DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “CIA Cover-Up on JFK Exposed”

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Uncover the shadows of history and the fractures of modern power on the DeProgram show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou. Tune in as Ted and John dissect today's bombshell disclosures.CIA Cover-Up in JFK Assassination Probe: Former CIA historian, Thomas L. Pearcy, steps forward as a whistleblower for the first time, exposing a secret 50-page inspector general's report from 1978 in which the CIA brags about misleading Congress about Lee Harvey Oswald's Mexico City activities before Kennedy's slaying. Pearcy, now a professor at Slippery Rock University, stumbled upon the document in a secure CIA safe room in 2009 while researching Latin American policy; it details how officers handed over "sanitized" duplicates of files to House Select Committee chief counsel Robert Blakey, deleting key evidence and prompting a CIA memo mocking Blakey's "incurious" review after just 20-30 minutes per volume. As the 62nd anniversary of the stunning assassination approaches Saturday, Trump's pledge to release all JFK records under the 1992 Act comes under scrutiny, with the CIA claiming commitment to transparency despite withholding photos, films, and admissions of monitoring Oswald via agent George Joannides—fueling calls from experts like Jefferson Morley for immediate declassification of this blueprint for lying to the public.Ambassador Huckabee's Secret Meeting with Spy Pollard: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee hosts Jonathan J. Pollard, the convicted Cold War spy who served 30 years for leaking classified intel to Israel, in a clandestine July gathering at the Jerusalem Embassy that blindsides the White House and CIA. Pollard, 71 and now eyeing a right-wing Knesset run while pushing Gaza annexation, describes the off-schedule encounter as "friendly," marking his first U.S. government-hosted meeting since 2015 parole; Huckabee, courting Israel's right wing, thanks Pollard for past advocacy without detailing discussions that touch on Trump's Saudi arms deals. Critics like ex-Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer decry the breach of protocol, questioning rehabilitation of a traitor who embraces "Israel first" over America, especially after Huckabee's prior hosting of sanctioned far-right ministers—exposing deepening rifts in U.S.-Israel diplomacy.Trump-Mamdani Oval Office Showdown: Trump confirms a Friday sit-down in the Oval Office with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist who surged from Queens lawmaker to victory on an affordability platform backed by over a million voters. After months of Trump's "communist" smears, deportation threats, and vows to slash federal funds, this customary-yet-charged meeting shifts toward shared rhetoric on economic security and public safety, following Republican election setbacks in key states. Mamdani, a naturalized Ugandan-American, pledges to "Trump-proof" the city while collaborating where it benefits New Yorkers, testing detente amid Trump's recent pivot to affordability as the "Party of Affordability!"—highlighting clashing visions for urban America.

Good morning. You're watching D. Program with Ted Rall and John Kiriakku. It's Thursday, November 20th, 2025. Thank you for joining us. And good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. How you doing? I'm doing good. A little cold where I am, but that's what it's supposed to be in mid to late November. So, yeah, you know, I always look for CIA-related news for us for obvious reasons. And today there was more than usual. There was more than usual yesterday. I don't know. There's something in the air. So lots going on.

I know you may have a few mild opinions about Ambassador Mike Cuckabee's meeting with the proud American patriot, Jonathan Ballard. That's a crazy story. Huckabee should be fired right now, right now. So we will talk about that, obviously. You know, whenever I see CIA cover up in JFK assassination, I always think conspiracy bullshit. Yeah. Today, though, this is a mainstream story. This is in Politico.

It's in Axios. Former CIA historian is stepping forward as a whistleblower. It's really interesting. So about what, you know, basically, there's still stuff coming out from this thing that happened, you know, basically a couple of months after I was born and I was born in 1963. So we'll get into that. Donald Trump is meeting with his new bestie, Zoran Mamdani. I know. Crazy.

At the Oval Office. And, you know, whatever else y'all want to talk about in the Rumble and YouTube live chats. if you're watching live, you can go ahead and type that in. And we, producer Robbie West, will post it up to us, and we will answer your questions as much as we can. We are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern Time. And so please like, follow and share the show. We really need and really appreciate your generous support

in all respects for the show, including, but not exclusively financially. And so, John, what would you like to? I have a feeling you might like to talk about Ambassador Huckabee. I feel like exploding about Huckabee. So it turns out that last July, ambassador to Israel, former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, and the deputy chief of mission met with convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Now, Jonathan Pollard was convicted in the 1980s, 1985, I believe it was, convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced to life in prison. 30 years.

It was the minimum that he had to do. He served the 30 years. And I should add, all the years that I was at the CIA, every single time an Israeli prime minister would come to meet with the president. They would ask us to bomb Iran and to release Pollard. And every single time, whoever happened to be president said no. Pollard was finally released, what, 10 years ago now? That's right.

