DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deadly U.S. Boat Strikes Have Not Reduced Drug Smuggling | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the US, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).• Russian entrepreneurs have been devastated by Ukrainian drone strikes targeting warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce company and the country’s answer to Amazon. At least nine Wildberries warehouses have been struck in the last week, as well as logistics centres from southern Russia to the outskirts of St Petersburg, killing at least nine people and destroying inventory worth billions of dollars.LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning you are watching or listening to or otherwise absorbing the content of Deep Programme with Ted Raal and with Tetoral and Jamarral Thomas. It is Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Thank you very much for joining us. It looks like we may have just dropped off. No, okay. We have YouTube and Rumble running. Okay. Anyway, lots to talk about proof of life with Mitch McConnell, if you believe it.

Did you see the photo? I don't see the photo. Oh my God. Okay. Let's please go look at it now. So we get your reaction on live camera. Okay. So yesterday they said that the Republicans have released another proof of life photo, which is McConnell.

And I was like, okay, this one has to be decidedly different than the previous one. It has to be, you would think, right? So it looks the same. I mean, it looks like that's, that's his wife or is a nurse? That's his wife? Well, you can't see the picture, obviously. I'm asking you. This Asian woman is a Asian woman standing beside holding on.

Oh, that's his wife, Elaine Scha. Looked like she's keeping him propped up. Like he'd just fall over if it wasn't for her holding on to him. I'm like the astronauts holding the flag on the moon. That looks the same. That doesn't look any different. I mean... Oh my God, I can't...

Robbie, come on and talk. I'm trying to troubleshoot my mic here. Yeah, I don't... This looks the same to me, Robbie. I'm looking at this picture. And just to describe it to the audience, is McConnell sitting up in what looks like a hospital bed or a bed of sorts?

And the wife is standing behind him. And McConnell has this... I don't know. We can have Bernie's look on his face. Oh, yeah. Well, all I can say is it must be pretty freaking sweet to have a job where you're paid quite handsomely and never have to show up. Like to the point, you can be a vegetable and still get paid full boat. And this man is a perfect example.

This is the perfect caricature of where our government is right now. Uncle Sam is old, frail, brain dead, drilling on himself. Missing. And the people who are depending on this, on this fool to do his job are just completely getting screwed. And I mean, if I was using a poster child of the American government, not just Bishop McConnell, but the entire governmental structure, it would be this. And also I don't see a date on that photograph. I have no idea what it was taken. Same.

It could be anywhere. There's no metadata. There's nothing there to show the point that it's real. And if it is real, when was it done? If all I know, she could have just wiped his lips. Okay, let's take a pick. For sure. Okay, just wipe the lips.

Okay, okay, you know, slap his face a little bit. I mean, no video, right? I mean, it should be at least like, Hello, Mitch McConnell. How are you today on today? Monday, July 27, 2026. It's like, I am very much enjoying the activities that take place on Monday, July 27. Welcome to the movie phone.

I enjoy having sex with my wife. She is great. This is my wife. We have much sex. It is great. I enjoy sex. you should have it too, you should reproduce, you should marry. Drink Pepsi.

It's like, oh, what, what? Listen, I'm the one that's saying that people should get married to reproduce, and I do not look like Mitch McConnell. No one looks, yeah. Mitch McConnell is the church lady, he, from SNL. Yeah, that's exactly who he is. All right, well, okay, so we got, so I just wanted to touch base on that. I'm so glad that I got the online reaction.

Yeah, there's nothing in this picture. Like this doesn't tell you anything. It's like, are you fucking kidding? They need to prove that he's still alive and that brain did. Which means that he's not. If you're going to lie to me, make an effort, create a deep fake. You know, I mean, don't just be like lazy. I just, the American people, this is a new principle.

The American people deserve to be lied to in high quality 4K video. They shouldn't be lied to in mid-20. 20th century flat two to two dimensional technology. Yes. Not right. You can make AI videos these days and do a really good impression of Mitch McConnell, which is what they should have done. Yeah, like skydiving. Well, you know, I mean, I was saying it's no.

I would change bears and shit like that. It was like a loincloth. It was like just a picture of time. Wrestling. Yeah. Through the Alphorrs. Did you see? Did you see where Elon Musk is saying that we just started building data centers in space and orbit?

Yeah, that would be ideal. If we were able to start doing that, think about the video content that we could use, not we as in the people, but the governments could use to more effectively lie to their people if they simply put in the effort. I, for one, favor a higher quality of lying. I feel like America used to be, you know, one of the best lying organizations, And the U.S. government used to be, you know, on top of its lying game. And just like everything else, like Hollywood, music, everything's going to shit in this country, including our lying. And what is America, if not a country that lies to others as well as itself?

Why do you think it's gotten worse? I mean, because you're joking, but you're not joking. I'm not joking. Like, meaning if I can't do anything about it, then lie to be better. Like, I need to be in a delusion if I can't do anything about material circumstances. But the truth of the matter is, if you're looking at like the Iran-Contra affair, if you're looking at the kill squads in South America that we used to use and guess those things are related, we did a much better job of lying to the American public and to ourselves.

We're freedom and justice as we back. Truth, justice in the Iraq. We're, you know, why was the lie so why is it being? so thoroughly about these days, whereas before, is it just information? More information is available, it's harder to hide it, that type of stuff? I don't know the answer. I have to say, I think my first thought is, and I'm going to think about this more off the air, but to me, it seems like this is probably a perfect storm of a bunch of things going on. I mean, first of all is that the ruling class is so old and out of touch. They don't, you know, people,

who are like, you know, set in their 70s and 80s don't even understand the internet. They don't understand. And they don't understand the way people in their 20s, 30s, or even 40s and 50s absorb information in this country. They don't understand that the viewers are far more sophisticated than they think. And so I think part of it is also just that the whole system is circling the drain. And so, for example, you know, you think about Baghdad Bob, right, at the very end of the Saddam Hussein government. You know, I mean, the guy was like laughable. He was an international joke.

