. A quick question for the host, hunks.

What's Trump's real motive for making the Board of Peace, which I guess we can also cover this $10 billion pledge that Trump has made while we're at it? Well, go ahead, John. I'll take you take a first shot at that. Honestly, I hate to say it. I think it's a grift. I think it's a grift. It's a way to make money. You have to pay a billion dollars to sit on the board. Netanyahu paid. A couple of other people, countries paid. I think it's just a way to line pockets. Yeah, well, it's also, you know, this is starting out as a way to to basically do the real estate redevelopment scam in Gaza and preside over that, right? That's what this is all about.

I mean, it's kind of like some of the most cynical cartoons I drew at the height of the Gaza War about, you know, ClubMed Gaza and, you know, sandals, conunis and that kind of stuff. I think it's also, I mean, in a weird way, it does kind of address, although not solve a real problem, which is that the UN is useless. And the UN is unable to, it's unable to do what, you know, basic stuff like, there's a conflict in the world. Okay, security councils all meets. The UN like knocks people's heads together and says, okay, quit fighting. Ceasefire.

We're sending in blue helmets. We're stopping the genocides, the end, right? But they don't do that. That's what the UN is supposed to be for. We all know that, but it doesn't do that. Not that the Board of Peace will do that, but it does sort of highlight the fact that we do still need an international entity to do that. Agreed.

$10 billion, you know, even with inflation. That's a lot of money. Now, John, unless I missed something, I thought that money that was appropriated for that the United States, government pays, in other words, your money and my money, I thought that that money had to be appropriated by the United States Congress. Yeah, not only does it have to be appropriated, it has to be authorized to separate votes. And authorized first, right? That's right. And this isn't 10 million that we're talking about. There's not a slush fund, right? That's a warning error.

Yeah, 10 billion is an entirely different ball of wax. So how can Donald Trump pledge that when he hasn't gotten it or asked Congress for it? And then that, so I assume this means he's going to go to Congress and ask for it. I mean, I know the Republican lick spittles will definitely give it to him. But I mean, is he going to be, I mean, are Democrats willing to go to the mat and, you know, and just say, okay, we're holding the line here. We're not appropriating this. I mean, yeah, I can't imagine them.

I think that is exactly what's going to happen. You know, the thing is the divide in the House is so close. Literally nothing is being passed into law in the House. It's just not possible. In the Senate, you need 60 votes to break cloture. And the Republicans aren't willing to go to the mat over something like this. Not this. This is a...

This is two and a half years of support of our... support for Israel. Yeah. I mean, so literally we spent about this much money to help the Israelis LaFlatten Gaza. And now we're to spend another $10 billion to build it up so that Jared Kushner can supervise the Trump, the Trump Hotel Casino. I mean, I don't, I don't get it.

No. No, I'm not, no, I'm not seeing it. Do you think, I mean, I think this is a dead letter. What do you think? I agree. I agree. It's one of these things that everybody's just going to forget about three, four years from now. And by the way, I just want to point out as a graphic artist, you know, for any members of the Trump administration who are watching, you could call me. I'm a professional graphic artist. I would have made you a proper logo. This looks like something that like chat GPT came up with. It's embarrassing. It's like, oh, like really the graphics. And, you know, this administration does some good graphics on their social. I'll give him that.

Okay, so that's that. Let's do some more questions. Aaron Arnold, along the same lines, if BB called Trump to tell him not to bomb Iran, what? Why would BB be in Washington to get Trump to attack? Well, BB did- I can answer that question.

Bibi came to Washington a week before his originally scheduled trip because Trump made an off-handed statement about about allowing negotiations to go forward. And if there's one thing the Iranians don't want, it's negotiations. They want bombs. So he came here to say, oh, no, you don't. No more negotiations. Yeah.

Yeah, no. Bibi has not told Trump not to not to bomb. Robbie do we have any ads? Yeah. Okay, please put it up. Thank you. Okay. Let's see.

