DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram: “Bully-in-Chief Donald Trump”

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Is “DeProgram” on ICE’s s-list? If today’s news is a guide: probably. Join the resistance by listening and watching political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from corporate-media propaganda about today’s biggest stories. On the “DeProgram show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou,” the guys examine the role of Donald Trump as Bully in Chief, from his bizarre push to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” stoking nationalist fervor and offending Mexico, to his war against Harvard over $2.6 billion in research funds, with a court hearing today over free speech violations targeting pro-Palestinian protests on campus. John and Ted also address Trump’s demand that the Washington Commanders revive the “Redskins” name, fueling debates about cultural sensitivity. We’ll look at ICE’s terrifying expansion of surveillance against law-abiding American citizens, with plans to hire contractors to monitor “negative” posts about the agency, claiming threats to agents but also censoring free speech and quieting dissidents. We’ll confront the human cost of Trump’s deportations, including 82-year-old Luis Leon, a Chilean torture victim and asylee hospitalized with pneumonia in Guatemala after an unlawful ICE deportation that nearly killed him—ICE thought so. Miami’s ICE jails are rife abuses like medical neglect. The story of Pat Tillman’s brother, Richard, will unpack the politicization of military legacy and revisit a painful and controversial episode for Ted, as a cartoonist. We’ll catch you up on the Israel-Gaza conflict, with 23 countries urging an immediate cessation of hostilities. Catch DeProgram live at 5 pm ET or stream 24-7 for fearless insights into power, policy, and justice.

I'm going to be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hey there. Thanks for joining us here on Deep Program, where we deprogram you from Corporate News Propaganda. Coming to you on the left side of your screen, I'm an editorial cartoonist, Ted Rawl. On the right side of the screen, but not politically, is John Curiakou, CIA Whistleblower. Thanks for joining us. We're here now on our regular schedule, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5 p.m. Eastern Time, 2 p.m. on the West Coast, and we love you in all other 22-time zones as well. And I guess there's more than that. There's those half-time zones in-

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Those are very strange. I don't even understand them. I never understood it. But I can, we'll do it. If only there was a device that could answer that question for us. So let's get into it.

Lots to talk about today, as always. John suggested, and we definitely have to talk about the role of Donald Trump as bully in chief. You know, I think that's self-explanatory, but we'll get into the details and exactly what that's all about. Several of my cartoonist friends called me about ICE, a story out of the Guardian, sorry, out of The Intercept,

saying that ICE is now setting up domestic surveillance against critics like Yours Truly and John, who say anything bad about ICE on social media. So we'll talk about that chilling effect here. As ICE is prepared to become the biggest police, agency in the United States now with its massive expansion. We'll talk about the human cost of the Trump deportations, including this terrible case of this 82-year-old Chilean torture victim under Pinochet, who is at death's door in Guantanamo, sorry, Guatemala, not Guantanamo.

He was actually reported dead. Ice actually thought he was dead, but he's hanging on, thank God, we'll talk about that. Pat Tillman, some people who are familiar with my cartooning career, will remember that I did a very controversial cartoon about him. His brother appears to be having some major problems, and he's under arrest for intentionally, apparently driving into the front of a post office in Hansa, San Jose, California. And on Israel-Gaza front, I guess you could call this good news, 23 countries just signed a joint statement, including to Canada, urging an immediate cessation of hostilities and criticizing Israel for its behavior there. So, John, let's get into it with Donald Trump. There's the Gulf of America stuff,

which I have to admit, let's start with that. A lot of stuff that Trump does comes out of, you know, the fevered rants of right-wing media over the years, and you're like you expect it. Now, I watch Fox every single day, and I have for years. I've never seen anyone talk about renaming the Gulf of Mexico before Donald Trump brought it up during his second term. He never brought it during his first term. Never, never. Suddenly, so where's this coming from? I think it came from his decision to rename Mount McKinley, Mount McKinley, and I think he figured, hey, you know, why should I stop here?

I'm going to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. God. And, you know, the people on the MAGA right just love, love, loved it. It's just such a stupid thing. But it's easily changed back. But then we saw the way he began bullying universities to the point where, you know, Harvard's not allowed to accept international students. Columbia is losing its federal funding. Yale had to back down and get on its knees in front of him. That bothered me very much. But then today, he said... Colombia also is about to sign a $20 billion deal with the Trump administration to try to get some of their research funds back, which Trump has been wielding as well.

You know, if they would just, if they would just address the rampant anti-Semitism that's taking it. Yeah, indeed. I think it'll be easier to find the Loch Ness monster than the rampant I think so too. But today, he issued a new demand that the Washington commanders, Washington's football team, must change its name back to the Washington Redskins, or he will mix the deal that the team has negotiated with the city of Washington, D.C. for a new stadium. This is a big deal in Washington because both the Washington Redskins and the Washington Senators used to play at what became RFK Stadium.

RFK Stadium is a shithole stadium, all right? And it's been abandoned now for years. It's being knocked down. They're in the process right now of knocking it down. The Redskins moved to Lanham, Maryland. They've been there for 25 years, whatever it is. They, under pressure, dropped the name Redskins several years ago, and couldn't pick a name.