He was immediately granted Israeli citizenship, flown back to Israel on an Israeli military plane. Greeted as a hero. Greeted as a hero by Benjamin Netanyahu at the airport and instantly bestowed with Israeli citizenship. Now he has the balls, the unmitigated gall, to run for the Knesset in the next election as an independent, but associated with the extreme right wing of Israeli politics. He wants to annex the occupied territories. Correct. Now, we already know, all of us know, that Mike Huckabee is so far to the right that he's actually fallen off the east. edge. He's an evangelical lunatic. He has no business being in any governmental position, but he was

in an early endorser of Donald Trump, and because he's an evangelical and wants all the Jews to return to Israel so that Jesus can come back and the rapture can happen, which never appears anywhere in the Bible, by the way. True. And doesn't seem like a good deal for the Jews, by the way. Yeah, it doesn't No, because it's the end of the world. Exactly. There's just the lynchpin. It's like they're the red shirts in this Star Trek episode. This clown has got to go.

He won't say, and I should add, they kept the Pollard meeting off the embassy's calendar. So only now are people finding out about it, and only because somebody called the New York Times and told them. And then the New York Times was able to confirm it with two other people. inside the embassy. They interviewed Pollard and he said, yeah, I met with Huckabee. I'm not going to tell you what we talked about. Huckabee has to resign today. So I want to be really clear here. So he should resign

because of the breach of protocol. He should resign because of the coutowing to a traitor. He should, like all of the above more. Yes. I, yes to all of those. Yes. Yes. And another thing, too, the Post and the Times are reporting today, and I think this is quite important, that the White House had no idea that this meeting took place and that they're apoplectic that it took place. When, listen, I've worked in embassies for half my adult life. When an ambassador is meeting with somebody who is controversial, they have to cable. the Secretary of State to ask permission. Huckabee did not. He did not do that. What was Huckabee thinking?

Why did he think? I mean, Donald Trump does not strike anyone as the kind of person that you do this, too. Yeah. No. I mean, you wouldn't like it if you were president. I wouldn't like it either. Is he going to survive this? You know what?

I think he will survive it only because Donald Trump seems to like the guy. guy. But at no other ambassador under any other president. He must worry about looking weak too, right? So it'll be kind of a tacit admission if he fires Huckabee that like Huckabee pulled the wall over his eyes. Unless, unless Trump calls him and says, Mike, you got to resign. This is unacceptable. And again, both the Post and the Times report that Huckabee, I'm sorry, they report that Pollard called Trump a madman who has literally sold us down the drain for Saudi gold.

You know, takes one madman to no one. I mean, Jonathan Pollard, I mean, I remember that very, very vividly. I mean, anyone who's old enough, let's say, over 50 remembers that very well. And I mean, he really, I mean, he probably made the strongest case against dual citizenship of that human being I've ever met. And just so people remember, I'm going to turn this light off real quick,

just so people remember what it was that Pollard did. Pollard sold top secret military cables and NSA intercepts to the Israelis, sold it, right, for money. The Israelis then traded that top secret information to the Soviet Union in exchange for Soviet Jews being allowed to settle in Israel. Pollard did it for the money. He was a traitor for money. This was not, you know, like, this was not a Kim Filby situation.

Absolutely not. Okay. I mean, look, I think it's disgusting, too. I hope the president does the right thing. I have doubts. to say the least. Okay. We have some questions. Let's get to them. F you so, thanks for the dollar. What do you make of the military Egyptian planes following Erica Kirk, as reported by Candice? You know, I checked that out. I don't think it ever happened. Candice is literally the only person on earth who's reporting this.

It's picked up by the Times of India and the Hindustan Times. And it's got a life of its own around, you know, social media. don't think this has ever this ever happened uh yeah i that was my take as well wouldn't be the first time that her quote unquote reporting is uh less than than waterproof um three birds one stone on rumble asks maybe we should start the show although a little late with that for that with how the israelis killed more than 100 Palestinians last night yeah improvised explosive exploded 124 buildings in Gaza in a single day what a ceasefire they're keeping yeah this is a very i'm glad that you brought that up. I mean, it's absolutely disgusting. I mean, here's a thing, right? Like, you pointed this out months ago that the Israelis have a longstanding practice of blowing up

every seat fire that they ever agreed to. They got kicked, they got dragged into this one kicking and screaming by President Trump. And obviously they're trying to screw it up every way that they possibly can. Trump is kind of in a really difficult position, right? Because if he If he calls up Netanyahu and yells at him about this, then, you know, he risks Bibi saying, okay, fine, fuck you, back to war. And then, which is exactly what Netanyahu wants for a variety of reasons that we've discussed here a billion times. Yeah.

But if he doesn't do it, he comes off as a pus, which is not good either. That's right. I don't know, I don't know what I would do in this situation. I think I would be starting to look at threatening them with cutting off aid. I mean, that's always been where- That's what George H.W. Bush did, and you have to be serious about it. It's the only thing that gets their attention, right? That's it. That's it.

And he didn't even cut off aid. George H.W. Bush temporarily suspended loan guarantees for new Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Yeah, that doesn't seem like such a big deal. Well, okay, F you said, thanks for the extra dollar. Has the CIA ever assassinated their own agents or officers like they're some kind of cartel or prison gang? Not that's ever been reported. I don't know. You know, pre-1975 was the battle days.

I honestly can't say no, but I don't know. of any such incidents yeah i don't remember reading any allegations to that effect it it seems wouldn't you say that seems a little bit i think it's unlikely yeah i i would call it unlikely yeah john this is from ali y 3 t john you mentioned on julian dory your first boss who wrote books on history of political relations of countries but i couldn't find his name maybe i missed it could you let us know his name yep that was uh bruce riddell bruce was one of the one of the best bosses I ever had. And in his retirement, he's been absolutely prolific in his book production.

