DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “End Game in Ukraine?”

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

On the “DeProgram” show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, a high-level U.S. military delegation lands in turmoil-ridden Kyiv, pushing a 28-point peace plan coordinated with Moscow. Zelensky grapples with a $100 million energy sector corruption probe implicating allies. Meanwhile, a FBI whistleblower exposes the Internal Counterespionage Cell's "executive exemption," shielding Senior Executive Service brass from probes into fraud, retaliation, and espionage.Ukraine's Corruption Scandal and Political Turmoil: Anti-corruption watchdogs unravel a $100 million embezzlement scheme in the energy sector, fingering Zelensky ally Timur Mindich as the mastermind amid nationwide blackouts. Protests erupt in the Rada, toppling two ministers—Justice's German Galushchenko and Energy's Svitlana Hrynchuk—while opposition demands Yermak's ouster and a national unity coalition. Zelensky distances himself, imposing sanctions on Mindich yet dismissing graft as commonplace, fueling fears of deeper regime instability as investigations probe defense and banking ties.U.S. Military Delegation's Push for Peace: Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll and Gen. Randy George spearhead the highest-ranking Trump-era visit, briefing on a 28-point U.S.-Moscow peace blueprint that mandates halving Ukraine's military and territorial concessions. Zelensky receives the plan, pledging talks with Trump while insisting on unbreakable security, as the delegation secures an "aggressive timeline" for framework signing amid Russian strikes killing 26 in Ternopil. Observers question the scandal's timing, suspecting deliberate pressure on a vulnerable Kyiv to accept capitulation-like terms.FBI Whistleblower's Counterespionage Exposé: An insider accuses the Internal Counterespionage Cell of shielding SES executives via an unwritten "executive exemption," blocking probes into fraud, retaliation, and espionage despite credible tips from other agencies. Retaliatory transfers punish reporters, with no SES clearances revoked since protocols began, allowing classified hoarding and evidence destruction—including a retired assistant director's untouched leaks. The disclosure highlights decades-long practices spanning directors, contrasting aggressive actions like the 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid while lamenting zero espionage busts post-2001 Hanssen case.

to see you. Good morning, Ted. Good to see you, bud. We are deep program with Ted Rall and John Kariaku. We're here every Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. Thank you for liking, following, and sharing the show. We are, as usual, ready to go. We've got producer Robbie West, bringing up the rear in about 30 minutes. In the meantime, you'll have to put up with my incompetent use of the board. But Robbie did school me on how to try to avoid packet loss. So hopefully, whatever that is, I don't even know. They threw me out of engineering school and with good reason. I think that was like one of the better things, one of the better bad things that happened to me that was good for society.

You would never want to drive across a bridge that I designed. Okay, so let's move on. We have lots to talk about, please, you know, as usual, chime in with your questions and comments if you're watching live on Rumble or YouTube. and thank you for doing that. By the way, if you want to comment, we are thinking about possibly figuring out a way to take voice calls. So if that's something that sounds stupid or annoying

or sounds great, you know, we'd love to hear your opinions about that. Ukraine, it looks like Trump is turning his attention to the conflict there. There's a 28-point plan that appears to be gaining some traction in light of domestic events there in Ukraine. We'll get into that. There's a special military delegation on

their en route to Kiev, so they're there. And then, John, there's a story that I'm sure you'll have some Robert Hanson-related thoughts about an FBI whistleblower has stepped forward. You know, you helped inspire a lot more whistleblowers have occurred as a result. Anyway, it turns out that this is kind of crazy whenever the story is like, wait, what? So basically the FBI has decided that they have a counter-espionage cell, which is in charge of looking

for moles, but, you know, they're exempting the executives. Yes. So, you know, because after all, it's not like a high-ranking executive of the FBI has ever been able to be a mole. Oh, never, right? Never, never would that happen? May I interrupt you for a second?

