DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram: “RussiaGate Revisited, Epstein, ICE at War, AI Little Marco”

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Never a dull moment on the “DeProgram” show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, deprogramming you about the news that matters. RussiaGate Revisited: The Justice Department finally launches criminal probes into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey over their roles in the Trump-Russia investigation. A “lessons learned” review of the creation of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that alleged Russia tried to influence the 2016 presidential election to help then-candidate Trump found that the process of the ICA’s creation was rushed with “procedural anomalies,” and that officials diverted from intelligence standards. It also determined that the “decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.” Whoopsie! Will the media stop pushing RussiaGate now? The Epstein Circular File: Controversy surrounds Attorney General Pam Bondi as she claims there’s nothing to see and no one to prosecute in the Jeffrey Epstein case. A DOJ memo that denies the existence of a “client list” fails the smell test as Team Trump seems to be indulging in a cover-up. ICE at War: Democratic senators are about to propose a bill to ban ICE agents from wearing masks, prompted by reports of impersonators committing crimes. Examples include Carl Thomas Bennett, 37, arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina, for impersonating an ICE officer and sexually assaulting a woman at a Motel 6. Bennett allegedly displayed a business card with a badge and threatened to deport the victim if she didn’t comply. A man in Philadelphia, wearing a tactical vest labeled “Security Enforcement Agent,” robbed an auto repair shop while posing as an ICE agent. He detained a 50-year-old Dominican woman using zip-ties and stole $1,000. A man in Texas posed as an ICE agent to rob a couple, blocking their car and demanding cash. The couple fought back, with the wife and husband firing weapons, hitting the suspect, who fled and was later hospitalized. Meanwhile, 11 people allegedly used fireworks and vandalism to lure ICE agents before ambushing them with 20-30 rounds, injuring a police officer in the neck at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. AI Officials: Speaking of fakery, an AI-generated imposter used a fake Signal account to mimic Secretary of State Marco Rubio, contacting three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a congressmember. This scam followed a similar AI-driven impersonation of Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Ted’s 2020 graphic novel “The Stringer” envisioned a world in which a bad actor would start wars using AI deep fakes. Could it happen now? Zohran Zooming: Zohran Mamdani leads the general election race in a new poll. Mamdani gets 35%, followed by Cuomo with 25%, Sliwa with 14%, Adams—the corporate establishment favorite—at 11% and attorney Jim Walden at 1%. Never has the Democratic establishment been so out of touch. Don’t miss the unfiltered truth on these pivotal stories.

Thank you. Hey, John. It's good to see you. Hey, Ted. You caught me eating a cookie. Eat that cookie. That's John Curiac over there, cookie eater, cookie monster of the hour. I'm Ted Rall in New York, and he's down there in D.C. We're doing D-Program again. We're moving to a three-day-a-week schedule starting next week, and even more news after that. It will be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5 p.m. Today's show was delayed by 6 p.m. 2.2.

to 6 p.m. Eastern, no big deal. But, FYI, John's there in the path of God, who's apparently sending vicious thunderstorms. The skies are black right now in Arlington, Virginia. And I was telling Ted, just before we started. And so I'll apologize in advance that, you know, first this morning, they gave us a severe thunderstorm watch. Then a couple hours ago, it became a severe thunderstorm morning. Then an hour ago, it was severe thunderstorm and flash flood warning. Now they're telling us take cover. Oh, wow. And because our electrical system is akin to the electrical system in Cairo or Bangkok, we tend to lose power relatively frequent. Yeah, that's surprising. You just think, I think of Arlington, Virginia, you know, it's like when you look at that map, you see the square.

Right. And the, it's really a diamond, right? And you see the three, quarters of the diamond is D.C., and you're like, well, what's that other side in D.C.? That's Arlington. Yeah. It's kind of technically in D.C. sort of. It used to be D.C. And then Virginia, after a while, said, we want our part back. Because D.C. is made up of a part donated by Maryland and a part donated by Virginia, and Virginia took theirs back. One of the great real estate insurance scams by our first president, but that's true. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. Okay. That's all the best comment at the day. If I happen to see God ask him if he knows where the Epstein falls are, we're talking about this all day today. And we will be talking about that. All right, so

here's what right now. We're going to be talking about the investigation into former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey, over the Russia Gate hoax. I think it's fair. Trump calls at that. He's not wrong. We'll be talking about Epstein and of how the Trump administration has basically circular filed the Epstein investigation, and we'll get into that. We're going to talk about ICE at war, really crazy shit going on with ICE. A bunch of people are impersonating ICE people to commit crimes because it's easy to do that because they don't identify themselves and they cover their faces with masks. You can cover yourself, you can dress like that and go rape someone or rob someone or kill them

and try to get away with it. And people have actually been doing that. I don't think that's the main motivation, but Democratic senators are about to propose a bill that will ban ice from wearing masks. So we'll get into the whole ice wars. Plus, there was that crazy ambush at an ice office in Texas. Yes.

AI, always interesting. So back five years ago, I published a book called The Stringer. It's a graphic novel in which people, bad actors, basically use AI deep fakes to improve. world leaders and then start wars. They provoke wars. You can imagine, like, fake Putin calls Trump and calls him names and says, fuck you, you know, I'm coming for you. And then Trump gets pissed off and hits the button, right? I mean, that could happen. Yes. So that kind of is starting to happen. It happened to the chief of staff of the Trump administration, Susie Wiles.

And it happened to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Some AI imposter talked to three foreign ministers, a governor and a congress member. Zoran, Mondani, is driving the establishment absolutely insane. The first polls are out for the general election. He's leading handily, and the establishment favorite is coming in pathetically. Did you happen to see the piece at the hill today, Ted, where Democrats are starting to panic because he's a Muslim? Yeah.

Well, I mean, can you imagine saying, can you imagine going to go? on a podcast, for example, or on a TV interview and saying, oh, I'm really panicking about this Jerry Nadler. He's a Jew. Oh, my God. You know how they are. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's exactly. What are we supposed to make of this? Okay, he's Muslim. So what? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny. Like, you know how you can still make fun of fat people? That's still okay. Yeah. You can still make fun and you can still be racist. Yeah. Muslim people. Islamophobia is still okay. What's from? So, and it's coming from the so-called liberal democratic style yeah yeah it's that's right it's the liberal democrats that are jumping up and down so there was a guy today i'm sorry i go ahead at the airport in in fort lauderdale and um

he was telling me that he's a he's a liberal democrat he's a lifelong guy was in his 60s i'd say lifelong progressive but uh you know we got to stop these muslims from taking over the country they're going to give us a sharia law next thing you know Yeah, right. Sharia law is. Yeah, and also, yeah, both, he's going to be the most interesting guy because he's going to bring communism and Sharia law. Yeah, exactly. I don't know how that works.

No, not sure exactly how that works. It'll be super interesting to see, though. All right, well, let's get into this situation with two of your favorite people, John, Comey and Brennan. So basically, there was an after-action report where the CIA tried to, whenever it has a mistake, you should explain this. You should explain about lessons learned reviews, which, by the way, every organization ought to have. And they conducted one of these things, and they came up with the, I think, widespread, well-known understanding that the St. dossier ought not to have been included in any investigation of alleged Russian interference in favor of Donald Trump in 2016, but the ruling came down to do it anyway, and that went

counter to basic CIA protocols. Take it away. When the CIA is writing a paper, especially a paper that has big political implications, you want literally every stakeholder in the building to buy into it, right? So you get this tasking. Are the Russians trying to help Donald Trump get elected president? Okay. The evidence said no. The evidence said Vladimir Putin prefers Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. Okay, so what? We all have a preference, whether it's I didn't need the CIA to tell me that. I read Foreign Policy Magazine, and Foreign Policy Magazine told me that.