It's incredible. Another dollar from F. Uso, F.S.o keeps bringing, dropping the George Washington's, if you were to, or Sakajuea, is depending. If you were to be a corrupt spy, would you rather be recruited by a hot Chinese spy or a Russian spy. Oh, geez. Oh, man. What a totally loaded question.

I'd have to say Russian for me. Yeah, I'd have to go with the Russian. Just because, you know, isn't Pollard also ethnically Jewish, for sure? 100%. Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it. I'll tell you what, I served in prison with a mob guy named, well, I won't say it was, I don't want to, I don't want to embarrass him.

but anyway a good guy from the uh from philadelphia and he was at the penitentiary in butner with uh with pollard and he said pollard was such a little mouse he said everybody just wanted to beat the daylights out of him so they kept him for the most part in the medical unit just for his own protection now he looks like dave letterman with a post beard like a like a fucking wild man living like he'll be like he looks like a crazy person he didn't used to look like that at all you know he used to look like williamsburg man um okay nicholas francois asks why do we think the majority of jews coming from the soviet union are so right wing i don't know if that's necessarily true but i mean you know look the thing is my take is always that refugees tend to be

the you know they they tend to leave their home country because they're opposed to the ideology of their home country, which is like the anti-Castro-Cubans and so on. So, you know, the Soviet Union was a socialist country. So, you know, if you didn't love socialism, you know, you left, right? Yeah. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's right. Although it is my understanding that Ukrainian Jews who have left Ukraine to move to Israel are exceedingly right wing. I've even spoken to Israeli journalists who have told me that there are so many right-wing Ukrainian Jews that have moved there just over the last 20 or 25 years that it's pushed the entire electorate to the right.

Yeah, I mean, that's super interesting. I mean, that is a country that has a lot of, you know, immigration in that country. And their demographics change really radically in a relatively short amount of time as a result. I mean, we don't have that level of immigration in this country. Our demographics, we shift slowly. Yeah, we do. We shift slowly. And a country of only 9 million people can shift very quickly when you have these huge influxes. Yeah, 100,000 is a lot of people in a country of 9 million people. That's right. A quadruple J, XYZ, do we think the unveiled corruption in Ukraine unveiled my ass? It's like it's always been in open, in plain sight.

We'll influence the Western support in any ways. It's a great question, though. We're talking about, of course, the recent scandal of the people surrounding Zelensky in this, you know, energy bribery kind of thing, which kind of has echoes of the Hunter Biden Burisma shit. You know, I don't, what do you think, John? I don't think that the U.S. is going to back away from Ukraine. I mean, you know, corruption goes with the territory over there. It does. And it's like it's not unusual. And it's, doesn't it remind you a little bit of Hamid Karzai, where it's like basically, like everyone around you is corrupt as shit, but no one can prove that you personally took money.

This isn't like Eric Adams, who is personally corrupt and was had credible charges filed. That's right. I mean, nobody really, I mean, Zelensky suddenly is rich and has this place in, you know, on Lake Como. But he's maybe he was just a, he has a lot of good. lot of good residuals from his acting career or, I mean, we can't prove it, right? But, like, Hamid Karzai, you certainly could never prove that he personally was lining his pockets. Right. This is going to like President Harding or something like that.

I think that's a good way to say it. And President Harding is probably the right, the right comparison to make. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. But you know, what's painful too, Ted, is that nobody seems to really care. No. When leaders are corrupt now. Well, nobody cares about their, whether we're talking about domestic or foreign affairs, nobody cares when their own side is called out. I mean, basically, there's never a thing where it's like, oh, I supported this candidate or this party, but now I've learned new information that they're a turd, so therefore I no longer support them anymore. That doesn't happen anymore. You're like now you just make excuses or you just brush it off or you do what aboutism or you know but you don't change your mind you don't back away like literally nothing can make you do that like you could if your person if your guy your candidate turns out to be a pedophile you're like whatever you know the other side's worse no matter what it is i i feel like that's a change i don't think that was true i think about you know when i was a little kid you were a little kid during watergate nixon one

by a landslide in 1972, but 1974, you couldn't find anyone who admitted that they voted for it. You know what, George, George McGovern told me something one time that was so funny. He said that in 1972, he got 39% of the national vote. But he only got South Dakota and the District of Columbia. No, he lost South Dakota. He got Massachusetts. Okay. And the District of Columbia.

Ridiculous. And then in 19. 74, two years later, 65% of Americans told pollsters that they voted for McGovern. That is, that is, that is the total, you know, victory has a thousand fathers and defeat as an orphan. It really is true. It is true. Yes, it is. Rebellious Rainbow Unicorn, is the CIA more out of control now compared to pre-1995, John?

pre-1995 absolutely yes no no question pre-1975 i think that um that it's comparable pre-1975 the CIA was just going around the world doing anything it pleased they were killing world leaders they were overthrowing governments half the time they weren't even bothering to inform the president what they were doing and doping kids with lSD doping kids doping their own employees with lSD yeah and um they they they had seriously cleaned up their act by 1995. I talk often about the so-called cull that bill Clinton initiated in 1993, where he ordered the CIA to fire every recruited source who had a human rights problem in his past. And fully one-third of the CIA sources were were fired.