I went to an event last night. It was a book launch. for the two IRS whistleblowers who blew the whistle on Hunter Biden's income tax evasion, right? They were specifically told, don't look at the laptop. And they're like, what are they crazy? Their bosses? Of course, we're going to look at the laptop. And they found that he spent $10,000 at a sex club and tried to,

write it off as a deduction, line itting it as golf club membership, right, a golf country club membership. It was a sex club. He spent $10,000 in one night in a sex club. I was going to say, like, how much sex can one man have? Well, when you're on that much, I can see having $6,000. I can see having $6,000. When you're on that much meth. But the reason I'm bringing this up is, first of all, these guys were very kind to me last night. And Brad Birkenfeld was there. There were a bunch of whistleblowers and that we inspired them to go public. They knew it was going to cost them their careers. But Senator Grassley was there. Chairman Comer was there. Chairman Jordan was there. And the Secretary of the Treasury

Besant was there. And I'll tell you what, man, when I blew the whistle, on the torture program, I stood alone. And now the fact that there are all these political people saying, you know, it's unacceptable to treat whistleblowers this way. I loved it. Now, the bad part- We still need a shield law. We still need a shield law.

And the bad part of this is every one of those people I just mentioned is a Republican. It looks like I froze, doggone it. Yeah, we can hear you. Oh, good. There you are. Okay. Every one of those people was a Republican that I just mentioned. There were no Democrats there at all.

No Democrats at all. And then as it so happened. You imagine in 1979, that being the case? Ridiculous. As it so happened, while I was there, I got a call from Fox News. And they asked if I would go over to the studio and do a hit at 830 on the Jesse Waters show. I said, sure, what do you want me to talk about? And they said, we want you to talk about this advertisement.

that the Democrats, six Democratic members of Congress have come out with, led by Alyssa Slotkin, the former CIA analyst who I used to work with on Iraq. She's now a senator from Michigan. They did this advertisement geared directly at the military saying, remember, you have to disobey an illegal order. You have to disobey. Be strong. Disobey illegal orders.

This is just a shot at Trump, right? Because they want people to believe that Trump is going to refuse to leave the White House. It's ridiculous. It's because the Democrats don't stand for anything, that they're doing something like this. So, Slotkin and I happen to be walking in the building at the same time. I said, hi, Alyssa, and she just looks at me and then turns her head. And I was like, okay, that just made me, Ted, it made me so angry. I went on Fox and I eviscerated her and the Democrats.

So I go on and I said, why do you think, he says to me, why do you think the Democrats are doing this? And I said, because they have no ideas and because they stand for nothing. This is the whole democratic platform. It's vote for me because I'm not the other guy. I say it all the time on my own show, I said. Vote for me because I'm not the other guy. And I said, and how rich is it? Excuse me, because I'm in a bad mood this morning.

It's okay. It's more fun for us. How rich is it that when I was arrested after blowing the whistle on the illegal and immoral torture program, it was the Democrats that went after me, not the Republicans, but now they went everybody to refuse to follow illegal orders. No, it's bad. John, let me, apropos of that. So I had a job interview at Vox, which is a democratically.

oriented, you know, news site. This was several years ago. And they told, and basically I had done a piece, they had commissioned a cartoon journalism piece from me. And in that, and anyway, long story short, in that said, I said, oh, something about like the CIA claims that. And they said, oh, we have a problem with that. It's like we, it is our editorial policy, my editor told me,

that anything the intelligence committee says is taken as fact. Oh, my God. And I said, what? And I'm like, and I'm like, you know, I'm sorry, I'm old school. I think if your mother says she loves you, you check it out. You know, it's, your journalist, you don't take anyone. And besides which, the CIA's job is in many cases to disassemble and lie. I mean, it's, they should.

They have to. And so he was like, but anyway, the point is of this story is not. to complain about the corruption of Fox. But really, the point is, democratically, things have changed, right? When you have Democrats acting the way you describe, Democratic journalists acting the way I describe. I mean, the Democrats climbed in up the ass of the intelligence community. Why and how did that happen? Because I didn't notice it happening before it happened or while it was happening. Yeah, that's a good question.

You know, it used to be when nobody from the CIA would ever run for elective office, unless they had been in the CIA for a minute and then decided it wasn't for them, like Porter Goss. Porter Goss was in the CIA for four years. He was a failed case officer. He moved to Florida, became a multimillionaire real estate developer, and then got himself elected to Congress, became chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and then went back to be an absolutely terrible, like historically. terrible CIA director. But time was when that was really highly unusual. And now it seems like people at the CIA, like everybody envisions himself or herself as governor of Virginia or a member of Congress. I remember when Will Hurd resigned to run for Congress, I said, well, you know, that's not really a step up to run for Congress.