So they were known for two seasons as the Washington football team, which was also stupid. And then they decided to become the Washington commanders several years ago. Well, they're tired of playing in Atlanta, Maryland. The stadium there now is old and in disrepair. And they decided that they wanted to go back to Washington because the new stadium that's being built on the RFK stadium, site is right on the metro. It has its own metro station. So everybody can get there. It's going to have

tons of parking for thousands and thousands of cars. And Lanham's not like that. You have to drive to Lanham, Maryland. It's the only way to get there and the only way to get to a game. So he's thrown this wrench into the deal now. RFK's been torn down. It can't be renovated. They wouldn't have renovated it anyway. But now unless they change their name back to Redskins, he's going to kill that stadium deal. And the commanders are stuck. Not just the commanders are stuck. Residents of Washington, D.C. are stuck because they're not going to see any of the tax benefits or any of the revenue benefits is what I should say that came from the team or that we're expected to come from the team. So now, I mean, the only reason it seems to

me that he's doing this is just because of cruelty. He's just mean. He's just, he's trying to bully. And I think it just distracts from the important issues. I mean, I'm glad, John, that you reminded us of what happened with Mount McKinley, right, which had been renamed to Mount Denali. Yes, Mount Danali. That's the Native American. It's also a SUV. So, but Mount Denali was the Native American preferred name. So it went from McKinley to Denali to, I guess, traditionally it may have been called Denali before. It was named Mount McKinley, obviously.

It's been there a long time. And so, like, it's kind of like, well, so in the case of the Alaskan Mountain, you know, let's get rid of the Native American name because that will piss off the Native Americans. In the case of the Washington commanders, let's restore the name, the Native American name, because it's a Native American name they don't like. And I can't help but think about that incident in the first term when he had the Native American tribe representatives posed for a photo under the painting,

the portrait of Andrew Jackson. Right. Right. Good point. A genocidal maniac who, you know, aside from shooting the husbands of women he was having sex with, also liked to kill Native America. Americans. Yes. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I don't understand what he hopes to gain. He's a lame duck. He can't run for

president again. I think this is just to be mean. And you know what? Speaking of lame ducks, and I'm sorry I should have brought this up before the show, but we should probably talk about this new Trump announced policy to convince the Texas state legislature to do an off-cycle

congressional redistricting to squeeze three, four, or five more Democrats out of their congressional districts so that the Republicans can hang on to the House of Representatives in perpetuity.

Is that allowed? I mean, because it normally happens after the census every 10 years. Right. This has never been done before, Ted. It's never been done before. And so Hakeem Jeffries then announced this morning that he is filing lawsuits to ask judicial permission to redraw the congressional districts in California, New York, New Jersey. and one other state, oh, Minnesota, to squeeze Republicans out of their districts to offset Texas if Trump wins. Incredible.

Now, they're just like they're crime families, the two parties. That's all. Right. Well, and I, you mean, business. In fairness to the Democrats, not something I do normally because I hate them. but you know it is true that they're in this particular respect they're between a rock and a hard place right because if they go tit for tat they're playing trump's game and they legitimate they legitimize it it's kind of like having an abusive spouse um you know if they hit you all the time and you hit them back well then you're just two people who hit each

other um and but on the other hand if you don't do anything then you're a wuss and you're getting and you're getting rolled and you're and you know your partisans hate you yeah in this disrespect. I don't know what Democrats should do. I agree, man. I don't know. The whole thing stinks. It really, this goes, in my mind, this goes back to the 1990s. We can hate on James Carville all we want, and he's deserving of our hate sometimes. Sure. But although he's charming and shit. He can be, yes. He got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with Hillary Clinton in the mid-1990s because he wanted to pour millions of dollars into state legislative races, right, to win seats in state houses and state senators because they're the ones that we, that we draw these maps every 10

years. And she told him that was a waste of money that the money that the DNC had should go to U.S. House and U.S. Senate races and anything left over should go to the presidential campaign. And the Clintons walked away from the state races. And look what happened. Republicans control like 70-something percent of them now. Yeah. And the Republicans, every. And there's no farm team for the, and Obama made that worse. No, there's no farm team. When was the last time you ever heard of a state senator or state representative being spoken about on the national stage. It was Barack Obama in 2004, when state senator Barack Obama gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention. I was there. Yep. I remember it well. Yeah. Now, you're right about that.

And yeah, I remember, of course, I'm so old. A visit in the late 80s when I worked for the Japanese bank. I met the governor, Bill Clinton, and my boss says, you know, told me. turns to me and he's like, that guy's going to be president. And I was like, who? Him? Shows my political instincts. Don't have me pick candidates. Wow. So that's just, you know, it's really, well, so I mean, I just wonder how this is going to play out legally, right? I mean, can, I mean, redistricting is kind of like they do what they want much of the time, right? I mean, the states set their own rules. It's just basically they can change, they change them all the time.

They're probably going to get away with this. Yeah. I think they're going to get away with it. Trump has so stacked the courts. Well, let's talk about, but let's talk a little bit about before we move on, and we do have much to talk about, I do want to like sort of get into the psychology of political bullying, right? I mean, you know, there's always been political bullying, you know, and I could name example after example. But here it's really naked, it's brazen, and it just seems to be the way Trump always worked.

As a developer, you know, he just comes down like a ton of bricks. Don't fuck with me. I do whatever I want. It's not personal. I'll just destroy your life to get what I want. You're in my way. Don't be in my way. And nothing much really, you know, nothing stands in its way.

I mean, is it just as simple as like this way? like, this works, so I do it? I think it actually is. I think, you know, Donald Trump is like a lot of CIA officers that I've met over the years, senior ones, where they just push the envelope of legality as far as they can until they're slapped down. There was a great piece in the Washington Post today saying that in 70 percent, you of the federal cases that Trump has lost so far,

the administration has just ignored the judge's decision. So they're in contempt. But how do you hold a president in contempt? You can't. You can't do it. There's nothing you can do. You're going to lock up the lawyers, the White House lawyers, until the president does what you tell him to do?

That's not going to happen ever. Because the guys who, yeah, because the guys who wrote the Constitution, were a bunch of English upper-class gentlemen. Exactly. And you never would, the idea that someone would behave indecently in total, you know, totally ignoring the rules, which is not something that would cross their minds.