Those days are gone and they're never coming back. So can you explain? like why do you think why do you think the CIA in other words how did the CIA get so out of like what causes it what caused it to happen before 75 I know the church committee came in afterwards and there were all the scandals because of philipagie and all that but like when the CIA is more under control what's the difference between that and a time like now when they're out of control like what's the you know is it leadership like what is it um it is the nature of the CIA, it's the collective mindset of the CIA to push the envelope as far as you can push until somebody in the White House pushes back or somebody on Capitol Hill pushes back.

It's the culture. It's the culture. They called it kingdom building. Kingdom building is what they called it when I was there. Everybody in a position of authority at the CIA wants to build his or her own kingdom. And so you just keep pushing the boundaries of legality until somebody pushes back. And the next thing you know, they're doing anything they damn well, please. There's almost zero congressional oversight.

And at the White House, they just threw up their hands and say, well, what can we do? There's nothing we can do. And these days, so it's the lack of interest in reining them in coming from the White House, you would say? I would. And I would say the inability to rein them in. on the part of the Congressional Oversight Committees. Why are they unable to? Because there are about 40 employees of the Senate Intelligence Committee

and about 60 employees of the House Intelligence Committee and 40,000 employees at the CIA. That's a good answer. You just can't, you can't handle it. Okay, Peruse, a JFK-related question. Have you from Peru, have you met or worked with David Talbot? And what do you think about his work? My impression is that he's not in good health nowadays.

I'm sorry to hear that. Poor David. I do know him. Yeah, David wrote the foreword for my third book. He's a lovely guy and one of the most highly respected contemporary historians that's out there. He had a debilitating, serious stroke, his second stroke a few months ago. And the last I heard was unable to care for himself, unable to speak, and certainly unable to write, the poor guy. He was the editor of Salon.

Yeah, he was. And so my only interaction was trying to get him to run my cartoons. He ran the cartoons of four of my colleagues who were very similar to the kind of work that I did. So I thought I kind of belonged naturally in that orbit. It's the kind of, and yet, and, you know, he was nice, but he obviously is one of those things. where he obviously didn't like my work and just didn't want to say so and he never ran it ever and you know it was it was always a source of frustration to me but you know he's allowed to not like my work um you know that was my interaction with him he was always polite he was always polite

but albeit a little weasley about it um editors uh u s triple x a rod 21 thanks for the two dollars Have you seen the story about the FSB attacking Polish train tracks with C4 explosives? Was Poland right to worry about Putin and his ambitions? Or is this mind games Putin is playing? Is there a real issue? In other words, is there a real danger of Russia invading Poland here? Yeah. Yes, the Poles have reason to be worried.

Really? Yeah, I do. I do believe that. listen, the Russians, the Russians are just like every other country, just like every other superpower or regional superpower. They're going to carry out operations against the countries that they believe are threats to them. And sometimes those operations are large scale and sometimes they're small scale.

But sabotage is just a normal, a normal thing. I mean, it's almost, I mean, it's not really, I mean, it's almost an act of war, right? I mean, going into a sovereign state and bombing their transportation infrastructure. Absolutely right. But listen, even if they got caught, nobody's going to go to war over some train tracks. I got to do. But I think I just, I mean, I don't think that Russia would invade Poland. No, no, I don't think.

Absolutely not. Because to invade Poland is to invade NATO. And then it's going to require a massive response. Yeah. Yeah. Destined for Nothing says, John, I saw a job post. posting yesterday, now removed for a director of identity intelligence at health and human services. Sorry, HHS, yeah, health and human services. Can you shed some light on what that

could mean, a director of identity intelligence? The word identity throws me. I honestly don't know what that could mean. It's not unusual for almost every federal department to have an intelligence office. For example, there's a CIA representative from the analytics side, from the Directorate of Intelligence at Treasury, at commerce, at energy, they're all over the place, just because there is intelligence that comes in every day that needs to be shared with the leaderships of those departments, right? Maybe you pick up something about threats to air travel or about some germ that's been developed somewhere, or you stole the Japanese trade negotiation talking points and you need to share them or whatever.

But identity intelligence, it doesn't have a meaning for me. I'm not sure what that is. I mean, all I can think of is HHS has clients. Maybe they want to know if they're U.S. citizens or they want to know who they are. But that would normally fall. It's possible. But that would normally fall under the Office of Security. Yeah.

All right. So, yeah, I have no clue here. Oh, rebellious rainbow, rebellious. And see, I remember, I remembered just to say rebellious instead of the whole rebellious rainbow unicorn. Rebellius says identity access is cybersecurity. That would make sense. Thank you for that. Nicholas Franco's, do we see Trump getting the rare earth metals from Ukraine as per that deal?

It seems to me that Putin is getting all of them. Well, Putin occupies the territory. where they are. And that territory is never going back to Ukraine, ever. No, sir. It is not. By the way, thank you so much, Ray C. 2020, long-time listener and viewer is now a monthly supporter of Deep Program. Oh, thank you. Much appreciated. F.U. So, here's a buck, John. This is your question. What would it take to actually reform or dismantle the CIA?

