DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - China Syndrome | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Special TWO-HOUR SHOW! Starting 10 AM EST, we're taking your voice calls. Tune in early for a full explanation for how to talk to Ted and John LIVE.Today we discuss: • The U.S. has been operating for the past 5 years under the assumption that China is preparing to invade Taiwan as soon as 2027. China is conducting military drills that encircle the island of Taiwan, demonstrating its ability to blockade. • Trump bombed a shipping dock, probably in Venezuela, where “they load drugs.” Looks like the drugs are marijuana. • Medicaid can share patient data with ICE, judge rules. • Protests in Iran over inflation and the collapse of the rial

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Good morning, and thanks for tuning in to Deep Program with Ted Rall and John Kyriaku. It's Tuesday, December 30th, 2025. Just two more days left in this beautiful year before we get to the even more beautiful year of 20206. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. Good to see you. Likewise. Please like, follow, and share the show.

Once again, we are doing a special two-hour broadcast. I don't know how special they are when we keep doing them, but there aren't very many left. We're going to do it today. Wednesday, Friday, and then next week we get back on to a normal schedule. So we are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. This week, till 11, normally till 10. The way this works, producer Robbie West will explain for anybody who's not familiar. But basically, you're going to click on the Discord link at the top of the Rumble and the YouTube feed.

No need to do that yet because we're not taking any calls for another 57 minutes. but if you want to get in line, you can certainly do that. Click on the Discord server, and you'll be able to, starting at 10 o'clock, the second hour of the show, talk to myself and John Kiriaku, and we will talk about anything you want. Robbie will lay down all the rules, but normal AM talk show, haul-in rules apply in terms of civility, et cetera. Thank you so much for your support. You can always support us through the YouTube or through the Rumble. Feeves. You guys know how to do that. We're fully monetized. Thanks to you guys. We will be resuming, starting on Friday, our Robbie Aid, where we ask you to contribute $1,000 to

help us keep Robbie as our producer. We do that every month. If you see someone walking around behind me, that's a workman installing a new thermostat at my house. So at least, you know, I'm doing my part to prop up the economy here. Anyway, thanks everyone for tuning in. We have a few questions already coming in. So, John, if you're game, let's start to do some questions. Oh, before we do that, I'll tee up what we're talking about today. Sabre-rattling between Japan, China, the U.S., etc., over Taiwan is at a fever pitch these days. So we'll be talking about China's military exercises, which are basically showing that they know how to go all the way around Taiwan. I can't, I can't think that they really needed to show that to anyone. I think the

Taiwanese and everyone else are well aware that the Chinese have that capability. But anyway, we'll get into that. Loading docks are going out of style. The one in Yemen, Yemen just got bombed by the Saudis, right? Because of a, allegedly, the Yemenis are being supplied by the UAE at this loading dock and bombed, and another one got bombed in Venezuela, probably in Venezuela. Trump's not exactly saying, but the implication is there, where they, quote, unquote, load drugs. We'll talk about that because the New York Times had a rather good piece about how one of those quote unquote drug boats washed up the wreckage of it on a peninsula in Colombia, and basically they found a little bit of pot.

That's about it. And then Medicaid can share private patient data with ICE, according to a federal judge ruling. I found that pretty chowing. And finally, but not least, there are major protests in Iran over something that people all over the world know all too well. The affordability crisis, high inflation, and the falling value of the currency, the Rial. So let's get into some of these questions. Venkatesh, thank you very much. Hey, to Heidi, you too.

How do you cope with the fact that there's a possibility that every text call you make are heard by some lowly CIA or FBI agent or NSA? Ted, are you apprehensive that you are subjected to the same? I'm not apprehensive. I know that I am subjected to the same. First of all, everyone watching. everyone watching has all their calls intercepted by the NSA.

You don't have to be special like John or I. But if you go to, if you're a subscriber to the New York Times and you do a search on my name for the in 2000, about 2004, I don't know if it's in 2004, but it's about 2004, you'll find that the New York Times FOIA request discovered the fact that the NYPD tapped my phone and was following me around in preparation for the RNC, 2004 protests by lefties. For the record, I wasn't even an organizer of this. I just was literally just writing a column and drawing cartoons about politics. I didn't even attend the RNC protests. I didn't, even though I lived in New York, I didn't. I certainly wasn't what they called an activist. But they were spying on me. So I know they were. And on another occasion, I was having all sorts of clicking on my phone line in my old house in the Hamptons. And it was incessant. Basically, I couldn't make a call on my landline over and over. It was like I couldn't hear

myself. There was so much static on the line. I kept calling Verizon. They kept coming out. And they'd give me funny looks, but they'd say, oh, it should be okay now. And finally, like, the third or fourth time, the guy says, listen, I hate this is, I didn't tell you this, but he shows me this little alligator clip. And he goes, you know what this is? And I go, yeah, that's like from the Nixon administration, like those little alligator clip bugs. He goes, yeah, I took this off the phone box down the street. And he goes, and he goes, you know what this means? He goes, they're spying at you, but they don't think you're important.

They're not giving you the good stuff. I said, what's the good stuff? He said, the good stuff is where they intercept you at the node level, at the office. You know, this is just like crap. They don't really care if you find out. And so at that point, I just had my landline disconnected because I couldn't hear myself. Like, I don't care if they're listening. I mean, I care.

I don't want them to listen. But, you know, my life is very boring, and they're not going to hear anything interesting. Anyway, John, that's my story. I'm sure yours are better. I can't top that. I can't top that. I had no idea my phones were tapped. They were tapped for three years from early 2009 to early 2012.

No idea. But, you know, it's not a secret that, that, NSA has this enormous new facility out in Utah in the desert where they're they're collecting and storing, more importantly, every text message, every phone call, every email, all the metadata, and they have enough storage to hold it for 500 years. I mean, they've told us they were doing it. Yeah, and you know, this goes back a long time, John, you mentioned, I think a day or two ago, Hayden, the former head of the NSA. And wasn't he also CIA at one point, too?

Yes. So General Michael Hayden was quoted in the French magazine, Le Nouvelle Observateur, back in the 90s. I remember, I really am sad because I didn't keep this. I gave this magazine to a friend of mine who's a security expert, Simpson Garfinkel. And he, but the thing is, in the print magazine, Hayden openly said in an interview in like the 90s that it was the goal of the NSA to intercept every communication on earth at all times. Now, that's a long time ago. I mean, just, I mean, we all know the advances in technology in the last 30 years, and that's our technology, the technology that in the military and the military industrial complex and the NSA, they have

stuff and they have toys that we will only learn about, you know, years and even decades from now. I mean, the military had GPS a long time before President Clinton allowed us to have it. Yeah, they invented GPS, literally. So, yeah, and it was a brilliant thing that Clinton let us have it. I mean, it opened up all sorts of, you know, industrial and other applications. But the point is that it's like, yeah, they're listening. They're definitely listening. And so I can't say it makes me nervous, but I do fucking hate it.

And I do think it's really un-American. And it shocks me every single time this subject comes. up, that nobody cares. There's never been a single major protest demonstration of any note over the issue of privacy in this country. I mean, just think about it. Richard Nixon, he was in trouble for tapping 120 phones during Watergate, 120. Like, all 330 million of them are tapped now, and no one cares.

No one cares. So. Yeah. Inexcusable. unforgivable. And it's unforgettable to us, for us, that we have accepted it. I don't accept it, but what am I going to do? Yeah, you can't do it by yourself. I mean, you know, you can raise the alarm. That's people always say, like, well, you know, you can organize things. Well, I mean, I'm not an organizer. It's not in my blood. And I really respect people who have that skill set. But if someone else who does

have that skill sets wants to organize, I'll be there to help any way I can. As an aside, I'm not an organizer either, but we mentioned Brian Beckery yesterday on the show. I worked with Brian for about four years on loud and clear on Sputnik. Brian is a born organizer. When Donald Trump was elected the first time and was talking about that military parade, you remember? Oh, yeah. Brian ran to the Department of the Interior at 7 o'clock in the morning, which is when they open, and he reserved all of the streets in Washington that were appropriate for a military parade. He reserved them for an anti-military parade.

What a genius. And that's why the first Trump military parade was canceled. because Brian had all the permits. See, the thing is, that's the thing. That wouldn't even occur to me. More to me. Guy was brilliant. It is brilliant.

Yeah. And then, you know, the first Palestine demonstration, that was Brian. Brian did that. And I remember the media saying, oh, they're expecting 30,000 people in Washington. 300,000 people showed up. I texted him and I said, man, when you plan a demonstration. You really plan a demonstration. It was days before he got back to me because he was swamped with a fire.

Yeah, that's crazy. His phone must have been ringing constantly. He did very, very well. Sherlock Holmes 100. A point from yesterday, John and Ted agree on most stuff with John having an insider perspective. Robbie acts as a great balance to the perspective of the conversation. Props, agreed. Agreed with that.

John, what do you, from Tennessee Deadhead? What do you make of the recent revelations on the JFK assassination? Apparently, James J. Angleton was running joint ops with the idea in Dallas? Angleton is one of the darkest figures in American history, truly, for a whole bunch of reasons. This latest tranche of declassified JFK documents puts his involvement up to his neck. Um, I don't know if he was in Dallas, physically in Dallas that day. I don't think he needed to be, but it's clear to me that everything we knew about Lee Harvey Oswald, um, until what, six months ago was a lie. And it was a lie, excuse me, the hiccups.

It was a lie because James Angleton ordered the CIA to destroy any evidence that it had a relationship with, with Oswald. he's kind of like smoking man from X-Files yeah okay so by the way Robbie's asking for feedback from you guys if you like the new background graphics this is only the format by the way for the top for the call-in shows

we're going to go back to the old format next week but in the meantime we're trying to get this right so if you guys can chime in and say you know what you like what you don't like and etc that'd be great Luke 0144 brings up one of our questions here, one of our topics. Yemen was bombed by the Saudis days after Somaliland was recognized by Israel.