It never occurred to them. Yes. And then, man, I'm not optimistic. I'm really not. Michael Gardner says the judiciary is our best hope. I agree. It's our only. But even that does not make me.

sleep better at night. No, no. I mean, look, I think this is a major crisis. And the part that I keep coming back to is, you know, this man was only elected as of yesterday. I mean, he took the oath of office six months. Six months ago. Right. We're, don't worry, you know, this is kind of like we're one eighth of the way out of the woods. You know, one thing that I find kind of fun to, And this is a minor point, but, but it bugs the shit out of me is, and I hate having to defend Barack Obama, but when Obama named whatever it was, a drug czar, a border czar, some czar, I remember Fox News going to some Republican rally and asking people, random people, what do you think about this? And they're like, we don't have no czars in the U.S. That's a communist. communist idea having czars and i was like you morons reagan is the one who started the czars with his drug czar it was it was a reagan administration policy but people are too stupid short-sighted to remember that okay number one number two obama took an incredible amount of shit for the number

of executive orders that he signed and i remember republicans just screaming that he's ruling by executive order. It's just executive fiat. It's illegal. It's anti-democratic. Donald Trump has signed more executive orders at this point in his term than any president in American history. And the MAGA Republicans love it. The sum total, right? The sum total. Yeah. And they're loving it. Loving it. So now we've gotten ourselves into a political position where if, you know, when the Democrats, you know, win the presidency again and they win, they're going to have to be hundreds of executive orders signed to undo the executive orders that were signed under Donald Trump.

And we just keep happening like this every time. cycle after cycle. And it's going to be the Gulf of Mexico. And then it's going to be the Gulf of Mexico. and then it's going to be the Gulf of America again, and then the Gulf of Mexico again, and we just make ourselves look like boobs. Well, that's right, and it's a system that doesn't work, and while we're doing this, we're not addressing our real problems. John, I mean, one of the things that's really changed, too,

is we've seen a fairly unified government before. There have been other times when the president, you know, basically one party held the trifecta, you know, all three branches. That's the case now. But what I've never seen or read about as far as I, I can tell, is where one branch of Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, completely becomes a rubber stamp enabling party, gives up its prerogatives entirely, completely relinquishes oversight or wanting to be consulted. I mean, it used to be that in Washington,

power was everything. Don't step on my toes. Yes, we're both from the same party. I like you, President Kariaku, but as Speaker of the House Raw, I've got to insist that you check in with me. Yes. Now it's like, yes, sir, Mr. President. And like, I don't even hear from you. You never call. You never write.

It's like, it's really, that's part is truly frightening. Yes. For students of Nazism, right, the Enabling Act, when the Reichstag just passed one law that finally said anything that Adolf Hitler proposes is automatically passed. They still met and everything, but it was kind of like under the Roman Empire, where the Senate still met, but, you know, the emperor had decided everything. It was a dictatorship. That's where we're in that. I mean, the, even Republican senators don't seem to be pushing back real hard. No, if anything, they're welcoming it. Look at Lindsey Graham. Could Lindsay Graham be any more of a of a lap dog than he is? I'm not even sure it's possible. And so don't 23, 24 makes a good point.

The Democrats are no better. The Democrats are in a state of utter chaos right now. They can't even decide if they want to endorse Mamdani for mayor of New York. He's their nominee. He's their nominee. Well, they don't want to. They don't like the cut of his Democratic socialist gib. That's right.

But they're going to, and now the thing is it's a bad look. They will as they get closer, but by then it's too late. The time to show, you know, unity is in advance. Probably better not to do it at all. By the way, so on two, three, two, four. Thank you very much for the $9.99 donation. We really, really do appreciate it. Yeah, well, let's answer his question, right?

I mean, what does happen next with the Democrats? I mean, I would have expected by this point we'd start to see some initial cohesion, but I don't see it. I mean, we still wouldn't. No, there's no cohesion at all. You know, I think what's going to happen, though, they are such a corporatist party at their corporatist party at their core, that they're going to go right back into that DLC, middle of the road,

you know, tacked to the left in the primaries, tacked to the right and the general corporate party that they've been since Bill Clinton was nominated in 1992. When they went to, what was it, Annapolis or Y River, I think it was at Y. They went to, for their Democratic offsite in 1992, and they invited the Democratic Leadership Council to present on what became. That was the centrist third way. That's right. But basically it doesn't need to because they run the whole, they are the DNA.

The whole party moved to the right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's going to, I don't think it's going to change. We're not going to see a Bernie Sanders-like person doing particularly well as a Democrat. No. No, Mondani's the only game in town now. We'll see what happens there.

But, I mean, the mayor of New York doesn't usually go on to anything national of any import. We're calling you to President Giuliani. Sorry. But, you know, could have. I mean, just surprising. But for a variety of reasons, I think it just doesn't carry over. You know, Carville has an op-ed in today's New York Times where he talks a little about. His prediction is that the day after the 2026 midterms, there will be a leader, a frontrunner,

a parent for the presidency who will effectively become the leader of the Democratic Party, and nothing will really coalesce until there's that leader. I think he's living in a fantasy land. You think he's right? I think he may be right, but I just don't know, I don't know that there is such a leader who can do this. There are eight Democrats that cannot eat us out of the desert, you know. There are eight Democrats that have already already either set up exploratory committees or traveled to Iowa, New Hampshire, for fundraisers.

Yeah. Eight so far. And you know the list, right? We have three and a half years to go for the election. Well, I mean, it's not too early to start shaking the trees for money, right? I mean, Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, Governor of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro will not be the nominee. The progressives will just not allow.