So no big deal that he has a preference. Were the Russians actively trying to help Donald Trump get elected? The answer was no, there was no evidence. But as the CIA... The only thing there was, right? There was the IRA, the Internet Research Agency, which was a troll farm that basically a clickbait outfit. Ryan Becker has stripped that down.

to its bare studs. We should talk about that. That's the only real evidence there was. Yeah. But it's a Russian company, but that doesn't make it the Russian government. And Lulu is right. The Israelis certainly were trying to get Donald Trump elected president. That's true. 100 percent. But there was no evidence that the Russians were. So the CIA analysts, imagine this. They're sitting around this table, and they're debating the evidence, point.

by point by point and they've got the steel dossier which says all kinds of crazy stuff that is utterly unprovable so they come to this conclusion this is like the prostitute piss allegations correct stuff like that exactly so they come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that this is happening john brennan says yeah there is i'm convinced so your analytic Did Christopher Steele himself, the author of the dossier, say this is just a bunch, a compendium of rumors that was meant for opposition research? This is not, I have no confidence in any of this being true. I want to talk about that, too, because that's very important here. So, so Brennan being the, what was he at the time, CIA director.

ordered them to change their analytic judgment to be that, yes, the Russians are trying to steal the election for Trump. And then when literally everybody objected to including the Steele dossier as evidence, the deal that they struck with Brennan was that they attached it as an appendix. Okay. So this was false, and they all knew it was false. Now, let me tell you about the Steele dossier. I know Christiel. I worked with Christiel for a number of years closely on an operation that we did together in the Middle East. Chris Steele did exactly what a collector,

an operations officer, does. He goes out there. He asks all of his sources, do you know anything about Donald Trump vis-a-vis the Russians? And everybody just parrots back, whatever rumors they've heard. They picked up a story in a bar. They heard about these prostitutes peeing on the bed that Obama slept in.

And it's not Chris Steele's job to determine what's true and what's not. As an operations officer, your job is to write it down and send it back to the analysts. And it's their job to decide if it's true or not. But because it was so explosive and it was so anti-Trump, Brennan just decided to, embrace it as fat and run with it. And Comey ended up doing the same thing. And they basically totally politicized this. I want to get back to the Internet Research Agency because it's the only meat on the bone, right?

Yeah. Such as it is. And it's not, and it's a pretty skinny bird. So basically you have the IRA, which there's no evidence that it, that is part or of or works for or even with the Russian government. It's a private company. They were looking for clicks. Most of the clicks that most of the ads that they ran on Facebook related to non-political stuff. They also had basically they were trying to go for clicks everywhere they could.

They even ran pro-Hillary Clinton ads in 2016, about the same number. As far as we can tell, no more than $100,000 to $200,000 was spent on all of the ads, including the non-political and the Hillary Clinton ads. So probably we're talking about a few thousand bucks, maybe worth of dollars in a $7 billion election, right? And $7 billion. 50% of the Russian money was spent after the election was over. Okay?

And of the other 50%, half was spent in states that were solidly red or solidly blue there was no attempt to swing the election the the attempt was to just piss people off to you know create these memes boost the memes get people angry you know make democrats angry at republicans republicans angry at democrats and um i mean it was it was peanuts i spent more on on Facebook to advertise my speaking tour than the IRA spent to allegedly, you know, steal the American presidential election. Ridiculous. Right. So, so like basically this company, it was a drop in the in the drop in the drop in the drop in the drop of a bucket that could not have had any kind of substantive effect on the election. Yes. And it didn't. And

And whatever minute, microscopic effect it had was not on behalf of the Kremlin. Yep. That's basically where we're at. And there was no proof that it was done at the behest of the Kremlin. Ted, yeah, I think you look blurry to me too. I wonder if you're getting a storm. That could well be. I don't know.

We'll see what happens. It comes and goes sometimes. This is a busy hour of the day. I think what happens is people, I live in a building. think people are coming home and I share that connection with them. It should resettle. If I have to reboot maybe while you're saying something long-winded, I will do that. No worries. Okay, so anyway, that's all right. Everybody's seen my beautiful face. They don't need the high-res

version. But okay, so now what's going on is that the current CIA director has made a criminal referral over to the FBI asking the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation into these two men about their roles. John, what kind of charges theoretically could they face? Unfortunately, the only charge that they're being investigated on is contempt of Congress or making a false statement. So, yeah, those are those are felonies. Or, well, they can be. Making a false statement is a felony. But it's punishable by zero to six months in jail,

with six months being the maximum if you are a career criminal. So they're not going to go to prison, even if they are taken to trial and found guilty. But it would be a big deal. Oh, I don't mean to gloat, especially with what I've been through in my own life. But John Brennan ruined my life. And now he's getting a little taste of his own medicine.

It was funny to me today because I followed this on all the networks this morning. And he's gone mute. So is Comey. I saw Mr. Brennan on MSNBC today. Oh, today I missed it. Yeah, where he was basically, he doubled down and said that he still remains confident that Russia, everything worked out the way he said. Good, good.

Good. John, do you have any qualms or problems with the fact? I mean, look, I know my answer to this. My answer is, this is political and it's partisan. Totally. Doesn't mean that it's not right. Exactly. Exactly.

And then the New York Times, I'm sure you saw it too. I got a push notification from the New York Times. Let me think. I landed at like 4.30, so it was like 4.45. The New York Times is reporting that the Secret Service has been following Comey because he allegedly made that, you know, 86, 47 threat. But it's like, you know, finally, you guys get a little tasty your own medicine. They're out there ruining people's lives, you know, ruining families. And then they're like, oh, my God, I can't believe they're going after me.

I am such a patriot. This is all politically motivated. I mean, I think about also, I think about, like, Brennan relative to the Russia thing. I mean, it's so like the conf- I mean, we're out of work because of that. You know, it's also just like completely thoughtless, uncaring. Like, it's just like we can do whatever the hell we want. Anything we want. And nothing bad's going to happen.

I mean, just think about that letter, right, that like tried to. change the results of the election where they signed that letter, right? The 50 former intelligence agency community people. I knew every single one of them. And they're all, and they're all, it's all, I mean, you know, it's all lawyer, right? Like it's written in such a way that it all has plausible deniability. They have reason to believe that the Russians may have all the hallmarks of. It bears all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation plot.

They never said it was. You really, you really program, right, is to point out these kind of, like, phrases that you will see in government. When it's the media, they'll say it raises questions about, that's like their favorite phraseology, raises questions. Well, not really. Maybe you're raising the question, but, you know, like, yeah, it doesn't raise any questions.