But obviously, Saddam had like peak lying abilities earlier on when he was at the peak of his regime. I mean, I think we don't, we're not doing anything particularly well anymore. I mean, look, we're not even like a great, you know, even as a militaristic hegemon, we've run out of munitions. Yeah. What kind of fools? You know, like can't count the number of missiles and bombs that they have and say, like, yeah, we're running a little low. We should make more and slow down the rate at which we are using them.

I mean, this is not hard. I mean, you know, you and I could like go and become, you know, replace Hegseth and do a better job than he's doing in this regard. You know, just be like, I'm sorry, sorry, baby, we just don't have any more little. toys for you this week. Yeah. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'll just agree. I'm just thinking there's probably other,

there's got to be other contributing factors too. But I'm going to, you know, well, let's all think about it. I mean, there's got to be reasons. It feels like Burger King running out of hamburgers. That's what it feels like, like running out of missiles as America.

Yeah, yeah. When you go to the barbecue and there's not enough food, like what? Yeah. What is this? They're speaking of Burger King. Yesterday, after Mimo, wife of it for a really nice hike up at Lone Pine State Park yesterday. And so after that, you do what you always do after you go out in nature and do a four

mile hike is that you go and you go to Burger King to eat some fast food. That would you do? 100%. And so that's what we did. You earned it. It's your life. 100%. Listen, we wanted a wopper.

And so we went to Burger King. So we go and there's no one there. There's no one there. And we go to the cash register. And the, and the girl is just saying they're just looking at us. It's like, are you going to say hi, welcome to Burger King. Can I take your order?

Instead, just looking at it. It's just like, what is this strange couple doing here in Montana? This white dude and this black lady, like, who are you? Really? And that's how our government is. I mean, you know, I don't know who it's possible. I mean, you go up and you try to talk to our elected representatives. And they just look at you like, what?

are you? Like, do you honestly think that I'm here to serve you despite the fact of what my label is? I don't see a star of, I don't see a star rim fan on your shirt anywhere. Why are you here? That's how our government is. They are like Burger King, like just meth-tep Burger King employees who are just, have this vacant stare and say, he doesn't have some Tel Aviv. Who art that? It's the damnedest thing. I mean, no, there's something incredibly maddening about that big, dumb look that you'll encounter in other human beings. Years ago, when I was driving a taxi, I'm driving on, I'll never forget, on 79th Street

between first and second, where a lot of weird things happened for some reason, even though it's a very boring neighborhood. And, like, this car pulls out of a driveway. there's not many driveways in Manhattan, but there's like a building driveway, pulls out a driveway, clocks my rear quarter panel, and to the point where I almost lose control, I go to pull over reflexively to exchange information, and the guy takes off.

I'm like, what? So I pull up next to him. Now, bear in mind, it's a two-lane road. I'm in the left lane. He's going the wrong way. He's on the wrong side of the double yellow line. And I pull up next to him. He's an old dude.

He's like maybe 75, but like looks 95. And he's got like all these like blue-haired ladies like with beehives in the car. And they're all staring forward. Like I kind of expected them to be like, you know, I wanted there to be a soundtrack like she came from Planet, Claire. I knew she came from there. And there, none of them are engaging me. And I'm honking and yelling and saying, what the fuck. I like reach over.

I'm knocking on the door, right? Because if my windows open. They just keep staring forward, going the wrong way into opposing traffic in Manhattan. And so finally, I'm like, reach over and their window's open. And I mean, my window's open. I pulled the door. And this lady looks at me as if this is the first time she realized I existed. And she goes, their fucking car.

And so anyway, I mean, the point is that big, and the look, the big, dumb look that they had. and when I talked to them on the side of the road after the police came, they're like, they told the cops, we were coming from a driveway. What? Okay. Were they high? Like, were they own stuff?

I don't know. I don't know. To this day, I will never know. They're no doubt dead. I mean, they'd have to be 120 years old now. But like, the point is it was like, what the fuck? I mean, because in other countries, like, they would do that, but that would be normal. like no no bullshit i'm serious like in indonesia they would drive like

like if you call like uh um they're taxi services you can get bikes as opposed to taxis so like if you just want to hop on the back of a motorcycle it's cheaper as opposed to getting like a taxi or like a thing like that and what they would do is they would go in the opposite direction of traffic if they could get to the location faster so let's say if you were trying to get to the grocery store okay well instead of going out and making the right they would go out and make a wet i need that fire juice and I need it now. Yeah. I mean, they would go like you would see like stuff coming head and you just kind of all right. Pull over. Just check out. Yeah. They draft here. They know how they do it leading to their devices. This wasn't that though. This was just this is a country with traffic

laws. Yeah. Yeah. We do have a little flexibility in Manhattan. You know, we borrow a little bit of the lane here and there, but we don't do that. We don't cross over the yellow, the double yellow. think that they were intentionally ignoring you? Yes. I think that basically the guy was like, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, that didn't happen. I didn't hit that guy. Oh, I'll just pretend like he doesn't exist. He's a young dude.

I don't care about young dudes. Young dudes will go away. Also, they were rich. They were driving a fancy car. So I think it was a- I don't have to deal with the riff-rath, basically. Yeah, exactly. I'm not talking to this fucking cabby.