What are you doing? And he ran, he won. He won three terms. He tried to recruit me to run for Congress, and I told him the same thing. Yeah. Will won three terms. Before he stepped down. Yeah.

And then quit. Yeah. He realized. Thanks if you so for the dollar and the comment. Also, thanks to hyper neurotic for the $2 and the advice about avoiding packet loss, which I still don't really understand. All right. Here's a question for you, John. Okay.

This is from Foix, as I'm going to pronounce it, 6624. When an agency recruits someone as high level as a president, how do you keep them in check? I would think that they don't need the money anymore. An example would be Jolani. That's a great question. And it's a rather important question. Nine times out of 10, you actually recruit the person when they're a junior level nobody, and then they rise through the system

and they become president or prime minister or defense minister or foreign minister. When that happens, you just kind of put them on ice. You cut off contact while they're president or prime minister. And if they have something important to say, they'll ask to see the U.S. ambassador. The U.S. ambassador knows that's a signal to bring you along and then you collect the intelligence

while the ambassador pretends not to listen in the corner of the room. Otherwise, if it's somebody like Jalani, for example, or now we know Hamid Karzai, the CIA station chief just goes straight into the office and, you know, does the meeting, you know, suitcases full of money and and all that good stuff. But how do you keep them and how do you keep that person, you know, how do you run them without them getting out of control? Well, look at Manuel Noriega. He went out of control. And you see what the U.S. response was. Right. The U.S. response was to essentially overthrow him, kidnap him, occupy his country, and put him in prison for the rest of his life.

And that's really what it comes out to. It's like you're fired. Thanks, Toby, for the two Australian dollars and the thought. Agree, pardon, John. Marble, thanks for the $4.99. Soiland's green, indeed. So the greenest people. Just remember that.

It's very important to remember that. Thanks for the five bucks to 7371, Mojor. First heard about the Huckabee-Pollard story from you guys first, and also Pod Save America. It's not in any of my news apps. Why do you think that is? That's a good question. That is a good question.

It's always, like I say, it's never about what they say. Well, it's usually not about what they say. It's usually about what they don't say. Yeah. Yeah. It should be. It should be on the, you know, above the fold, page one of every, of every news publication in America today. And you're right. It's not. Morrow, thanks for the five bucks. Any thoughts on doing a live show and meet or meet and greet in the New York, New Jersey area? I'd be totally down. Oh, I would do that. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I mean, I'm local. Yeah, I'd love to do that.

Frazmataz, I am very sorry, but John already did the Alec Baldwin story yesterday. You just go back over on Rumble, and you can listen to it over there. So, yeah. Thanks for the Dollar FUSO Democrats of the Seinfeld Party, a party about nothing. That's funny. Oh, that's good. Oh, I wish I had thought of that. But that would be more entertaining.

Yeah, that would be more entertaining. But that's a really great one. Um, liner. I think I might steal that. Who said that? Uh, who, sorry, I'm, I'm scrolling. Oh, sorry, sorry. Okay, that's okay. It's F you, so. Excellent. That's, that's excellent FU. So I'm going to, I'm going to take that. That is very, very funny. Um, okay. Uh, well, some criticism. You complain about them not standing up for anything, says sneak or dad, but, and when you do, you complain, I don't know. When, what? What? Really? More specific, please. I don't see that one. Here, I'll put it back up. Okay, thanks.

I'm sorry, I'm like having, this is, it's so hard to, here we go. I'm putting it up. It's up. Thanks. I still don't see it, but that's okay. I'll find it. Oh, you have to be watching on like, I guess on Rumble. Okay, on Rumble. I'm watching, I'm doing this through Rumble. studio. Okay.

Thanks, Ray, about your comment about my cartoon. Yeah, I was pretty pleased with that. I didn't know if that it's about pointing out the fact that, you know, food stamps are back, but all the food stamps are going to do is allow people to buy more shit crap food that's going to give them health problems that they're not going to be able to pay for by going to go to the doctor. May I interrupt for one second? Please.

Now, I'm right now seeing Sneaker Dad. I complain about them not standing up for anything. And when they do, I complain. What do they stand for? Yeah, that's... Literally, name one thing that the Democrats have actually stood up for. I'm waiting. I told you, I've said in the past, I was a third generation Democrat.