Watch for the passive voice. That's right. Always. That's exactly right. And every one of those signatories was a member of the Senior Intelligence Service under Brennan or along with Brennan. Every one of them was a Democrat and every one of them wants to be something bigger than he was at the CIA. So our regular viewer, Ridd asks, do you really think Pam Bondi, not Blondie, has what it takes to punish? Brennan. Not necessarily, but I think it doesn't really matter in this case because, well, look, I've, because I'm deep in the pardon process, I'm sort of liaising with a lot of very high-level Republicans that I otherwise wouldn't ever have access to.

And everybody says, Pam Bondi is a complete sweetheart, nicest woman you'd ever want to meet, and completely. in over her head as attorney general. But this, I think, is not going to be a decision that's made by the attorney general as the attorney general. This is a decision that's going to be made by Donald Trump, either off with their heads or, or, um, yeah, she's not just let him go. AG in the way that some of the previous ones have tried to be, right? Right.

Uh, future. Yes, actually, I just spoke there in, I'm going to say October. of last year. So yes, I'm happy to come back to GW anytime. GW being George Washington University. George Washington University. Got both of my degrees there. Hey, I got an offer today, not an offer, a request to debate at the Oxford Union. Ooh, that's exciting. I'm so excited. You should be. I got to debate one time at the Yale Political Union, and I thought that was awesome. It was about the Iraq War. That's going to be better. This one, it's a letter from the president of Oxford and let me open it right now um the the top here it is the topic is

this house believes that 9-11 was weaponized to expand the american empire yes or no duh so great right i mean it was yeah i can't work i can't wait and they gave me one two three four five six seven eight dates to choose from wow awesome can't wait does it pay i have to ask i They don't mention pay. Please let us know. It would be a pleasure of privilege to host you. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions. Okay.

But it says, we have had, as speakers, the Dalai Lama, President Reagan, President Nixon, her late majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Morgan Freeman, Shakira, and Malala Yusufzai. So I'm going to say yes. Well, yeah, I would say I've heard of those people. Yeah. Why not? So, John, so comment here from Spotty, Spotsy. So to be honest, it seems hard to believe that the Russians wouldn't try to somehow influence the election.

Moreover, the 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report was fairly bipartisan. Why would it seem hard? I think actually it would be very, I mean, Putin is a very, very methodical and careful person. He's very conservative. And I don't, yeah, small C conservative as well, capital C conservative. I don't see him taking a chance like that. I mean, that's really, you know, sticking your dick way into the glory hole, right? I mean, you really don't know what's on the other side.

That's awesome. You know, I mean, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. I mean, you don't know. I mean, like, what if you got caught? And then, like, I mean, it's costs for World War III. I was just going to say, it's an act of war. If you try to do that, it's an act. Never mind, the United States has done it dozens of times.

Sure. And we know that because they've declassified most of the documents. But seriously, it's an act of war. If the Russians were trying to actually steal the election for one candidate over another, yeah, you can't do that. No, not to mention if you lose, that other candidate is your sworn mortal enemy and will fuck you so hard. I mean, I don't know.

Absolutely, yes. Seems really like, this is just, it doesn't fit or it just doesn't comport with the pattern of this man who's been incredibly consistent. I mean, just look at this war. I've never seen any side in a war who has the same war aims from eight years before the conflict began to three years and a half, three and a half years into the conflict. Now he has the same four things. He wants those same four things. Not more, not less. She just wants those four things.

I came for those four things. Those are the four things I want. Those are the four things you should give me. Four things I want them. Not three, not five, four. That's him. That's it. Yeah.

You know, I've read that Manacham Began used to be the same way. He would always start off negotiations with his bottom line, which nobody could understand why he would do that. But then he would say, I want A, B, C, and D. And then he would go like this, and that would be it. And sometimes negotiations would last for a day. everybody would go home happy or sometimes they would last for years and nobody would get anything well so are we are we reprogrammed on on on this issue i mean what happens what's going to

happen well yeah let me let me just uh yeah yeah there's going to be this investigation it's an fbi i investigation and the way these things play out is well it it it really shouldn't take any more than a few months right it could drag on for a year i mean My investigation took three years. Politically, it would help the Republicans to have this really break in the middle of next year for the midterms. Without any question, that would be the best case scenario for the Republicans, middle of next year. So you could drag it out or you can finish it quickly, indict them quickly, and then have the Justice Department try them in the middle of next year. you know i said a minute ago popcorn i said a minute ago that um that uh you don't you don't go to prison

for something like this well you know what let me let me retract that because general mike flynn was found guilty of making a false statement uh the the sentencing recommendation according to the Justice Department Sentencing Guidelines was for for one year of probation and he was sentenced to prison like actual prison and then Trump pardoned him so

who knows because it's political it could go either way yeah it could go either way so I mean I guess and do you think either of these two guys would be inclined to make a deal? You know what, Ted? You would make a deal? I would make a deal.

I don't think these guys could make a deal politically. I don't think so. John Brennan, making a deal? I mean, so John Trump's... Is he a contributor to MSNBC or is he just a frequent guest? I don't think so. I don't think he's a paid contributor anymore. I know that he's on the board of directors of Fordham University,

where he graduated. And he's on a couple of defense contractors, boards of directors. Yeah, but I don't think he's taking MSNBC's money. And look, it is partisan, but frankly, it wouldn't have happened any other way, right? I mean, that's kind of the advantage of partisanship is that, you know, the other party gets held to account. Yes. You know, I would like to see a few things, a few more things happen. Yeah.

You know. So, all right, we're going to be watching that story. You and me both, man. Yeah, no question. All right, let's talk about Epstein. So there was this crazy press conference with Attorney General Pambani. She basically was sent out there. She feels more like a press secretary than an attorney.

Poor thing. When she goes out there. I've been told. She's told to say something that she may not always believe, right? Yes. So she basically, what's been announced is, hey, we at the DOJ, We did a deep dive as the president promised in the election into the Epstein files. We wanted to find out if there was a address book.

Bondi said when under oath, right, like, you know, in Congress, oh, it's on my desk. Right. Those were literally her words. It's on my desk. And now she's trying to walk this back. Peter Ducey from Fox News. Yeah. Grilled her about it.

He's a good reporter. He said, and she said, well, what I meant, it by, it all depends on what you mean by the meaning of it. And by it, I meant writ large, the case, the files for all of the Epstein stuff. I wasn't specifically referring to, you know, the subject of your question. She was flopping around like a fish that's been pulled out of the pond. She just, in fact, Trump tried to save her. by saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, are you still asking questions about this non-story, about this creep, this creep who's not even alive anymore? I wouldn't answer it.

If you want to answer the question, you go ahead and answer it. And then she's like, yeah, I'll answer it. It's like, lady, that was your out. He didn't want you to answer it. Right. So she couldn't follow the cue. She couldn't read the one person in the room. she really needed to read. Yeah, that was it. So, I mean, so, yeah, so let's go, let's, let's like walk this through, right? So, yes. So Epstein's sentenced for child trafficking, Jislane Maxwell, his, basically his familiar,

like a vampire, take basically, you know, takes the fall. Yes. As the procurer. 20 years. It's understood that there were, Epstein was not the only person who partook of, these underaged and other women, mostly men, underage girls, I should say. And there were flights, the so-called Lolita Express, many of them dozens, lots of famous people involved. There were sorted parties at his townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. So many other men were

involved. Other men were involved. According to the AG herself, there is video of men having sex with underage women in the, that is being held, you know, I guess it was on her desk at some point. Right. So she, and so, but there's no word at all on who those men were, whether those, their images were captured on film, whether there's testimony implicating those men from any of the witnesses in this case. None of the files are being released. The client list, she's now saying didn't exist, although she confirmed previously that it did exist, it all, it really reeks to high heaven, right?