I mean, yeah, there was a lot of that. Cabbies were very looked down upon by New Yorkers at the time. So, yeah. Okay. Woody Allen's car hit my car one time, and he came out and started yelling at me. Woody Allen started yelling at you. Yeah, it was, it was, actually, it's a great story. It's Washington Square Park.

He was being driven. His driver pulled out in front of me and clocked me. I get, I get, the driver was nice. We got out and started talking. And like, you know, it just happens. It's New York City. You're going to hit people. And he, and Woody,

Alan gets out. Of course, I recognize him immediately. He's like, motherfucker, what the fuck are you doing? He's like cursing up a storm. And I just let him play. And then I said, Hannah and her sisters is a piece of shit. And he's like, is that what you said?

That's what you told him? Yeah, it's not even true, but I just said that. Yeah. The movie's fine. I just wanted to hit him where he lived. Oh, that is too funny. He got back he didn't say a word and he got back into his

car so it worked. It's like he was basically his driver hit you. Yeah. Woody Allen gets out. Totally totally. The guy admitted it was his fault. I mean it wasn't even like it wasn't even like an iffy thing right. It wasn't even close. Woody Allen gets out and starts

cursing at you. Yes. Well Woody Allen is he is a dick right. I mean he's a brilliant dick but he's a dick. And you told him That is the most recent movies sucked. Oh, dude, that is the funniest. I was like film criticism.

He's the ultimate wields the ultimate power. Yeah, that's what it hurt. That's the stringer for Willie Allen. He's like, oh, he hit me where it hurt. Let's do something different. Let's just go to the comments and we'll deal with the news afterwards. Okay. All right.

All right, here we go. People want to know if you had sex with the women with the beehives in that car. The answer is no. I mean, first of all, I don't believe in having sex with non-sentient people. So, because that would be non-consensual. You know, they are not technically alive or so, you know, it's basically necrophilia. So no, no, thank you. Yeah.

I do like older ladies, but not that much. Okay. So the horse can't consent. And Omerande, Rakey, says, make Mitch say, I love Israel. and we'll know that he's real. Or actually try to make him say he hates Israel. And then we'll know. Then we'll find out if he's real.

Okay, Darkworks. Have you seen the AI thriller dance video remake with Mitch McConnell? No. I have not. I need to. Oh, my God. Could you imagine? That's great.

Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham dancing with the stars. In L. F you so, America. Thanks for the dog. America can't lie about the size of its dick anymore. So true. We have so many. You should see the size of my stockpile.

My arsenal is huge. I can, I'll give me, I'm the bomb. This all day. Did you see Lindsay Graham's, the last video before he dropped it, where he is talking about like how he gets a heart on from watching Trump bomb Iran? and that this was something that he's wanted for God knows how long and it's now coming to fruition. And if you watched the video, he'd be like, yeah, good job, Satan.

This is just material for the end of life. Be like, do you remember saying that you enjoyed, you know, murder people in mass? Yeah. Oh, yeah. He has about 12 billion years to hear about that and think about it. Oh, my God. Okay, so Bantchild, 5,000.

Thanks for the dollar. Lady Graham's funeral is the perfect real-world clue game. The three most culpable suspects are in the room. And we just need to figure out where and how it happened. My guess, Netanyahu Dildo Library. Yeah, Netanyahu is going to be coming for that, pun intended. And he's also going to be hanging out with the Donald. This was not one of our news stories, but it is news.

there's speculation that Donald Trump is maybe going to push back a wee bit I know you guys are going to be like that's not going to happen and you guys are right against Bibi in what capacity B B B B B B wants to sort of move past

oh I know Trump wants B B B B B to withdraw from all the occupied Palestinian territories as well as southern Lebanon That's going to happen. No. I don't believe it's going to happen. For one, I don't think it's U.S. policy.

There's that. Which is, I guess, the beginning and end of it, from my point of view. The U.S. gets nothing out of Israel pulling back out of Lebanon. The U.S. backs this kind of greater Israel project within contours, kind of like Curtis Sam. We're back into the degree that it's in our interest. I don't see that taking place. I mean. Trump's middle management.

He's going to do a. what his boss tells him to do. And his boss is Bebey. He can complain. He's like, you know, this is making me look bad. The war that you drug me, the war that I started for you is not going as well as I expected. And you throw me a bone here. And Bebe's just like, no, listen, you're the store manager.

I am the regional director. You will do as I say. Because. Maybe the truth is something else. Maybe they both work for the same. person and they're at the same level. Who, the Rothschilds or who? The powers that be.

Who is that? Just here's question. Who do y'all think? I mean, they're though they who cannot be named, who shall not be named. The military industrial complex, the billionaires. Yeah, as as Bernie would call them the billionaire class, the Epstein class, whatever we want to call them. The degenerate fuckers who run the who run the world. I think there's probably a coalition of like an internet's.

I don't think it's like one thing. I think it's probably an unstable collection of. Like for example, you can make an argument that finance, government, media, that all of these things were contended with one another and all of these things are required to work in tandem, but each have their own priorities. So the government, but sometimes those parties dovetail. Like the government.

They're not coordinated. It's a, I like, it's a good way to think of it as like an ecosystem. There's a balance within that ecosystem. Yes. Yes. When they work, they work with each other and, but they also, their own advance. They compete too.

That part too. Like there are times where finance competes with government, for government interests. There are other times where all of these things work in dovetail to expand markets. Because obviously if you're Amazon, if you can overthrow Iran and put an Amazon into Iran, you would love that because you can now sell more products. And that's true for oil and gas. That's true for pretty much any industry that you can think of. Hey, mentioned Amazon.

