DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “A War Over Dead Bodies”

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou unpack the fragile Gaza ceasefire teetering on the brink.Gaza Hostage Remains Crisis: Hamas returns the remains of four additional deceased hostages on Tuesday, including Guy Illouz and Bipin Joshi, through the Red Cross after Israel's threats to block Rafah and halve Gaza aid trucks for non-compliance with the U.S.-brokered deal. This dispute over the 28 promised bodies marks the peace process's inaugural crisis, with 24 still unrecovered—including Americans Itay Chen and Omer Neutra—trapped under rubble, as mediators press Hamas for maximum recovery efforts amid Netanyahu's unyielding demands. Trump's Truth Social post blasts the delay, insisting Phase Two—Hamas disarming—starts immediately, while officials note Hamas now grasps Israel's superior intelligence on body locations.U.S. Military Boat Strike off Venezuela: The U.S. military kills six men aboard a boat in international waters just off Venezuela's coast on Tuesday, marking the fifth such strike since September and totaling 27 deaths treated as wartime kills rather than arrests of criminal suspects. Trump posts a 33-second aerial video of the missile explosion on social media, asserting unproven intelligence links the vessel to narcoterrorist smuggling routes, as the administration builds naval presence with warships and submarines in the Caribbean. Legal experts slam the premeditated extrajudicial actions as illegal under laws barring civilian targeting without imminent threats, with nominees citing undisclosed Justice memos but no public analysis justifying war-like tactics over Coast Guard interdictions.Madagascar Military Power Seizure: The army in Madagascar seizes control on Tuesday, Colonel Michael Randrianirina from the elite CAPSAT unit announcing a joint military-police committee to swiftly install a civilian government after parliament impeaches President Andry Rajoelina, who flees into hiding fearing for his life amid weeks of Gen Z protests. Demonstrators in Antananarivo rage over six years without tap water despite payments, crippling electricity outages, and corruption in the nation of 31 million, with over 20 killed by authorities' deadly force as CAPSAT refuses to quash "brothers and sisters." Rajoelina, who rose via a 2009 CAPSAT-backed coup, dissolves parliament in a failed block, denouncing the takeover as a "coup d'etat" while protesters hail it as a supported popular revolution, waving anime pirate flags in global youth solidarity.Young Republicans Telegram Scandal: Leaked seven-month Telegram chats among Young Republican leaders from New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont overflow with racial slurs like "n--ga" used over a dozen times by Kansas vice chair William Hendrix, references to Black people as "monkeys" and "watermelon people," and fantasies of gassing opponents in chambers unfit for the "Hitler aesthetic." New York vice chair Bobby Walker calls rape "epic," while chair Peter Giunta threatens "physiological torture" for non-believers during a federation vote, with members like Joe Maligno and Annie Kaykaty joking about showers masking gas and watching people burn. The exposure prompts job firings, rescinded offers, and condemnations from Rep. Elise Stefanik and GOP chair Ed Cox, igniting intraparty recriminations of character assassination and extortion as the group frets over leaks dooming their "true believers."

Good morning and welcome to the D program show with Ted Rollin. John Kiriaku. John, you look better than you probably feel. Oh, don't tell me you're frozen. No, it's not good. Oh, my God. Well, at least he's frozen in a good position. John, if you, I'm going to have to.

This happened yesterday. This is a tough week, people. John is in Mexico with a bad Internet connection. and he is probably going to have to come in on audio only. I'm going to just go in and text him right now. I'm really sorry about this. Let's see. John, you are frozen.

What on earth? Private chat. Where are you? Oh, there's John. Hey, John. That was quite the intro. At least you were frozen in a good position. You can probably see yourself now.

I'm taking you out. That's a very strange thing. Anyway, sorry about that. It's good to see you and hear you. You look like you're in a beautiful place. Either that or you look like you're in like Rambo 2 as a prisoner of war. I'll show you the view here over the Sea of Cortez at sunrise. Wow.

It really is beautiful, but it seems like the beauty is proportionate to the difficulty in getting an internet signal. And the ubiquity of tarantulas. I'll tell you, I killed a scorpion in my room last night. Oh, no. And I barely, it wasn't a huge one, but it was still a friggin scorpion. And so I barely slept the wink. Was it like in your bed?

Was it in your shoe? No, it was on the floor. There are little cracks under the doors, you know, which I guess nobody thinks are important enough to try to do something about. And so, yeah, they just come in. They should put those, yeah, they should glue those rubber, uh, scrapies things at the bottom. Exactly. I shake my shoes out every morning before I put them on to make sure no tarantulas or scorpions have taken up residence in them. Yeah. Or brown recluse spiders. Those are also good times for sure. Anyway, good to see you. Just for everybody,

little housekeeping, please like, follow and share the show. You're watching the program with Ted Raul and John Kiroku. It's Wednesday, October 15, 2025. And thank you for your support. We are still working on YouTube if you'd like to donate to the show. The URL for PayPal is Deprogrampodcast at gmail.com. Those of you who have already done so. Thank you so much. Thank you. We have lots to talk about.