And so particularly, this is interesting to me, particularly as a creature of the left, because this is a civil war within MAGA world, right? I mean, this is a promise that Trump made to his populist base. We're going to find out about Epstein's schemes and we're going to go after the remaining perverts. Okay. And everyone should be in favor of that. right and so now what we're being told basically was there was only one pervert and he croaked

and a pervert's assistant who is now in prison and now people are saying she shouldn't be in prison if that's the case michael gardner is saying what about the thousands of hours of video that were delivered to her yes what what about them exactly what about them Virginia Joufrey and five other women testified under oath that there was a room with an entire wall covered in banks of monitors. And the monitors were covering literally every room in the house and every bathroom. That's what a creep this guy was. Of course, I'm stuck like that. My video is stuck.

That's great. and I can't even see across the streets That's your old buddies at Langley doing that too They did that on purpose I swear to God I'm going to flip out If anybody makes a screenshot Okay anyway It'll clear up

Okay fine You're back So they testified that there were That there were guards There's this huge staff At the at the island of men just monitoring all of these these rooms and taping all of these tapes there were apparently hundreds and hundreds of tapes so who were the men who were the who were the

johns question number one question number two who were the staff members why weren't any of those people prosecuted and where are the tapes so you know i on the one hand the MAGA people want, want to hear, well, you know, maybe it wasn't as bad as everybody thought it was and, you know, we overreacted and the tapes really don't exist. And maybe somebody destroyed them. I said on Fox a couple nights ago, it's possible that they were destroyed. That's what the CIA does. The CIA destroys stuff all the time. Like the torture video.

Like the torture videos, like UK Ultra documents. Just destroy it. being told not to um and nick auto uh you know that's that's kind of my position is that we don't have the videos because the Israelis have the videos and we don't have j rock we don't have any idea where his money came from unless unless he was unless he was the gay lover of uh less wexner no one knows yeah no one knows where the money came from it certainly wasn't from what his business he didn't he never worked really yeah so the whole thing is the whole thing's fishy you know and the thing is look let's just say for the sake here's how i game it out

here's how i know that the trump people are covering something up um it's a lie because there's a way to if let's assume they're telling the truth yeah let's say it's you and me we dig into it and we're like holy shit it's just not true yeah well they could bring in a friendly journal They could say, hey, Peter Ducey, come here, we're going to give you an accent, put you in all the files. Exactly. And you will sign an agreement that you're not going to reveal certain things, but you're going to, but we want you to come in and say basically broad strokes confirm or deny what we're saying. Yes. So can you, you know, they could bring in someone from Fox, someone from the Wall Street Journal editorial page, someone from the New York Post, someone from Trump World, someone from, someone from.

you know, O-A-N, you know, anyone, but bring in someone you trust. It would probably be better, honestly, to bring in, like, you know, a panel of journalists to go in there and just show that they're being, they said they're going to be transparent. Yeah. That's what transparency looks like, and it ain't happening. Yeah, I have to agree. I have to agree. So this, just every part of this stinks.

none of this this whole thing makes any sense and the most the most important people in the world who have been identified as having gone to that to that island would be the ones to ensure that the right people got paid off and that none of this information uh saw the light of day hey tiny dancer when you compare how they came for p ditty it's hard to imagine the feds have no black book. Interestingly enough, the black book went up for auction at Alexander Auctions of Maryland. The reserve price was $75,000, the estimate was $75,000 to $100,000 and it didn't make the minimum. So it didn't sell. And it went back to the owner, whoever the owner happens to be. But why isn't that black book in the hands of the FBI doing their investigation rather than

being up for sale at some, some auction? Well, I mean, that's a good question, right? Oh, my God. I mean, this thing is purposely grabbing the most hideous shots of me. You know who used to do that? Like, liberal photographers used to love to do that to Nixon, and that they would publish like things that you'd be like, you know. That's right. That's how, that's not how you have scared of truth. They loved doing that. So, I mean, I think for people, there's a lot of people who are not, especially who follow, you know, more liberal media or more like the New York Times, who aren't really familiar with the theory that basically the Massad used, the, used, Epstein worked with the Mossad, basically conducting a massive wholesale honeypot operation in order to

compromise famous people who would then basically do what they're told in order to have their predilections for 16-year-old girls not exposed, right? Can you sort of walk through what that theory is and how credible you think it is? It's hard to say because there are so many different perspectives and so few statements that have actually been made on the record. What we have is allegations that, I mean, we know some of the names, we know Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Pritz Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, people of that ilk of that level who were invited. And Andrew has a direct one-on-one accuser who recently ended her own life. That's right, Virginia Jouffrey. That's such a tragic and horrible.

Yeah, she took her own life. Hold on, I'm answering Escarad. Two, number four, the Israelis. Thank you, Escarad. Okay, I'm having some real, oh, man, I'm afraid this tree across the street from me is going to smash my house. Is it coming down hard right now? Yeah, and it's wind and lightning. Like, you could read a book by the lightning.

There's so much of it. So anyway, there are so many, not just important people, but the world's most important people that are in this book. And some of them have a legit explanation. For example, there were allegations that Bobby Kennedy Jr. was on the Lollita Express, And he came out and he said, yes, I was on the Loli Express because my wife happened to be at a dinner party where Epstein was. And she mentioned that they were going to Palm Beach for Easter.

And he said, oh, well, I'm going to my island. Why don't you come on my plane and I'll drop you guys off in Palm Beach? And that's what they did. So RFK Jr's on the manifest. He said he never went to the island. He got off in Palm Beach. And that's the end of the story. But there are others like Alan Dershowitz who famously said that, yeah, Virginia Jewfrey may have been a minor, but she gave him a massage and he kept his underwear on.

It's like, seriously, dude, you are Professor Emeritus of Law at Harvard University, and that's your defense that you kept your underwear on. You're 86 years old. And a 16-year-old gave you a massage, but you kept your own. underwear on. So, you know, we have a right. The American people have a right, but especially the victims have a right to have this thing run to ground. And of course, obviously, I don't for one minute believe that Epstein committed suicide. My friend was at MDC, the Metropolitan Detention Center. He said around the same period. And he said that the guards came around. every eight minutes.

And that's for people who were not on suicide, watch. In my low security prison, it was every 30 minutes. But at the MDC, which is a maximum security holding penitentiary, where nobody's there permanently. You're there until you're farmed out to another prison. It's every eight minutes. So I don't know. It's a weird increment, but every eight minutes.

And he said also the story, the fairy tale about all the cameras, being malfunctioned, malfunctioning there? He's like, there's no, you would never have more than one camera malfunction for just a few minutes because the corrections officers want those cameras operational in case something happens to them and they're assaulted. It was very different where I was. None of the cameras worked. And I told a story today.

I was on this podcast this morning. Uh-oh, sorry. Yeah, this is a heck of a storm. It's ridiculous. So I'm sorry if you're losing. Uh-oh, it looks like we lost Ted. Oh, my God. Okay.