I believe that the geography of Somaliland being located across the Red Sea from Yemen is not a coincidence. Oh, I'm so glad that we have this question. The war in Yemen has gotten considerably worse over the last two or three weeks and literally nobody is reporting about it. There is yet another group that is fighting to take over. It is the Saudi-backed group that's primarily based in southern Yemen, what used to be called the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. It's in the area that's known in Arabic as the Hadramut. Hadramut is one of my favorite names. of a state in the Middle East, because it comes from two words,

chadr, which means vegetation, and malt, which means dead. Vegetation's dead, because it's so dry in this part of the Arabian desert that nothing can live there, nothing, except this handful of Bedouins that just constantly moves around looking for water. But with that said, they have been attacking Sana and the Houthis. relentlessly with Saudi missiles and rockets over the last several weeks. And they're making serious territorial gains. Nobody's talking about this.

But it looks like, if anything, the war in Yemen is going to become markedly worse in the coming weeks and months. The Houthis control only Sana'an and northwestern Yemen. The internationally recognized government, which is a joke, controls much of the rest of what is northern Yemen. And now these two groups are battling it out for southern Yemen. It's a full-scale civil war, but with four different sides, not two. So the Israelis now are the only country in the world that have diplomatic relations with Somaliland. Somaliland has population. it's not just desert there are cities there are a couple of small towns there are lots of

villages and the Israelis apparently are going to set up shop in what's the name of the town it's hageda i think it's hageda um to me the quid pro quo has to be um a military presence in exchange for recognition yeah and so the israelis are going to use that to pound the The Saudis are pounding the Houthis. This Saudi breakaway group in South Yemen is pounding the Houthis. This is going to get a lot worse. More questions? We should probably do a, we should probably do a topic, right?

So maybe let's just get this Venezuela thing out of the way, right? We don't need a lot. So the New York Times had a piece two days ago was very poetically written, really, about this isolated peninsula, which is basically just got like a fishing village on it. In Colombia, it looks beautiful. It's just a sandy, expansive sandy beach where one of these boats that the Trump administration blew up, the wreckage of it and a couple of bodies and some packages of soggy marijuana washed up on shore. And basically talking about how the fishermen are terrified to go out and fish.

obviously, not surprising, thinking that that could happen to them too, which it could. And just following that story, Trump was standing next to BB Netanyahu at his meeting, and he said, oh, you know, we just, we blew up, we bombed this dock where they were loading drugs. He didn't even say where the dock was. The media has to do it by inference to assume it's Venezuela. He didn't say what kind of drugs, where they were going. I mean, it's just like the vagueness is like deep, it's soaked completely to the bone. So, John, this is going to, it just seems like the campaign against Venezuela, it's assumed its own logic.

I mean, at a certain point, I don't know that the administration could, even if they thought better of it, back down, right? I mean, they've invested so much time, energy, money, and I would say very poor, but propaganda, nonetheless, into this project, it's just going to keep escalating. I just wonder if we're going to see something bigger happen over, like, say, the holiday tomorrow and this weekend. Oh, Ted, I think it's possible. When I was a junior no-nothing analyst at the CIA, I said one time, well, maybe Saddamo back down here and, you know, we can all just go about our lives.

And this old-timer, really good guy, said, youngster, he goes, you don't send 500,000 troops and six carrier battle groups to then just turn around and go home. This means war. Well, we don't have 500,000 troops, but we do have a carrier battle group down there. And we are bombing them relentlessly almost every day. As much as I... Is this something like 40 or 50,000 sailors? that's right it's a lot of people yeah and uh i feel like we're in the same kind of position where you don't spend that kind of money move that number of personnel if you don't mean business

and so i i fear that there will be an attack coming not to mention it's like right conventional wisdom and i think it's accurate is that it's very demoralizing for the military to stand up um you know a threatening position and then like down because yeah they hate that it's like sort of like at a certain point it's sort of like how all the Floridians stop evacuating for hurricanes after hurricane warnings at a certain point like you get all amped up you're scared you're excited and then it's just like if that keeps happening that's a problem yes yes indeed exactly right um okay so john the question for you DJ 928 um I've started listening to dead drop as of this morning and I've gotten to episode

three. I love it. My only problem with it is the background music and the sound effects. Be loud. And thanks for three bucks. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yes. You are right. They are absolutely too loud. So we've gone to the producer to say you've got to back off on the sound effects and the background music. I just listened to episode eight last night. That was the one that dropped yesterday. And it's kind of better. It's for my taste, it's still a little bit too loud. But, But yeah, you're absolutely right, and we're on it. Thank you. Question for me from Three Birds, One Stone.

Three, actually. Favorite cartoonist besides me, L.O.L. I'm definitely not my favorite cartoonist. It would be Ruben Bowling, whose real name is Ken Fisher. He does a comic strip called Tom the Dancing Bug. He's kind of a cartoonist. It's cartoonist. Everything is very highbrow, intellectual, funny.

And he kind of reinvents the form every time he draws it. He's just an unsung genius. Favorite political cartoonist cartoon I've seen this year. I'd hate to describe a cartoon in an audio form because that's like boring. So maybe I'll dig it up and show it like tomorrow or whatever. And what's my favorite personal cartoon I produced in 2025? My favorite cartoon is always the most recent cartoon that I've drawn. Elvis Costello said something similar about his most recent album.

So I literally just drew a cartoon like yesterday that I, it goes to, it's two newscasters. talking. One says, there's a country. This country has a president. You don't know anything about this country. You don't even know where it is. They're a threat. He's evil. We need war. Else we'll die. And then like the two broadcasters, walk off stage and talk to their producer and one goes, these scripts aren't even trying anymore. And the other one, and the producer goes,

Americans are war sluts. No need for lube. Oh. That's good. Hey, I have a question for you. You mentioned the other day that you're not a terribly big fan. of Tom Tomorrow. And I was wondering if you could elucidate. Oh, yeah, that's funny. I mean, so here's the thing. Tom, I want to be really clear. I want to give him his due. I mean, Tom Tomorrow and I have been rivals. People confuse us all the time. Ted Rawl, Tom Tomorrow, this modern world, too many T's, right? We both traditionally usually draw in four-panel format, very wordy. He's more

verbose than I am. And we both started out around the same time, like in the early, early 90s, in the San Francisco Bay Area. So, and we both have run in a lot of alt weeklies. He was in more alt weeklies than in dailies. I was in more dailies than alt weeklies. But, you know, there's been a lot of confusion. So he creates a really solid product. It is, you know, reliable.

And I don't mean this as a dis. It's like, you know what it is. It's like going to McDonald's. It's always a solid meal. But there's never a fucking surprise. And, you know, sign for, said, it's funny when it bends. And, like, I strive for the bend, like that cartoon I just read to you.

Like, it sounds like a very serious indictment of something and then it, like, goes somewhere else. That's what I look for in a cartoon. And so, to me, I could skip reading Tom tomorrow for months, years, and I don't feel like I've missed anything. That, to me, is a bad sign. Like, I skipped reading a couple of, you know, Tom the Dancing Bugs by Ruben Bulling. I feel like, oh, shit, I've missed some really good moments.

I used to look forward to the far side every single day. Like, what does that crazy guy come up with now? That's my judge. And, you know, also the other thing is an unrequited bromance. I always wanted to be buds with him. And he just, you know, would, like, flirt with me, kind of. Like, we'd hang out at cartooning conventions, you're like my brother I never had.

And then, like, he'd just never follow up. And I don't know. So there, that's a complete honest answer. And Dan, his real name is Dan Perkins is his name. It's like, you know, if you're watching, I mean this with love, brother. Call me, let's drink. Okay. I'll add too.

You're the only editorial cartoonist that I really know. Like, no, no. He used to write to me in prison. Oh, wow. Good for him. He's very, very kind. He is a kind man. He really is.

He sent me two cartoons that he wrote that included me. Wow. And I was still flattered. I have them framed and they're in my den. Well, I mean, he's a very accomplished and great cartoonist. And like if he were to went to put my, you know, usually every year when the Pulitzer is announced, I always complain about whoever won. I haven't really been happy about it.

a winner for 20 years. That said, if he were to win, I'd say he fucking deserves it, you know, long overdue. Bahamas, let's see, I can't even see what this is, Rockman, Blake. John, can you share two things that the CIA taught you that you've applied to parenting like a surveillance detection route on the way to Little League? I can't wait for this answer. wow this is going to make me sound like the bad guy I have used

to the greatest extent possible my surveillance and tracking skills another thing too and this is going to sound really bad but none of us ever want to believe that our kids lie but the truth is our kids lie and it's a human survival skill human we would never have made it this long if we didn't learn how to lie listen i was a good kid but i lied sure i was in the backseat of the car with

janet panther oh my god i was in the back seat of car with this girl one time i was a senior high school had such a crush on her janet pander have no idea what ever happened to her and um she had to be home by midnight and we were in the backseat of the the car and we weren't really paying attention to what was going on around us and it started to snow so she says oh my god it's snowing at one point i have to get home so we were like down like in the woods near the armory on the east side of town and um and uh i said uh i can't get the car out we're going to be stuck down here so she was like my father's going to kill me if we don't get home so i opened the driver's door and i start rocking the car you know how they teach you in

snowy area rocking the car and as it finally gains traction while i'm backing up the door catches on a rock and i have a second to think stop and get stuck or go for it and just face the consequences I hit the gas. The door just breaks off and flies through the air and lands in the snow. Oh, no. So I guess on level ground, I go back down, I pick up the door. I manage to try to, like, fit it back on its hinge, although it won't close. You have to hold it, right?