Okay, DarkWorks 88. If we're going to steal man, if you were going to steal man invading slash attacking Iran, what would your arguments be for that? Do you think this is less about Iran as a threat and more needing our more about needing our war economy boosted? No, I don't think it's either one. It's about Israel. Yeah, this is literally a request. Yes, to do.

Yeah, this is literally like, you know, like, you know, like. Like your friend calls and says, hey, listen, you know, I'm going to be out of town. Would you cut my lawn for me? You know, that's what this is. And it's like, so BB's like, hey, listen, I don't want to bomb Iran. So could you do that for me? That'd be great. Thank you.

Or could you at least help me do it? Give me some cover. It's only about Israel. That's all. Totally agree. Flandrina, keeping Tucker's latest episode in my. What do you think of the British Museum's decision to bow to Israeli pressure and remove all references to historic Palestine? Yeah, outrageous.

Disgusting. Outrageous. You know, I have a problem with the Brits, you know, vis-a-vis Greek antiquities. But just pretending that Palestine never existed or the Philistines never existed. Sorry, Robbie's yelling at us to do the ad. Okay, oh, yeah, Robbie's right. Let me, sorry about that. That's my appellate.

Let me do it now. They can freeze your accounts, shut off your cards, lock you out of your own money overnight. Banks don't protect you. They control you. That's why real financial freedom starts with ownership. Introducing Rumble Wallet, a non-custodial wallet built for people who refuse to give up control. With Rumble wallet, you don't just buy digital currency like Bitcoin and Tether.

You can own Tether Gold, real gold on the blockchain. Through Tether Gold, you get direct ownership of physical gold bars, each one fully allocated, verify, viable by serial number purity and weight. This isn't paper gold. This isn't an IOU. This is real gold without bank vaults, storage fees, or gatekeepers. You can buy, sell, or move it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, even when traditional

gold markets are closed. And if you want, tether gold can be redeemed for physical gold. That's power. And when you support creators on Rumble, you can tip them directly using Rumble wallet, peer to peer and outside the banking system. No permissions, no middleman. I got to say, I would always know cancel button. the wallet is yours forever.

I would take the physical gold. I like that idea in case of the apocalypse, having it on hand. My other podcast are, I have two advertisers, and the primary one is American Alternative Assets, which is a physical gold company. And I've got to say they've convinced me. They really have. Just that gold is worth having? I mean, I think gold is worth having as part of your mix of, of,

It is. It's worth having as part of your makes. I drove to the coin store the other day in Vienna, Virginia, just to buy two 10-ounce bars of silver. They can't afford gold, but silver I could do. I will say I also like gold coins and silver coins because they're recognizable in an apocalypse situation. Most people would be like, oh, I know what this is. You know, they know what it's supposed to look like. That's right. Yeah.

Yep. Sean WP-O-9, new YouTube member. Thank you very much. By the way, just a reminder that if you're on YouTube and you join tier two of YouTube, all you do is you go to membership on YouTube and click on that. If you choose the second tier, you get a thank you in the outro credits of the show. And we already have a number of people who've done that. Yeah, I really appreciate it.

So that's worth doing. All right. So let's see. What would be the repercussions if we attack Iran? Well, that's a great question. Do you think other countries would get involved? I know it's a basic question, but topical. Oh, it's an important question.

That's an important question. And I don't think anybody is going to get involved. I mean, indirectly, of course, the Gulf countries will because our bases are there. But I don't think the European countries want to have anything to do with this. Not a chance. No way. I don't think this will be a wider war. I think the danger is that it could be a deeper war.

That, you know, basically, let's say, for example, the Iranians decide to retaliate. And they bloody Israel's or our U.S. military knows more than we deem acceptable. And we decide we have to retaliate against that. And then we get into a downward spiral where things, you know, get bigger than anybody kind of wants. That's my fear. I think that's the real threat here. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. So broader repercussions, I mean, I don't think you, I think the repercussions are that just basically we're in deeper with Israel, which is a pariah state and despised by the entire world now. And, you know, and we're, you know, we're not getting any closer to Iran, which we ought to be.