So anyway, when I was in prison, I worked in the chapel. There we're back. Okay. We thought we were going to lose you. When I was in prison, I worked in the chapel. I was a janitor. And the backstory to that is I went to the, wow. Oh, I heard that.

Oh, man. I went to the unit manager. As soon as I arrived, I said, look, I have a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies. I have a master's degree in legislative affairs. I did my Ph.D. casework in international affairs. I'm happy to teach a class or even teach a GED class if you want me to. And the guy gets right in my face. He says, Kiriaku, if I want you to teach a fucking class, I'll ask you to teach a fucking class.

Now grab a broom. You're a janitor in the chapel. and I made 16 cents an hour there. But the reason I'm telling you this is that every time I would go in to sweep the chapel, guys would be having sex in there. And the reason they were having sex in there is because the cameras never worked.

Just like the stairwell going down to the mailroom, people are constantly busting loins down there because the cameras didn't work. And the hallway to the laundry constantly, Because the cameras didn't work. Different culture at MDC. Yeah, I guess. And apparently, and he was on suicide watch, apparently he was supposed to be checked more often.

And supposed to be alone for what, six and a half hours? And they shut the little eyehole thing, which they weren't supposed to do. And which they weren't supposed to keep it early or keep it open. Now, also, he was supposed to have a cellmate just to make sure he didn't commit suicide. And they put him in with a fucking serial killer who just kind of sat there as he, you know, died. Did his roommate kill him? That was one of the accusations. And to tell you the truth, we just probably will never know because there was no camera inside the cell.

Now, at my prison- Yes, the MDC is where Luigi Mangione is. Yeah, he is. I wrote to him and asked him to let me come and see him for an interview, but never heard that. Fantastic. Oh, keep writing. Keep writing. Oh, sorry.

Sorry, Lulu. I'm going to, I've said some bad words that, okay, six months. That should be okay. All right. All right. So the six-month-old doesn't know. No. Yeah, it's fine.

But what was I going to say? Oh, and P. Diddy's at the MDC. Brooklyn, too. That's right. But anyway. It was Sam Bankman-Fried. Oh, I know what I was going to say. And so was Sam Bankman-Fried. he's he's friends with with ditty when you when you

either attempt suicide or talk about attempting suicide they immediately whisk you jeez oh man they i hear that that's impressive bad i'm just afraid this tree's gonna smash my house so they take you your chance to get the insurance company to pay for they take you to this this this cubicle so it's it's glass on three sides you are stripped naked and they give you a paper smock just to cover yourself with and then they hire a prisoner $5 for an eight hour shift I'm sorry $5 for a four hour shift and you just sit there and you stare at the guy for four hours and then you're replaced and they do this 24 hours a day until you're just not suicidal anymore that's what

they're supposed to do. Wow. You're 24-7 eyes on so that you don't kill yourself. You mean not six and a half hours left alone? No, not six and a half hours left alone with no working cameras, a full minute dropping out of the video. It's also not like he was a high-profile prisoner. Right.

Who's paying attention to him? I mean, it's not like the media cared. I heard the most interesting thing the other day. I heard that R. Kelly was doing mock parole interviews with Sirhan, Surhan, to help him get out, that they're friends, R. Kelly and Sturhan, Sirhan. That's so awesome. We have the strangest system here, man. We really do.

All right, let's move on here because we've spent to the whole, almost the whole show. Oh, my God, we have, sorry. topics that's all right all right so um the democrats wow are you all right yeah i it made a snapping sound in my headphones wow um yeah this is a really bad storm holy sure all right well hopefully it's not a snuff film here that we're making um so so the democrats have uh two senators have are about to propose a law that would make it against the law for ICE agents to dress the way they have been, they would have to present ID. They'd have to basically just like a, they'd have to be like cops.

They'd have to have a badge with their name on it. They'd have to, they couldn't, they'd have to show their faces and so on. Basically, this is, I think, frankly, I think aside from the fact that it is, an act of terror for ICE officers to be going through neighborhoods like they did totally agree in Los Angeles dressed like goons frankly it's for the ICE agent's own personal safety because you know I mean honestly if you are abducted from this off the street by people who you can't identify as government agencies you can legally use deadly force to defend yourself and yes you'll have a hard time and yes you'll be beaten up in jail but you'll walk you will walk because

you have that you know that second amendment right to get yourself and it's going to happen absolutely and you're already seeing ice agents are just reviled and despised there's this crazy incident that happened in texas at the prairie land detention center in alvarado 11 young people many of them, apparently leftists, set off fireworks to lure the ice agency agents out of the facility. Then they started shooting at them when they came out, fired off at least 20 to 30 rounds. One cop got shot in the neck. We don't know how serious that was. All these people are in custody.

But the point is, I got to say, I bet a lot of people that a lot of communities read about that. And they weren't terribly sad. And that's wrong. That's because we've gotten this situation has gotten really toxic. I would blame the tactics that the administration is letting ICE use. And I don't buy for one minute a whole like we're getting docs. They're threatening our families. Like whatever, your law enforcement officers.

Yeah. That comes with the territory. You have people in America have the right to confront their accuser. And they have the right before they go with anyone to know who's taking them into custody. They have that right under our constitution. It goes back to the very, very beginning of our republic. And to add to all that, now there's a spate of people using the disguising themselves as ICE agents going around committing crimes. There's a guy who knows. Carl Bennett, 37 years old, arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina. He allegedly impersonated an ICE officer and raped a woman

at a motel 6. He showed a business card with a badge. I guess that's more than the real ICE officers do. She should have been clued in by the fact that he had had at least a fake badge and threatened to deport her if she didn't have sex with him. A guy in Philly wearing a tactical vest

simply labeled security enforcement agent robbed an auto shop while posing as an ICE agent. Oh, my God. He detained a 50-year-old Dominican woman using zip ties and made off with a thousand bucks. The guy in Texas posed. as an ICE agent to rob a couple. He blocked their car and demanded cash.

They availed themselves of their Second Amendment rights. They fought back. The wife and husband fired at him, shot him. He took off. And I have a lot more cases like this. They're just the few that drew my attention. This is happening all over the place. I mean, this is kind of like what's happening with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

You could see that these tactics would cause a lot of problems from all perspectives, and now they are. I think you are exactly right. This is exceedingly dangerous. It's only going to get worse unless Congress puts a stop to it. Because the Secretary of Homeland Security, Christy Noam, she's not going to change policy to make that. Oh, yeah, it's just not going to happen.

Thank you, Marble. Thank you very much. In California, Gavin Newsom has been focused on this over the last at least the last week and um but that and that's a good thing but he doesn't have the federal authority to uh to force ice to wear uh identifying you know identifying insignia's or badges or or to force them to take their masks off this has to come from the administration it has to and it's not now congress is trying to act on it but then again the administration could file a federal suit saying, you know, separation of powers, this is an executive branch

decision. It's not up to Congress to decide if ICE can wear, can wear masks or not wear masks or can be plain clothes or not playing clothes. Now, we all know, we all know right from wrong here on this issue. The question is, is anybody going to do the right thing? Apparently not. I mean, not unless they're forced to. You know, here in New York State, we have a law that says that police officers have to identify themselves. They can't wear masks. They have to show. They used to before a police riot, they would cover their badges with like their badge numbers with like a strip of a black band. That's right. Or they went crazy. That's right. And that be that law passed and they can't do that. They have to show their badges. And it doesn't help also that the kind of gear that

the ICE agents wear, even it's all like a hodgepodge of stuff that they seem to have picked up at the police surplus outlet. It's not all the same. It's like some of it just says like special officer or police. Yes, exactly. Agent. I mean, I could buy that stuff on eBay right now. So could you. Anyone could. You know, it doesn't prove anything. And so it's kind of like if you, you have every right to run away from or resist someone who you don't know who they are. You know what, Ted, on January 6th, early in the morning, I went to meet my friend and lawyer, Bruce Fine. His office is on Capitol Hill. It's just two blocks from the Senate. So, of course, it was an armed camp. I couldn't get anywhere near.