And so we're just going to get into that. Also, thank you very much for the first donation of the day, came over on Rumble from E.F. Huso, who's donated dollar to say, go Dodgers. So go Dodgers. I have no opinion on these things. I used to be a baseball fan, but I have to say that as an adopted New Yorker, I hold resentment to the Dodgers for having abandoned Brooklyn. Anyway, so let's get to it.

Lots to talk about. There's this weird war over the corpses of dead Israeli hostages. We'll get into that. Trump has now taken out a fifth boat off the coast of Venezuela. Things are getting even vaguer from the Defense Department about who these people are or who they supposedly are, what they're supposedly doing. John, I'm proud of us here on the show. We've been giving, we did God's work on Madagascar.

We were on top of the case, that's for sure. And Madagascar, as we predicted, has now been officially, the president's been deposed, there's a military coup, the Gen Z protest, you know, basically has, the question now is, will the Gen Zers get their country back from the military? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. That's how these things go. We'll talk about sort of the aftermath of a military coup and why military coups happen.

I've got to laugh a little bit about the telegram, the leaked telegram chat. from the young Republicans who had all sorts of, depending on your point of view, spicy or racist and anti-Semitic things to say. And obviously the situation in Gaza continues, and anything else y'all want to talk about is on the schedule. So what you would like to talk about one of the things, Ted.

The FBI made quite an important arrest last night. This was of a Washington area man named Tellus or Trellis. Anyway, he's being charged under the Espionage Act. I'm surprised at how much information the FBI released in its affidavit that was shared with the Washington Post. This guy was an aide to the U.S. ambassador to India, Blackwell, during the George W. Bush administration. Then he went to the National Security Council. then he went to the Pentagon as a as a contractor and advisor turns out he's been spying for the

Chinese the whole time wow uh the FBI followed him to dinner with Chinese intelligence officials in Washington three times in the last couple of months and in the most recent dinner he arrived with a a manila envelope that had something in it and he left without the manila envelope because he had passed it to the Chinese so they grabbed him now normally in these cases they'll release you on your own recognizance or they they will um release you on a on a surety bond you just have to promise that if you run away you're going to pay the 250,000 or whatever it is they're holding this guy pending a hearing on the 21st so this is kind of a serious espionage case This is not a case of whistleblowing.

This is a case of providing classified documents to another country. Why would they, I mean, I'm stuck a little bit on, you said, on the usual procedure here, John. I mean, why would you, if you think that someone's betraying their country, why would you let them out on their own recognizance? Well, honestly, I think because most of the people that are charged under the SB, under the espionage act are whistleblowers and the judges know that they're not risks that this is a whistleblowing case but the law is the law the way it's written or at least the way it's been interpreted and um and uh yeah i think they just kind of let you go on your on your honor that you're not going to be so angry and so upset that you just call the russians or the chinese or the

Iranians or something, or the Israelis, and they let you go. Is it really dumb spy craft, you know, spy craft to go meet your handler at dinner in a public restaurant? Three times. Same restaurant, different restaurants? Different restaurants. But you know what, Ted, when I would go on an operational meeting, it was always to a hotel room, right you never meet in public never never meet in public and you're going to pass classified

documents in public yeah there's cameras everywhere with facial recognition technology everywhere unbelievable unbelievable not that bright uh if if in fact this person remember we're still in the alleged phase of all this um obviously i have to think that politically the republicans are this is just going to feed into the somewhat bipartisan sinof homophobic hysteria that we've been dealing with in Washington lately. It's like, look, they're here. I have here in my, in my, I have here in my hand the list of 154 Chinese agents. That's right.

That's right. You know, another thing, too, in this FBI affidavit, I read it very early this morning. It said that the FBI has been surveilling this guy, this American guy, for years, for years. for years building a case against him. Now, they did not allege that he had passed top secret information. They alleged

that he had passed secret information. But the secret information was mostly about India, U.S. relations with India, and U.S. relations with Pakistan, which, of course, would be of great interest to the Chinese. Absolutely.

I mean, considering that they've already fought a war with Pakistan over India. And, yeah, and there's, yeah, South Asia, that's definitely like a delicate thing for the Chinese. It really is. You know, that can't be overstated. Well, we'll watch that. You know, obviously, super interesting. What should we talk about next? Should we talk about Venezuela? Yeah, let's talk about Venezuela. We haven't led with Venezuela in a very long time. So basically the president announced on his truth social feed yesterday that the U.S. military basically conducted an airstrike almost certainly by drone. It's a 33-second video of a missile explosion. Basically, all he says is that these are domestic terrorist organizations.

doesn't say which one. In the past, it was alleged that these were, quote, unquote, narco-terrorists or basically drug smugglers on speedboats headed toward from Venezuela to like Trinidad and Tobago, right? And now we're not even being told that. We're just literally saying, basically, John, they're just saying, these are bad guys. Yeah, take our word for it.

These are drug dudes. We're not going to say which drug dudes. We're not going to say which drugs. We don't know their names. Take a words for it. You know, I mean, like, as a cynical leftist, my mind always goes to. They're trying to normalize killing people extrajudicially. And that's why they're doing it this way.