So, you know, it's just basically it's more stupidity. We're just digging the whole deeper. I think that's the... I think that's right. Fresh print. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, please go ahead. I just don't understand the antipathy toward diplomacy.

I said on Judge Napolitano's podcast this morning that, and I've said this on our show, Ted, but we used to say in the 70s, and when we studied in the 80s, and when we studied in the East Head that only Nixon could go to China. What a wonderful opportunity for Donald Trump to truly be the peacemaker president to make peace with Iran. And now, you and I both know, John, that if Israel did not exist, if there was no call coming in from BB Netanyahu, that that's exactly what President Trump would be doing right now. You know that. He'd be on the phone with the president or the Supreme Leader with the IATO, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with Kameney, and he'd say, let's bring this in, let's, let's make peace.

100%. Agreed. Agreed. John, what did you think of Eddington? Hey, I saw Eddington, too. From some of the same producers as Bologonia and foresaw a mix of false flag attempts, Chomo allegation exchanges and social media activism jokes. I liked Eddington a lot.

I did too. And, you know, I rewatched Bougonia last night. And, man, there were even things in it that I know. missed the first time. It is such a brilliant movie. It's brilliant. And I very proudly cast my votes for the Screen Actors Guild Awards last night. Well, you and I were saying yesterday, Ted, there haven't been, there hasn't been a slate of decent movie since 2019. This year, there are some terrific movies. There were a couple that people were raving about like if I had legs I'd kick you.

I was like, eh, nice try. You know, a good individual performance, but award season? No, sorry.

So anyway. Robbie says he has some housekeeping. Oh, okay. Let's bring in Robbie and. Yeah, this would be quick and sweet to the point. John's Rumble channel will be going live today.

I've been putting together to the library for it. Hey, thanks. So what I'm doing is I'm getting a collection of all of the interviews that he does for his podcast, for other people. And I'm having to put them on Rumble because YouTube will suppress what they consider to be duplicated content. So I can't put it on YouTube. YouTube will just backhand it. A Rumble though does not care. So if you want to see all things John Kariaku come over to Rumble,

and I will be sharing the links over on my Putin bike gaming channel as well. Awesome. Thank you, Robbie. Thank you very much, Robbie. All right. let's do a few more questions and we'll sorry I'm like my computer is is acting funky okay there we go

um did anyone else see the Kyle Kulinski video about a 4chan post claiming Israel will use tactical nukes in the opening barrage to take out Iran's missile sites sounds bad shit but it's the Israelis even I don't believe that and I think the Israelis

are capable of a lot but yeah Trump won't let them Too much to lose. Yeah, I agree Trump will right. It goes too far. Katie Catastrophe, not sure if either of us can answer this, but can other countries start investigating like Trump and others in the Epstein files since we are not? Absolutely.

But how far are you going to get? Yeah. It's an issue of discovery. They can't compel discovery. They can only use what's been publicly released. Right. But yeah, and you know, the United States does stuff like that all the time. so true no i mean there's nothing that stops any other country from doing that uh john marjorie

uh hey good morning i saw john mentioned how he's blown up on ticto recently i've been posting clips from a bunch of burner accounts hoping it drives people to the show uh see morris john have you spoken with tucker since his detainment in israel oh i'm glad that came up no yeah thanks for bringing that up no i haven't spoken to him um and it's funny people are just shitting all over saying, oh, he wasn't detained. That was just a normal questioning by Israeli customs. Listen, I've been to Israel multiple times. I never even saw a customs officer.

If you know that Tucker Carlson, one of the most famous podcasters on the planet, is coming to interview the American ambassador, but he's also been criticizing the Israeli government, do you just let him go in his way? or are you not able to control yourself? And so you harass them. And they harass them.