I had to park my car half a mile away, literally half a mile away and walk to Bruce's office. Bruce just happened happens to be across the street from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. And so when I walked up there, there were like a dozen guys all taking their shirts off. And the shirts that they were taking off were all Bureau of Prison shirts. And they were putting on unmarked polo shirts. And I heard one of them say, now remember, we don't have to tell anybody who, we are. And I stopped and I looked like, oh, you fascist bastards. And I went in and I mentioned it to Bruce and he said, it's going to be a hell of a day. We should probably get out of here.

That was very good lawyerly advice. Yeah. So, I mean, here's, okay, am I too naive, John, in hoping that possibly we might be able to see some bipartisanship here that, uh, that some Republicans might cross the aisle for not because they care about like, you know, the kind of imagery that we just saw in L.A. at MacArthur Park, but because they don't want ICE agents to be killed. Yeah. Which they're going to be 100% they're going to be. You know, and this is for their own good. You know, do you think, could you see some Republicans joining Democrats in supporting this legislation? Yes. would have said no two weeks ago, but today I would say yes. This is one of those things that

that is going to command bipartisanship because the truth of the matter, Ted, is Republicans aren't going to be in power forever. So what happens when the Democrats are running ice and going after, you know, Republican favorites? Or maybe it's not ICE. Maybe it's the, maybe it's the FBI or it's the ATF or, you know, one of those other bad three-letter agencies. So this, this is a lot of is something i would expect to see bipartisanship on interesting all right well i hope i hope i hope we're there what do you make of the you know the the the 11 i mean i have to get into this i mean you know these 11 young people who attacked the ice station i mean that seems like a french resistance operation we don't really seek that kind of thing in the united states it's like these

canadian soldiers that were arrested this morning plotting to overthrow the canadian government and to carve out a piece of Quebec and make their own country. Right. What the heck is going on, people? Things are really coming apart at the seams here, right? Seriously. You know, this bothered me, and this is exactly what progressives ought to fear. It's one thing to oppose something like Cop City outside Atlanta, right?

That's God's work, as far as I'm concerned. But to just, you know, initiate violence. against federal officers, it's just not the way to succeed. But you can really easily see how people can work. Absolutely. I understand it. I don't condone it. It's like the mentality that like can, you know, after during the peak of the Vietnam War, when the radicals from the weather underground work themselves into a lather, thinking there was no other choice but the violent overthrow of the state.

I mean, believe me, I'm sympathetic to that argument. I don't, you know, I mean. Ted, along a similar line. You just get arrested and you hurt people. Did you happen to catch this news today that it was Republicans that killed their own idea to sell off federal lands for development? No. It was so fascinating. You know, a week ago, the White House said, oh, we want to sell off all this federal land and, you know, we're going to mine it.

It's part of the big beautiful bill, I think. Yes. Well, Republicans now killed it because Hakeem Jeffrey said, oh, what a great idea. We should sell off this federal land and use it to build affordable housing for poor people. And the Republicans were like, oh, my God, we can't do that. So now it's done. Yeah, maybe they're starting to, I mean, you know, I don't really, we talked a little bit about Carville. But, I mean, I think he's right that the House is going to go back to the Republicans next year.

The Democrats, yeah, that's one. Yeah. And Republicans in the House are starting to be like, hmm, we better get ready for that and make preparations. Time to bat in the hatches. Let's talk about AI. So we don't know who it is and unidentified, like an ice agent, as unidentified as an ice agent, imposter used a signal account. God, signal in this administration to pretend that they were little Marco Rubio. Yep. And they reached out to three foreign ministers. We don't know who they were. A U.S. governor, a Congress member, and maybe my cat, I don't know. They, this, and then this happened right after Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff for Trump in the White House also had something like this happen. So when I wrote this book, you know, I wrote it really about 10 years ago. It only came out five years ago because, you know, we were slow, me and my partner who put it together. But Pablo Calejo, but basically we had this idea, like, what if someone used this to create this technology to create geopolitical mayhem?

If you can't tell credibly, I mean, you know, even visually, but particularly, you know, through voice, like, you know, I remember when I won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, it was the first major journalism award. Did you really? I did. That's wonderful. Thank you. And so I was working a day job.

I came back from lunch and there's a while you were out, you know, with a 703 number, which is Virginia. And, you know, it's, it's Ethel Kennedy called. So I'm pretty sure it's my friend Dan who loved to do stuff like this. He knew it applied for the RFK Journalism Award. I didn't win any awards back then. Nobody liked my work. I was like totally out of the out. So I call up the number.

I go, fuck you, Dan. Like, you know, just eat shit. Blow me, click. The phone rings again. And I hear this very distinctive voice. Very, for a certain generation, like, a very distinctive voice. I'm like, oh, shit. 703, that's Virginia.

I know they have a house there. Ethel, can it? And it's like, I deed her through her voice. I knew it was her. I mean, you know, if. your parent calls you know it's your dad you know it's your mom it's like but now you can't right you know like anybody could like record don't get any ideas but anyone could record this program and basically feed hours of us talking into this program and then it'll make us not only you could

also use our images and it'll make our facial our mouth motions fit the syllables we could even maybe even be speaking in a foreign language i mean it's crazy right fluently in a foreign language that we don't even speak. So this is dangerous, right? You can easily imagine like someone, you know, I don't know, the president of Moldova, you know, fake Poland and saying, you know, blow me. Yeah, make a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Who might be the wiser? No one. So the point is, what's to stop this? Is it going to be like sort of a A world leader is going to have to have sort of a 3D capture in order to authenticate communications between each other. Oh, my God.

Could you imagine? Yeah, this is very dangerous. And literally no one has any ideas yet how to stop it. I mean, we're really lucky that nothing bad has happened yet. Yes. It's only been used for fun. I mean, imagine if Al Qaeda had used this. Imagine.

I mean, ISIS, they're very sophisticated. I mean, or at least. they were. I mean, it's only a matter of time. And I don't know. I was wondering, as a, you know, it seems to me like probably they're going to need to start authenticating their IDs. And that's going to slow down communications. You're not going to be able to have, like, Trump's got a problem. He's got to pick up and he's got to talk to President Xi within minutes. I mean, I think about this story. My father told me about sort of a close call during the Cold War when there was a glitch in NORAD, and President Carter was informed that it looked like there

was an incoming missile about to hit Anchorage, Alaska. And he didn't, they said, you know, they were like, Mr. President, we need to go to DefCon for, you know, you really need to consider a launch, a retaliatory launch against the Soviet Union. And Carter took a beat. And he used, first, he, and his first thought was, okay, I'll call up Rajnev. So he calls up Rajnev and he says, Hank talks to him, hangs up the phone and says, stand down. They're not, they haven't declared war. They're not attacking us. With all due respect, Mr. President, how do you know? He said, he was sleepy. So, well, if you woke up in the middle of the night to start World War III with the United States, even if it's three in the morning in Moscow,

you're not sleepy. And I know his voice. I talk to him all the time. he had that sleepy sound. And I was like, so how, you know, that rapport between world leaders has prevented countless catastrophes in the past. This throws all of that into question. Man, that really lays it there. That's a great story. It does.