I mean, I almost believe that they do have intel on these guys, but that they don't want to share it because this is part of the politics of getting us used to this. oh i agree with that completely ted and another thing too it's all part of this broader this broader war that donald trump has uh has initiated against drug cartels at least that's what he's telling us here in in mexico in baha the cartels are taking it very seriously the sina loa cartel controls the baha peninsula i sent around a picture in my substack the other day of when we were shooting a scene of this film at an airstrip that's just a half a mile down the road the airstrip the airstrip was used the day before our filming um to well apparently

to pick up or drop off a load of of weapons and the federales were waiting for them and there was a shootout oh well with with this declaration of war and and the scene of little cartel highlighting Donald Trump's attack on Venezuelan boats, they made an announcement a couple of days ago that they're going to begin killing Americans in the Baja Peninsula. Now, nobody knows if that's for real. If they did it just to do it, just to say something, just to scare people, just to impact tourism, we don't know. But it appears that the cartels are taking these actions by the Trump administration seriously.

So, I mean, I mean, I have so many problems with this. First of all, there's no such thing under American law as a domestic terrorist organization, right? So that's like the Antifa thing. These are foreign organizations, but these are drug dealers are not terrorist organizations. Drug cartels may be nefarious, but, you know, calling and, you know, it's in the same way that calling illegal immigration, even if it's a wave, calling that, calling that. an invasion doesn't make it an invasion it's not an armed force you know and and it's like this is not it's not an invasion it's like it's like basically they're using cable news hyperbole as policy and i mean and i know we know from the past that it works i mean the whole term enemy combatant

which has no it does not exist in u.s or international law was made up out of whole cloth by the the Bush administration during the war on terror. And now it's widely used. You know, the term detainee is a great example of that. Prisoners, they're prisoners. You know, it's like, or inmates, if you prefer. Yes. Although I think inmates is insulting term.

I always, always said prisoner. When I was in prison, I always described myself as a prisoner. I would never, ever call myself an inmate. Inmates an insult, right? It's like the, like the corrections officers use that. that as an insult, right? Yeah, they do. Yeah.

Although it didn't really start out that way. Oh, so Robbie says he has some housekeeping to put out today. We'll get to that. But Robbie, go ahead and do it. And then we'll, I imagine we're probably due for it. Are we due for an ad? We probably are. Go ahead, Robbie.

Howdy you also just real quick. First, I am back from a vacation. It's very nice. Thank you for asking. It's welcome fabulous. Yeah, thank you. So we have an interview with Jake Tapper that will be being aired today after the TMI show. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Are we going to, I thought we were going to do that as a substitute show. Are we? Yeah, we should do that. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, sir. Okay, so then. You're seeing how the sausage is made here. Yeah, so then instead of the Jake Tapper interview, what we will be doing is that I will be releasing part three of Ted's life story today after this show.

will be a Rumble premium episodes. So for those of you who are following us on Rumble and our $5 month channel supporters, you're going to be able to see part three of Ted's story and never mind about Jake Tapper. That will not be happening today. Sorry about that. We'll do Jake Tapper like maybe later in the week

or next week when John and I both need a day off. And we'll air that. Okay. Thanks, Robbie. Yeah, I'm ready for the ad whenever you have it for. me. All right. We'll get for you here in just a second. Thank you. Okay. So this is about normalization, right? I mean, this. Yes. I mean, what are they trying to get us used to? I mean, look, we're seeing U.S. troops on American streets. Things are getting serious

in Chicago. Oh, yeah. And all, and in other cities. We're seeing, we're seeing extrajudicial murders in the high seas. The military's going along with it, even though it's illegal. I thought you weren't supposed to obey an unlawful order. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, that's kind of settled law. But on the other hand, you're supposed to obey every order.

Right. Exactly. What? I think I do, I do sympathize with the military here. I think the system doesn't permit them to sort of say no. You know, at the same time, though, if you've been in the system long enough that you have four stars on your shoulder, you should also have the balls to stand up and tell the president, no, even if it means being pushed into retirement.

You can go down in history as the guy who did the right thing, right? Correct. They're all afraid. They're all afraid of Pete Heggsath and they're afraid of Donald Trump. And they don't want to be bumped down to three stars again because that might mean $500 less than your pension. That's exactly right. Let's read this ad. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech and now there's Rumble premium. An easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the platform. No pre-rolls, no interruptions, just the content you came for. Plus premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos, behind-the-scenes drops, and be more from your favorite creators. Right now Rumble is offering $10 off on annual subscription, just go to rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout.

That's rumble.com slash premium promo code studio. No ads or freedom and content you actually care about. That's the deal. So, sorry about that. You were saying. No, it's, it just seems that the higher you go in rank in the military, the more willing you are to just go along to get along. You don't want to. jeopardize everything that you've built. You've got this giant pension. You're used to the fancy cars with a driver and an assistant and the giant house on base. And they just don't want upset the apple cart. And it's a shame because every once in a while, you need people with the guts to stand up to a president. Just like we needed people to stand up to Lyndon Johnson, for

example. John, let's turn this Rubik's cube over and look at it from the other side. Let's give the president and his team, they're due. Let's say, for the sake of argument, they really think they're doing the right thing. Who are these people that they're blowing up, really? Like, actually. And what is the threat, if any, to the United States? That's really the operative question here. Let's say that these guys really are drug smugglers. They would be literally the lowest rung on that ladder in the drug cartel. The very lowest wrong. So what's going to happen?