I've been in this position for different reasons, but you have to hold it. This was bad. And it's heavy. It's very heavy. And I drive home, I drop her off, I drive home, I just go to bed. The next morning, I hear my dad scream. Like Ted Kennedy. Yes, like Ted Kennedy.

My dad is screaming outside. I jump out of bed. I run downstairs. I'm like, it wasn't like that when I drove home last night. So listen, our kids lie. I like to think that I'm able to use my seat. CIA lie detection skills, which are good enough that I actually wrote a book about it to see when our kids are lying.

And it's not so much surveillance as it is, well, yeah, it's surveillance, sure. You know, there are tracking apps now. We didn't have tracking apps when the kids were little, or not little, but younger. And so you got to, you got to discreetly track. them to make sure that they are where they say they are, you know, and they have a legitimate reason for why they're not answering your calls. Yeah, it doesn't do very much for mutual trust. But my ex, I'm against tracking apps like Life 360 and stuff that you put on your, on your

kids' phones. I think kids need to have privacy and they need to be able to fuck up without their parents finding them. That said, my ex-wife had installed that on our son's, you know, phone. At one point, he went rogue, and she's like, he went out the window. He's gone. So we're driving. So it's like, well, she already has the app.

So we're following, like, you know, like in aliens where you're watching the on the map. And the thing is, he was moving with great speed throughout the area. Like, he's here, he's there. And I'm like driving like, you know, I'm a fast driver. And I'm like barely able to keep up with him. And at a certain point, I just turned to her and I go, look at us. look at what the fuck has happened to us like how what losers how pathetic are we that we're doing this you know it's like and so anyway ultimately we we sort of decided to go back home and and i just

sort of decided to handle it this way and i love and so the next day i kind of like this so i hear you were at this place and i hear you were there i didn't tell him that we followed him around or anything and then he's like how do you know all this and i said i'm god he goes no really I go, no, no, I'm God. I am God. I know everything all the time. And I think for like about a month, he believed me. And that was it.

You probably thought I was insane. I thought I was insane. Anyway, I love. Sampsonite. What do you think about the Tier 1 operators like Delta Force and how they have similar capabilities? I assume this is for you, John, to the CIA. C.S. book yet zero accountability to Congress like Obama's night raids it's funny I was

just talking to somebody about this same idea yesterday there is no accountability this is part part of the problem of the post of the post CIA I'm sorry of the post 9-11 CIA where it's become a paramilitary organization and so the CIA just simply borrows special forces Yeah, wasn't that weird? I mean, like, when you guys got the drones and stuff, and I remember when reading about that, it's like, wait, you guys are going to be bombing people, like from basically planes?

Like, that's weird. The reports on this dock that was attacked by the United States yesterday say that it was a CIA drone operation. You know, I remember when I was working for ABC News, I was specifically working for Brian Ross on the investigative team and I said to him one day you know I said

I've been reading the Washington Post the last few days and they're talking about drones drones drones drones but some of these attacks don't make sense to me they're saying that there was no like immediate military threat but then if you look at the at the target, you can see that there could have been a, you know, sort of a secondary threat down the road. And then what are you getting at here? And I said, I think there are two separate drone

programs. I think that the Pentagon runs one and the CIA runs another. I think that's what we're looking at here. He said, nobody has heard of that yet. And I said, yeah, but I I think I'm right. I think you're right, too, from what I've read. Yeah, it turned out that that's exactly what it was. There were two separate drone programs. To this day, the CIA does not officially acknowledge the existence of a drone program. So weird.

I think it's always, it's always strange when everything, whenever, I mean, it's like Israel not acknowledging their nuclear stockpile. It's like, come on, grow up. Yeah, ridiculous. I told you my buddy who wrote a book. about foreign policy, and the only thing the CIA's Publications Review Board made him take out were the words, Israeli nuclear program. Because it's up to us to protect the secret of Israel's nuclear program. Absolutely outrageous.

Yeah. Quadruple J, XYZ, Ted is a student of history, and John is too. How do you view Napoleon's impact? Was he a force for progress via his reforms, or did his war as an ambition cause more harm? his legacy is very complicated from a French perspective, right? The Napoleonic Code, the centralizing of authority in Paris. You know, France is a highly centralized country because of Napoleon in a way that it never would have been otherwise. That's very, I think, you know, that's made France the way it is for better and for worse.

I think he betrayed the revolution, you know, the, that's, and basically enforced tyranny and despotism. and monarchy on a country that had just, like, risen up to get rid of it. And that's really a horrible, I mean, he betrayed the French Revolution. On the other hand, he also, the French, also for national pride, they just like, all the great powers like to know that they can conquer all of Europe. So, you know, the French are like, well, we did that once. You know, we were able to do that. I mean, if you can go back to Charlemagne, too.

But, but, like, you know, in fairly recent years. So it kind of gives the French some swag, some swagger. And I think, you know, and also I do think ultimately the way he handed the Haiti uprising in the long run, not in the short run, was positive, you know, basically. So it's complicated, is the short answer, which is why books about him tend to be very, very long. So any thought about Napoleon? I was always fascinated over why in school, especially in the United States, we, We spent so much more time studying the French Revolution than we did the American Revolution. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Because the reason specifically was because the American Revolution was successful. American Revolution was more, yeah, it was. Although I would argue that the French Revolution was successful after a hundred years. After the emergence of the Third Republic in 1870, that's when the French Revolution, France, as we know it, became realized. You know, I don't know. First of all, I didn't really have that experience. You know, the American Revolution, we studied probably more than the French Revolution.

But that said, I think the French Revolution is more important than the American Revolution. Because the French, American Revolution is not a true revolution from a Marxist perspective, right? It's like the ruling class remained the ruling class. The elites became, if you were rich before, you were probably rich after if you were poor before you were probably poor after in the french revolution it's a complete overturning of the entire economic order everything becomes backwards right like if you were the you know the clerical class got completely subverted and overturned all their privileges were gone and the french revolution i think invented western ideals for all of

Western Europe and beyond, like, for the next 250 years. I mean, the American Revolution didn't change our ideas about, you know, up for the world. I think Francis did, which is ironic because it's almost like the French one feels like it inspired the American one, but it's the other way around. Way around. Yeah. I mean, obviously, there was a lot of interplay, right, with, you know, Lafayette and all that. We always, you know, I think Americans these days are not very aware of how close we were to

France for so long. And it's the oldest alliance we have. And it's very strange, too, because we, like, threw them under the bus immediately after the revolution. We immediately crawled back into bed with the Brits, which is very odd to me. Yes, we did. Scados 365, many expats in Taipei think that if China imposes a blockade

and then attacks, Japan and the Philippines would be the first to assist if the U.S. countered South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, will not. That's a lot of ifs. Yeah. See, I just don't, I just don't see the Chinese as an international

hegemon. I just, it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm completely wrong. I absolutely could be completely wrong. But I, I just don't really see it.

I think the, I think the convention wisdom is correct. The Chinese want money and they want influence. And a war will get in the way of that. I mean, they have the law game. They can rent Taiwan. They already do have so much influence there economically and politically. It's crazy, right? So, you know, basically the U.S., and this brings up this top, this was one of our topics, right? So the U.S. assumption is that some, I don't know why. Do you know why? I don't know this, John. Apparently the U.S. military planning assumes that China's intention is to invade Taiwan as soon as

2027, the year after the next, and that these drills are all about that. I find that why do they assume that? And why 2027? They've got these off-the-shelf strategies, right? So you always, always have to have a plan for what to do when China invades Taiwan or when Russia invades Poland or whatever. You have these, they call them off the shelf strategy. Well, they've had them since, you know, the late 40s. And you have to constantly update them because of changing, you know, the world is changing or because of changing technologies. or whatever. But I think we've been saying essentially the same thing for more than a half a century

when in fact nothing substantive has changed. No, nothing really. I think it seems like it's mostly in our minds. Although obviously President Xi is a real nationalist. Let's do an ad. If you've been paying attention to the direction of this country is headed, you already know our financial system is being. intentionally sabotaged.

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Visit my gold guy. com slash rumble. today get your consultation get the guide this is the time to act okay that was a long-winded delivery and delivered incompetently my apologies um okay so question from dirty pest 44 oh we should bring in robbie to talk about how we're going to do this um Robbie please come on and tell and explain the call-in section of the show which is coming up in 17 minutes yeah so the call-in section is going to be pretty easy i'm going to drop the discord link in the chats again and i will pin them and so basically what you will do you'll click on the discord server you will see a place

that says uh i'll give you the exact name here so you can see it it is called the call-in waiting room you'll park there i will keep track of who comes in first come first served and then what i will do is i will drag you over you'll be able to ask john and ted your pithy questions and uh please be sure that you unmute your microphone, but mute your tab before watching the stream. That way, there's no feedback. And just be polite, be nice. If you are rude, I will ban you so fast. Your brains will be slapped out of your ear.

So, you have been warned. I like it. Thank you, Robbie. Okay, so we are going to start taking your calls in 16 minutes at 10 o'clock a.m. Eastern time. John, let's talk about these Iran protests. You know, of course, there's a political propaganda aspect to the way that these are reported here in the states. Whenever there's any kind of domestic dissent in Iran, it's always interpreted as the government is about to be overthrown. The Iranians hate their regime, you know, blah, blah, blah, yeah, yay, yay.

And so, you know, look, it's not the first time there have been protests. it's in Iran. It's not the last. They have very high inflation. The Rial is under stress. And even though Iran is a major modern oil-producing country, you know, they're also under stress by these longstanding American and Western sanctions that make it hard for them to get supplies and new equipment and all sorts of stuff. But having been to Iran a couple of times, I can say, you know, it's hardly like they're at death's door, much the way that like Russia was portrayed since the sanctions were imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. What do you make of this?