It's what the Israelis do. It's like they can't have. I've got to say I've been to Israel a bunch of times. And also I got to say I've had some fucking foul experiences with them. I mean, normally, generically, I've gotten pulled out of the line and sort of usually questioned actually stupidly by some young, like, female Mossad officer who, is basically, you know, asking me a bunch of questions that if I were actually a terrorist, I would have answers to, where were you on your trip? What did you see? Did you talk to any Arabs?

You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, so it's not really for security. It's haranguing. But that's not a big deal. I mean, to me, it's like, okay, whatever. But routinely, like when I flew into Ben-Gurian airport in Tel Aviv, you, you know, basically, I got pulled out of the security out of the line right away upon arrival. They shunted me into this little side area of the airport where I had to cool my heels for four hours last time with a bunch of Palestinian dudes from New Jersey who were on their way back to like basically to go to the West Bank or to, you know, their own village within Israel. And they said this happened to them every fucking time.

When I finally got, you know, when they, when I finally got an incredibly rude Mossad officer to question me, turned out it was the fact that I had passport stamps from Muslim countries in my passport. And I explained, you know, I'm a journalist. I travel a lot. And basically, it went on for like an hour and a half. It was the worst. I mean, I've been treated with more respect by the Taliban.

That's long. It was after a four-hour wait, John. So it was like, it was horrible. And so when I read this, I'm like, oh, of course they did that. I 100% believe Tucker. No question about it. Absolutely, I believe Tucker. 100%.

He didn't lie about that. And like, they were assholes to him. I'm sure they were. Because they are assholes. Yeah. They're dicks. They can't help themselves. Tariq, moving from Toronto to Dubai and John, I heard, oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you this before I let that story go.

So I have a friend. He's Jewish. He was working on a kibbutz. He comes home by himself from flies back from Tel Avid. He works at the New York Times. Okay. And by the way, he's like the most Jewish-looking dude on earth. Okay. He gets pulled out of the line. They take him aside and they like, they're like, listen, we're going to need to body cavity search you. What? Other, other, yeah, they, they fucking went up his ass, literally. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, what he might be up to. Anyway, I was like, you, you, you allowed them to do that.

He goes, yeah, what would you have done? I said, I would have called the fucking U.S. Embassy and said, uh, I'm not going anywhere. Well, I would have missed my flight. Okay. So I miss your flight. I don't need a finger up my ass by some random fucking Israeli. asshole. And, you know, it's like usually people pay good money for that. I don't know. It's just so it's so fucked up. Anyway, but that's what they do. They harass. There's, there's just no stopping

them. No, there's no stopping them. Tarreek, thanks for the fiber. They can't help themselves. I'm moving from Toronto to Dubai. And John, I heard you might be there a lot this year. Please let us know if you have any speaking engagements scheduled. We will do that. Logan 448. Thank you very much for the $1.99. Let's see. TSTC, thanks for the two bucks. Did we see where Trump told DOD and other agencies

to start identifying and releasing all documents on UAPs and other information about this matter? UFOs. Why he said that? Why he did that? Destruction? No. three days ago, Barack Obama gave an interview to a podcast.

That's right. And they said, are there aliens and UFOs? And he's like, I never saw anything. But, but yeah, sure. Aliens are real. Yeah. Aliens are real. And Trump, the first thing Trump said about that interview was he revealed classified

information. So he should be prosecuted under the espionage act. And then people were like, oh, come on, man. And so then he's like, Oh, no. On second thought, I'm just going to release all the information. It's like, yeah, exactly. Okay.

Sedition threat. Are the 70% of Americans who are against war keeping quiet on all kinds of issues because of the NSA, etc., documenting dissent? Well, we do shut up a lot at work because we're afraid of being fired for expressing our opinions. and I think people are afraid about saying too much and then like who knows it'll bite you in the ass like if you say something on social and like 10 years from now I think people self-censor a lot.

I agree. I think you do. Dalton Sparks, do you think Trump could have some false evidence with the Venezuela raid when it comes to the Iran attack? Not really clear. Also, this is the part I was talking about, about the clear questioning.