That relates to a news story that we have. We should just talk about it. So the UKis, the Ukrainians, are now attacking wild berries, which is the Russian version of Amazon. on. They, they have, there's been at least nine Wildberry warehouse attacks in the last week. Logistics centers from southern Russia to the outskirts of St. Petersburg have been struck. At least nine employees have been killed. Inventory worth billions of dollars has been destroyed. This seems, this is obviously a new approach. Oh, this is the wrong thing here.

But Ukrainians, yeah, Ukrainians are busy with. their drones. I mean, look, one thing I wanted to ask you about before we get into the nitty here is, doesn't this news story kind of belie one of Ukraine and Ukrainian supporters main talking points, which is Russia's economy sucks because of the sanctions and they're on the verge of collapse and nobody's buying anything in Russia and everything's fucked? Well, if that's true, then why would attacking, you know, consumer ism architecture,

infrastructure, why would that have any meaningful effect? If nobody can buy anything, nobody's certainly buying anything from, you know, wild berries. So why blow up their warehouses unless, oh, wait, they are buying things and you're trying to fuck with them? Yeah, yeah, the

talking point was always nonsense. Yeah, they found soft targets effectively because nobody would have come up with the idea that in a military campaign where you are losing territory left and right and you're going to lose the dumbass within the course of a year that your response to that is let's just blow up warehouses of Amazon warehouses for lack of a better term from an American context as you point out like an American like an Amazon warehouse yeah so it's it's terrorism I mean you can make a case that well this is a military campaign so everything is fair in the military campaign.

It's not under international law. It's not. Yeah. They're just blowing up civilian architecture because civilian architecture is a soft target, meaning when they had to fight on the battlefield, they were losing. When they had to deal with this kind of artillery war, they were losing. And even in the context of drones, ultimately, they were losing. The Russians turn around this are blowing up their own warehouses in regards to epicenter in Ukraine, which had left spectacular fires and going after warehouses in Kiev with far more devastating impact, not to mention the Odessa blockade, where the Russians have effectively destroyed the ports in the Black Sea for Ukraine

and for that matter blockaded the ports. So it's like you can't deal with this in a military sense. So you've relegated yourself to blowing up warehouses, basically like Amazon warehouses. It's a war. So it is what it is. You can't necessarily defend each and everything. You have to pick and choose what you want to defend your main targets. But I don't think the initial thought for the Russians were Ukraine is going to go and blow up warehouses for civilian goods. I mean, the thing is, obviously the Russians will retaliate in kind.

And they have been. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I don't. I mean, the retaliations on Kiev have been just devastated. Like the wear, in fact, they've been blowing at warehouses that have had secondary explosions, which makes the explosion even that much more monstrous. So if this is what Ukraine wants to do, I suppose, you know, they'll do it. The Russians will try to stop them from doing it to the degree that the Russians want to stop them from doing it.

But there will be consequences. There will be consequences. There will be a Russian strikes in Kiev. I have a question for you, J.T. because you're plugged in, you know, a lot of people have talked to you about this stuff. And I mean, you know what my stance is. I don't understand why the Russian army is not all the way up to the freaking river at this point. No, looking at the presidential palace there in Kiev,

is there any appetite for President Putin to win this war and put this thing to bed? Or is he just happy to just keep on getting stopped in the face by this, NATO proxy. Where is the will for Russia to win? Well, I think they have a will to win. I think, I mean, but it's kind of like chess. You have to work between the lines. It would be nice for me to be able to just pick up the other person's king and fling it, but I have to work through the rules of the game in order to get to the king. And from Putin's standpoint, and mind you, I don't even fully disagree with you. I've had this back and forth with people who are far more, less, let's say, aggressive than I was on this. But the way that they put it is,

Putin believes that ultimately there may be a war with NATO and that he needs to get his ducks in a row legally and for that matter militarily before that fight is had. And that depending upon what he does, it could be the thing that sparks that off or depending upon what he does, it could be the thing that prevents it. Meaning nobody wants a third world war. And even though NATO countries dance around the Third World War as the rationale for why Putin won't hit them, Putin being an adult doesn't want it, or at least doesn't want to fight that war before he believes Russia's ready to fight that war. So they're working between the lines. And so what you end up with is Russia building up secondary militaries, Russia building up additional kits of armaments and hardware that they haven't even used yet, that they have just waiting in the wings. Like meaning they're building up the structures necessary to fight a third world war. And to be honest, we should be happy that they were fighting it this way.

it gives time for potential governments in, say, in France or the governments in Germany to collapse into something else. They may be wrong, meaning they may not collapse into something else. They may still stay as strident as they ever were, but he's allowing the chance for it. What this kind of reminds me of, and Ted, I know that you'll get this reference. After Manassas, McClellan, he just said the Army back in for training, and Abraham, Lincoln famously said, I wonder if the general, if he's not willing to use the army, will he let me borrow it for a while? That's the attitude that probably the Russian generals have. Is like, Mr. President, we have this army.

Do you mind if we actually use it? They're moving. I mean, but come on. They're talking a quarter of a mile a day. I mean, that's not moving. It's more than a mile a day. And we're talking about like a thousand kilometer border where Russia is moving in Sumi. They're moving on Slavianz Kramaturis.

which would ultimately be the last stronghold in Ukraine. I mean, we're acting as if Ukraine was a middle military. They were a major power. They were the power in Europe. They still are. Like the meaning they're not fighting nobody. That's the point. And you can ask, well, why aren't they using Goresniks?