Like, how serious is this? How big a story is it? You know, where do we go from here? I don't think it's a big deal. So Al Jazeera has probably the best reporting on these demonstrations outside of Iran. And they included pictures that were picked up by the Associated Press and other, you know, mainstream outlets. We're talking about what looked to me to be 10,000 people or less in a country of, you know, 90-something million, 92 million. The demonstrations, and they weren't riots, they were peaceful demonstrations.

They were confined to two areas, the bazaar in central Tehran and a neighborhood called Jumhuri, where it's like the Suk for cell phones, right? The cell phone market neighborhood where all the cell phone stores are located. It's a very Middle Eastern thing to make suks like that. President Peschkian

endorsed the demonstrations in a statement saying that people have the right to demonstrate and they should be demonstrating because inflation's too high. And these demonstrations

are about inflation. Zazir points out that inflation is currently 50%. It's projected to go up to 62% in 2026. And people are tired of their money buying less and less and less. So I don't see this as, yeah, I don't see this as any kind of threat to the regime or anything. You know, you and I have both participated in demonstrations here in the United States that were far, far larger, even on a per capita basis than what we're seeing in Iran.

Yeah. All right. Dirty pest question. At what point does a state's pursuit of quote-unquote stability become more dangerous than the stability it claims to be preventing and how do we know that that line is crossed? Maybe examples. I feel like I'm back in college. It's a good, deep question.

And I think it is when we get to the point where we are, are voluntarily giving up our civil liberties, we've crossed that line. And we did that on September for the 12th, 2001. I can't add anything to that. You're right. Favorite cartoon dog. Mine is, of course, Snoopy, then Astro. I got to go Snoopy. I mean, I'm a huge, I'm a huge Peanuts fan. I literally have all of the books of the entire 50-year run. of peanuts. How dorky am I? Wow. Wow. Wow. Well done. So if you were on a sci-up on your kids, as described earlier, I have. How about you? Yeah, I have. I think most parents have, though. Yeah, the court privates me from getting into

details because of someone to whom I used to be close. Right. One Kyle wants to know. The media barely covers the country of Chad, but do you guys have any thoughts on the rumors that they're changing loyalty from the U.S. to Russia? You know, the only reason why I'm thinking that that might not be true

is that the Wagner group have been so brutal in the way they've handled their time there. But, you know, that brutality aside, I wouldn't be surprised.

if the Chattians decided that they're getting nothing but, you know, but blood and guts and gore from the United States, might as well look elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Sherlock Holmes. I have not. No.

No, I want to. Yeah. I speak French, though. It would be easy. Sherlock Holmes. I'm glad you brought this question up, Sherlock, about the alleged drone attack on Putin's, residents by Ukraine, real or disinformation? The Ukrainians are vehemently denying it. I love, by the way,

NPR's coverage. It's gotten to be a game for me whenever every day NPR covers the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And I want to see, will they once bring on a Russian or pro-Russian official or spokesperson ever to talk about this issue? Never. Never. Which is like, like you guys are journalists really like never um but anyway the point is uh they and they so they talked about the the the Russian claim uh by Lavrov and they said and they said we want to warn our viewers that uh Western analysts that Western government officials do not trust Lavrov that was their journalistic warning I swear to God you could listen to it this morning I'm like what the fuck anyway I have no idea um yeah you know

I've said in the past, I've said in the past that I was stationed at the United Nations when Lavrov was the Russian ambassador of the United Nations. And my specific assignment was to the UN Security Council. So I spent many, many, many, many hours in the room with Lavrov. He was easily the most highly respected diplomat at the United Nations at the time. he he strongly stridently of course supported and defended his country as you would expect him to do he was the ambassador but in terms of just being a really great diplomat that was laprov when i remember when i heard he had been named foreign minister my response was of course he has who else could they possibly name foreign minister he's fantastic but now that he's on the other side everybody's like oh well

You can't trust Lavrov. He just supports Russia. Well, yeah, that's the idea. Truth is the first casualty of war, right? So I don't know what happened here. Look, all I can say is, has Russia lied during this war? Sure. Has Ukraine lied during this war?

Yeah, they claim their democracy. I mean, yeah, there's been lies all around, you know, for sure. So who fucking knows is my answer there. just don't trust anyone Dark Works 88 Ted what resources do you recommend to people who want to learn investigative journalism or want to learn how to view the world

through a journalist's size It's a good question And they kind of are two different questions First of all I would say Part one, there's no investigative gate of journalism really of any note happening that's financed by major news organizations anymore sadly and tragically

So if you want to work doing that You probably won't find any work doing that. If you want to investigate things for yourselves, nothing substitutes like that kid in Minnesota, who, you know, the right winger, the MAGA kid who just, like, hey, let me just find out where these alleged daycare facilities are. And let me go and just see what they look like. And then, you know, roll up your sleeves. And like Jimmy Breslin once told me in the back of my taxi, like get off your ass, get out of the newsroom, go out to the street and talk to people. It's a good mentality to have in general, even if you don't care about journalism. How to view the world through a journalist size?

Just basically don't take anything at face value, especially if the source is someone that you like and trust and are loyal to. It's like American government official and you're an American citizen and you want to believe your government. Don't disbelieve them just for the sake of disbelieving them. But if your mother says she loves you, check it out. I mean, it's really, it's about thinking critically. It's a way of thinking and read as many sources as you possibly can because the truth is somewhere always like in between. Absolutely. Absolutely true.

Yes. Absolutely. You look at people like Max Blumenthal, for example, or Aaron Matte. They essentially work for themselves. Yeah. And they are some of the best journalists. working in America today. So it's all about doggedness, I think.

Yeah, it's like, you know who made the template for this and we've all forgotten is I.F. Stone. Absolutely true. Yes. He worked for himself at a time where he could have gone to work for any number of major media organizations. But he was like, he sussed out back in the 60s and 70s that working for yourself gave you the independence to not be put off the train. trail. And I have Stone is a god. And it's too bad that he's forgotten now. All right, let's see. Before we take some more questions, because the questions today are just as usual, fantastic. So it's hard not to talk about this. John, I wanted to ask you about Medicaid. So Medicaid obviously treats both U.S. citizens and non-citizens and some people who are undocumented.

ICE has asked Medicaid to provide patient data. They claim not stuff about what diseases you have, although who knows whether that's true or not, but basic stuff like names and numbers and address and stuff like that, metadata, I guess we would call it sort of, with ICE. A federal judge says that this is okay. I find it chilling, and I also think it's dangerous. We just came out of a pandemic, right?

I mean, if we had another, during COVID, I wanted undocumented illegal immigrants to be treated for COVID. I didn't want them out spreading it to the rest of us. It's the same reason as like why I want illegal aliens to have driver's licenses, because if one of them hits me, I want them to be insured. You know, am I missing something here? No, I think you've hit it on the head. Yeah, we sometimes, we sometimes, we sometimes. get ahead of ourselves and we try to look at everything

in terms of being black or white and oftentimes it's not black or white, it's gray and it has to be treated as gray. That would be one of those times. Totally. All right, some more

questions to get to. And just a reminder, we are going to be taking your calls in just a few minutes. O'Gaga, do we think that Trump loves cares so much about Nigeria. I'm asking because of the bombing in Sokoto, northeastern Nigeria.

I thought it was Northwestern. Anyway, how come he placed Nigeria on a ban? Yeah. Oh, yeah, the travel ban. Right. Yeah. First of all, I think he did it because he wants to be seen as the savior of Christians.

I really believe. Prusader thing. Yeah, it is. I was pleasantly surprised that he talked to the Nigerian leadership first. I didn't think he would have, but he did. So that was a good thing. On the other hand,

the ban, we should have taken him seriously when he talked about shithole countries in the first term. People were outraged that he used the term shithole countries he meant it he meant it and he just decided he didn't want any of those people or any more of those people uh in the united states and then he you know implemented his policy so i don't think that he did this for any love of nigeria or nigerians i think he did it

because he wants to be seen as the savior of christians and he doesn't want nigerians in the country didn't agree more um thanks for the 20 bucks at Mount MT-16 from Mike and Notting. Oh, thank you, Mike. I know, Mike. Mike's buddy of mine. Thank you, Mike. Okay.

Do we think Kamala will make a political comeback in the future, or is her goose cooked? I'd say it's cooked like a foie gras, like a canal and orange to a crispy golden orange. What do you think? I think that somebody needs to grab her by the shoulders and give her a shake and say, stop. Nobody likes you. Take that teaching job at UCLA and don't talk to the media ever again. Never look back. Tough love, Ted.

Somebody has to show tough love. Let me put it in sharp relief, right? If I can't imagine, let's say, a president, AOC, not that I, I think that that will happen, but I can't even imagine, like, a future Democratic president, even wanting her on their cabinet. What could she even do? I don't even trust her as AG. What would she do?

Professional politician. She brings nothing to the table that's going to help anybody. Yeah. And for that reason alone. No, I mean, no, I mean, look, the thing is the, the thing is political parties are very, especially Democrats, are very unforgiving of people who. match defeat from the jaws of victory, the way that she did in the most recent cycle. I mean, she should have won that, really.

And she blames everybody but herself in her self-serving book. Yeah. Well, she didn't campaign. I mean, she didn't, you know, I mean, and she basically told that she snubbed the progressives. I mean, and she, Gaza alone is why she lost, right? Right. Agreed. Like, what a fucking idiot.