In the Navy, we call them carrier strike groups, John. Love you guys. Yeah, that's right. Oh, that reminds me, John. I received a lovely, I'm going to find this while we're talking, but I found, I received a lovely email yesterday that was very pertinent to something, it was in response to something we talked about yesterday. And I want to, here we go. I'm not going to say the person's name, but John, you'll like this. You probably don't remember, but on D program, John mentioned a retired sheriff. from Oregon who advocates not talking to the fucking cops. That was me. People should know they're right. On today's episode, that's to say yesterday, you mentioned that current and former law enforcement and military listened to the show,

and you ask for their perspective on ice. Here's mine. I support enforcing immigration law. I do not support enforcement carried out by unidentified or masked officers in unmarked vehicles. When the government uses force, the public should be able to clearly identify who's doing it and under what authority because accountability and legitimacy are the whole game. I served as a sheriff in the community I grew up in.

I arrested people I went to high school with. I've arrested my neighbors. I was in the phone book, remember those, and I never hid who I was. In 18 years, only one person ever called my home, and it was to ask for help. You can enforce the law and still treat people with basic dignity. There's no reason to be an asshole.

You can also protect officers without running operations that look like secret police. When tactics create fear and confusion, you lose public trust, And without public trust, you lose cooperation, compliance, and ultimately safety. That shouldn't be controversial. That is a fantastic email. That's leadership right there.

That's the kind of leadership we need in law enforcement. No doubt. Yeah. I mean, and they're out there. And you know, speaking of people who bite their tongues, you know, they see what's going on with ice and they don't like it. And they, but they're like, what can it? You know, it's like better to just shut up, really.

You know, I'm getting that from a lot of people, Ted. I'm getting from a lot of people that, look, Trump's only going to be president for another like two years and 10 months. We're just going to sit it out. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, look, I think that's what people do. You know, in World War II, the French who did that, They were called atontists, which means those who wait.

And, you know, that's a thing. It's not for me, but, you know, you do you. I'll do me, you know. Let's see. F you so, Devo is touring. Should I go? Abso fucking looting. They do a good show.

Yeah, they're great. Yeah, you definitely should go. FU so, thanks for the dollar, Grand Theft, Gaza. indeed. Let me interrupt me for a second. Please. I was watching an old episode of Saturday Night Live with my son, my third son. And Deva was the musical guest.

And 30 seconds into the song, he turns to me and he says, this is a joke, right? And I was like, no, that's punk or new wave or whatever you want to call it. He goes, people listen to this? I said, my friend Ted loves this stuff. vividly. I still listen to them. They're great. Yeah, I do listen to this stuff for sure. Let's see. John was on Google yesterday and searched your name. The first thing he came up with was John Curiacu LLC. Is that you? They're selling signed copies of your first book. Oh, I should take that down. Those ran out ages ago. Okay. Thank you. You don't want to sell things that you don't have. I hate

that. Then you have to refund the money. Thank you. What are our thoughts on the recent Ukrainian gains and advancements against the Russians? Do you think this will affect current negotiations and U.S. stance on the war? I hadn't heard that. I heard that the Russians were continuing to slowly advance. Yeah, I heard that these Ukrainian gains are incremental and mean nothing in the greater scheme of things. Every Russia watcher or these professors of Russian politics or Russian history,

that I talk to, they all say the same thing, that the Russians are winning. It's just a matter of time. Yeah. Yeah, that's my take as well. Effie So says, I bet Lindsay Graham is a secret Israeli boyfriend. He went to Israel giddy about more than war. I read an account of Lindsay Graham's meeting with the Danish and Greenland Prime Ministers yesterday that was scandal. They said he was dropping F bombs every other word. This is in a diplomatic meeting with two prime ministers, dropping F bombs every other word and said that the United States is going to own Greenland whether you like it or not. He's a problem.