The cartels are just going to recruit more local villagers to work on the next boat. And they just buy another boat. This isn't impacting drug trafficking to the United States in any way. Would the idea be it's whack-a-mole and like, you know, you can only afford so many boats. And at some point, after your 27th boat, you're going to be like, ah, fuck. Right. I mean, I don't know if I believe that. And then what, I mean, we're talking about cocaine that's coming into the Southern Caribbean and maybe theoretically could hop scotch across the Caribbean all the way to South Florida and get into the U.S.

Well, but that would be unusual. I'm sorry to interrupt you. You know, when I was with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff, I did a study on on drug smuggling in South America. And most of the cocaine that transits Venezuela goes to Africa. And then from Africa, it's taken usually by camel along these ancient Tuareg paths, these roots. Like Timbuktu and all those places. Yeah, around Timbuktu and then up through Morocco, western Sahara and Morocco, and then put on boats to Spain. And once it gets to Spain, these doggone bugs in this.

Anyway. By the way, speaking of the bugs, one of our listeners, Frasmataz, said, for the love of God, even if I don't get a chance to ask John another question for the rest of my life, tell him the smaller the scorpion, the more deadly. And I went to step on it and put its little pinch your tail up like it's going to, it's going to, ugh. Anyway, they're everywhere. We saw, we were on set the other night.

And a tarantula came out. It had to be six inches across. Oh, shit. It's the biggest, I've seen several since I got here, but this thing was a, it was like the king of the tarantulas. And I didn't know that they can jump. And they'll jump, like, right at you. Oh, yeah.

They can jump two feet in the air. Yeah. Did you, did it do that? No, no, it ran back into its hole. Yeah. You know, there are these holes. They're like big holes. holes like this. And in my mind, I'm like, oh, there's a snake. It's not a snake. It's a

frigging tarantula. Well, sometimes they build mounds in some places, too, like in Arizona. We've seen two rattlesnakes. Never in my entire life have I ever seen a rattlesnake. Now I've seen two in two weeks. Everything bites, stings, and hurts you. It's terrible. And there's no air conditioning, so you have to sleep with the windows open because it's so ungodly hot here. And the mosquitoes are so happy about that. Oh, man, I'm swimming and off right now. You have all the cancers now. Seriously. Oh, that's like

insane. So, but okay, so it's cocaine. All right. So what is the president really on about? Like, I mean, I mean, seriously, I mean, it's our nature as journalists and as skeptics and, you know, and as lefties to think, well, they're the systems, they're not up to any good. like from their point of view what is this about really do you remember when donald trump became president the first time he he wanted to do something to make himself look tough and

decisive and he bombed syria and killed three or four people i think we're seeing a similar situation now where he wants to make it look as though he's having an impact on international drug trafficking. So he declares war on the cartels. He adds the cartels to the State Department's list of terrorist groups. He starts shooting at what he alleges are drug boats off the coast of Venezuela. But he can't go after them in Mexico where they really do threaten the United States because that would ruin our cooperation with a very friendly government of Claudia Scheinbaum. You are exactly right. And that's why we've done literally nothing about the Mexican cartels nothing so some you think it's simply purely symbolic i do i think it's symbolic and

again it makes him look like he's tough by killing people who are supposed to be drug smugglers but again even if they were drug smugglers they drugs aren't coming to the united states and this is illegal as hell and it's illegal yeah that's right i mean i mean now we're talking about how many 27 people have been murdered so far yeah i mean how many of them are fishermen you know Did you happen to see the comment that he made the other day about not going to heaven? No. He made a comment three or four days ago. Somebody asked him if he was going to see Charlie Kirk in heaven.

And he said very matter of factly, I don't think I'm going to heaven. I think it's probably too late for me. Yeah. How do you like that? And by the way, we don't know where Charlie Kirk is. Nobody knows. No. You know, all of my colleagues who, who draw, you know, obituary cartoons that seem to decide,

oh, you're by the pearly gates with St. Peter or you're with the other guy downstairs. It's like, you don't know that, right? Assuming this is all true, you don't know. I saw a far side comic the other day. I love the far side. Of course, they're all repeats now. But Gary Larson drew this comic where there's this long line of angels. And God is giving them out harps.

And so he says, here's your harp. And then in the other half of the devil is handing out accordions. And he says, here's your accordion. That is really funny. Although the thing is, I like the accordion. But of course, I'm a French citizen. My dad played the accordion his entire life. I think the accordion's cool.