No, basically she was stupid and cynical at the same time. It's hard to pull off both. Jones Jameson, thanks for the five bucks. I love this question, John, and I think it seems like it's a good place to segue into our questions. I'll do a quick read of the other ones while you answer it, though. Do U.S. intelligence agencies do anything to protect citizens? Seems like all the FBI does is entrapped teenage children by giving them bombs. Boy, that's practically right out of my own mouth.

I hate to say this because it's going to make it sound like my entire career was a waste of time. But no, I don't think, for the most part, no, they don't do anything to protect Americans. They will disrupt the occasional attack if they get lucky. But your analysis is completely correct that they spend much more of their time just setting up idiots. and charging them with terrorism or conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. So no, I'm going to write a book eventually. I've got the outline for it,

but I'm going to write a book eventually on the failures of the CIA and why we don't need a CIA anymore. There's a lot of these security apparatus that we don't really need, right? I mean, like the TSA, you know, I don't think we need. them certainly not in their present form no way no way i will say that the fbi did help me

in a situation where i was being threatened um so i i will say that um you know i had a stocker i've said this before and the fbi wouldn't lift a finger and the only reason that anybody did is because she ended up flying to washington lincoln nebraska with a gun to kill my wife, my ex-wife now, and then told me she was doing it and then showed up at my office. That was the only reason the cops... I went to the cops for six months.

I went to the Arlington County Police, the Lincoln, Nebraska Police, the University of Nebraska Police because she was on the campus of the University of Nebraska, the Capitol Police, the FBI, all five of them, nothing. And then finally, MPD, the Metropolitan Police Department,

went to the hotel, arrested her only because she had come in with a gun. They don't give a shit about anybody. I will say also, this is a systemic issue, right? Like, I wish I'd made this up, but I read it somewhere, but I love this line where it's like the system is set up to deal with psychopaths, but not sociopaths. And when someone's coming for you, like, it's so bad when like, it's like sorry wrong number when someone when you know you're being stopped and threatened until you know you have to wait

till you're dead before they're going to before they're going to pay attention um yeah yeah that's the way it is it's seriously fucked up um i would say broken i don't like when people say the system is broken because i think that implies that it was supposed to work right and then it ceased to work right if the system's designed not to do something it's not broken it's just fucked up um anyway all right guys You are now, it is now 10.03 Eastern Time, which means that we are well into the, not well into, we're a couple of minutes into the second hour of D program with Ted Roll and John Kirooku. If you're just joining us, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you for listening to the first hour of the program. We'll be back tomorrow. But in the meantime, we now

start the call-in segment of the show. So the way this is going to work, producer Robbie West is going to come on. Robbie, please come on and explain to everyone. everyone exactly what they need to do to come on and talk to us. Yeah, so basically it's pretty simple. You'll click the link that's pinned in the chat that will let you join our Discord server. Once you join us to scroll down just a little bit, you're going to save a room that says call in voice chat. And there's a waiting room there. You're going to click on that waiting room and you will sit there and you will wait patiently.

And then what I will do is I will drag you, I'll drag you down to where John and Ted and me are residing. and then you're able to ask your question it'll be first come first serve and that's just going to work now to make this go by quick and easy please make sure that your tab is muted if you are watching if you're watching the stream

and then unmute your microphone once you get over both things right so microphone microphone on and the tab on your browser muted and if you don't know how to do that basically you I don't know how you do it on a PC but on a Mac you control click a tab and then you have an out scroll down menu to

mute it with a PC it's super easy just right click on it and there's a mute tab PC is most easier to use the Macs and they're easier to fix my wife disagrees they're definitely easier to fix there's no question about that I couldn't agree more yeah I don't know if y'all can hear my wife in the background or not she's like that's not true that's fake news she She is Apple's biggest fan girl. So are y'all ready for the first human? We are. I'm trapped in the Apple world just because I was an illustrator.

And you had to, for Photoshop, it used to not work on PC. And now I'm stuck. Anyway, all right, let's talk to the first caller. First caller is going to be Kolegi 51. You, sir, are live. Please unmute your tab and ask your question. And ask your question. Okay.

Hello, again. So, are you guys worried about J.D. Vans becoming the next president because Trump seems to be ailing mentally, very much so? Or do you think he would be better? Oh, so you mean, so is your question, would he become, Trump would, something will happen to Trump before the next election? Yes, he seems to be very, like, suffering from Alzheimer's too. I don't think he's suffering from Alzheimer's, to be honest. I think that, like, obviously, no two older people age in the same way, identically. Donald Trump, I think, is going to turn, isn't he, like, is it next month, or he's going to turn 80 or something? Very soon, he's turned, very, very soon. Joe Biden was already showing signs of dementia well before the age of 79.

And so I would agree that Trump is definitely not the same as he was two or five or ten years ago. So it's really hard to assess. But I think that the problem is, from the standpoint of, I think that with what happened with the Democrats covering up for Biden going all the way back to 2020, now there's no one in the opposition party who can credibly stand up and say, hey, there's something wrong with the presidents of the United States. And even if Trump were much worse than he really is right now, the Democrats wouldn't have any standing politically in order to make that case because everyone say, come on, look at you

guys, you covered up for it. So to me, there's that point. And then there's the point of, is Trump really that bad? I mean, he's older and he's not as sharp maybe or as articulate as he used to be. But I would have a hard time saying, like if it were up to me to invoke the 25th amendment, in good faith, I couldn't. I don't think there's evidence to say that he's incapable of performing his job. He's on TV all the time. He travels. He's energetic.

He participates. He's always attending events. None of these things were true about Joe Biden. So is he as sharp as I would like him to be? No. I don't know. So I guess at this stage, at this point, on December 30th, 2025, I don't see J.D. Vance needing to step in.

But, I mean, three years is a long fucking time, John. Yes. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. And I'll add, too, it is clear to me that J.D. Vance is Trump's chosen successor, not just because he's the vice president. Mike Pence was the vice president. Mike Pence was never the chosen successor. But it's clear to me that Trump is grooming J.D. Vance to take the job.

He's very patient. Trump is very patient with him and I think he's confident that that Vance is MAGA enough he's a chameleon really because he's been a Democrat he's been a Republican he's been an independent he's been a liberal

he's been a conservative now he's MAGA and I think Trump trust that he's MAGA enough to let him be the the one to carry the MAGA revolution forward yeah I

I think there's no doubt about that. I mean, one question I have, John, is what do you think about the rumors that he's getting ready to jettison Ushah and get with the widow of Charlie Kirk? I just don't. I don't think there's anything to that at all. I know that it's creating this this weird, like, civil war within the MAGA movie. movement, but I, I just don't, I don't buy it. But doesn't I, are the, will, will the MAGA people be okay with, you know, ethnically South Asian first lady? Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I don't, I don't think

that's a problem. The problem of Vance is an ideology. I mean, John hit it, but we don't trust him. I know, ask, if you ask J.D. Vance, what do you believe he has to call Peter Thiel first. That's the problem with Jane Advance. Right. Okay. Thanks for that call. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next

up will be Venkatesh. Vakitesh, you are live. Hey, Vincettish. Please unmute your voice so we can hear you and make sure your tab is muted hello okay am i audible yeah i want to ask mr john about the existence and expansion of

nato as of 2025 because that's no clear so with aggression for which the nato was originally created for and do you see in any near future that nat would be weaponized to contain china in anyway, you know, including and subsuming countries in a former Soviet republics like Kazakhstan or something like that? I'm going to answer the second part of the question first. And I'm going to say, yeah, I can see that happening only because it happened in Afghanistan. Now, granted, the United States was attacked and, you know, the NATO charter says, you know,

an attack on one and his attack on all, et cetera, et cetera. So I could see I could see NATO declaring something an attack in kind let's say it's a an electronic attack a hack for example that does something like takes down the Pentagon systems or whatever

and and then they're invited to NATO's invited to enter Japan let's say or whatever Malaysia, Australia, whatever. So sure, I could see that happening. I agree with you that NATO was created to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union no longer exists. My personal view is that Russia is not a threat to Western Europe. If it is, it's only because it's constantly being poked and prodded by the West. Interestingly enough, though, There is no path in the NATO charter that would allow a country to leave NATO, or that's not true, to be thrown out of NATO. Turkey left at one point, Greece left at one point, France left at one point, but remained in the political structure of NATO. And then they all ended up going back. But there's no way to throw a country out of NATO.

And I think that that makes it even even tougher. So I don't know, just off the cuff some thoughts. But yeah, I could definitely see that happening. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but down the line, yes. Okay. And Robbie, if you have any ads, let me know. Yep. We'll do.

So next up will be Mustang. Mustang, you are live. Bustang, please unmute your voice. Otherwise, we will not be able to hear you, which will make your question hard to understand. Go ahead, we hear, go ahead. You're on the air. Am I up?

Go ahead. You're up, you're up. In the film, Thunderheart, Val Kilmer plays a mixed-blood FBI agent, goes to a Lakota Rez to investigate a murder, which turns out to be an allowed, federal cover-up disguising a uranium deal on tribal lands. Val's FBI character exclaims, we were sent here to do a mop-up job, right, Frank?

Frank was the corrupt FBI agent played by Sam Shepard. Val's character went on to say, you came here to broker a land deal. Ed and John, why do the feds always try to hide uranium deals? How is uranium used geopolitically, for example, the Clinton Uranium-1 Russian Rosatam scandal? You know, something similar is happening in Colorado right now. It involves the Clintons. It involved Brooke when he was still alive.

It's on federal land. It involves a Canadian uranium mining company. I think that these things happen because there's so much money involved. People can accumulate or acquire generational wealth just by having their name on a contract. And because it's uranium and there are national security implications for uranium, it's easy to keep it quiet and classified, you know, just whispered about in the hallways of governmental entities. I think it's easy to rip off the American people like that. And if you're in a position of power, like Bill and Hillary Clinton, you can get away with it.