And when they turned into the Republicans, I walked. And now there were some Republicans. My mom took me door to door. you know, leafleting, pamphleteering for George McGovern in 1970. Sure. And I worked for Democratic campaigns. I was youth coordinator for Dukakis in 1988. You know, I mean, I was a, I was as Democrat as they come.

I was true blue. But I'm with you, John. They don't fucking stand for, they're Republicans now. Yeah, they're Republicans, especially on these war and peace issues. If you so wants to know from how much is the CIA involved in the color, revolution in Mexico against the socialist president. I've received a couple of emails

from friends in Mexico about this. And I would have to say that they probably are involved just because this thing looks too perfectly set up. I don't have any evidence on which

to base that. But it looks like something's going on in Mexico. And there's also a question from, I just saw it from, well, there are two. One from Sean Whitman. I've been watching you for a year. Love Your Insight, thank you.

A recent post by the majority report says Trump may have been an FBI informant. Do you think this is possible? Absolutely. Absolutely possible. Because, listen, 99.9 times out of 100, when the FBI goes to someone and says, we're the FBI, we're doing an investigation and we need your help. They're going to say, of course I'll help. I'm a patriotic American. Of course I'll help the FBI. And so over the course of all those years, with Trump bumping up against organized crime in New York,

for example, foreign oligarchs and billionaires, absolutely. I would be shocked if he had not been a source for the FBI. No, that's an interesting. Yeah, well, that's a good point, right? No, he definitely was so crime adjacent. Yes, yes. Greg, thanks so much for the five bucks, and they say he said he would fly out to a meet and greet with John.

Well, I would totally do that. You just take the bus? I would totally do that. We should set it up. All right. Well, hey, listen, by the way, you know, if you guys, if any, if you're listening or watching and you have access to a venue. that could sponsor an appearance by John, me, both of us, one of us.

You know, just reach out to us. We can, you know, what we always need is a sponsor. We need a venue and ideally an honorarium and transportation. And that's not so hard. People will do that. People can make money by having us come out. I mean, you know, it's like they can sell tickets and they can make a profit. I mean, you know, that's fine.

So that's how this used to work. I don't know why it's so complicated now. Seriously. Anyway, here we go. Phil says, and I disagree with this, but I want to put up stuff that I put up stuff that I disagree with. It's my understanding that Dems lost their old school base when they went way left. That's when they lost the moderates, their long-term supporters. I would strongly disagree with that.

I think they went way right. They walked away from organized labor. they embraced wars of choice, I think they moved solidly to the right. That's my take as well. I think what really happened is they started chasing corporate contributions in the 90s. I mean, Bernie Sanders talks about this quite eloquently and at length, and I think extremely credibly. And I think that's what happened.

And then once you start to take their money, you have to take their calls and you have to do what they want. Morrow, thanks for the 499. Any thoughts? Oh, sorry. We already have that one. Tabby Jay, five, thanks for the five bucks. Any thoughts on Candice Owens investigating Charlie Kirk's death?

I touched on this yesterday. Yeah. I really want to like Candice Owen since she's come around on Palestine, but she's just so nutty. And she makes these wild accusations like the Egyptian military following Charlie Kirk's wife. They're not based on any. thing. There's no evidence of any of this stuff that she's saying. I wouldn't even call this an investigation. Thank you for calling it. That's what I would say. Yeah. It's just

bullshitting. It's just talking. It's spitballing is what it is. Spitballing. I like that. All right. So should we talk about Ukraine? I mean, obviously this is a story that has been going on long enough that you and I were in very different places of employment and places in our lives when it all started. Seriously. And, you know, and it's kind of still in a weird way surprising to me that it ever came to that and that it's still grinding on. There's so much about it that surprises me and also how this became this crazy cause Salabra. And I mean, I can like go on and on. It's weird to me that the Ukrainians provoked it. It's weird to me that the Russians allowed themselves to be provoked. It's weird to me that the Russians didn't close the deal. It's

weird that the entire Western world decided to make this the hill that they wanted to have their economy die on. The whole thing is weird. Nord Stream is weird, how it went down, all the whole thing. But anyway, so currently, Zelensky, we've talked about this. Everybody who with us to this show knows that he has this buddy Timor Mindik, who's basically running like the Enron of Ukraine and causing rolling blackouts. And he's, you know, he and his minions are basically suspected of stealing at least 100 million people, maybe more from the, from Ukraine. And so, so far, Zelensky has solved from the investigation. But, you know, Zelenskyy is obviously politically weak. He's back on his heels right now. And so a lot of people are speculating,