It calls everything into question. And we're not, and we're just. racing towards oblivion, right? I mean, Sam Altman and his Open AI, I'm still banned. So is everyone who's ever said anything bad about Sam Altman or Open AI is literally banned. We don't exist. I mean, it seems like this is before a society develops and launches full headlong into a radically exciting but also dangerous technology.

I mean, we should listen to Elon Musk and all the other tech guys who said, please government regulate us. We need to be regulated and nobody's doing it. Amber asks a good question here. With the advent of AI, can voice and video evidence in court cases realistically, literally be relied on or even be admissible anymore? That's going to throw a wrench into the entire system. I have some insight about this, John. I'm curious what you, I'm sure you know about this too. So in my lawsuit against the LA Times, the crucial part of the crucial bit of evidence was an audio recording purportedly made by my arresting officer. And the, and so that was what was it, you know, in question, right? The LAPD gave this audio recording to the LA Times to

try to discredit me. And so the question, so one of the big questions was, well, is it authentic? Does it show what it supposedly purports to show, and has it been modified? Well, so there's a whole technology called audio enhancement and authentication, also video enhancement and authentication. But it's really, like, hard. You need, like, serious experts to do this. One of the guys who was involved, in my case, actually authenticated the Zabruder film, right, of the Kennedy film. And as much of an expert as he was, he fucked up. He represented the L.A. Times, and he was wrong. We later proved that he was wrong. So basically, yeah, either the LAPD or the L.A. Times modified the recording. Wow.

But it's basically like an art, and they can use it to solve, that's admissible in court. Like you can say, if we have, if we have this, this audio recording of whatever, person talking, a gunshot, we can use it, but it has to be authenticated. And for it to be authenticated, you have to have the recording device with which it was made, which the LA Times and the LAPD did not have. So it was never authenticatable. And so it's like there's all the science to it. They're going to have to come up with some kind of analogy here for AI where you're going to have to be able to analyze. Is there a difference? Like you and I, we've talked about these scams on Telegram where like the fake AI Asian girls like, hey cutie, what's it?

Get him every single day. Now, you and I, we all know that AI look, right? There's an AI, kind of a fuzzy. They all look exactly the same. They're all climbing out of swimming pools. And they're all kind of airbrushed and low-res. But they're getting better all the time. And we're going to get to a point where no one, including an expert, can tell the difference.

Yes. Right. And that's exactly right. And that's going to be. So to answer that question, I don't think, I think it's going to be. very hard to say, you know, it'll be really easy for police departments to fake evidence against defendants, you know, like, it'll be very easy for them to modify body camera footage that shows them abusing a suspect and show it being, show them being assaulted instead.

Yeah. I mean, you've seen AI. I don't know if you've seen some of the crazy AI stuff where there's like someone modified Olympic footage of Olympic diving and they modified it to show like incredibly obese people. Oh yeah, I've seen those. Or cats. On TikTok, yeah. Or cats, right? Yeah. I mean, and it's like, whoa, whoa. I mean, that looks real. Or there's the silly ones on Facebook where the animals are saving babies lives. Like a wolf comes and saves a baby from an alligator or something, and you're like, what? Why would that happen? I haven't seen that yet.

But it's just like, look, animals are cool. Oh, my God. But it's like, it's getting so, you know, I mean, we're past the uncanny valley. We're right into, you know, 99 and 44 100% real. I wonder how many people didn't get that. Very few. I bet our listeners will get it. But that's a very old-timey reference.

Yes. Very old-timey. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, what do you think? I mean, part of the problem is that the technology is advancing so quickly. A year ago, Netflix came out with a documentary series about Andy Warhol. I'm the world's biggest and greatest Andy Warhol fan. I've got four Warhols here.

Nice. Behind me. That's his personal desk lamp up there. auction. The sticker you see on it is the sticker that says the estate of Andy Warhol. I have his candelabra. Anyway, I have a cartoon that's at the, at his library, in a permanent collection at his museum. At the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Yeah. I'm an annual contributor. Good. So this thing came out a year ago, and it was loosely based on the Andy Warhol diaries, but what they did is they got AI to narrate the series in Warhol's voice.

So I know Warhol's voice very, very well, and it was 97% right on. But you could tell if you really listened that it was computer generated. And now, just a year later, you can't tell. It's not possible to tell. No. Thank you, Houdini. Thank you. Yeah.

Warhol was a major hoarder. And it was because he grew up so poor. I knew someone who helped clean out his New York studio, Warhol's New York studio. And speaking of hoarders, so for people, flat files are these giant files for posters and artwork that people like me have. Yes. And anyway, they were clearing out his studio after he passed. By the way, the way Andy Warhol died, it's crazy. Absolutely.

A rich dude like that, basically in his... own private ward in, you know, fancy Upper East Side Hospital. They hired a nurse's aide to sit there just in case he had a problem. She fell asleep and he died of a heart failure after having a splenectomy. And he hadn't had any water in ages. They opened his mouth and there were maggots in there. And like, but anyway, the hoarder thing. So my friend who helped clean out the told this story, I don't really remember the context of maybe, you know, why he was part of this team. But anyway, they said that they found a bag of uncut diamonds jammed in the back of a flat file. God, oh, my. It's the kind of guy he was. That was Warhol. I practically stalked him

when I was in college. I wanted to meet him so badly. Before we run out of time, though, and we're out of time, but Hans Eli has a good question about stolen valor. Is there a CIA equivalent? You, Ben, there is. There's a story that I tell. You know what stolen valor is. Oh, yes. Stolen valor is people who are fakes. Like people who claim to be, you know, recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. They wear military outfits that don't make any sense, you know, or they'll wear BDUs, but with Nikes.

And they're stealing the bravery of our uniformed. Well, there's the classic, there's the senator, right, from Connecticut. Yes. Chris Dodd. Yes, Chris Dodd. He ran for president for Senate and claimed that he was a Vietnam combat veteran. He was not. He was not.

Well, I was in the Fox News green room one time, and when Tucker Carlson still had a show, was waiting to go on. And I'm in the green room with this guy who I didn't recognize, and he says to me, are you going on Tucker? And I said, yeah, are you? And he said, what are you talking about? I said, CIA, I was at CIA for a long time. How about you?