Why aren't they destroying Kiev? Then agree. We would have the same questions on this. And I would agree with you on taking out the military in Kiev. But they're moving. it's like we may not get notice every day, but they're moving. I don't know. I just think that Putin should probably let his warfighters fight the war and end this thing.

I agree. You have my agreement. And by the way, my mom would say the same thing. If you want to see a Christian lady become bloodthirsty, talk about Ukraine. Yeah, well, the thing is, it's not about being bloodthirsty. It's just how many more people need to die before President Putin puts on his big boy pants and says, Okay, I'm ending this once and for all. NATO, if you really wanted to fight and die here, bring it.

Call the bluff. Keep in mind, Robbie. That's a third world war if you get that bluff wrong. We're already in a third world war. We're already there. We're already there. True. It's just though you're muted, Ted.

But it's not acknowledged. But it's not nuclear. Not yet. Well, we don't want that. No one wants that. But the point is, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen regardless. But see, that's not necessarily true. That's not necessarily true.

Look, you can make the assumption that we are going to end up in a nuclear war, in which case, anything that you do near is fair a game. Those are assumptions. Just every bit as much as an assumption that Putin wouldn't necessarily attack a NATO country. Those are assumptions. Those assumptions are true up into the point where they're not. All right, guys. It's very possible that we get out of this without a third world war.

But if you take it as if we're already in one now and behave accordingly, then we are already going to be in a third world war. I mean, that's, I take it that we're, that all of these wars are one war. Agreed. But we're not in a hot kinetic firing nukes at each other yet. And we don't want to be avoided. Yeah, Putin desperately doesn't want that.

Anyone seen desperately doesn't want that. Yeah, of course that. And so the way that you do that, though, is that you make the other person so afraid of you that they're not going to play with you. I mean, no, no, limping to pite. Incommittalism only works for so long until it doesn't. But that's the NATO argument, too, by the way.

Yeah, I agree. That's literally NATO's argument. We need to make the Russians terrified. Conchicalis, we need to make them scared of us. We need to do so and so. Yeah. That's what everyone thinks. That's what everyone thinks.

I mean, that's not always true. I mean, it's sometimes to be true. It's a game of truth. I mean, no, Scott Ritter and Colonel McGregor for five years have been saying that victory's right around the corner. That victory's been a long time coming. They were full of shit. Of course they are. I mean, it's just that.

I mean, they got it wrong. And they've gotten it wrong for five years. I don't mean to be brutal, but it's true. No, it's true. I would go to the Danube and say, here it is. This is the border. And I would destroy every freaking railroad going into Ukraine. Like right there on the Polish border, it goes away.

And if NATO wants to come in, the more welcome to just let them know. If you send your soldiers here, they will never leave. By the way, so I asked about that because my thing was, because look, Robbie, we're not that far apart on this issue. I agree with you in spirit. Why don't they basically make Ukraine as if it's a separate dimension, right? Like blockade the entire fucking thing. So they can't get materials into the country in a way that you can use them for their drones in the first place. And the thing was, well, Russia hasn't gotten to the point where they can do.

do that yet, meaning they don't have the military capability of doing that yet, even though they've been able to blockade Odessa, getting to the Polish border and controlling the Polish border has been a challenge. They don't need to control it. They should bump the rails. But they can always rebuild rail. Yeah, I love the engineers. That's the beautiful thing about sideline intelligence that you know. Israel double taps. Why can't the Russians? It's the same difference. I'm not saying they can't double tap. I'm saying unless you have something hovering over the border 24 hours a day. Let's move on.

Let's move on. It's time to stop playing with this. It's just like we're going in circles here. Okay, so by the way, did you guys catch any bits or excerpts from the debate between Haley Stevens and El Sait? No, I didn't know they had to debate. yesterday. Did you see it? I saw parts. Yeah. So, well, first of all, it's hard to believe for me, aside from the fact that she has accepted at least $30 million from A-PAC, plus another $30 million that probably also came from A-PAC in dark money, that aside from that, that she's a viable

candidate for anything. I mean, she's, she can't talk. I mean, political, I mean, I would say this if she was a socialist. You know, I mean, she's not competent to serve in any kind of capacity. She could not work here on the show. She isn't eloquent or intelligent or educated enough to have anything meaningful to contribute to government. So I was just amazed, actually. You know, I've seen candidates for city council who were a million times more brilliant than she was. She was that bad.

Oh, she was bad. It was embarrassing. I mean, it's like this is who the establishment decides that they want, I mean, that they're going to install. I mean, so basically she had all sorts of like pre-canned cheesy comments about she's trying to pretend that he insulted her looks. and he didn't. He was made a comment about, you know, offline about like something about like once you put an ogre's head on a stick. And he was talking about Federman, okay?

He wasn't talking about her at all. Now, granted, there are more attractive women than Haley Stevens in the United States, but he wasn't talking about her looks and he never has. You know, he's not a matinee idol himself. He's a decent looking dude. And this isn't about look. But that was basically, he hammered away on APEC, she hammered away on, you know, black stuff, like equity, you know, basically the James Clyburn playbook. And I'm kind of surprised that he, that, that, that, that, that, that, um, Syed allowed himself to be played that way, given what happened to Bernie.