and I kind of agree with their speculation, that Trump used this as an opportunity to kind of push through a deal that otherwise Ukraine might not agree to. And basically it's the deal that we kind of know all along. It's mostly a deal that favors Russia, where the existing lines, now, John, what's happening is the existing lines are kind of, the Ukrainians accept that they've lost that territory and it's never coming back. Now they're saying that they don't want to loot seed additional territory that has not yet under Russian control. Right. Isn't is exactly what we have all said from the very beginning that the Ukrainians are going to have to walk away from the territory where most people are native Russian speakers. So Donetsko and

Luhansk, they're going to have to walk away from Crimea, which has only been Ukrainian since like 1953 anyway. We've all said that from the very beginning. And they couldn't join NATO, but they could join fast-track the European Union. And that's exactly what this thing's going to turn out to be. And not maybe demilitarization, but reduced militarization. By the way, that's Russia and the U.S. doing Ukraine a favor. I wish someone would tell the U.S. to cut its military in half so that we could start feeding the homeless.

Seriously. Totally agree. So, I mean, like, you know, you don't want to be like North Korea where all of your resources go into the military. But anyway, so all right, so how this looks like, obviously the Trump administration is putting some oomph behind it, right? They're sending the secretary of the army and a general Randy George off to Kiev to. That's a big deal. It's a big deal, right?

So it seems to me like, and we had Trump today or yesterday saying, you know, I've already, I've already fixed eight wars. I should now I'm working on the ninth one. So funny. I mean, maybe tell the Palestinians who keep getting. getting blown up every day. Yeah, he confuses ceasefires for, you know, the ends of wars. Yeah, they're not two different things. Definitely not the same thing.

But, you know, I mean, look, ceasefires are always appreciated. But nevertheless. So, all right, so what happens now? I mean, it looks like Zelensky is chastened. It looks like he's more, I mean, but on the other hand, you never know with him because he's such a weasel. You know, over, you know, over the last year or so, we've seen him go from like, oh, no, I'm serious about peace to, but I'm only serious about peace if I don't have to give up any territory at all. Right. You know, the thing about Zelensky, I think he's at the point now where he's wondering, number one, if he can make it to the end of the Trump administration, which he can't.

We have three years to go. And number two, even if he could, will another Republican win and put him out of business or will a Democrat come in and rescue him and save him? I learned just recently that he actually owns a home in Greece. I've been thinking that he would end up in London, but he's got a home in Greece as well. And I wonder if he's at the point where he's just throwing up his hands and saying, I give up, I'm going to get out of here. yeah i mean i mean look he always had to know that this was this was not a permanent gig even though he did cancel the election yes yes he did yeah but as he says he has no choice i love that he declares martial law martial law means no elections he's like well what can i do my hands are tied martial law

ridiculous yeah ridiculous ridiculous is right but you know the fact that that such a senior delegation is going to Ukraine tells me that something's up it looks like it looks like Trump is is serious about forcing this and Zelensky realizes he just doesn't have any more carts to play hilarious if you so but Trump ended the clone wars the wars of middle earth. Where's his Nobel Peace Prize? Trump ended all the wars. Yeah.

It's, yeah. Okay, so do you think, so you, so you, I mean, what do you want to care to handicap this? I mean, so what happens next? I mean, I would say, you know, Trump, ceasefire comes first, right? It's going to have to be kind of a cascading series of things. you announce a ceasefire, you announce elections, Zelensky leaves the country, they have the elections, the new parliament ratifies whatever deal is made in the end, and then the thing's finally over with Zelensky living in exile, with the hundreds of millions of dollars that

he's looted from the Ukrainian treasury or from the U.S. government. Which is the same thing. Same thing, yeah. Well, I mean, so here's the thing. like Russia has basically been driving a very hard bargain. And I wonder, you and I talked a little bit about how maybe Putin wasn't really reading Trump. I mean, I think Trump was, I mean, he kind of missed the point. Like Trump really wants a deal.