And he said, yeah, I was too. And I said, oh, and this is the first question CIA people ask each other when they meet. What directorate were you in? Right. Okay, there are only four answers. Operations, intelligence, science, technology, or administration. he said i was in ops okay nobody would really say ops you would say i was in the dio or i was in the directorate of operations you would never say ops but i let it slide malcolm nance i've

actually written about malcolm nance and his stolen valor that phony so um so because he said ops i followed up with another question and i said what division were you in so this could be near east operations counterterrorism counterintelligence you know this one that one european operations whatever and he says i was in i was in black ops wet work i did all that shit and i was like oh no well then i got called in to go to talk uh to tucker so Tucker's not like jesse waters is today where you're on for literally 15 seconds and then it's over Tucker would let me sit there for 20 minutes and we would have a conversation so we were talking and then we go to a commercial break and during the commercial break i said tucker this guy that you have coming on after me he's a

bullshitter i said i think he's faking it he said what why how and i said he doesn't know the lingo he's i think he's just bullshitting it he's like okay thanks for telling me well i kind of forgot about it and then six months later he's in the washington post he's He's been arrested and charged with, of all things, mortgage fraud because what he did is he bought a house and he went to the bank to get a mortgage. And he said, listen, I make like a million dollars a year, but I can't tell you. I can't show you any paperwork because deep cover, wet work, special black ops CIA. And these morons gave him the loan. Yeah, I've known some bankers like that.

Yeah. Yeah. he couldn't make the loan and then they did an investigation the CIA never heard of this guy and so he ended up getting five years but so that's a long way of saying yes there is stolen valor among

CIA people too yeah well I mean I guess it would make perfect sense on who was that guy the dinner the three meal the three god the cups of tea guy in Afghanistan do you know what I'm talking about

the guy who was claimed to be buildings schools. Oh, yes. In Afghanistan. And now I remember, so he claimed to be, to have spent, he was like, I'm always in Afghanistan. Now, so. What? And I'm like, okay, so I've been there four times. I've spent a total of about three months of my life there. I'm not an expert, but, you know, I've been there. And I, you know, been around. There's entire provinces I've never been to, like Helmand, wish I would like to, never made it. to Helmand. It's grim.

Oh, it looks bleak. Yeah. I helicoptered into Lashgargan, then helicoptered out as fast as I could. When you say an Afghan province is bleak, that's Yeah, by Afghan standards. So I remember reading this guy's interviews all the time, and I was really jealous of his bestseller status. And I was always like, this doesn't ring true, right?

Like, it's just he called, it's like you, he called things the wrong things. He didn't seem to know, like, you know, what a Hazara was. He didn't seem to He didn't see, you know what I mean? He just like didn't, it just didn't click. And then, sure enough, he was exposed. It was all bullshit. He'd made up

the whole thing. And there's a lot of people like that in journalism. Really? Well, my favorite, I have a lot of stories like that to tell. There was that I knew a guy who worked at travel and leisure. And so he gave me a comp to the magazine.

Anyway, I'm reading the magazine and there's a review in there about the new train between Mashad, Iran, and Ashgabat Turkmenistan. Now, there could theoretically be a train there, but there isn't one there. There have been plans on the drawing board for decades, but they've never even started construction. And so, but the article describes the lace curtains on the windows, the T service, the whole thing. I call my friend, I'm like, this is bullshit. He's like, how do you know?

And I'm like, well, I've been to Ashgabat. I've been to Meshad. There's no fucking train. I wish there were because I would have taken it. It's like, it would have been much more convenient than going over land the way I did. But, I mean, trains go over land, but you know what I mean. And so, anyway, the point is that there's stories like that all the time. I could go another hour.

But I do, but rather than do that, we can do that another time. Yeah. Let's talk about Zeran Mandani. Um, Zerun Mandani, new polls are out. The general election is coming out. It wasn't sure certain how he was going to do. He's, it's, it's like he's going wild. He's pulling further ahead than he was. Here's where we're at. I got to Google that right now. I'm done. 35%. Wow. Cuomo, 25%. You would think that he'd be last. Wow. Yeah. 14%. Oh, wow. That's actually respectable. Adams, the, the establishment. The Estabstant, the Estabstant. Publishment favorite for corporate Democrats and Republicans alike. 11. 11.

Oh, my God, 11%. Okay, so let me ask you then. If Cuomo does end up dropping out of the race, I mean, even that's not enough for Adams to catch Mondani? No. No. No. Wow. Well, here's the thing.

I think, honestly, if I look at this as a cold-blooded anti-Memdani operative, I'm saying Cuomo is my only hope. Yeah. I've got to get... So Adams has to drop out. Yeah. That's sort of getting me there. And it's still...

No, you're right. It still doesn't get you there. Adams would have to drop out and literally every single Adams voter would have to go with Cuomo. Yes. That's not going to happen. No.

And even if you combine Adams and Slewa, it's still, you're still 10 percentage points short. No. And I don't think Adams voters are the same as Slewa voters. No, they're not. So, I mean, to me, this is like, if I'm Slewa, I'm laughing because I'm doing a lot better than I was.

And, you know, and of course. And so the corporate establishment is freaking out. No major Democrat who's not a Democratic socialist like Bernie or AOC has endorsed Mamdani with the full only exception of New York Congressman, what's his name? A fat one. Oh, it'll come to me. Oh, the fat one, Nadler. Nadler, Gerald.

Yeah, Jerry Nadler. He's quite importantly, yes. Yeah, he's thinner than he used to be, though. But anyway, so I want to give people credit for losing, for their weight loss regimen, and for their Mamdani endorsement. But anyway, I'm dying of laughter. Today, there's a lot of Chaden Freud, how the establishment is freaking out. Are they going to come to Jesus and just endorse him and just be done with it?

Or are they just going to be like fools? They better endorse him if they want to keep their party together. You know, because, I mean, look at Barack Obama in the most recent presidential election, going to Philadelphia and yelling at black men saying, you better get out there and vote for her. Yeah. Okay, but now there's a there's a, Muslim and Barack Obama is completely silent. So what's that? It's okay for you and you're right

wingers in the Democratic Party, but then a left winger actually wins a nomination and you're nowhere to be found. I agree with Nick. I think that they won't. I don't think they will either. I think that they won't and they're just going to hope that they can run somebody against him in four years. They would rather, so then they're going to end up with the worst possible scenario, which is, they're going to have the liberal progressive wing of the Democratic Party. I should say the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are going to be alienated deeply because this is by far the most, he will be the most powerful elected so Democratic Socialist in U.S. history.

Yes. And he will control a massive budget of billions of dollars a year, hundreds of billions of dollars. Bigger than most countries. Yes. He's going and he'll owe no figures. And whenever, when Hakeem Jeffrey calls, he doesn't really have to take the call if he doesn't feel like it. He's like, I'm scratching my butt right now. Oh, I'm doing Muslim shit right now.

I'm busy. That's right. You know, I'm doing sharia shit. Exactly. So like, yeah, he doesn't. And then also at the same time, the corporate Democrats, if he fails, he can say, well, it's not my fault. I can get the support for my party. So, you know what I mean?

Like, it's a bad move for them. matter what. Yeah, I agree with you. They're in a real pickle, and I think they're going to shoot themselves in the plate. Well, that's where we are. All right. Are we deprogrammed? I'm deprogrammed.

I'm deprogrammed, too. And you survived. Are the thunderstorms gone? Yeah, they're gone. They're gone, and the tree didn't fall down, so I survived. I can see clear. All right, we will be, are we doing Friday? Or not, this Friday?

We can. All right, Friday, 5 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. Eastern Time. It will be back. Thank you, everyone. Please like, follow, and share the show. We know you're out there, 191 people watching on YouTube alone. So that's not counting you, Rumblers.

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