I like it. And I like it. And it's a weird instrument. So let's see, Real Reel is asking me, can you give a news outlet industry insider opinion of the new Pentagon reporting restrictions and why major outlets are refusing? This is a good question, John, and I'm sure you have stuff to say about this too. So basically for people who haven't been following it, and I think no one's going to care, basically. But what's happened is that Pentagon credentialed reporters have been subjected under the new administration to a whole series of research. restrictions about what they're allowed to report on and what they're allowed to talk about

and what they're allowed to source. And basically it boils down to they would have to check with the Pentagon before they send anything out. These restrictions, by the way, do exist in other countries. Yeah. Even based on unclassified information. Right. So for example, you know, I've been on military bases as a reporter around the world, U.S. military bases. And I will say they never said anything about who I could talk to. You know, they didn't ask me to show them anything before I sent it out or before. So, like, you know, this is unusual. And they're cracking down.

This is all Pete Hankseth's, you know, I don't know if his intention. It was really just to kick them out of the Pentagon, knowing that they would all say no. Notably, Fox News joined all the other major news organization. As far as I know, the only news outlet that has agreed to these terms, is O-A-N, right, which is right way and Trump. So, I mean, on the one hand, as a reporter, I kind of don't care because I'm thinking how much legit reporting does a inside the Pentagon reporter really get? I mean, how many scoops are they getting really, like walking around and interviewing people

who are basically well aware of the fact that they're at work, you know, and that they're being watched everywhere? I would think they're not, you know, I've never heard of a major story breaking that way. So, but it is, it's worrisome whenever you have restrictions that start to exist where they didn't used to exist. And you have to always worry about a slippery slope situation. You know, basically Trump's not the first president not to care for the press. And, you know, he won't be the last, I'm sure. So it's, you know, I mean, it's, it's all part of a, I think, a trend.

of control. And it's disturbing. I think that's right. Other presidents have indeed tried to control the narrative by controlling the press. Nixon was famous for it. Even Obama did it at John Brennan's urging. But this was a bridge too far. You can't, first of all, you can't reign in the press just in general. Secondly, you certainly can't forbid the press from publishing unclassified information. You can't even prevent the press from publishing classified information. Right.

So, John, you suddenly went mute. I do not hear you suddenly. I don't know what happened. We're going to respect. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Okay. When Fox News announced that they were not going to

respect this new policy, that pretty much put the nail in the coffin. You know, the truth is, I think the administration's shooting itself in the foot. The administration gets, and the Pentagon gets a lot more out of those reporters being there than the reporters get out of the Pentagon. Basically, they serve as stenographers for the DOD, or I should say the DOW now, right? So it's, it's, how appropriate that it's the DOW. But yeah, you know, it's like, it seems like this is like, okay, well,

you've now lost some of your, you know, pet propagandists. It's foolish, you know. Yeah. I agree with that. I agree with that. Madagascar, shall we? As, as coups go, this was a very interesting kind of fun to watch, coup, wasn't it?

Yeah. Nobody got killed. Nope. The government is gone. The president has fled. Like, that's exactly the way a coup is supposed to turn out. Well, I should say actually, I think 20 people or more have been killed, actually. Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay.

So there have been riots and the, and basically so this cap sat unit is in charge of the government now. They've stepped in. Basically, the president was afraid for his life. He's a location unknown. I guess it's fair to say that once you run away, it's funny, right? like in a coup situation once you're the like let's say like this happened in Ukraine and in 2014 it's happened in a bunch of other places but once you run away you're still the president right constitutionally but everyone's kind of like you're not the president you ran away and that's it and everyone just sort of sorry constitution so I'm sure he's like I'm still the president of Madagascar it's like sure you are let us know

how that works out for you you're such a dear So I guess the question is always, you know, often the military steps in. And the question is, will they relinquish power to civilian authorities call new elections? They always say they'll do it very, they always say they'll do it as soon as practical. But these guys are saying they're going to do it very quickly, which seems to indicate that at least the intent now is to turn over power to the revolutionaries and that the military is just trying to hold. things together to prevent the country from spiraling into anarchy and chaos.

But right now, I guess I'd give the military the benefit of the doubt. What do you think? Yeah, I have to agree. And there's precedent for doing that in West Africa as well. West African countries have coups all the time. And in

most of those cases, the military takes over. They promise a return to democracy after things settle down. And in most cases they they keep those promises it might take 10 12 months it might even take 18 months but usually there is a transition back into democracy by the way good interesting question from f huso thanks for the donation when they make the maga president trump hollywood movie how will trump be portrayed should it be a Pixar cartoon um so there's i i see two questions in there

The MAGA movie will be full of CGI to make him look bulky and like better looking and with more hair. But I really want to see like the downfall type movie where it's like really just realistic and just show some of the key moments that happened in the administration from the inside as best as we know. Kind of like the way the crown was done. Like just like cinema verite as much as possible. Yeah. I think that's right. And I think that probably somebody's going to give into temptation and we'll try to adapt Trump's niece's book.

What's her name? The former judge or psychologist. That's what she was. Mary. Mary, Trump, try to adapt her book saying that her uncle is insane. Yeah, I don't actually believe that he's insane. No, I don't either. No.

I believe he's a narcissist, like an extreme narcissist. But, yeah, I agree. I don't think he's insane. Yeah. And I think behind closed doors, he's probably far calmer than people think most of the time. Although he has a temper, as we know, from that plate of, what was it, ketchup that, like, ended up on the wall. Yeah. You know, it's good to be king, I guess.