The only thing I would add to that is that uranium, the ability to source uranium makes governments nervous because it's not found in many places. So, you know, it's sort of like when you do find a source for it, you really want to secure it no matter what. Thank you very much All right Next up will be Pazioas I just butchered your name

I apologize That's what you get for having a redneck producer So please unmute yourself and let her rip Please unmute We're going to have to We're going to have to really spread that message Over and over far and wide Go ahead you're on the air

please unmute yourself. All right. Let's move on, maybe. Back to the queue with you. All right. So next up will be Victor, Victor, you are live. Please unmute and ask your question.

Oh, can you hear me? Yep, we hear you. Yes, Victor, we hear you perfectly. Go ahead. You're on the air. Thank you. Hey, good morning, guys. I just want to thank you for all your work I've been

hearing you guys out since Sputnik like every day from morning to end at my work and everything so you guys keep me informed and it was really sad what happened with Sputnik I have a little two questions one's a two part and one's a regular question the first one would be

if Sputnik comes back into the United States and is unbanded and everything would you guys plan to join again would that be like or is that like just over within your lives and yeah and the second question Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead.

And then the second question would be kind of a conspiracy, a question about conspiracy theories that I've been seen online and everything regarding Donald Trump's administration. Like, oh, we can't get rid of the debt. He's going to reset the economy. You've got to invest in gold. John loves gold. I love that. I'm so embarrassed by it.

No, yeah. I just wanted to see, like, I know a lot of conspiracies. theories come with presidents and go. But with a debt ceiling, like, realistically, we can't see some things going on with the economy. Is there, like, really, should we be afraid? Should we be panicking? Or, yeah, basically that. I'm sorry, I want to be clear on the second question. Should we be panicking about the national debt? Is that the question? Oh, yeah. Basically, a conspiracy theory that I've seen online and everything, is that the Trump administration is getting ready to reset the economy,

go to back the gold standard, like, we're going to lose money. Like, yeah, the conspiracy theories have, like... Can I shoot, John, could you mind if I just kill that second question? Like, okay, so let me blow. I mean, okay, there is literally, absolutely no fucking way the United States can return to the gold standard. I mean, that ship sailed in 1973. It is never going back.

There is the ability of the U.S. to mint money and to be able to basically rely on its goodwill to sell debt is essential to its survival. It's just not going to work. The Trump administration, I don't think, has any desire to do that. And if they did, they could never do it. I mean, it's as impossible as, you know, just think of, you know, like me playing in the NBA. It's just not going to happen. I don't know, John. Eddie, do you agree?

I agree. And may I answer the first question about Sputnik? Eight months ago, I would have said yes. I would love to go back to Sputnik. I had a completely positive experience at Sputnik. liked my coworkers, and I've said this many, many times. I was allowed to say anything I wanted to say, criticize anybody I wanted to criticize, except one time I criticized the Indians and was told to back off. But I had a really great experience there. However, you know, life moves on. And when we

lost our jobs, we were, you know, led to believe that they probably weren't. weren't coming back. And so Ted and I, along with Michelle in the beginning, started this thing. We've just monetized it. We're barely making any money, but it's going somewhere. And I think I'm going to stick to it. Now, on the other side, you may have noticed that I got my RT show back. RT's a different situation where I didn't work directly for RT.

I worked for a company in Miami called Rebel Media. Rebel Media is an American company solely by Americans, and it employed only American citizens. So it's not Russian-owned. It's not a part of RT. We produced shows, and we licensed to the shows to RT. So when the Biden administration put sanctions on Russia, they put us out of business.

Shut us down. we complained to the Treasury Department that we were not R.T. We were Americans, all of us. And the Biden sanctions violated our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of association. And then lo and behold, we actually won. And so last month I went to Miami, I started recording episodes of the show. It was called whistleblowers. It will continue to be called the whistleblowers. until March, and then we're going to revamp it. But we got some of that back. So on the one hand, that's great.

On the other hand, I fear that Sputnik is gone for good, and there's nothing we can do about it. Yeah, I largely agree. I largely agree with that. I mean, I think the only asterisk I would add here is if, let's say, I don't know if Sputnik's coming back. I hope they do. I hope so good.

but and it never should have been shut down in the first place it was wrong and they they were scrupulously law abiding um that said if and i have to and like john i have to say i've rarely been as little censored as i was when i was at sputnik now that said um you know if there was a way for john and i keep doing the same thing and um you know and and maybe there's a way we could license stuff to sputnik um you know Like, you know, they want to broadcast this show or something? That could work, you know. This is all very theoretical, though. Of course. Oh, yeah. And no, thank you for the attention. And, yeah, the thing about some public being gone is kind of sad.

I actually had their, their app on my iPhone until last week. I had to change my phone because it broke. And then I downloaded the new iPhone, the new apps and everything. Like, they cut it off forever. Like, I was able to download it. via the Brazilian app store. I used to change my country and then I used to download it

there, but they removed it entirely now. Yeah, the Sputnik Africa app downloaded even after the, you know, Apple store shut it down. So, you know, sanctions are not like that foolproof. I went to, I went to Russia in 2022. So really peak sanctions, right? Like Starbucks was closed,

those, you know, those Western chain stores were closed and all that due to the sanctions. But at one point, there were city banks all over Moscow. And I found, and I found one. And lo and behold, my debit card still worked there. And I was able to. I pulled cash out of my bank account. Yeah. So I think it's just like, sanctions are never 100%. I guess so. No. No. Anyway, thanks for that call. Much appreciate it. Bobby, who else do we have? And just a reminder, if you want to talk to John and myself,

just all you have to do is go to the Discord link that's at the top of the Rumble chat or the YouTube chat, then click on calling waiting room, and then Robbie, you'll take care of the rest. All right, who's next? Next up will be Mo. Mo, please unmute yourself. Just a quick plug.

One thing, I just want to point this out, is that when YouTube demonetized this show, Rumble didn't. And so if you really support free speech and if you really hate just the tech oligarchs, come over to Rumble, the weather's fine. Us right wingers, we don't bite too hard. Well, can you hear me? We hear you. Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.

Hey. I've got a quick question. So from 1970 to 2024, the asset family has controlled Syria. Now the new Syrian president came in and the revolution has won. What do you think about the new president of Syria and do you have any hope for that country? He seems to be doing very well. I went there in July this year. That was my first time to be honest.

Since I was 10, I left Syria when I was 10 and I went back in July this year. So it seems very nice. What do you think? I'm cautiously optimistic about Syria. I will say that I was public in my opposition to meddling in Syria because I believed that as bad as Bashar al-Assad was, he was the only thing protecting minority, religious minority communities in Syria. As it turned out, he was even worse than we imagine. And now with the new leadership, you know, I really worry about what is happening to the Druze, for example, but it looks like the country is entering a period of, I won't say stability.

I'll say more stability than it had previously experienced. I'm willing to give the new government the benefit of the doubt. The U.S. government seems to like them. and so if sanctions are lifted, maybe the international community, I should say now that sanctions are lifted, maybe the international community can begin helping them to develop the economy. So you're the first person I've spoken to who's been to Syria since Assad left. I'm very interested in what you have to say. Were you in Damascus?

Did you travel around the country at all? I did go to Damascus through Jordan. and on the border, the Syrian border, they were very, very kind. They were like, welcome back to your country. And back in Syria and Damascus, everything seems to be safe. I was going around on the street, just walking around like 3 a.m. in the morning by myself. Like I said, I knew nothing there. I left when I was 10 years old.

So I have no clue where I'm going or what I'm doing, but I speak the language. wish. But it seemed very safe. I really enjoyed the time there. And the thing is, you did say that people thought Assad was protecting minority. The Syrian people knew all long that he was not. He's not really. There is a new leaked video of him just going in the car and basically saying that he's ashamed of Syria. He doesn't like Syria. He doesn't like the Syrian people. You can see that all videos online on YouTube. I believe you speak Arabic so you can truly understand what he's saying. He doesn't like Syria. He's saying that in his own words. Regarding the Druze thing, I truly believe, not being anti-Semitic or anything, but it's

just an Israel issue. They're backing the Druze, giving them big head. So they're not really negotiating. That is the problem in my opinion. You know, that's something we should probably talk about at some point is Israeli support for the Druze. It seems to me, forgive me, I tend to be suspicious in areas like this, but it seems to me that the Israelis don't really give a shit about the Druze. What they care about is being able to use the Druze as a way to get into Syria and Syrian affairs. We should look more closely at that. I agree with you.

I agree. Great. Thank you. Good question. Thank you for that. Thank you for that call. Please, Robbie, let's hear, let's get our next one. Next one will be Benis.

Benis, you are live. Please unmute yourself and ask your question. Benice, unmute yourself. Okay, Benis, you're on the air. Hi there. Hi there. How's it going? Good.

Hi there. Good to speak to you guys. I just wanted to ask John specifically about as a life, having a life in intelligence agencies, you have to separate who you really are from who you are portraying yourself as. at times it makes you so good at being a liar at times really i'm just wondering once you leave that life do you find yourself having to be disciplined about when to switch it off like can you sometimes become really uh you slip into it sometimes without without realizing yeah um i did not a lot of people do a lot of people do you know they tell you in the beginning

you're going to lie for a living you're going to lie all the time. But don't ever lie to security, medical, or finance, because they're the people who can ruin your life. And my boss would always say, and don't ever lie to me, meaning your boss. You get a chuckle out of that. But the words to live by, the problem is then guys are lying all day, all day, all day, and they go home and they lie to their wives. And that's why the CIA has the highest divorce rate of any governmental entity in America, right? It's close to 80% divorce rate. With that said, it was never a problem for me. I actually could turn it off. And I think that's what made particularly my second divorce so difficult. I can't really

say anything beyond that but I had no problem turning it off when I walked out the door there are others who can't and then who end up living the lie yeah

and nothing good comes to that I can't tell you how many times dozens and dozens of times over the course of my CIA career we would get an all-hands email from the director or the head of security or whoever it happened to be,

announcing the arrest of a CIA employee, always for something stupid, like using their CIA credit card to pay for a prostitute, for example. That would happen all the frigging time. And then they're like, we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. And I remember saying the guy next to me.