Can I get away with saying stay tuned to this channel? Yes, you can, and I know why. I'm hoping to have kind of a big announcement in the next two weeks. Yeah, that'll be cool. Maybe two announcements, maybe. Maybe two announcements. All right. Capunct T-589, do we think that Israel has crossed the point of no return in regards to how the world sees Israelis,

or does it take time and people will forget that Israel committed genocide? I think 100%, there's no going back. I mean, I think it's so radical at this point. You know, they've fallen off the cliff in international opinion polling, a domestic opinion polling, and most importantly with young people, which means that these are opinions that are baked into the generations that are going to be moving forward over the next few decades.

I don't see, even if Israel were to, if net were to say we were wrong we apologize we want to help create a Palestinian state I mean you know none of these things were going to happen but even if they did that I think it's it's not going to be forgiven I think it went on for so long it was so extreme and now it's being so reported it's baked in I don't see that being I think it's I think Israel's kind of dead to a significant percentage of the population what do you think With the exception of Arab countries who do as they're told and don't give, don't give a shit about the Palestinians,

yeah, the Israelis are not going to expand their list of, you know, global countries that they can rely on for support. I personally believe the Israelis are beyond the point of no return. I think so, too. And I don't think, I mean, just to be clear, the Arab countries you're talking about, John, I don't want to put words in your mouth ever, but we're talking about the governments of those countries, not the citizens of those countries. That's right. That is exactly right. I'm glad you said that. Okay, so let's talk about, while we're talking all things CIA, let's talk about the JFK assassination, which took place 62 years ago this coming Saturday,

November 22nd. Former CIA historian Tom Percy says that he basically was, doing research in a CIA safe room back in 2009 while researching Latin American policy in the CIA. And he came across a 50-page IG Inspector General's report from 1978, in which this was a period under the Carter administration during the Church Committee when the CIA was really on the hot seat for the abuses in Latin America. And they basically were laughing about the memos laughing and bragging about fooling Congress about what Lee Harvey Oswald was up to in Mexico City before he killed JFK. The, the detail, it shows basically, this is kind of considered a blueprint for how you can lie to Congress as a government agency. And basically, there were sanitized, in other words,

expunged duplicates of file sent to the House Select Committee, Chief, counsel. They got rid of all the key evidence. And they insulted him. They insulted him by calling him incurious. Well, it sounds like they weren't wrong. It sounds like he sort of did give everything a quick, you know, 20, 30 minute glance and then back to Scotch on the rocks, right? And, you know, and that's probably true. But although it's always kind of funny to me when someone engages in pernicious activity like this, and then laughs at their victims for being stupid. Yes. Which I guess is what happened here.

John, can you talk a little bit about this? I mean, first of all, this sounds credible to me. What was Lee Harvey Oswald up to in Mexico City before the November 22nd? He was there to meet at the Soviet embassy. which turned him away, and at the Chinese embassy, which also turned him away. We only learned recently that the CIA was surveilling him in Mexico City in this most recent tranche of documents. But the CIA denied and denied and denied that they had any knowledge of Oswald being in Mexico City. That was a lie. And another lie is, and we just learned this

in the latest tranche. The other lie was that the CIA had no contact with Oswald. And not only did they have contact with Oswald, but James Angleton, the deputy director for counterintelligence, ordered that the CIA recruit Oswald, even if Oswald didn't realize he had been recruited. So, you know, what would that look like? Oh, you can do it as a false flag. You can do it pretending to be Russian, for example, or you can say you're a businessman looking to hire a consultant. You can tell any kind of lie you want just to set the person's mind at ease. Why was the CIA, why did they feel a need to not reveal that? What would be, what would have been exposed by them just saying, yeah, you know, we were surveilling him and here's what

we knew. Yeah, that's, that's just inexplicable, Ted. The CIA would have been so much better off. The country would have been so much better off just being honest from the beginning. Or did they think it would raise additional questions? I think they probably did. But you and I, we just said this a couple of days ago, didn't we? That it, the cover up is always worse than the crime. And so, yeah. But they just didn't want to. It sounds to me like they just didn't want to. It sounds to me like they just didn't want to be, well, you know, basically they didn't want to be second guest? Like, didn't you know he was going to, he was plotting to kill the president? If so, why didn't you, you know, or did you know and did you let it happen? Did you continue to surveil him when he came to Dallas? Right.

I mean, they just didn't, they just didn't, they couldn't, they didn't want to be bothered, it sounds like. I think that's exactly what it was. And then just gloating that the, that the chief investigator was incurious, that that leads me to believe that it was. an issue of gloating. That's, that's, uh, and then, um, thanks for the, uh, $2.99 Australian dollars from Tabi, unfortunately, Tabi, we have already answered a question. Why is Huckabee met with, uh, Jonathan Pollard in Jerusalem? Um, we talked about that earlier in the show. Um, but, uh, thanks for the, thanks for the, thanks for

the 299. Just hit rewind. Um, hey, um, Ted, um, MW Knox 186 has a good practice. question. Did I ever recruit anyone without identifying myself as a CIA employee? That is a good question. The answer is yes. There was somebody I was working on who I knew had an irrational fear of the CIA. And so I said that I represented a consortium of businessmen and they were interested in this very specific information and they were willing to pay handsomely for it. So I had headquarters draw up what looked like a really efficient legal contract. And I offered the guy the contract. It was a consulting contract. And so he signed it. And I gave him five grand a month in cash, in hotel rooms. And he gave me the classified