You know, Bernie got played that in the South. And that's not a, that's not a mistake that a progressor should make ever again. What do you mean? Otherwise, this idea that he's something else, he's something. Yeah, and also that like, you know, basically trying to peel black votes away from progressives, right? So, you know, basically like machine, trying to like organize and corral black voters into a machine block vote, which is what Clyburn successfully arranged on Super Tuesday in 2020, you know, trying to do that. And here, Clyburn's involved again. There's others as well. basically try and I mean the point is the mistake that Syed made was not trying to make direct appeals to black voters in a state with a huge black population right I mean what's doing why

you what why are you not doing that pardon I mean progressives keep doing that yeah you have to like you can't how can I say this you have to attack that and you have to attack that directly on the nose meaning you have to make it very clear look what I'm calling for is something that lifts all boats, meaning your plan, like you are better off with me than you are with her. And here's why you're better off with me than you are with her. And she's going to make these pitches, the black voters and everything. Meaning call it out. You need to hit it on the head. There's nothing wrong with doing that. And Sanders, for whatever particular reason, wouldn't necessarily do that. He wouldn't go after Joe Biden on it. If you remember, the reason that they

went to Joe Biden is because they believe Joe Biden could get the black vote, which I don't know why, but that was the belief. Clyburn was the one in South Carolina that delivered that vote with crippling Sanders moving forward in the campaign because at that point, it looked like Joe Biden was more viable.

You have to hit that on the head. I mean, lefties should know at this point. Don't let that slide. Hit that. No, I mean, you can't, come on. You can't run it's a Democrat and snub black voters or ignore them. I mean, that's insane.

And the thing is that, like, I think the take is It's sort of like, you know, mine is a class analysis. And so therefore, if I get bogged into any kind of racial analysis that it's going to be, you know, viewed as a distraction and then I'm going to be accused of being woke and I'm going to lose my white working class, you know, my appeal to the white working class where, which is where like the DSA type people are from, that's a mistake. I mean, it's like you can do two things at once.

You can make it have a class analysis. says, and obviously no intelligent class analysis in the United States is complete without a race analysis that goes with it. And that Venn diagram is very tight, right? I mean, it's like not all black people are poor, not all poor people are black, but a lot of black people are poorer than average. And so, like, you know, you can say, like, this is, what I want to do is going to benefit all Mishiganders, including black Mishiganders, but also I'm cognizant of the unique forms of discrimination and abuse and oppression that black people have suffered that's different from what poor white people have suffered, for example.

I mean, that shouldn't be hard. And yet they don't do it. Well, I'm not going to say they don't do it. They often don't do it. Well, this guy's not doing it. That she was using to attack him on that. He should hit her where it hurts. I mean, like, meaning, okay, the bringing up looks thing is just throw away, right?

I never said anything about your looks. I don't care. But the class analysis thing is big. That's not minor. That's not insignificant. That's something that the left has often argued against the Democratic party about when it tries to make this kind of delineation between what does it mean to be a Democrat versus what does it mean to be somebody who's on the left. Those are different things. Race falls into it, as you point out. There's no way around it, especially from the standpoint of the Democratic Party. But it doesn't make you woke to acknowledge that, hey, It makes you real. It's an appeal.

That's exactly what it is. It's an appeal to black voters, basically saying, look, but your lot is better with us as opposed to them. I distinctly remember when Sanders gave that speech. I think it was something, oh, what is his name? Reverend outsharpton, Sharpton put together. This was born in Sanders, and I believe the Clinton election. They go make their pitches.

Sanders is obviously better for the black community. And yet they're like, we like her. It had nothing to do with the economics. It had nothing to do with who was better or otherwise. It was who is part of the clique. And in this case, Democratic leadership. In this case, it was Clinton, Sharpton, and all these other clowns. That's unfortunate.

And somehow that needs to be pried away. And yeah, you have to hit that on the notes. You have to hit it directly if you want to pry away. I have a question for you. Black voters seemed very susceptible and probably still are. to the electability argument like yeah we might you know we like the progressive and the general but you know the you know wouldn't a centrist to be more likely to prevail against the republican who keeps the monsters at bay is the question of black voters that's always the question

who keep the monsters right do you don't think that say ed isn't going after her because he's afraid of being called a misogynist well he's going after her he is going after her I mean, that's not the issue. Well, he didn't attack her looks, which is, I don't want him to. I wouldn't want him to. You shouldn't. Listen, if she identifies as an ogre, that's fair. She put that a card on the table.

I would go there. I guess the question is I have is... It's her voice that drives me insane. In terms of the Democratic Party, is identity politics really that important based on things you have no control over, like how you look or if you're a man, if you're a woman, your, you know, your ethnicity, is, is it really that much more important than the actual issues? Identity is important.

I mean, like, I mean, it's your identity. It's who a person deems themselves to be, which is why they went that way in politics. I mean, which is meaning Clinton went that way for a reason. Like a person, if you're trans, you defend the fact that you're trans and trans rights and you feel like you're under attack. If you're gay, you may feel that you're under a woman. oppression, if you're black, if you're whatever. Meaning they found something that is very intangible to who the person is or who the person

thinks they are as something to defend, which makes it very difficult to let that go as, you know, if you feel like you're being attacked. I mean, I get your point, Robbie. I agree with you. I think class is fall more important. I think class is well. Caesar would matter. I mean, I'd rather vote for a rich Ted Kennedy than a poor Richard Nixon, right?

Yes. I don't know. I just think that this is a track. that gets laid by the DNC that people just fall into is like, no, you know, to distract them. Well, you go after someone's identity when at the end of the day, the policy is what matters. That's what's going to set you apart for the corporatist. The thing is, from the DNC's point of view, it is far easier. If we need money to get elected, okay, but if I got to take that money to get elected,

that means I'm not going to be able to do the things that the public wants me to actually do, for them because I've just gotten paid to not do those things. Oh, I have an idea, identity. Let's use a person's race as opposed to a person's class. Yeah, it makes. I mean, it's a trap. I mean, and the thing is, it's like you said, Jamar, it's not like identity means nothing. I mean, it does, it informs who someone is.