Okay. Okay, we got to talk about Gaza. So even as we speak, so under the terms of the 20-point plan, which is obviously the most fragile of all possible fragile agreements you could have, the Israelis promised to reopen the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, which is a major entry point for aid for the obvious reason that like the Egyptians aren't going to be blocking aid the way that the Israelis are. and the Israelis have now reduced the amount of aid going into Gaza already by 50%. In retaliation for Hamas being slow at turning over the 38 bodies that they promised, some of them have been returned. Hamas is saying, look, we're having trouble finding them. Yeah, they're buried in the rubble.

They're in the rubble. In some cases, we took note of where they were. But unfortunately, the place was subsequently bombed. by the IDF, and we can't find the bodies anymore. I mean, it does seem like Hamas is being asked to do something that's not possible, right? Like, to come up with 38 bodies buried all throughout the strip in different locations, in over a two-year period of time, in a place where the topography has changed radically.

And in many cases, the bodies may not even exist anymore, right? That's right. That's right. A lot of time has passed. It's, I mean, this is very fucked up, right? I mean, who cares? I mean, I'm sorry, who cares about these bodies? I mean, under both Jewish and Muslim tradition, the only important point is to get the body into the ground within 24 hours,

you know, same day, ideally. Once that's done, right? You know, simple box. Once that's done, everything that needed to be done has been done. What's with this I mean John I have an uncle He was in a submarine at the evacuation At Dunkirk

He was French and the submarine was sunk It's at the bottom of the English Channel I don't give two shits About bringing his body back To like the family plot in Brittany I mean he is buried He is buried now He's where he needs to be

And he should stay there And no one should risk so much as a paper cut to try to get him out. What is culturally and politically, what is the meaning, what is this, why are the Israelis willing to scuttle this deal over bodies? You know, this is the Israeli way.

This is what they do. They'll make so many demands that you get overwhelmed. And then they'll make demands that you just simply cannot fulfill, which gives them a reason to break the ceasefire and to begin attacking again. So it's just a pretext. Yeah, the peace is not in the interest of Israeli conservatives.

It's just not. Because remember, the goal here is greater Israel. So peace with the Palestinians is not going to help them achieve greater Israel. Sorry, I'm going to get out of the sun. It's okay. Yeah. So, yeah, they're looking for greater Israel, and peace with Hamas doesn't help them get there. John, it's funny that you should bring that up because I'm about to release

my syndicated column this week and I was just writing it yesterday and I'm I'm editing it now well not this moment but I'm sending it out like after the show and like you know one of the things I was evaluating like the question of like the writers at the New York Times op-ed page are saying well you know how Israel won and I've been saying as you know Israel Hamas won and and basically I went through this and it's kind of like well what were the two, I mean, basically, like, sure, you know, the Israelis killed a lot more Palestinians than vice versa. But that doesn't mean anything. I mean, if you'd look at just lopsided death counts, then we won the Vietnam War. It's like, we all know that's not true. But I think it's

because, look, Israel had two primary war aims, right? They wanted to destroy Hamas and end their rule over Gaza. That doesn't, right now, as things stand, that does not look like it's going to happen. Right. They failed. Also, they wanted to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its indigenous people and have Jewish settlers from Israel take it over, right? Well, Trump literally has said, I will not allow Israel to annex either Gaza or the West Bank. So that's not going to happen either. So Israel didn't accomplish its main goals. And then on the other hand, Hamas, What were its goals? Its goals were to put the Palestinian question at the forefront of the international community and news coverage. Who talks about Ukraine anymore?

They got that, right? I mean, Palestine is the big international story. Gaza is the big international story, specifically. They wanted to scuttle the move toward normalization under the Abraham Accords, like for the Saudis, recognizing Israel and exchanging ambassadors. And that has been scuttled.

You know, Israel's been turned into a pariah state. You know, they also wanted maybe to get a Palestinian state, and they've never been closer. I don't know. Hamas won. Mm-hmm. I think so, too. I note in the chat that our friend Mark Sloboda has a different analysis. He believes that Hamas lost.

But I believe Hamas won for the same. same reasons that you cite plus the fact that there still is a Hamas right yeah they survived they survived it and they're in a position and they're in a position to kill their rivals now which they're now doing yeah so yeah there was a shootout just day before yesterday between Hamas and tribal leaders and they're like in there and they're like in their uh and now they're in their uh you know spiffy new uniforms they've got cars i mean they're also you know they're rocking it. I mean, you've got to hand it to them. I mean, it's not my cup of tea, but, you know. And on top of all that, how many more countries decided to recognize Palestine?

Right. Yeah. Now we're at 150, 155 or something like that? Yeah, no, for sure. But I guess the question now is, so you think that, so you don't think that Israelis really do care that much about the bodies? No, I don't. I think it's a, PR ploying. And so obviously, now, Israel is saying, perversely, that they know where the bodies are buried. Okay, go get them. They control Gaza. Go get the bodies.