John, let's talk a little bit about this kid, 19-year-old Palestinian. As Robbie pointed out before the show, this is the 10th Palestinian American. In other words, this is a U.S. citizen who is ethnically Palestinian. You can't say dual national because Palestinians are apparently not allowed to have a nation and never will be. But anyway, he was with his father and presumably other family members in the West Bank, in a village called Mukmas. And Israeli settlers were engaged in one of their violent rampages. They went into the village and they were at first just beating people, including this kid. But then the Israeli soldiers, the Israeli army, the IDF showed up.

And that emboldened the settlers because they know the IDF always helps or sides with them or runs interference for them. And so at that point, they opened fire with live ammunition and they murdered this kid. in cold blood. Is there any way to make it so that it's not politically tenable for the United States government to not care about its own citizens being murdered by its own ally? It's easier said than done. But I'll tell you, I'm very disappointed in whoever this kid's member of Congress happens to be.

Because the member of Congress should have been on every news network in America screaming about this. This is absolutely unforgivable. It should never, ever be allowed to happen. This was an American citizen. It's bad enough that they do it to Palestinians every day, but this was an American citizen. And if we're not going to stand up for our own people, then we're not going to stand up for anybody. Then what good are we? Yeah. Who good are we? Jessica Davidson's asking, Ted Liu, went on C-SPAN, says that he saw evidence that Trump groped children. You know, how much merit do, just that there's as allegations have.

I don't know Ted Leo much, nor do I. You know, somebody corrected him after he said that. And they said, did you see what, pictures that Trump grouped children? Or did you see references to Trump groping children? And he said, well, I saw reports of people saying that they saw pictures of. That's hearsay. Yeah, forget it. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, again, look, anything's possible. And if it comes to light, I'll be the first to rant about it. But so far, there's been no evidence to that effect whatsoever. No. Nope. Dem Will, thanks for the 20 euros. Since the 1974 invasion, Greek Orthodox churches in the occupied northern part of Cyprus

have been devastated while mosques in areas controlled by the Republic of Cyprus, remained well maintained and protected. Yes. Thoughts. John, I'll leave that one. That is true. That is true. And that's what Turkish occupation looks like.

You know, they'll turn your mosque. They'll turn your church rather into a mosque. They'll turn it into a museum or they'll just bulldoze it to the ground. Because the Turks have no respect for anybody. Don't get me started. This is a whole thing. Okay. Dinky 33, another incredibly,

honor as donation of 1,799 Emirati dirhams. Thank you. Thank you so much. What were the results of the game theory exercise that John participated in during the conference in Dubai on the U.S. Iran conflict? I'm surprised somebody knows about that. That was not, I mean, it was on TV that I was there.

They showed me sitting with the crown prince and then they showed me shaking hands with the crown prince, but they never said what it was. was that we were actually doing together. So someone didn't know. I will say my feelings about the United Arab Emirates are very clear and well known. I freaking love the place. And I am going to go back with some regularity. I'm going to go back in March, April, May, September, October, and November.

And I'm hoping. humbly that I can help the Emirati government make the best informed policy decisions that they can make. How about that? Okay. We will leave that there. I love it there. I love the Emirates. They have an absolutely fabulous, wonderful, magical country, and they are good and kind people. on top of it. And so I can't wait to go. Just can't wait. Flandarina says, first time I stopped while entering through Ben Gurian, I was 19, and they wanted to question me about my college activities. In the end, they said I had a choice. Either I or my sister could enter.

What? I guess it's micro-Sophie's choice. Yeah, it would. Right. Elliot Covert. Ted, maybe your friend was into it. Was your friend named Lizzie Graham, perhaps? Absolutely not. Any update on Robbie's situation? Good question. Robbie, you can speak for yourself. My wife will be having her surgery on Tuesday.

And so I just really just want to just say from bottom of my heart, thank you for the emails and the prayers. It means a lot. It's tough whenever your wife is in pain. No doubt. doubt. Thank you, Robbie. Seven more minutes left here on this week's show. Two more comments. We'll do some more more news. Landerina, last time I went three years ago, they held me in my kids for six hours. You beat me well by half an hour. I told them I was going to visit my dying mother-in-law, and they said prove that she's dying. My brother-in-law had to get a doctor's note.