information. And everybody lived happily ever after. That's a funny, that is a funny story. If you so, thanks for the additional dollar. What do you know, John, I assume, about the story of the falcon and the snowman oh yeah i the sean pen movie i don't know the falcon and the snowman this movie oh it was a great movie it was a great book uh but this is something that from the day that you're hired at the cia they they drill into you so every new cia employee knows the story of the falcon and the snowman so uh two best friends two high school best friends who graduated from high school. One went on to go to college. One went on to be a drug addict and a drug dealer. And the one that went to college got a job with a CIA contractor.

And so he had access, of course, to classified information. The drug addict friend ended up going down to Mexico to Mexico City and approaching the Soviet embassy and saying, hey, I've got a buddy who works for the CIA. And if you give me money, I'll get the information that you want from my friend. And then he used that money to buy more drugs. And it was all fine and good until they got caught. And one cooperated or both cooperated. Actually, I'm going to Google it now because I remember if it was one or both that cooperated it but they both ended up with long prison sentences i'm going to look it up right now uh while you're hearing that oh go ahead go yeah it was uh christopher boyce who was played by timothy huntin uh his dad got him a job at the

cia and uh and then yeah his his friend finally admitted hey i've been all the questions that I ask you, I've been telling the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. He suggested that they run off to Costa Rica where he had secretly bought a house. Instead, Boyce turned himself in. Yeah. The reason they called him the Falcon and the Snowman is the Timothy Hutton character raised Falcons. The Snowman was just a cop-head. Yeah.

Right. Sean Pat, 6882, is the fear of the CIA ever irrational? I'd say no. No. Fear of government is never irrational. I love this question. Rodi Bang Bang. What do we think about this new commercial that the Democrats put out telling American soldiers that they don't have to follow unlawful orders? I saw this last week. Dangerous if I say so myself, he says, or she says. You know, the Democrats have this obsession that Donald Trump is going to, you know, try to seize power and refuse to leave the White House at the end of his term. And Trump loves trolling them on issues like this. So the Democrats have some cause to be concerned about that in fairness.

Maybe just a little. I think Trump's just enjoying himself watching the Democrats, you know, lose their minds over this. So several, more than several, half a dozen Democratic leaders last week came out with this nicely produced. advertisement urging members of the military to defy illegal orders, unlawful orders, that you know, if Trump says he's not leaving, he's going to declare himself dictator or whatever that. I'm wondering with that. I took that also as having to do with, you know, the ice actions on the streets and the National Guard being sent to various American cities. Like they're in Charlotte now. That would be more immediate. I didn't see it that way.

that would be a little bit scarier. I mean, so it's so like impossible, right? Like I've never understood how members of the military reconcile this innate contradiction, which you and I have talked about before, between being told that you have to follow orders unquestioningly from your commanding officer, and at the same time, you shouldn't, and in fact you're legally prohibited from following unlawful orders. those two directives seem to me like they're going to come into conflict and it's impossible for a service person to know what to do in a in a mili type situation you know i mean you know what you know

what's morally right yeah but i mean what do you say really truly i feel like it's an impossible situation i wouldn't want to be in a situation like this it's like it's like at the very end of his first term when Trump walked out into that demonstration in front of St. John's church across the street from the White House and ask the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, why don't you just shoot them? And he's like, serious, I have to explain to you why we can't just go out and shoot unarmed civilians in the streets in front of the White House? insane. So, I mean, I don't know. Is it dangerous? I mean, is it dangerous to say, to have a political party say, you don't, you know, hey, you don't have to necessarily follow the orders that you get when you're in the armed services? I mean, it's a statement of fact. You don't necessarily. Right. It could be dangerous. Yes. And I think the Democrats are jumping the gun on this. I really do. I mean, it does seem like probably, you know, I wish that they, frankly, I wish that they'd had less balls here and more balls in the showdown over the shutdown. Because, you know, that one where they didn't want to, they were afraid of fucking the airline lobby.

That's what this was about. Oh, my God. Let me read an ad, John. Looking for smarter ways to browse and enjoy your favorite content without ads, get the Perplexity Pro bundle with Rumble premium. For just 1999 a month while you sign up, when you sign up before December 31st, normally it's a $29.99 value with Rumble Premium, you'll get an ad-free viewing experience across all your devices and access to exclusive premium content, no interruptions, just the videos and streams you love

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Much appreciated. That's wonderful. Thank you. Okay, so let's, shall we talk about, we have good timing here today? Sometimes we were brought out of time, but it seemed... Okay, so Donald Trump and Zeran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, who takes office in about six weeks, are going to meet at the White House in the Oval Office tomorrow. Ted, I thought you were joking when you sent this to me.