He doesn't care about the specific details. Vladimir Putin, as anyone who's ever watched him speak, knows he's all about detail. I mean, that man is like, you know, there is not. one wrinkle in his shirt. There is not, you know, every, every, every eye is dotted. Every tea is crossed just so. I think maybe it was a cultural thing that kind of like stopped us from getting to this point. I mean, I think Trump would have loved to just have a broad outlines of a peace deal, you know, a year ago. Yes. And then just, and then just sort of like work out the details later. Yeah. But Russians don't roll that way. I think that's exactly right. And Trump is,

very much not a detail person. All through his entire career, he's made the very broad policy call, whether it was his business policy or later on governmental policy and then let the underlings deal with the details. I mean, so I guess I'd want to answer this next question because I think it's really important for us to answer it. But also, while we're answering it, I mean, what's the future for Ukraine? I mean, like, let's just say, this deal goes through, I mean, I actually think it's going to benefit Ukraine, but in the long run, because they are going to be rid of their restive population in the East who are ethnically Russian and really never should have been in Ukraine post-1991 anyway, and they're going to have a more

culturally and politically unified nation-state. Yeah. I should add to that the Washington Post it says the U.S. is signaling Zelensky that if he does not sign this thing by Thursday that our support ends ends the end of it ends that's huge yeah well that's why he's coming to Jesus

yeah so Sudva here's the question that I alluded to are you guys pro Ukraine or pro Russia I can't tell who is more evil Putin or Putin or Satan. Russia's game has always been having ethnic Russians live in Ukraine and take over Putin equals evil cousin to the devil. Okay. Frankly, it's not my area of expertise.

I've been clear about this for years. I really don't so much care for either side. I don't really care. I'm far more focused on the Middle East. But on this fight, I don't know. have a, I don't have a dog in this fight. I, look, I like, I like, first and foremost, I'm a humanist and I care about people, and I don't, and I don't like unnecessary conflict. And so toward that end, I'm always obsessed

with systems and whether systems work or not. And the, the breakup of the Soviet Union left a lot of nation states that didn't quite work well. And this, and that division between Ukraine and Russia didn't work. And that's why they've been on and off again with fighting, you know, since pretty much since 2014. And, you know, there was conflict before that. So, look, as far as I'm concerned, Russia is an autocracy. And it's like, you know, I would not be able to thrive there doing what I do. And that's a problem. You know, so at that said, I love the Russian people. I like the Ukrainian people, too. You know, the Ukraine has a has a, has a Nazi coddling problem. You know, it really does. And, you know, and I, so I, I would have to say historically, I'm kind of like,

as a student of World War II, I recall the fact that, you know, Ukrainians regarding Auschwitz and the Red Army liberated Auschwitz. So, but it's been a long time since 1945. So, you know, I mean, what we need is for people to get a lot. and live in peace side by side as much as possible. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's my bias as it is. And I do think also I kind of grew up with, like you did, with sphere of, spheres of influence. Yeah. And I kind of buy the fact that if you're a huge country, which Russia is, you don't really have

to put up with nonsense along your, around your borders. Yeah. You know, if you're the U.S., you don't put up with nonsense from Canada or Mexico, you know, Don't get too spicy. Yes, you're a nation state. Yes, you have sovereignty. But I don't know. I guess part of it is because of just the way I grew up during the Cold War.

During the Cold War. I had the same experience. I think that's, I think that's right. I mean, I also think like if I were the president of Russia, here's the thing. If I were the president of Russia, would I have done anything differently than Vladimir Putin, even though I'm a leftist? No. I would have invaded, too, because it would have been like, you guys are out of control and you're in bed with my enemy, NATO.

If I was the president of Ukraine, would I have done what Zelonsky did? No, I would have made nice. So, you know, because it's like you have this huge country. Yes. That used to own you. Yes. Right next door. Yes.

And it's paranoid. Don't piss them off. And yeah, Russia doesn't, what people don't understand about Russia is they're paranoid because they have no natural, no natural geographical barriers that protect their, their territory. Right. Right. They just have open steps.

It's easy. They don't have giant-ass mountains to protect them or two huge oceans like we do. That's the issue. That's why they're paranoid. Hey, we've got a good question from Cooper-Dupert, 23. How common is nepotism in intelligence, CIA, FBI, other unknown agencies? That was always a real beef of mine. It was a serious beef of mind, not necessarily nepotism from parents.

to child, although you see like entire families in the CIA. It's not uncommon at all. I worked with the guy when I first got hired. His dad was a senior officer in the senior intelligence service. His mom was, they were both in the director of operations, his mom and dad. And then he got hired, then his brother got hired, then his sister got hired. The whole family working in the CIA. I sat next to a guy whose younger brother got hired right out of grad school, and then his younger sister got hired when she finished grad school. Would the agency actually trust you more if you came from a family of CIA royalty? Yes.