It gives them credibility within a narrative. I mean, I remember when Bill Clinton accepted the nomination in 92 at the convention in New York, I was in the audience. He, you know, I mean, he brought tears to everybody when he talked about growing up in a trailer part, in a trailer, with his desperately poor single mother who, and then who was being abused. He and his mother were being abused by her boyfriend. And basically, he had to drive the boyfriend away. And it's like, okay, so this is a guy who knows what it's like to be poor. And when he says, I feel your pain, there's a certain credibility.

there that's not going to be there if, you know, say a, you know, like a Donald Trump were to say that, we would not believe that. And he doesn't say that to his credit. You know, I mean, I think, look, if Robbie were running for office, you know, obviously any campaign that didn't emphasize, you know, the fact that he has had a hard time economically and therefore he knows what it's like for people who are having trouble affording their bills would be, that would be political malpractice not to, you know, to work that angle, you know, and emphasize the fact that he's more ordinary, you're not ordinary, more like he has an experience that has commonality with more Americans than, you know, other than people who, like, went to Princeton might. So, you know, I mean, J.D. Vance, he works

identity that's not even really authentic, right, like about his roots to Kentucky. I mean, Yeah. He'll be what? I believe it's called. Pardon? He'll be a little illy. I believe the book. Yeah, yeah.

His grandparents were from Kentucky, and he vacationed there sometimes. So that to me does not make you a Kentuckian. But I think most Kentuckians would probably agree. The Dead Beam Club, thank you very much for the $10. The government doesn't lie as good anymore because there are some more distractions nowadays so they don't need to. Some people are too fully captivated by trivial BS, but they never notice obvious lies.

Well, we definitely have entertainment industrial complex that will keep you busy on your phone 27 hours a day. What is it, wine and circus? Yeah, yeah. I mean, bread and circuit. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, go ahead. No, no.

We're all so polite here. No, you go ahead. Anyway, I don't even know what I was going to say. We could move on to another comment. We have more. P.W. Walker, thanks for the dollar. Someone should look to see if the Trump kids invested in Ozone, as Ozone is Wildberry's rival inside Russia for e-commerce.

I wouldn't put it past them. Oh, God, that's such a good comment. So good. You know, I didn't know that Trump invested in both major Hollywood companies that are preparing to, that are currently entertaining a merger. Talk about me. He is monetizing the presidency in a way

that is just breathtaking. It's unbelievable. I wouldn't be shocked if he's invested in the opposition, the Walburrs. I wouldn't be shocked either. And because of the Supreme Court ruling, he can do that with great impunity. I mean, he can't really be prosecuted

for anything he does now until he leaves office. That's a goddamn shame. P.W. Walker, again, thanks for the dollar, the West has historically behaved like petulant children, throwing tantrums, knowing the adults on the other side would climb down. That era is now closing. Is it sure? I mean, because there's an argument to be made. Why is Russia the one that has to be the pragmatic one in this? I mean, mind you, though, what we're talking about is the end of all things.

So, like, that's, it's, yeah, it's like, why does Russian China have to be the pragmatic ones? And you can make an argument that their pragmatism is the thing that invites predation in the first place. Manchild has criticism. I don't know if I care for this freeform format. Might be fine for the Q&A, but I desire more structure. Don't worry, we'll be back to it tomorrow. It'll be fine. We'll say reform.

Yeah, yeah, I promise we'll do better. No, really we will. Okay. Sir Bites a lot, thanks for the dollar. To answer Robbie's question, Russia and China's goals are to defeat America. You don't defeat America by ending the Ukraine war. You defeated by draining America dry without causing a Pearl Harbor 2.0. It's an interesting perspective, right?

Like, just basically keep it just going, the way that the U.S. kept supplying the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to try to drain the Soviets over a period of, what, eight years? Yeah, but see, the difference is this is the U.S. driving us. its own like it's not like the russians wanted to fight ukraine or it's not like the iranians wanted to fight the russians oh you know i don't think what it's mean why the russians wouldn't want to just finish it off i think they don't want to provoke a third world war that's what i think like meaning if they if they reacted it's kind of like in taiwan like what the u.s is doing in taiwan like if you notice the u.s is giving money weapons they're making policy but all of these things

They're these kind of small cuts where in and of itself, the cut is not big enough for you to respond to it because it's so small by itself. But if you look over the course of 20 years, it's like, well, holy shit, this is like you're putting on a pound a year. Okay, within 20 years, you're going to be 20 pounds fatter. It may not seem like much for the first two years, but by the time you get the year 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, it starts to notice. we are doing that in Taiwan where China can't necessarily take any great provocative action from one salami slice, but they may take a provocative action when they're looking at this stuff over the arc of time. And I guess you can look at Russia as doing something very similar. What would NATO do if Russia had this kind of full-scale, I don't know, assault on Kiev or something like that?

Would they potentially get shot into some kind of action just by trapped by their own framing of their own arguments? I don't know. I mean, it's what's in Putin's mind, I suppose. But yeah, obviously, I think they should be more aggressive in pursuing the case. So some breaking news. We do want to talk about the drug boats in the Caribbean. I mean, there's not a lot to say about it. Basically, the DEA admits that there's been no effect whatsoever on the importation of cocaine into the United States as a result of Hegset blowing up alleged drug books. boats in the Pacific and Caribbean and killing well over 100 people. But, you know, I do want to talk about that. But anyway, while we're talking, the Department of Justice just released all of the Biden transcripts from 2017 from the audio, the audio recordings.