You know what, on principle, I could or would never vote for someone who has served in a foreign army. I honestly have no idea where his loyalties lie. And if it's to the IDF, not a chance. Yeah, and it's fair the IDF is a criminal organization. So totally agree, totally agree. Travis has a very down in the weeds question for me about Phil Mudd. So I knew Phil Mudd very, very well at the CIA. Believe it or not, he used to be a nice guy, a decent guy.

He's a direct descendant of Dr. Mudd, who set, John Wilkes Booth's broken leg after he murdered Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. And he's a distant cousin of Roger Mudd, the great famed journalist. Really great. But Phil, in order to promote his own career, went all in with the torture program. So Phil and I were pals until 2001. And then, without even having exchanged a word, we became enemies to the point where he testified against me in the grand jury.

Not that he knew anything about my case. He just wanted to say on the record that I was an asshole. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. So I always enjoyed watching Phil fail. He was initially appointed, get this, deputy undersecretary of Homeland Security for his. intelligence under Obama and um and I uh I called a couple of friends of mine at the

agency who were you know quiet supporters of mine and one who was on the Obama transition team and they they yanked his nomination and he's not done anything of of import since then except he co-authored a book that was a defense of the torture program which just made me so happy, so happy that his name now will be associated in perpetuity with the torture program. He so deserves it. And, Reed, I'm sorry, I never, I never had anything to do personally with Leon Panetta, but I published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times from prison, handwritten on a legal pad, which they gladly ran, saying that Leon Panetta should be in the bunk next to me because he committed espionage.

Are we, in what, in what way did he commit espionage? He gave classified briefings over a classic... He also left his phone lying around at the bar that time, right? Yeah, he gave classified briefings over a classified mock-up of the Bin Laden compound to Catherine Bigelow, a Hollywood director, and Mark Bull, a Hollywood writer. The director, Zero Dark 30. 3rdark 30 and then invited them to the Ataboy speech after bin Laden was killed, forgot that they had been invited, and then outed the names of all of the SEAL Team 6 officers

who were responsible for the bin Laden killing, and then said, oops, sorry, that's all classified. And then they redacted not just the six names, they redacted 27 lines of his comments, because they found out that a whole bunch of other stuff that he said was also classified. And remember, the judge in my case said that the definition of espionage is providing national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it. What he did was the definition of espionage. Insane. Jessica Chastain played, I don't know, should I say her name? She played the redheaded devil.

I won't say her name. I'll probably get in trouble again. And Billy Waw, Billy died a couple of years ago during COVID, not of COVID. He was well into his 90s, but I did not keep in touch with him after I left the agency. No, I mean, every once in a while I would run into a mutual friend. I'd say, tell Billy I said hi. And then Billy would say, tell John I said hi. But that was the end of it.

I liked Billy a lot. But Billy kept some dangerous company. shall we talk about ice let's talk about and you know what before you get into it just as an aside about ice i get this uh like hyper local newsletter every day at four it's called arlington now and it's for arlington virginia and they had an article today that there's this serious feud between the arlington county sheriff's department and ice and my first thought was was good. Good for the sheriff's department. I voted for this man for sheriff. I don't even

remember her name. No, no, no, no, not the woman. She retired. I voted for this Hispanic guy because he was just a low-level sheriff and he was going to go in and bomb throw and, you know, tear the whole place down. So I click on the article to see what the fight is about. And it says, you know, the sheriff's department is refusing to cooperate with ICE. And so ICE said that they're going to try to take over the sheriff's department. I'm like, okay, that's cool. And then it said, the reason why this fight is taking place is that ICE has twice put a hold on this convicted pedophile. And rather than hold him until an ICE officer can get there to deport him to wherever it is in Latin America he's supposed to be deported to, they just keep letting him go. And he keeps molesting other children.

It's like, no, that's not cool. Sure, stand up to ICE, but not in support of a pedophile. What the heck are you thinking? Well, also, I'm not sure, like, I want foreign kids to be diddled either. No. Like, prosecute him. You know, hold on to him. Nail him.

I mean, nail him here. This is one of those cases where it's like, yeah, we can keep him here. And I don't know that I necessarily trust returning him. I mean, unless it's to a country that, you know, we can believe them. All right. So the intercept has this piece that, you know, it basically says that ICE is making. an enemy's list. They've hired private contractors to monitor social media feeds to keep track of their critics. Their explanation for this is that ICE officers are supposedly in a lot of danger.

They really hate it. And what if something were to happen to one? They'd want to be able to know that like maybe it was someone who posted on X something that was bad that would help them investigate this possible theoretical future threat to these dudes. I mean, you know, of course, Obviously, they are hated and reviled, not because they're enforcing the law, but because of the way they're behaving, the kind of things that they're doing. You know, I had two cartoonists call me today and say that they're concerned that they've said negative things about ICE in their cartoons and in their social media feeds and their cartoons appear on social media, and they're wondering if they need to start thinking about leaving the United States.

this is the intention here clearly is to establish a chilling effect on criticism because if that were not they wouldn't announce it if it was something they just wanted to do for their personal safety they just do it but like since why announce it the announcement is to let you know we see you we're making a list and we're checking it twice and you're going to be on that list and when we're done deporting all the foreigners Well, we're not going to just close shop and say, wow, we deported all the illegals. Look for us. Throw us a party.

You're welcome. They're going to expand. And they've already been expelling green card holders. Just last week, there was this raid on a California cannabis farm where they arrested and deported. Not they try to deport. A U.S. citizen born in the U.S. who is also a U.S. Army vet. 23 years old, who was working at this legal cannabis farm, the dude almost died in custody. He was so badly, physically maltreated. And, like, of course, he's suing. There's all sorts of allegations

of medical abuse in ICE custody. And now there's this, you know, there's this surveillance project, which, you know, it's terrifying. It feels a lot like fascism. I think that is fascism. You know, I happen to be in New York. Sorry, I didn't tell you in advance, but I've been swamped. I'm in Queens. I'm Queens to finish the photography for my next book. And I went to the grave today of Roy Cohn. And, you know, the grave.