Yeah, you have a leg up there. But I'll tell you what I really objected to. I remember one of my boss is saying, hey, are you looking forward to the promotion panels? I was up for a GS, I forget what, 13 or 14. And I said, no, actually, I'm not. He said, why not? I said, because I know they have only six slots to promote. And I know that so-and-so, who's a member of the promotion panel,

is fucking this woman that I'm competing against. And I know that she's going to get promoted because he's fucking her. I said, I know how things work around here. And sure enough, she got promoted and I got passed over. and then the deputy director for operations gave me an out-of-cycle promotion because I'd gotten screwed. But that's what's common. Gotcha. I've got an ad to read.

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revolutionary protein. Click the link in the chat or scan the QR code on screen in order to watch. Okay. Okay. Good enough. Okay. And was there any water cooler talk at the CIA about aliens and alien craft retrieval? No.

No, nothing. Nothing. We always figured that was the Pentagon's Bailey Wick. John, you want to take a critical comment? Sure. You're a big boy, right? I'm a big boy. I can take it.

Here we go. It's up on YouTube. I like John in general. This is from light fixing. But his apologists for, I guess apologism for Russia. is fucking pathetic. How can you be against Israel's aggression and not Russia's? Are you crazy? Listen, on the morning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I said on my radio show, on a Russian fucking network, and these were my exact words, I unreservedly condemn the Russian invasion

of Ukraine and I urge Russian troops to leave Ukrainian territory immediately. So don't give me this nonsense about being pro-Russian because that's what it is it's nonsense i've known john for years and i just don't think there's any credible any any grounds for that for that's outrageous um evil robot army thanks for the five dollars over on youtube john did you ever interact with nr o is it common for people to move between the letter agencies or do careers tend to stay in one agency and maybe explain with the also also a good question nr o is the national reconnaissance office They manage and interpret the overhead photography from our satellite system. It was very common, actually, for us to liaise with NRO or for NRO analysts to transfer over to the CIA to the Directorate of Intelligence.

My second wife actually began her career as an NRO analyst. It is, I'm going to say, not uncommon for people to transfer from NSA to see. CIA or from FBI to CIA, occasionally from DIA to CIA, but it's very, very rare for CIA officers to go somewhere else. Because we had this idea that we were the top of the heap. And if you were to go to any other agency, it was a step down. I did work with a guy. He was a young branch chief when I was a new analyst. And he got passed over for a GS-15 and left in a fit of peak and went over to the Pentagon, and within five years was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW MIA Affairs. So that worked out very well for him. But otherwise, yeah, it's not

uncommon for other agencies to transfer to the CIA. It's highly uncommon to go from CIA to other I think only a small fraction of 1% of Americans even know that there are other intelligence agencies beside the CIA and if you count them, the FBI or NSA. And there's so many. I love this question. Thank you so much, Hamza. John, what was the reaction of your parents when you joined the agency? Oh, my parents were beside themselves with worry. my parents had this vision of the agency from like you know james bond movies or something um i i did have to tell

my dad at one point i was stationed in athens and and my dad like stood up in church one sunday and announced that i was an undercover cia officer in athens so if anybody needed any help in the american embassy there they could just call me and so one day all these people from church in Newcastle, Pennsylvania started calling me at my desk in the station in Athens asking for help getting their relatives visas. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? And so I called my mom and she's like, I told him. I told him not to say anything. I said, dad, I said, you're going to get me killed. I'm undercover here. It's a critical threat for terrorism post. Nobody is supposed to know that I'm in the CIA. If word leaks out and now it's out,

I could get killed. I said, what are you doing? And so every person who called, I had to say, my dad has a touch of dementia. I'm not with the CIA. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And then finally, it just kind of died a quiet death.

Parents can really fuck you up. He was so proud of me that he just came out with it in church. Oh, my God. That's so funny. That's like my mom on my very first book signing for my very first book. She bumrushed the stage like she was at a run DMC concert. And basically you were like, I'm his mom. I'm so proud.