That's what Jerry Springer did, right? Jerry Springer paid with a city check for a hunger. When he was mayor of Cincinnati. That's right. so yeah it's it's paying for prostitute with a with your CIA credit card or embezzling funds and then they'll embezzle like 200 bucks like what are you insane but they think because they lie all the time and they get away with it all the time that they can continue to lie or lie to the CIA and they're going to get away with it and they don't get away with it nothing good comes of lying you know and it takes a very It takes a very, like, put together person to be able to lie all day, shut it off, and then be honest while you're outside. It's very hard to do and very unusual. I mean, I think it's true about a lot of people in different jobs, right?

Like, I think if you're like a police officer or a prison guard where you're allowed to use violence in your line of work, and then it's hard if you go out and you feel disrespected in civilian. life by someone, you know, road raging you or someone is an asshole to you in a store, you're going to be tempted to go to that same place. Like, I could kill this person. I could hit this person, but you can't. Yeah, right. Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering with, like, I watch a lot of military, former military podcast, former intelligence agency podcasts, that sort of thing.

And you can tell from the way they speak about certain subjects that they're still in that kind of compartmentalized mindset, which, of course, you have to be legal matters and so forth. But they, it becomes a default for them. And I'm just wondering what specifically about you. Do you think it's a religious thing to where that helps you keep her connection with reality to where you don't slip into lies? You think it's just a pragmatic thing. Where does that come from? I think a lot of it is religious. I grew up in a very strongly Greek Orthodox family. I took that very seriously as a kid. And, you know, I went into that job at the CIA to really, truly believing that we were the good guys. And then I came to a position

where if the people around me are not going to be the good guys, I'm going to be the good guy. It was, it was important to me personally. So, yeah, I have to tell you. I got to know the one person you can control. Yeah, I was the one person I could control. I want to give a shout out to Luke Davidson, who wrote to me this morning from Toronto. He lives in Greek town. And he said that there's this guy making him angry who was commenting about me on, I guess on the Joe Rogan podcast on YouTube, a guy named Mike Schnittker. He says, John Kariaku was a mediocre analyst in CIA, and he tells stories he heard in drunken sessions with real CIA operations officers and sells them as his own with bogus bologna attached.

I'm retired CIA, and every one of his YouTube videos is lies and bullshit. So I Google this guy. He has two arrests for child pornography. Oh, boy. This is the guy who's going to criticize. me i have no idea if he's retired cia i kind of hope he is but this is the guy who decides to put his name out there to criticize me and accuse me of lying about my entire adult life that everything i've said uh is a lie a guy with two child pornography convictions and by the way he

allocated maybe he's heard you talk about uh pedophiles pedophiles i suspect And how much I'd like to put a bullet in their brains. Amen. But yeah. I would suspect that might have, that would be my first guess. As to motivation. Robbie, who else do we have? And do we have any more ads?

No new ads right now. And next up will be DeNice, Gamer. D'Nice, you are live with John and Ted. Unmute yourself, please, on Discord. Yes, are you going to hear me? Perfect. Yes. Yes, this one's for John.

I want to say first, California. I want to ask, being Greek American and having done some work in Greece, I was wondering if you can maybe describe the politics there as opposed to the U.S. I'm sorry, the end of it cut off. Can you repeat that? Yes, describe the politics in Greece as opposed to the politics. the U.S. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a great lover of Greek politics. I follow it, as it sounds like you do very closely. You know, one of the big differences between Greece and the United States, one of the big differences between many European countries and the United States is that Greece has

multiple communist parties, socialist parties, and fascist parties. that are viable. So there's a much broader national ideological spectrum than there is in the United States. Even in the UK, the Labor Party is sort of kind of quasi-socialist. At least they say they are. And here in the United States, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you're a capitalist. We all are. In Greece, the ruling party, of course, is the conservative New Democracy Party, Nehdemocratia, and it's funny because in Greece it's seen as a very conservative party. It's actually not. It's what I would compare to the Democrats here in the United States, today's Democrats. But corruption continues to be a problem in Greek politics,

a big enough problem to bring down even the conservatives. And taxes, continues to be a problem. Taxes are too high. But I think the Greeks have, for the most part, pulled themselves out of the trouble that they made for themselves back in 2008, 2009. You know, I remember going to an event at Johns Hopkins University, and I was sitting next to the Greek ambassador, and we were seeing the deputy prime minister slash finance minister giving this speech.

So he's doing this slide presentation. about the budget and he was saying a disaster is in play right now the economy is going to collapse we don't know what to do but these are the numbers and he was honest about it and I'm sitting there and watching this

and I leaned over to the Greek ambassador and I said I don't see how you get out of this and he said I don't think we get out of it and the next thing you know two three months later the entire The economy goes into a depression, not a recession, a depression. But they've pulled themselves out of it, in part through taxation, in part through sort of a rework of governmental systems.

All of the land registries now are computerized, which is absolutely amazing to me that they've been successful at doing something like that. Foreigners are actively encouraged to buy property in Greece, and before that just wasn't the case. My parents owned land in Greece that they had inherited from their parents. And back then, you had to sell it in the United States in dollars in order to be able to get your money because you couldn't take Krakmas out of the country. So I think things are much better now than they were in the past. The left is split between Pasuk, the Panolanic Socialist movement and um and uh what's teapras what's teapras's party what's it called now i think it changed

its name yeah whatever the other left party yeah is these days the left is split and because the left is split the right is going to win again if the left were unified i think we would see a continuation of the cycle between a left wing government and the right wing government left wing right wing. I think the, I think the conservative's going to win again. Right. Because thank you for, I'm really curious about that kind of like, I guess, the left wing side of Greece and like where that political, I guess, ideology comes from. Obviously, you know, being orthodox, we have that, I guess, traditional conservative side. So I was just kind of getting an idea where that left wing side comes in. Thank you so much.

I'll tell you something else, too. And this caused a little bit of a problem for me when I first applied to the CIA. My paternal grandmother was a royalist. She supported the Greek royal family, which wasn't Greek and didn't speak Greek. And I still just marvel over the whole thing. My paternal grandfather was a Republican with a small R and a supporter of the Venizelos government. on my mother's side, my maternal grandfather was a socialist, and my maternal grandmother didn't care one way or the other. So when I applied to the CIA, I had to write a list of all my relatives in Greece and what, you know, name, address, birth date, physical description, and employment.

Well, I had one relative, one cousin, who couldn't be employed because he had been a cop during the junta, number one, a right-wing extremist and probably a torture. And then on the other side, my paternal grandmother's first cousin was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Greece for the Dedeckinis Islands. And they were like, oh, my God, our communist. It delayed me for six months. So when I finally got there the first time in 85, I realized that my family was spread out all over the ideological spectrum from the far left to the far right and everyone in between. And then when I went to vote for the first time in the 2019 election, I voted in my grandfather's middle school in our village in Rhodes. And why am I telling you? Oh, afterwards, I called my boss at Sputnik.

And I said, hey, I voted. It was really cool. It was fun. I enjoyed myself. And he said, can you interview some people there? And if you can do that, we won't use this time as vacation. So I said to my cousins, hey, I should interview somebody. Who should I interview for this?

and he said interview cousin Bill Vasili I said which which cousin Bill he said Bill Kiriaku Vasili's Kiriaku I said who's he he's like he was just elected the governor of the island I said yeah the cousin who's the governor of the island and his name is Kiriakou less so it turned out that he was from the conservative party the nea democratia I interviewed him he was kind of a dick in the interview kind of full of himself. It was the first time I had ever met him. But it turned out I have a couple of other elected official cousins who were members of the Socialist Party. And so I was able to interview them too. Yeah. What I like about voting in Greece is you don't have to declare

yourself as a member of any party. And there were 36 parties that were vying for parliamentary seats. I've mentioned in previous shows, there are six different communist parties in Greece, which I had never heard before. I only knew of the one. But six different communist parties, two different neo-Nazi parties, and the religious fascists and everybody in between.

Wow. I loved it. Thank you. Thank you. And what's just to say, that's all right. It feels more like a real democracy when you have all those choices.

Oh, yeah. I couldn't agree more. It was great. And you know, what's fun is it gives you the opportunity to vote for a party that you are 100% in ideological agreement with, even if that party doesn't have a prayer of winning a parliamentary seat. I have a question for you. Who knows? They might make an alliance in a winning coalition.

Sure. I have a question for you, John, for pulling our next caller. Greece has real people with a real history, like y'all remember things. So with the government selling off its land, you know, to foreigners, I mean, the Byzantines said the same thing to the Venetians, and we know it happened in 1204. So why would they do that? It's suicide, at least from the way I look at it. How do the Greek people see it?

It is suicide, and it's a manifestation of economic depression and panic, national panic. So this is bad in two different ways. Number one, they sold all of the ports, all of the major ports in the country to the Chinese. And it's for like 50 years or 60 years. The Chinese own the port of Piraeus, the port of Pateras, the port of Tessaloniki. Absolute national outrage. It should be a scandal. They sold the airport to the Germans.

Freaking German company owns Eleftherios Venizel. West International Airport. That's insane. Yeah, I'm embarrassed by this. But secondly, and more insidious, I think, is most of the real estate purchases, especially in Athens right now, I shouldn't say especially in Athens. Starting in Athens and extending now to the islands that are vacation spots are Russians, Chinese, and Israelis.