Yeah. And it's not really a grave. He's in a family mausoleum, the Marcus family. And all it says is Roy Cone has his birth year and death year, lawyer and patriot. Well, he's not a lawyer. He is one of the darkest, most hated and hateful figures in modern American history. And he would fit in so well in government today. It's like it's...

He represented Donald Trump, right? I mean, early on. Roy Conan, they were buddies. There's that movie, which I haven't seen, right? the apprentice that were about their early relationship and the things that Trump supposedly moved out from Roy Cohn. Yeah, he was, of course, he was the scoundrel of the Army McCarthy hearings. Absolutely. Let me say real quickly, we have a whole bunch of, thank you, Sodon.

We have a whole bunch of questions real quick. My book Remains of the Day, the definitive guide to Washington, D.C.'s historic cemeteries, is supposed to be out. next week it won't be and i don't know why but it's ready to come out the book after that is called whispers in the dirt the definitive guide to new york city's mafia graves and i just finished the that's why i'm unshaven i've been out since eight this morning i went to five different cemeteries and and huge here oh my god forever ted i'm going from one grave to the other i put it into ways and it's like continue straight

for two miles, two miles in the same cemetery and they get up and there are 350,000 people buried in the cemetery. There are a major feature on the map of New York City. It's crazy.

It's crazy. So anyway, Cone was also an attorney for a lot of high level organized crime figures. And I I wanted to put him in there, too. And so that's why I was out. But Cohn, it made me think, frankly, of Stephen Miller.

You guys are mentioning Stephen Miller here. Just between us girls, I heard last week that one reason that I haven't been pardoned is that I have a Stephen Miller problem. And so I'm going to try to work that out so Stephen Miller doesn't, you know, hate who he thinks is John Kiriaku. Maybe you shouldn't say anything bad about him. here. Yeah. Yeah, right. And you get a pass from me on this. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, St. John Cemetery in Queens has Lucky Luciano. And I mean, it's like you go crazy. It's Vito Genovese, who's next to Tommy Lucchese, who's 100 feet from Lucky Luciano. And then in the mausoleum is John Gotti, and he's next to Roy de Mayo. And he's next to a guy that he's

shot six times in the head, and it's just nuts. It's nuts. Oh, no, I believe it. So do we want to talk any more about ice, or what do you think? You know, I'm sorry, yes. The point that I wanted to make is... And I also, before I should interject about this case of Luis Leone that has, you know, you read a case and some cases make your blood boil.

This guy, 82 years old, came to the United States in 1986, under Ronald Reagan, or maybe not 1987. As to being tortured. He had been tortured by the Pinochet regime of Chile, notorious. He got political asylum under a right-wing Republican administration, rightly so. He's lived here peaceably all these years. He loses his wallet. Yes.

In his wallet was his green card. So he goes online, what do I do? You go to ICE and you file a form and we'll give you a, a new one. He makes an appointment, shows up, is cuffed immediately, dragged off, and disappeared into the system, into the network of domestic immigration gulags. His family called every morgue, every police station, every hospital, yep. Can't find him. He's got a green card. He's a, basically he's a U.S. citizen who can't vote. That's what a green card holder is. And the guy's 82 fucking years old and suffering from all sorts of medical conditions. Well, finally, weeks

pass. The family's completely losing their mind. By the way, his wife doesn't know where he is. And then ICE calls and says, yeah, by the way, he died. You can pick up his body in Guatemala. And to add to the excitement, because never a dull moment, it turns out, oh, not dead yet, but he might. He's desperately ill in a high. hospital in Guatemala. And he may or may not make it back. This is fucking that's that's kidnapping. It's kidnapping and torture is what it is. The guy can do it wrong. It was yeah. They just swept him up just because they don't even they don't even allege that he committed a crime right like you did something that justifies us yanking your green

card which by the way they don't have that authority to do that anyway. No they don't. They But they're not even making the case. They literally have no basis. Just like, whoosh. He's just van der. This can happen to anybody. It happened to that U.S. Army vet. Yes.

Anybody. Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Anyway, so I'm sorry. I had to interject that before. No, no. I'm glad you did.

I'm glad you did. Yeah. So what do you think? I mean, I mean, I guess the question is, is there going to be political, pushback here, either in the Democratic Party, in the media, or on the street? There has to be. I'm still kind of chuckling about that woman who voted for Trump in Indiana.

She and her husband had that successful steakhouse, apparently the most successful stakehouse in Indianapolis. He came here from Mexico 35 years ago, never got legalized, but got married, had kids, has a profitable business, successful business, pillar of the community. And they grabbed him and they sent him back to Mexico. And she was crying on the news saying that she voted for Trump because he said he was only going to throw out the bad ombres. And then there was a woman last week. Oh, my God, I laughed so hard.

And I don't need to laugh. But she said that she voted for Trump because she wanted to own the libs, right? But now, yeah, but now with the big beautiful bill, she's going to. lose her Medicaid. And what's she going to do? She can't afford medical insurance. Oh, my God, what all I wanted to do was own the libs. Like you moron, there are consequences to our votes. Now, this is, by the way, this is not, I'm not really saying that this is like a consequence thing. But, you know, I've always been like obsessed with always having my paperwork, particularly my both of my passports up to date. Up to date. Absolutely.