And there's already stuff leaking out. So some quotes here. He talks about why in 2009 he argued against going into. to Afghanistan. So this is a quote. So this was I early on in 09, I just found all the classified stuff downstairs. I wrote the president a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying troops to Iraq, I mean to Afghanistan, on the grounds that it wouldn't matter that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived, Biden said. He said, talking about the house The day we left, like the day we left for the Taliban in charge.

True. Oh, we did greatly improve the Taliban's military stature, though, by leaving all sorts of material. So they have, so you're welcome. I was a very, I was a really lonely voice on housing. I was a lonely voice on the middle class. I mean, I thought we should be much more aggressive than putting these guys in jail and the bankers. I mean, he used to really get pissed at me, he said, referring to Obama. I think the reason we didn't do more, by the way, is because I think that this is a harsh thing to say,

but I think subconsciously, at least Barack and his guys were beholden to Silicon Valley, and the Valley guys didn't want the shit that I, you know, I wanted. And then he talks about Larry Summers. He was, you know, Harvard and women. I mean, nothing stopped Joe Biden as president for going after the guys that he thought Obama should went after. True. True. Like, it's like, dude, it's like, you realize you're a president, right? Right? Like, meaning you're criticizing the previous president for something that you yourself did not do. Yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, of course, which is something that we see right now too. All right. Anyway, okay, so P.W. Walker, thanks for the donation. In 2021, Brookings put out an document

called Extending Russia. In it, they described throwing Ukraine into the woodchipper with a war against Russia that would bring down Putin. Thing is, people in the Kremlin can read, and now Russia, with this drawn-out war, didn't just destroy Ukraine. It made NATO completely toothless. Russia boiled the frog. Agreed.

By the way, something with Iran, which path to Persia, is another one of those program documents that the U.S. seems to be fulfilling. that for whatever particular reason, they don't believe the Iranians can read. And by the way, in the 90s, using Israel to blame Israel, blame it all on Israel, blame it all on Israel, and use Israel as a tip of a spear to do basically what we're doing now. Philly Svath, thanks for the dollar. One of the central problems of Id poll in the PMC left is that when, or ID, sorry, identity politics, is that when most poor people are white, obsessing over identity because they're disproportionately

poor just deliberately excludes most poor, then that effect is the fake left that aims to, for a capitalism in which poverty, middle classiveness, richness are equally distributed among the identities. Yes, scarcer. They believe in it. Yeah. By the way, Syed yesterday said he's not a socialist. He said, I'm a capitalist who understands how capitalism works.

And he's not a member of the DSA. I mistakenly believed that. I want to correct that today. I thought it was DSA too. I didn't realize that he is a full-throated capitalist. Yeah, they want to keep people poor. And they want to use identity politics as a way of doing it. It's like if you're black, trans, gay, and rich,

or if you're one of those groups and you're poor, okay, fair enough, I suppose you get some kind of airplay. But what does it matter if you're, black, gay, Chinese, Mexican, whatever. And you're poor. Meaning you're in a particular position that the issue is not your race or your culture or your identity. The issue is that you are poor. And it's the defining aspect of every minute of your life. Yes. It constrains you in everything. In everything. So, yeah, obviously the identity thing is an issue. I think poverty or class matters more.

Drugboats. We don't have a lot of time to talk about it, but we also don't have, I don't know, I don't have much to say about it. Do you? I mean, I think it's outrageous. I mean, even the premise of it was dumb. Like, for one, most of the drugs

weren't coming out of Venezuela. There's that, right? That's just math. Things that you can just kind of look up. It'd be like, hey, where are the drugs coming from? It was fentanyl, but they don't make fentanyl. Exactly. But that was the premise that he was using.

Well, they're doing fentanyl. They're doing cocaine. They're doing this. They're doing that. And you would think that there would be something saying, okay, this is just an outright lie. But that's not the way it was handled. And then when the president uses that lie,

which is an obvious lie to start murdering Caribbean fishermen, okay, that's outrageous. And the media just records it. Well, the president said this, as if that somehow makes it okay that the president has murdered over 100 people. I mean, there's something wrong with this, like in real terms, where a president could just make shit up and then go on a killing spree and then take a world leader and throw him into a cage. And then after the fact of media is like, hey, we think Donald Trump might have been lying about the drugs. You think?

Well, the DEA admitted it. That's Donald Trump's agency, right? I mean, he appointed the head of it. I mean, so, I mean, they're not going to stop. Do you think, do you, I mean, what do you think they're. real agenda was here and we just got Maduro. I think they wanted to take Venezuela, which is what they did.

But they're still blowing up drug boats though. I mean, shouldn't. Sorry, I shouldn't say that. They're blowing up boats. Yeah. Well, this was just policy. I mean, the policy is the policy. But the objective of it was to take down Venezuela to impart control over South America and Central America,

which puts a chill on Brazil because Lula believes that he's next. Cuba is obviously under blockade, and we have obviously taken over Venezuela, but really taking the oil revenue. The policy just kept going, like a zombie. Yeah, as it often does.

Thanks, Robbie. Thanks, Jamarrow. Thanks, everyone for watching and listening. And everyone who's just listening, just you know, no more music at the beginning of the podcast. It's just going to be, we're going to go straight into it. So that'll save you the having

to fast forward, fast forward, fast forward thing. Thanks for that suggestion yesterday during the Q&A. Tomorrow we'll do a Q&A. But in the meantime, we'll be back at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the regular show. We'll be 12 noon for the Q&A. TMI coming up right now. Thanks, everyone. See you tomorrow.