I think that you look it up. Oh, it's true. Apparently, this is a tradition for the new mayor of New York City. From what we've heard, Mamdani has requested the... meeting, Team Mamdani. Trump agreed. All right, so I have many questions. All right, so there's the meta question of what does it sit? I mean, how many times do the American people have to sit through an election where the two adversaries repeatedly say how, you know, the other, you know, like John Kyriaku is the devil himself. He's evil. He hangs out with Satan. He's going to

destroy America. And then Ted Rall is scum. He's a horrible communist. He's going to, you know, send everyone to gulags. And then it's like, the election's over. It's like, maybe John's not so bad. Ted's okay. And then like, oh, I love you. Let's work together for the, I mean, I know that's like the tradition. And I, it works. It worked historically. But I just feel like in a time of social media and everything, it's hard going forward to take anything that any politician ever says seriously, because you know that they're likely going to end up in this place, right? Yeah. Like the guy can't pronounce his name, the Gristides dude.

Oh, John Katsimathis. He's like, oh, I want the best now for, for Mamdani. He just said he's going to move to St. Petersburg. Yeah, he's going to move to St. Petersburg because he can never live in a socialist city. And now he's like, ah, Mom, Donnie's not so bad. Right. I mean, so like, okay, so first of all, is it going to be maybe not a love-in, but will it be a like-in tomorrow? And or will it be sort of like, you know, Vance versus Zelensky?

I mean, what's going to happen? Yeah, I think it is going to be a like-in. By most accounts, unless your name is Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump treats people with respect when they visit him. the White House. And I think that they're going to make public statements in the end about areas in which they can cooperate. I think Mom Dani's going to say, look, we're not trying to take over the grocery stores. I appointed the same police commissioner that Mayor Adams appointed. She's staying on in the job. I think this is... By the way, she's from a really rich family, too. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. She's from the famous tishes. Like, you know,

For heaven's sake, like Lawrence Tisch. Oh, boy, oh, boy, okay. Yeah. All right. I don't know why she'd want to be the head of NYPD. Yeah, right. Why? She's sit home and count your money.

But I think that's what we're going to see. I think this is going to be a like-in. They'll agree to disagree, like, you know, gentlemen. And Mumdani's no threat to Trump. And Trump really can't do much to hurt Mamdani, especially when Mamdani is surrounding himself with people from the Adams administration. Yeah, he is. And also, I mean,

Mondani's been very canny about making an ice with Governor Hockel, which is the most important connection that he can possibly have. I mean, you know, Andrew Cuomo never got along with Mayor de Blasio. No. That was a problem for de Blasio.

Although these days, de Blasio is looking good. He really is. He's got a new. girlfriend. He's got a TV gig. Yeah. Things are good for him. Yeah. Yeah. And not to mention his mayoralty. It turns out to have been a lot. Compared to Adams? Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, I just heard a story. Just for example, this is a very local New York City story. But he had, when he became mayor, he quietly and never bribed about this, ordered the NYPD to completely dig into all the backlog of

rape kits and process them all and get completely caught up. And now, the Adams administration immediately fell behind and, you know, basically we're right back where we started. But that was an example of something de Blasio took seriously and cared about. You know, my best friend lives in New York, all of his life on the Lower East Side, his one and only child, his daughter, just graduated from high school. But when she was a freshman, three years ago, four years ago, whatever it is, she was walking home from school like she did every day walking up First Avenue and a homeless guy walked up to her

and punched her in the face as hard as he could, almost knocked her out and then just walked away. And when my friend called the cops, the cops are like, what do you want us to do about it? This kind of thing happens. That happened to me. I was walking out of the Chamber Street, subway station years ago

and a homeless guy coming down the stairs just casually slugged me in the face, broke my glasses I'm lucky the glass didn't go into my eyes and it was just like he just left and it's the same sort of I didn't even bother to go to the cops because it's true

what do you want them to do? I mean even if they caught the fucker you know I mean he's not going to stay they're not going to keep him in prison I mean you know that's it he's going to be out on the street five seconds later The point I wanted to make was that, at least under Adams, there was no real move to make the streets any safer.

There are these catastrophes happening in subway stations, people being beaten, raped, mugged, shoved in front of trains. It happens practically every week or two. And this guy was a police captain. I thought he was supposed to be the law and order candidate. instead he was just a bozo um yeah by the way speaking of which remember that really crazy story um uh in new york in i think this happened in cody island at the end of the line and in brooklyn where a lady was um set on fire a homeless lady was set on fire by some degenerate well the chicc remember a similar event just happened yesterday in chicago um where a woman

was set on i don't know if it was a woman or a man the victim someone was set on fire and the suspect was apprehended. I was wondering, you know, this wasn't a mean, but what do you think about the fact that the Chicago police have decided to charge him with terrorism, the arsonist? Oh, God. We've talked about this in the past. Terrorism is inflicting terror on a population

for a political purpose. Yeah. So this is not terrorism. No, it's not. Let's go through some comments. Still, 282, ISIS is literally not evil. They are literally not doing evil. It is literally not evil to enforce immigration laws.

Democrats are evil for committing sedition and treason with that video. I appreciate the comment. And here's the thing. I agree 100% that, you know, a country has the, the duty and the right to enforce its laws, and illegal immigration is illegal. But the thing is, how you enforce the law matters. Like if a cop stops you for speeding, he can't just shoot you. Well, he was enforcing the law.