I've got my friends who have like, everybody who's American knows people who don't have like the best legal status to be here. Because a lot of people have come in here and overstayed visas and been nebulous or gotten green cards but never become citizens. And I've always told them, like you never know in this country how the political winds will shift. You can just ask the Japanese Americans in 1941. like it's it's always good if you're not sure get yourself regularized get every get as much legal shit as you can right now obviously it's not going to happen but like when a democrat comes back in get that shit done if you think you're going to want to stay because you just never know what's going to happen you never know that's absolutely true and the situation

domestically has become so just crazy stuff that we've never seen before you know, masked ice kidnappers roaming the streets. I did hear something funny, though, from a buddy mind. I'm still waiting for the violence, right? I mean, this is a country full of weapons, right? It's like 12 guns for every man, woman, a child. Yeah. Someone's going to shoot these ice guys.

I mean, and the ice guys, they're, I mean, honestly, it's not really illegal to resist being kidnapped. I mean, it just isn't. If you don't know who the people, I mean, anybody could dress like that. Cruise around in an unmarked car, all masked up and try to grab with their little, like, fake police outfits. Yes. No badge, no ID. It's going on YouTube and type in fake cop. And you'll have video after video after video of people, you know, getting pulled over.

And it turns out the person being pulled over is a real cop, being pulled over by a fake. cop and then, you know, hilarity ensues. I love those. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I used to tell my my ex-wife, like, we, you know, we lived in a rural area, and I would tell her, like, you know, hey, you know, if you're in the rural area and you see, like, the red, the black and, the red, white, the red and blues behind you, just keep driving until you get to a gas station, someplace that's well lit. Don't just pull over on the side of some country road. Like, you know, and if they get mad, they get mad whatever but like you know if you're if cops are anyone with 20 bucks can buy those things and put them on the roof of their car and I don't think cops should be driving around

in unmarked cars anyway like you know like you don't need them like drive around in a police cruiser you know like a normal person you know so I mean I it's it's going to happen I'm really curious when it happens how people will respond to that I don't I don't know I mean whether they're going to laugh and be like ICE had it coming or they'd be like, that's so terrible, they were just enforcing the law, or will it just be completely siloed, you know, based on what party affiliation you have? Right. One fun thing I saw in the L.A. Times the other day is that tow truck drivers are now

towing ICE's cars. So these ice guys just park anywhere they damn well please and they get out to, you know, raid a restaurant or whatever and tow trucks are towing their cars away. that's awesome is it intentional oh yeah oh that's so great keep doing it guys

team tow truck all the way um j french is saying asking how did Obama manage to deport so many people without making much noise yeah good question I don't know the answer to that question I don't either I mean my understanding

is that first of all he trolled prisons more right so you don't see that so he was going for undocumented people at prisons and nobody cares when they're when they're right right they really are bad hombres right and um also he went to workplaces like like tyson chicken in in arkansas yes those are in rural areas so he got he got away with a lot man the violence coordinated homeland security raids of the encampments all on the same morning oh yeah the

The Tuesday morning kill list was an Obama invention. Yeah. And my personal favorite Obama quote is his term for watching drone killings. When someone's head explode, he coined it. He called them squatters. So, you know, we love Barack Obama. He's the best. He was great.

We love him. Wow. I think we can probably move on to this bizarre story out of San Jose, California, where, so Pat Tillman, I have a personal connection here. So Pat Tillman was an Arizona Cardinals quarterback, I believe. No, no. I thought he was a defensive lineman. Oh, a cornerback, did you say? Yeah, I thought he was a quarterback. But he was a big deal at the Arizona Cardinals.

And in the days after 9-11, he volunteered to serve in Iraq. Sorry, and then he was ultimately transferred to Afghanistan, reassigned Afghanistan. He was a safety and defensive back. Okay, sorry. And he died in Afghanistan. Now, a lot of this, so basically the way this was originally presented in the media by at his memorial service, which was led by Senator John McCain of Arizona, and it was nationally televised. It was a big thing. It was kind of like, like this, he was our noble patriot hero who gave up a million dollar career to go and serve his country and fight the terrorists in Afghanistan. That's how this whole thing was marketed. He was, it was basically marketed like he was a right-wing conservative who saw 9-11 and basically got pissed and went to Afghanistan. Well, that's not really what happened.

What really happened was that he went to Iraq first. Why did he go to Iraq? Because his brother had previously enlisted. And he thought, oh, my God, I'm so pissed about this. He was opposed to the Iraq War. He said it was completely illegal. but he got the idea maybe from a recruiter that he could be assigned to the same unit as his brother with whom he was very close and could like watch his back in combat and they could be brothers

side by side in the same unit you know army recruiters are basically the best of anything anything yeah i remember i talked to them they told me they didn't even fool my stupid 17 year old asked. But they told him that he believed them. He promised their mom. I'll take care. I'll take care of Kevin. I'll go. And then he went to Iraq. And then they were, of course, set to different units. And then he went to Afghanistan, where ironically, they were in units that served in the same area, but they were never in the same unit. And then we were told that the horrible al-Qaeda terrorist shot Tillman. Actually, that turned out not to be true. That was friendly fire. him. So he was killed by his comrades accidentally. And then when his body was brought back there

with this giant, like, let's have a patriotism off and present Pat Tillman as like, you know, he gave up all this football career to help serve God country and George W. Bush, right? So enter Ted Rawl political cartoonist. I did none of this information that he had served in Iraq. By the way, that he was a left winger, that he had like gone and met with no Chomsky in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was violently opposed to the Bush administration, to interventionism, to militarism, to, and he was just there to help his brother. None of that's reported. Nobody knows any of that. I think he's a right, I watched the news. I watch the memorial service. I'm like, this is a right wing, like, idiot who basically, like, fell for Bush's lies

and bullshit about Iraq and Afghanistan and went there and got used and died like a moron. And so I did a cartoon about it. And basically, it's one of my, I had a spate of really controversial cartoons during that time period, and that was one of them. And so the cartoon came out and all hell broke loose. Anyway, that's some background. I got to know, I'm at a cartooning convention in Sacramento, and I get a call from Mary Tillman, the mom. and she's really cool and she's just like

you know I was really mad at you and furious at you but then after I calmed down I decided I wanted to hear from you what you were thinking and what your thoughts were and I just told her look I did a cartoon

on the story as it was reported at the time that turned out to be all lies you know and I didn't add that information if I would have had I wouldn't have gone that cartoon at all I mean it's not he's he wasn't an He was a wonderful, smart, compassionate, thoughtful, progressive young man who got killed in the stupidest way you can die in a war, killed by your own men, and through no fault of his own. And the whole thing's a fucking tragedy and a nightmare.