Yeah. Or tell Hamas where they are. Yeah. Yeah. So, I thought it was also interesting that, you know, in this interim phase right now, the Trump administration has been talking to Hamas, and Hamas has told them, we want you know, we want to maintain law and order. We'd like to sit to do that.

And Trump said, oh, for the time being, that's fine with me, you can do that. This reminds me a lot of Biden's, you know, pull out from Kabul, where things were starting to get, you know, there was a little early signs of looting and anarchy. And the Taliban approached the U.S. and said, we'd like to come in to Kabul and create security checkpoints. And the U.S. said, okay. I mean, I think these, this level of cooperation happens a lot. lot more than people think.

Yeah, without any question. There's a lot of cooperation that takes place. There was something else that I wanted to raise, too. The Washington Post had a nice analytic piece yesterday talking about Trump's repeated assertions that it's all over. Peace is at hand. He did it. He negotiated the piece.

And now the next step is Bibi Netanyahu needs to be pardoned. It's like, no, you haven't solved anything. This is not a peace deal. This is a ceasefire. And knowing the Israelis, first of all, it's got to be like a world record longest lasting ceasefire in IDF history, right? Two days. But what we need to talk about now is the creation of an independent Palestine and how it would be administered. That's peace.

John, we didn't really get to, we had such a bad communication yesterday. I wanted to like sort of follow up with what you said yesterday about how you think it could be possible to have a demilitarized Palestinian state. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? Yeah, there was a there was a proposal that was that was bandied about, I'm going to say a year ago, where Israel would continue to own, to own Gaza. But there would be no military in Gaza, and it would be administered run on a day-to-day basis by Saudi Arabia. Nobody endorsed that idea, but nobody necessarily rejected it either. And I think it might be the basis for talks going forward. Israeli

Continued Israeli occupation of Gaza is just not going to work That's a non-starter No So the Israelis need to leave Maybe Gaza doesn't become independent As the Palestinian state of Gaza But they can run their own economy And then peace would be guaranteed

By the Saudi military Which is really all Pakistani Hmm That sounds very complicated I mean, you know. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think it, I mean, and frankly, the other question is, you know, given the behavior of the IDF, I mean, given the fact that Israel has repeatedly gone into quote unquote mow the lawn in Gaza and most recently, you know, leaving very few blades of grass standing. Yeah.

Are they, you know, I mean, I think there's a really kind of like a credible case to be made that, you know, whoever, whether. it's Hamas or whatever Hamas morphs into, that that government of Gaza is going to need a military presence to defend itself from the Israelis. I think that's right. And if the Israelis won't allow them to have an actual military, maybe the idea is... Or a National Guard or something. Or National Guard. I mean, there are a couple of countries around the world that don't have a military.

Sure. But, you know, there are places like Costa Rica and Iceland. So maybe the idea is Fijians. You know, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Fiji, a major source of income for the government of Fiji. If they don't all die of AIDS. Right. If they don't all die of AIDS, they can be international peacekeepers. Yeah.

So, who knows? I don't know. Let's talk about the young Republicans. So basically, there's a seventh month long. telegram chat from young Republicans from New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont. And they all have, they used words like NIGA, NIGGA, NIGGA, used by Kansas Vice Chair William Hendricks, calling black people monkeys and watermelon people. And New York Vice Chair Bobby Walker said that, you know, joked that rape was epic.

it's in that vein I mean I have thought a lot of thoughts about this but basically a lot of these guys are being pushed out of the young Republicans they're being purged and you know the party has to

say that they're outraged and disgusted by all this I have a different take John I mean I don't think that that kind of language is acceptable but it's like these are kids these are kids joking around there's a lot of sarcasm.

This is a lot of Gen Z kind of irony here. And I think it's stupid to Alvin to read these things as literally as the way the media has been reporting it. And then the other thing is, to me, the big reminder here is the need for privacy. I mean, John, you and I are, we communicate about this show on Telegram. You know, and why do we like Telegram?

Telegram is encrypted end-to-end, supposedly. and it's private. I mean, so, I mean, here's a question. Do people like these young Republicans or the hosts and producers of the Deep Program show have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they text each other? I think they do, and I think we do,

and I think their privacy has been violated. And, you know, I think it's, I mean, if it's wrong to use the N-word or a variant on the N-word, It's even more wrong to expose you using the N-word in a private forum, I think. I'm kind of torn on this one. Well, yes, I agree that there's an expectation of privacy. That's why we use these apps, right? We use Signal because it's encrypted and telegrams encrypted, and most of them are encrypted.

Yeah. Sounds like somebody ratted them out. And so to me, that's a little bit different. Somebody in that chat was offended. and decided to leak it, go public. So, I don't know. If, if, yes, freedom of speech, he has the right to say whatever he wants to say. But then, on the other hand, you're going to need to defend yourself once it becomes public.

So for me, if I, if I were going to use language like that, I wouldn't, I wouldn't use language like that in a. I don't either. In a forum. I mean, I know that if you leaked everything that I've ever written in anything. form. Oh, yeah. You wouldn't find that stuff. No.