It's like, okay, but he wasn't enforcing the law the right way. ICE is not enforcing the law the right way. They're ethnically profiling. They're grabbing, and we know they're ethnically profiling because they're grabbing people who are U.S. citizens. Including Native Americans. Native Americans who happen to have brown skin are being arrested and detained

in one case deported to Mexico. Yeah. So that's, I mean, and also there's prosecutorial discretion, right? Like, obviously, a cop should pull, you know, if the speed limit's 55, the cop should pull over the dude going 95 before he pulls over the guy going 58. And like this is, again, ICE is not doing that.

ICE is going, they're not going after like convicted rapists who are illegal immigrants. They're going after sort of anyone and everyone and seems almost like the low-hanging fruit is people dropping their kids off at school and stuff. I mean, it's wrong. Question for both of us, do we consume media in your other languages like music, movies, TV, etc? I absolutely do. I watch French films and I listen to French music 100%. Listen, I even have this app on my phone.

called Earth Flix. Erth is ERT, Lidiki, Radiofonia Tiliorese, Greek radio and television.

This, this Eirtflix has like every channel in Greece and you can watch movies and concerts and soap operas

and sports events. I watch it every single day. And then I even have... So, it's free TV for France, for Greece. Yeah. There's a,

there's a TV station in Patras, Greece's third city on the West Coast, that has its own app. I watch Patras TV, and then the Church of Greece has its own app, its own TV station. So I just watched, I stopped going to church a year ago. So I just watched church on TV on Sunday mornings. I will want to ask you about the not going to church. But let's try to get through some more questions.

Frazmataz, request for you, John. Please recount one of your best Alec Baldwin stories for us when time permits. I haven't heard a single Alec Baldwin story since the Sputnik Assange days and then his film, Russ. I have an, I have an Alec story too, but go ahead. Alec Baldwin and I hate each other and hate each other to the point where we can't be in the same room together. And the story. we met once a friend of mine wanted to write a play about my trial or the the case leading up to trial and he wanted to do it off Broadway and Alec was interested in playing me and so we met for lunch one day

in New York amazing and my friend my friend's an academy award winning writer screenwriter so John, you're kind of frozen here. Look, et cetera, et cetera. And shoot, can you hear me at least? Yes, now you're good. Yeah. You froze up for about 30 seconds. Okay, thanks.

Oh, shoot. So he asked me to tell him these stories. I'm telling these stories. 30 minutes into it, Alex says, I think you're full as shit like that. And I said, excuse me? Wow. And he says, I think you're full of shit. I think you're just making all this shit up.

And I said, I've been called a lot of things in my life, but liar is not one of them. He goes, fuck you. I said, fuck you, Baldwin. And I was so angry. I got up and I walked out of the restaurant. And my friend is like, guys, please, no, please, please. So I was so mad. I walked all the way back to Penn Station.

I got on the train and I came home. So about six months later, I had this idea for a TV series. I had written a pilot. And I do this as a hobby. I've written seven of them in the last 14 years. And I've actually sold all seven. One made it to pilot. So we made this pitch at Fox.

And Fox is like, nah, we're not really interested. It's moderately, you know, interesting, but it's not for us. So our next pitch meeting was at AMC. And before we went in, my buddy said, you know, we can guarantee a sale to MSC to AMC if we can attach an A-LIS star. And I said, oh, please don't. I said, please. And he says, he's an Academy Award winner.

He's an Emmy Award winner. So we called him. We went to Soho House. They have breakout rooms there. We called him. And my friend said, Alec, I'm here with Kiriaku. And Baldwin says, what's that asshole want? And I said, yeah, nice to talk to you too again, Alec.

And then he said, well, John's got an idea for a show. And I told him the idea for the show. And he says, actually, that is a pretty good idea. Go ahead and attach me. So we attached him. We sold it to AMC the very next day. And six weeks later, I called my attorney. And I said, I haven't heard anything from AMC's business affairs office.

I have no idea if my deal's been negotiated. He said, you know, I forgot all about that. Let me call over there. He calls over to AMC, and AMC says, oh, we dropped that show. And my attorney says, why? Because Alec Baldwin quit to take a deal with HBO. So I called him back, and I said, fuck you, Baldwin. Don't ever call me again.

And I hung up. That was the last time we spoke. Yeah, I don't think it doesn't, it sounds like this relationship, this friendship might be beyond redemption, John. Just say. Yeah, no. And then when he got arrested for shooting that, assistant director or whatever she was on the on the movie rust my buddy called and said hey you know

it looks like alec may be going to prison you might want to give him a ring and just try to and i said fuck him i hope he rot's in prison oh m g uh thanks for the five bucks and angela falla lola thank you much appreciated quick last question hype show will mondani really imprisoned bbby if he comes to new york or is that just talk oh i think it's i think it's real I think it's real. And it should be, honestly. Yes. Yes, indeed.

Everyone, thanks so much for joining us. This is the Deep Program show with me, Ted Raul, and John Curiacu. We are here Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, which means we will be back tomorrow, December 1st, Friday at 9 a.m. We will see you then. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with me and Manila Chan coming right up after this. We much appreciate you. And, oh, also, DMZ America podcast, Scott Sandus and I will be interviewing editorial cartoonist Steve Kelly, who's a conservative.

That's at 11 a.m. Eastern time this morning. Bye, John. See you tomorrow. Bye, bye, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.