And so we've talked about it and, you know, we got to know each other. And I would say we're friends and we've taught since that. So in today's news, one of the other brothers of this family, obviously deeply touched by tragedy, drove his car intentionally into the front of a post office. I don't know which it was the main post office or just a post office in San Jose in the San Francisco Bay area. And it caught fire and he's under arrest. Apparently he'd been suffering from mental issues for quite some time. and the family is dealing with this. And, you know, I mean, it's just like a reminder that this happened a long time ago.

I mean, even I still feel really, I don't, I feel guilt. I feel bad. I don't feel guilty because to be guilty, you have to have done something wrong. And I didn't do anything wrong as a political cartoonist. But I feel bad. I mean, you know, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't draw that cartoon at all. I might have drawn a cartoon criticizing it. Bush and John McCain for

you know scurrilous dogs but I didn't you know I mean but the whole thing now this is happening too I mean what a shit show you know and it's like and it just shows how long the aftermath of this kind

of trauma lasts right like Pat Tillman oh yeah I know who that is but you know it's been 21 years since his death and you know it's still it's still kind of killing them. Yeah. I will tell you something that I have never said publicly before. My grandmother on my mom's side had four brothers and all four of them served in the Second World War. And when I was a little

kid, my grandmother was not close to her brothers. There was one in particular, lived in the same town, Uncle Bill. We would see him at, you know, events, family. the events or the Greek festival or the Greek, you know, this dance or that baptism or whatever. And my mom always told me not to ever ask Uncle Bill about the war. Okay. And when I was a little kid, I didn't really mean anything. But then by the time I was 12 or 13, I was very interested in the war, right? Because a lot of my friends' dads had served and, you know, the older dads. Or if your dad didn't, then, you know, your grandfather did. So, So I never approached Uncle Bill.

Well, when I finally became an adult, my mom told me a story. This was the reason why she told me I really should stay away from Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was one of the American soldiers who liberated Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich in the closing days of the Second World War. and he never was able to get over what he saw there, you know, piles and piles of bodies and half-burned bodies in the crematoria and people, you know, looking like skeletons. Now we call it PTSD.

They didn't have a name for it back then. Okay. He gets back from the war during World War I, right? He gets back from the war and sort of bounces around from job to, the job. Fast forward to 1953. The war's been over for eight years. Uncle Bill has had no therapy or no care, no mental health care whatsoever. There was nothing like that back then. Sure. He somehow gets it into his head in 1953 that Richard Nixon, who had just been

elected vice president, promised him a job at the post office in Steubenville, Ohio. Okay, where he lived. So Monday morning, Uncle Bill puts on his best suit. He goes down to the, to the post office, and they said, what are you here for? He said, I'm here to start work. They said, we don't know anything about that. You're not supposed to work here. And Uncle Bill said, that damn Nixon, I'm going to make him pay for humiliating me. Six months later, who happens to come to the Civic Center to give a speech, but vice president? President Richard Nixon, and Uncle Bill tried to get into the venue with a 45, and he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to shoot Richard Nixon, and he served five years in prison.

My mom used to say, there but for the grace of God, our name could have been Oswald. Yeah. But even after all this, he never got any mental health care. and now here we're supposed to be we're in 2025 and you know i'll tell you how uncle bill died he got hit by a train like how can you not this is what i said to my mom how can he not see that the train is like coming right at him and she said well i think that was the whole point yeah so yeah no walkman's back then i almost got hit by a train i was listening to a lot My school was got killed by a train.

My mom's best friend's son got killed by a train. Uncle Bill got killed by a train. Where you and I grew up, Ted, a lot of the crossings don't have the bars that come down. That's right. You stop and look both ways and hope there's not a drink coming. So here we are in 2025. 72 years have passed since Uncle Bill was arrested. And we still don't have adequate mental health care for people who come back from combat.

Yeah, I mean, I think of that famous incident, you know, with General Patton, who slapped, you know, a shell shot, traumatized soldier and got into a lot of trouble for it. Yeah. Because it was, you know, reported. He didn't recover. I mean, his command assignments, he never recovered after, after slapping that soldier. Yeah. No, that's right. And rightly so.

I think but I mean that was the point of view and yeah things haven't really changed right I mean they really haven't and you know in this case this is like the brother of he's he's collateral damage right he's the brother of the victim

and it's just horrible I don't know we should probably leave that and check in on check in on Israel so I think oh So, yeah, so let's talk about that.

So basically, 23 countries signed a declaration asking mostly European countries, but also in Canada. Major countries are demanding an immediate end to hostilities. And, of course, every single day, a dozen or more Palestinians report to a food distribution site in Gaza and are massacred by IDF forces. every day every single day they're so desperate that they figure even though it's incredibly dangerous well we're going to die of starvation anyway um at this point i mean you know there's all the semantic arguments is this genocide or not um you know it i mean of course it is but i mean people who say it's i mean my favorite my favorite uh counter arguments are well Well, you know, they haven't killed them all.