Greeks aren't buying property because they don't have the money to buy property. but the the the russians chinese and israelis certainly do it's gotten so bad you know half the population of the country lives in athens and there are no rental properties but there are tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of apartments that are sitting empty because they're bought by foreigners and they make them Airbnb's and so you can I stay in it an Airbnb every time I go to Athens, unless somebody else is paying for it, in which case I stay in a hotel. But they're all Airbnbs. I went to Athens in, it was like February or March with my girlfriend. And we stayed in an Airbnb. It was a building right by the Acropolis that was

12 apartments on six floors. So two apartments on each one of the six floors. We were the only people in the building. because foreigners had bought all 12 apartments and they were Airbnb all of them. And because we were there in the offseason, we were the only ones in the entire apartment building. It's weird, like a little scary. That's happening here, too. Yeah, it's happening here. But my point, though, is because all of these are Airbnbs just waiting for tourists,

Greeks have nowhere to live, like literally nowhere to live. And so they end up emigrating. They're going to Germany, the U.K., Australia, the United States, Canada. They just can't afford to stay in Greece. That's crazy. I mean, the government could change that. They could change, though. These are legal changes.

Yeah, this year in the summer, they passed a new law in Athens only that you can't create any new Airbnbs. None. They're forbidden. They're forbidden. I said to a realtor. because I'm looking to buy a place in Athens. I said, they're forbidden unless you have a little fuck-a-laki, which means a little envelope with, you know, a thousand euros tucked in it.

And he was like, well, yeah, you know how he's that. Yeah. That's how things work here also. All right. Who's our next caller? Next caller is Pope Urban. I love the name. Please unmute yourself.

And love to hear you. what you've got to say your holiness thanks for joining us hello hi um i am a not even question so i just am a fanatic for the um for the crusades so that's the group of urban um i think but um give me time i'll win you um so um i actually have three points to make and one question so please bear with me um first thing is that i just want to say I am the card-carrying super fan of the D program show. This is like the best thing that has happened. So thank you.

Thank you very much for doing this. The second point was that I was a premium member of YouTube, but since they did that thing with you guys, I canceled my membership. I'm 100% rumble now. So thank you for that. Third point I wanted to make was I do that all the time and I know it's a little dangerous to speak on this, but I'd really want to platform Imran Khan in Pakistan. The guy is in jail for stupid stuff and Pakistan is going down a very bad path again for military dictatorship. So I just wanted to platform that and still viewers here.

Just keep Imran Khan in your thoughts. See, you know, give it some attention. They need they need some help. And that comes to my question to John and Ted. What's going on with Somaliland? Does MBS and MZD, the Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, do they have a feud? Is it playing out in Somaliland? What's going on in Somaliland, please? Do you want to jump in, Ted? Go ahead on the Somaliland thing, because you're more plugged into that than I am. So Somaliland is an area of northern Somalia that is so far away from Mogadishu that it's just not involved in things like piracy and terrorism. There's no Shabab presence there.

It's a completely separate place. And it very much wants to be independent. No country in the world recognized it as an independent country until a couple of days ago when the Israelis recognized it over the weekend. I mentioned yesterday in the show, I went to Somaliland in 2011 with the U.S. ambassador to Djibouti, the defense attache to Djibouti, and the embassy security officer. We drove there from Djibouti, and we had meetings with Somaliland officials, but the meetings were unofficial. So they were not any official recognition, American recognition of Somaliland as an entity. And, you know, I remember talking to these guys in the car on the way back and saying, what's the downside to us recognizing Somaliland?

Oh, it would cause chaos and it would lead to the breakup of Somalia and it would plunge the place into chaos. It's already in chaos. And what are we hoping we're going to be friends with the Somalis one day? They have Shabab. They attack merchant ships. They attack Navy ships. They, you know, grabbed Captain Phillips. They're no friends of ours.

No, we can't do that. It's too, it would be scandalous. It would have to do it through the United Nations. It would require a UN Security Council resolution, et cetera, et cetera. But I realized when I was there, even though I was there for a short time, it's a freely operating, you know, quasi-country. It's got its own economy. it has a it has a functioning you know what looked to me to be a normal East African society

it was at least as well developed as Djibouti I mean I felt safe there it has a beautiful beach it could it could build an important port although it would have to compete with Djibouti but I thought it was perfectly nice there the Israelis did it though, for a very specific reason. The Israelis did it because it now gives them a foothold, not just in East Africa, but a foothold that is mere miles from the Houthis. And, you know, the Houthis will fire a rocket at Israel,

and it'll land somewhere in the Negev or outside of Aqabar or whatever. And then the Israelis will fire a rocket back and they'll blow up a port or an airport or a, you know, military training camp or whatever. Now the Israelis can get to the Houthis in literally 60 seconds, right? Yeah. Because it's only 16 miles from Djibouti to Yemen.

Somaliland's not so far away. They can be there in 30 seconds if they wanted to do a bombing run from Somaliland. And so both sides get something out of this. The Somali landers get their first ever international recognition, and the Israelis get, you know, a free, if temporary. military base. So is there Muhammad bin Salman

and UAE feud that's going on and is Somaliland a factor in that? Not like it is in Sudan or in Yemen. This is the oddest thing

to have the Saudis and the Emirates at military odds in their own neighborhood. it's crazy crazy it's it's unprecedented in my experience um normally they act hand in glove just like the bahrainis do with the saudis but the fact that the arab thing is it like a bedouin arab thing that we we you know mohammed bin salman has an ego and mzd has an ego and it's an ego thing going on i think that's exactly what it is oh god and i'll tell you the funny thing is that the gutteries

will say hey look we've been saying this for a hundred years you know why hasn't anybody listened to us over the last hundred years? We've told people this is exactly what's going to happen. The Saudis and the Qarries hate each other to the point where I was driving once from Bahrain to Qatar. You have to go from Bahrain across the causeway to Saudi Arabia and then drive south through the desert and then you come up through southern Qatar. And we couldn't cross the border because the Saudi and Qatari border guards were shooting at each other. And we had to wait for six hours until they stopped shooting and then we could cross. into Qatar and there was no reason

like one of them you know was cleaning his gun or whatever it went off and then they just all started shooting they hate each other and we all have time for one more call so thank you thank you very much for your call

good questions Robbie do we have time for one more we do so next up we'll be smobbs smobs you are live please unmute yourself and ask your question. Good morning, Schnobs. You're on the air. Hello, good morning.

First of all, I love the show. I've called in a couple times at this point, so I'm sorry for pestering. Not at all. I guess my pressing question now would be involving recent news with Iran. this is something that I'm very much plugged in with not just the economic shortages but the water shortages the idea that

the capital which is just insanity and this recent green light from BB from Trump do not only attack the nuclear sites but the ballistic missiles like these FATA twos and whatever else they're hiding it seems like

and especially with these recent pronouncements from the president do you feel like there's real conflict coming. It feels to me as though, but perhaps that's my own biased perspective. I'd love to hear you guys thought. I'm genuinely worried about this. I really am. I see absolutely nothing that the U.S. gets out of conflict with Iran. If anything, it has the potential to be an utter disaster for the United States. This is another one of those cases where we would be doing the Israelis bidding. And I think it's wrong, wrong, wrong. It's especially wrong to attack sites associated

with water. That's a war crime. You can't do that. Not to say we do it anyway. But I don't see any positive. You blinked out for a second. I don't see anything good or positive that could possibly come of this. I mean, this could go either way. I mean, With Trump and his relationship with Netanyahu, I think he veers between that loyalty, but also being wary of being cast as BB's bitch. And so, you know, it's kind of like that is, that is a legitimate concern. I think Trump reads the polls. He knows that Netanyahu is about as popular as herpes right now in the United States. So, you know, being perceived as going to war for Israel against Iran, even if Iran's not popular either, is not going to, I think it's not a winner.

I think in the, you know, it's not 100 percent, but I mean, I think it's like 60, 40, he doesn't do this. God, I hope you're right. Yeah, me too. I mean, on the right wing, if you follow right wing media like what I do, because I'm a right winger, the photo ops of Heggseth. And Bibi, you know, just shaking hands, Bibi just looking like the maniac that he is. People are like, oh, good, the boss is back in the office. Trump would be a good boy now.

And that's got to hit him in the threat and the ego. Yeah, that hurts. Yeah. I mean, honestly, probably the best thing any American president could do would be for their own popularity and approval would be to cut Israel loose. I think, you know, these guys, they're living, you know, Donald Trump's politics were formed during the Nixon era and it shows

but it's a different world now and when someone figures that out Israel's got a rude awakening coming yeah well I think so ahead Robbie special thank you for Tusk PC he has become our newest monthly supporter over on Rumble thank you

thank you thank you Tusk much appreciated and thank you really to all of you for giving us some amazing questions both, you know, on the air live as well as by text through the feeds. It's been an amazing two hours. It always is. I really enjoy these mornings. John always a pleasure. Robbie always a pleasure. Thank you both. We will be back. The show is always here Monday through Friday at 9 o'clock Eastern time. Tomorrow's New Year's Eve. We are doing the show from 9 to 11. 9 o'clock hour is the show as usual.

10 o'clock hour is the call-ins. The call-ins is not a permanent feature of the show. Tomorrow and Friday will be, that'll be it for the foreseeable future until the next time we do it. But anyway, look for us here tomorrow morning, 9 o'clock Eastern Time. And thank you so much. Happy New Year. And we will see you tomorrow. Bye, everyone.

Great. Bye, everyone. Bye, John. Bye, y'all. See you, Ted. Bye, Robbie. Bye, Robbie.