Oh, my God. Israelis, man. That's how they are. Rids 5391. John, it was a pleasure meeting you the other day at the Emirates Lounge. I could talk to you for another few hours, but I didn't want to take up your time. Love and respect from Utah. Thank you. That was a lot of fun.

Very kind. So let's talk about this Cameroon story. So, you know, as I asked. And a small Isaac-Dajon story. Oh, really? Okay. All right. So let's talk about, first we'll talk.

about Cameroon, then we'll do Azerbaijan. So four reporters, including those from the BBC, AP, and New York Times were basically roughed up and pulled aside at the airport in the capital of Cameroon, which is Yayunde, I think is how you pronounce that. Anyway, they were all, so basically they were following up a story. We all know that the Trump administration has deported some illegal immigrants, many of them, to countries that they're not even from originally. That was the case here. These particular migrants were not only not Cameroonian,

but deported to Cameroon nevertheless. But on top of that, they were all under strict protection by U.S. courts saying, do not deport these people, absolutely do not fucking deport them. Their political asylum seekers and their lives would be in danger if they were to be deported. The Trump administration ignored that. and ICE deported, sent them off to Cameroon. These reporters went to the airport and find out what's going on.

The Cameroonians are like, fuck you, we don't care. I mean, it almost seems like, you know, the Cameroonian shithole country, the shithole country government goons are now like sort of doing the U.S. as bidding and fucking with reporters. I mean, are the media organizations going to raise hell? Is the Trump administration going to yell at the camera?

Is anything going to happen? It just sucks to be them. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing, nothing. It seems to me like this is a new, I haven't heard of this sort of thing before. No, this is new. This is new and it's ugly. And then did you see the president of Azerbaijan is in town?

And some friends of mine went to protest his visit. And his bodyguard. beat the shit out of them. It was even in the Washington Postal. Yeah. So this happened like in Baku or? No, no, in Washington. Oh, okay. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the Azerbaijani's like, what are you going to do about it? You know, like Richie and Ray. You're going to cry now? You're going to cry? God. Yeah, I mean, this is, it's really crazy. All right.

Well, these are weird times. Also from Rates, thanks for the nine. 99 for your friend from the Emirati lounge said that you said that the GOP is about to lose 40 seats in the house also then are you coming back to Utah you know he and I had a fun conversation about Utah Utah is kind of an odd situation right now they underwent redistricting not in one of these weird partisan ways, but in like a responsible, the population of Utah is growing kind of way. And there's going to be a seat in Utah that has a shot at being won by the Democrats. That's crazy.

In Utah. It is crazy. I can't even imagine. Just to be clear, I don't think the Democrats are going to win 40 seats. I think they're going to win closer to 15 or 20, just because, you know, the polls always, always tighten up at the end of the race. That's true. And the advantage, you know, basically, yeah, any kind of Democratic lead tends to be eaten away over time. That's right. Yeah, that's true.

I think it'll be easier to tell. I mean, it's more complicated, obviously, because there's so many races to look at it. I think, of course, the big problem is that when Democrats win, they're going to take this as like validation for them and their candidates and their policies. Look, the American people love us. We're so great. That's always the danger for the Democrats. Yeah. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't love you at all. No. The campaign is vote for me because I'm not the guy. And then when they win, they're like, you see, it was our policies. Our policies. Our policies. won the election. It's like nobody knows what your policies are. And when they do know what your

policies are, they're exactly the same as the other guys' policies. That is exactly correct. That's the subject of my column this week for anybody who wants to check it out. Just go to my website, rawl.com. John, always a pleasure. I'm glad to see you back stateside. And oh, I'll see you tomorrow. I'll see you tomorrow for dinner. Okay, looking forward to that for sure. Thanks everyone for tuning in. please stay tuned for the TMI show with Ted Raul and Manila Chan coming right up in a minute. And there's a new DMZ America podcast up if you want to check that out. See you later. Bye, John.