I'm like, well, Hitler didn't kill them all either. And also, they've issued, the Israelis issue warnings and tell them to evacuate to other places. You know, not so that's not, that's not really a defense, right? You know, obviously, how much fucking longer is this going to go on before someone who matters makes it stop? Yeah. Nobody is saying anything. You know, I was looking at the BBC today, too, and the BBC was saying that, yes, the Israeli IDF killed another 61 people who were standing in line for food. But there are also children who were reported to have starved to death today, including a 40-year-old girl who hadn't eaten in weeks. She was lucky that she was at least able to. to get water for for a couple of weeks so yeah this is you know the only the only european country that's really said anything so far is ireland everybody else is just pretending that this isn't happening i'm hoping france acts quickly because i think so a game changer yeah france is

france has tremendous power from its legacy as like the dominant diplomatic power um you know that goes way back um that's right i mean french prestige is massive um So I'm hoping Emmanuel Macron does something to validate his farce of an administration, which is wildly unpopular in France. I mean, it's this morning on the BBC radio, I was pleasantly surprised that they interviewed a physician slash reporter who'd been on the ground there in a hospital in Gaza for months. And he said in very clear language, there's no question that this is an attempt to exterminate the entire population of Gaza and to do complete ethnic cleansing. He said something, John, that was extremely disturbing. He said that for the IDF lately, for months, they play games with the injuries. And he said, and so the BBC, host said, what do you mean by that?

And he said, well, in one day, everyone will come in with a head wound. The next day, everyone comes in with a left leg wound. The day after that, everyone comes in with an abdominal wound. And she said, that's a very serious allegation. And he's like, it's a fact. It's documented. I have photos. And so it's like, you think it's a coincidence.

It's like, no, like the idea, they're doing this for fun. They're shooting civilians for fun. And to send a message to troll in this incredibly sinister, I mean, you know, I'm 62 years old almost. I've never heard of such a thing. I mean, it's like I've never, you know, I've studied war. I've just never heard of such depravity. No, I don't even have words.

I'm just speechless. These are crimes against humanity, war crimes. They need to be prosecuted just as we had prosecutions at Nuremberg. I mean, let's get real. Right? Like, if Israel was not a U.S. ally and this was going on and the president of the United States got word, this horrible situation is happening over in this country, there would be tremendous pressure. We have to lead an international invasion force. We would either do it ourselves or we'd go to the U.N. and say, we're going to go in as a international community. This is a Rwandan-style genocide. We're putting a stop to it. right here and now. I mean, am I wrong? No, no. It is a Rwandan-style genocide.

Yeah. You know, I was outraged when I heard that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons were not allowed to speak, but they were also not allowed to walk. They had to go from point A to point B on their hands and knees for months at a time. and they're just destroying their legs being forced to do so. It's just sick the way the Israelis are treating people. Sick. Criminal.

Yeah. No, I mean, you know, I went with an open mind the first time I went to Israel. And when I saw the checkpoints and the way that people are treated and, you know, you can't possibly, you can't possibly think it's anything but apartheid. It just is. It is. I think I told you my mom, back in 2008, my mom called me. My dad had been done a few years, and she was lonely and bored, and she wanted to take a trip.

So she called me and she said, hey, I think I'm going to take a trip to Ireland with NPR. They've been advertising this group. And I was like, Mom, it's February. Why do you want to go to Ireland in February? It's going to be freezing and just pouring down rain the whole time. And I said, my church is planning a trip to Israel. go to Israel. You know everybody, I said. So she and my sister went to Israel first time. My mom never paid attention to current events or the news or anything. She would always say,

oh, I've been busy raising three kids. I didn't have time for the news. So she comes home and she says to me, did you have any idea how they treat the Palestinians out there? And I was like, of course I did. And she didn't. And she, for months afterwards, she would talk about how their driver, who was a Palestinian, Greek Orthodox guy, was humiliated at every checkpoint, not allowed in certain hotels, not allowed in, you know, across certain lines, dividing lines. They would have to get out of their little van and walk the rest of the way just because he was Palestinian. And I said, yeah, and multiply that times the millions of Palestinians who live in Israel. It's criminal. Yeah, question everything just posted that.

I guess this is probably a quote from a story, I hope, I don't know, maybe. But yeah, heads day, legs day, testicles day, heart day, the IDF sniper's sport includes certain targets for certain days. Yeah, I saw the spitting. spit on a bunch of Greek Orthodox people going into a church. And they just destroyed Pope Francis's favorite church, the one very historic, hundreds of years old, bombed it. Come on. They knew where the fuck it was.

But Ted, they did say they would investigate. They would carry out an investigation. Check this out. Right. They're so good at that. You know, I'm still waiting to hear, you know, they have so many investigations that they owe. We're probably going to see those Epstein files before we see those.

The results of this Israeli investigation. Guaranteed. Yeah. Well, no, they're sons and bitches. What can I say? All right. So let's see. Should we, we'll put this up.

Abby Mount Martin mentioned on Rogan that most of the IDF is kids from Jersey and the Philly suburbs. Ironically, many of the kids from Philly and Jersey over there are also Palestinian. so it's basically like jersey on jersey violence yeah seriously time was when they could just settle it on the football field you know that would have been better yeah awful well john i think impressed i think yeah sorry i'm sorry i ended up on a depressing note here but you know we got to do that so thanks everyone for joining us um please like follow and share the show uh we really appreciate the tremendous support you guys are giving us, just keep it coming. Love you guys. We are here

Monday, Wednesday, Friday, which means we will be back Wednesday, 5 p.m. here on YouTube and Rumble Live. Obviously, not everyone's available then, so if you're not, if you're watching us in streaming, we appreciate you as well. We also have an audio version of this. So for you guys, we've seen the numbers tick up recently. So for people who are just listening, thank you so much for doing that. And thanks for enjoying the show. I'm Tim Ball. That's John Kirooku. Have a great night and see you Wednesday. Bye-bye.