It's like I used to say about Mel Gibson when he had his anti-Semitic rant. And it's like, well, he's like, well, he was drunk and high. Okay. Well, I've been drunk and high. And I never said anything like that because that's not in there. You know, like that's. But that said, I wouldn't want all my private communications leaked. And I wouldn't want, you know, all of even, you know, I don't think, I mean, I'm sure there's

stuff that we've joked around about in our telegram. chat that I just wouldn't want in public. Agreed, man. I agree. So, I mean, so I kind of, I feel like it's sad. Like these days, I mean, even in dating, there's like, you know, there's the whole hetero, what is it called, heteroskepticism, right, that like women are expressing that men don't go out at night, men don't date, they don't, they're, they're afraid of women following the Me Too movement.

And one really interesting article said that a lot of men are afraid to get into relationships with women because they're afraid that like their private chats will end up being, you know, screenshot and put on Instagram or something where everyone can see them. And basically they think women are trouble because of that. And I mean, I mean, I think what I guess what I would like there to be is a social. norm where outing private communications just because is like not okay like like under certain circumstances

like to expose like severe law breaking you know like oh this person's a pedophile sure but like no problem but like but for something else you know it's just like to embarrass this person this person's a jerk like there's there I don't know if they still exist but there were websites where women would review

their dates and put their names and say like, I went out with John, I went out with John Kiriaku and, you know, he was a gentleman, he held the door, but he didn't pay the bill or, you know, whatever. You know, like he said something jerky and, you know, about the Cincinnati Bengals. I got pissed off. I mean, so the, and it's like, you shouldn't have to live in a world like that where it's a, not only, you know, the government is constantly surveilling us, but we're surveilling each other. What kind of society do we live in now? It's fucked up.

I mean, seriously, it's the coverage of this story that I find so interesting. It's like the whole like, well, this was leaked and look at what they said. And I'm like, okay, I'll do that. But also, let's talk about the leak. You know, like the fact, I mean, it's, they didn't, they looked, you know, we've kind of picked up a rock and we found some bugs and some creepy crawlies, you know, underneath. that rock. You know, breaking news, Republicans might be racist. Who could have, who would have thought?

But, but in terms of the rest of it, it's kind of like, I don't know. I mean, I, I'm very sympathetic to young people and, and, and their need to do and say stupid shit without it, like, ruining their lives. I did. I said lots of, I did and said lots of stupid shit when I was 18. Me too. And it's never going to follow me because there was no internet. Oh, my God.

The Washington Nationals had a terrific infielder several years ago named Trey Turner. He went to the L.A. Dodgers, and the guy was a big star. Everybody in Washington loved Trey Turner. And then just as he's, you know, he's doing so well in his career, he's being considered for most valuable player, somebody says, oh, my God, look at these tweets that he wrote, where he uses the N-word ending in an end. and you know he says these things well first of all he was 16 years old secondly he was speaking privately with friends he didn't tweet them they were direct messages in Twitter um yeah i he probably wouldn't use this the same

language today but he was 16 years old at the time right well this is like remember like when Barack Obama's like second grade paper became a campaign issue it was like the dude was six like cut the shit assholes thanks for the donation again FU so the internet rewards shock value which these Gen Z kids were raised on for sure

and guess what John we are number six on Rumble in the nation right now so that's good And God now is asking, do we think Israel will continue to fuck with the aid trucks? 100%. I mean, and by the way, they keep saying, we weren't keeping aid out. Well, if you weren't keeping aid out, then how come you're keeping out aid? Yeah, exactly.

And why is everybody skeletal? Right. Although, if you read social media, you know, right-wing social media, it keeps posting pictures of chubby Palestinians and like, they're all fat. There never was a famine. And I'm like, okay, so the UN and, you know. They made it all up. All these, all these, all these very legitimate state organizations just lied. Just crazy.

Hey, we only have a minute and a half left. And I wanted to say thank you to, wow, so many of our viewers. I put out a new podcast. It's going to be like a 12-parter. I put out the first episode the other day on Apple, Apple Music. It's called Dead Drop with John Kiriaku.

We didn't do any advertising at all and we are 99th in the nation on Spotify and Apple Music and that's having it out only four days.

Congratulations, John. What's the focus of Dead Drop? It's called Dead Drop What Makes the Spy Tick? And so the first episode is just my family up until the day I'm recruited at the CIA. Very, very cool. So thank you for all that, everybody who's listened.

Producer Robbie has a question for us about the Chicago stuff before we bow out in the next 45 seconds. So what do you think, John, about what's going to, the situation in Chicago? I think Donald Trump's going to be forced to back down. I think that the federal judges are saying, no, you can't do this. there's no reason to do it i think chicagoans are far more willing to actually fight than people in say portland or l a even yeah and i think this isn't going to be worth of trouble yeah the portland no i mean and people are going to die uh even more than they already have all right john thank you so much please like follow and share the show thank you to all of you

for uh liking and following and sharing the show thank you to producer robbie west we will be back tomorrow on Thursday 9 a.m. By the way, that's the new time for the show. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. Please take care, and we're looking forward to seeing you in the very near future

tomorrow. Let me... Oh, my God, I'm trying... This is so... Streamyard is so quirky and so annoying. And then I... Okay, here we go. Bye! Thank you.