You know what? My college roommate, Eddie Harwitz. Eddie got an internship with Senator Tom Harkin, a progressive Democrat from Iowa. And his mom and stepdad came to Washington, and he scheduled a courtesy call on Senator Harkin. And Tom Harkin was just the loveliest guy in the world, you know, just a sweet guy. His power or authority never went to his head. So he was very happy to meet Eddie's mom and stepdad. So he took them to Harkin's office.

And Harkin says, you know, Eddie works so hard for us. And he worked on the campaign and we're really appreciative of all the things that he does for us here in the office. And she says, she goes like this to Eddie. She goes like this. She says, all I want is that he should be a good boy. And he's like, Mom, I'll never forget it. That's so awesome. I really love this question from Frasmataz.

I have a lot to say about this, but you should go first because of that, John. is asking, is the P-O-W-M-I-A, that black iconic flag, the same thing? I've always heard that was disinformation like John Bercher-Ler-Rouche stuff, yes. We had no soldiers left in Vietnam. That's yes. Ah, I see. I have always found it very, very hard to believe that we have anybody in Vietnam. We did.

Very hard to believe. I mean, that flag is still in front of U.S. post offices. It's all over the country. It's all, you know, you see it everywhere, right? And there's that image of like the watchtower, you know, with like the, by the way, if you look carefully, the guard has a little, you know, this Vietnamese peasant, pointy Vietnamese peasant hat, like in the watchtower. And, and, you know, and it's not the, it's not the, it's the MIA aspect. And, I mean, there's certainly our MIAs, right?

But, like, they're conflating POWs. And the implication is that there are Americans being held, like, Rambo 37, in, you know, somewhere by the dirty commies, like, in the rice patties. Right. By the gooks. It's not true. It's not true. It's like, and, like, you know, Vietnam is lousy with American tourists.

I would think at some point, you know, American tourists would have, like, been back. backpacking through the jungle and would have been like, oh, look at that, POWW camp. Not to mention, these fuckers would be like 80 years old now. I mean, the whole thing is it, but it feeds into this victim narrative that like really makes, you know, that really drives a lot of American politics. Like, everyone's picking on us. You know, we're the victims of injustice. And it's just all deflection and distraction from the reality, which is that it's the exact opposite.

Yes, indeed. I just have never, I've never believed it. Now, if they went out into the jungle and started doing a dig, might they stumble upon, you know, bones or bone fragments? Of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Hey, Ted. Ted, breaking news. Sophia Negroponte, the daughter of former DNI, John Negroponte, was convicted again of murder after killing her boyfriend. I think we've talked about this in the past. Sophia Negroponte, I'll tell you, I met her when she was six years old. When I worked for John Negroponte at the United Nations, he was the ambassador of the United Nations during George W. Bush. She was just a little girl.

The ambassador and Mrs. Negroponte had adopted Sophia and her sister from Honduras. They were like six and four when I met them. She grew up. She's 32 now. She grew up to have a very serious drinking problem. And she, several years ago, she was drunk and at a mutual friend's home with her boyfriend in Rockville, Maryland. They got into an argument and she stabbed him in the neck. And she killed him.

Fuck. She went to the kitchen, took out a knife and stabbed him in the neck and killed him. And then her housemates called 911. The cops came. She said that she didn't realize what she was doing, but she did it. She confessed. She did it. I'm so sorry.

I shouldn't have done it. They arrested her. They charged her with second degree murder. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Then she appealed. And she won the appeal. It was something about jury instructions. And so the trial restarted two weeks ago.

This time, Her attorneys offered up DNA evidence saying that she did not stab him, that it wasn't her DNA on the knife. It was somebody else's DNA. But then everybody else in the house said, no, she jumped on him. She knocked him down. She sat on his chest and she stabbed him in the neck with the knife. And so just now she was convicted again. Okay.

And she's facing again life without parole. What a bizarre story. Bizarre. And Ambassador Negroponte, it says now he's 86 years old. He and his wife, Diana, sat in the first row of the courtroom every single day. This trial and the previous trial, their heartbroken. I last saw her. I was invited to a Christmas party at his house in like 2008 or nine. I think it was eight. And I haven't seen, I haven't seen them since, but yeah, this is going to be tough for anybody. No doubt. Wow. I'm being asked by Ali, why don't I do many podcasts and such? You want some of mine? I was like, I got five today. Well, I don't, yeah, I mean,

it's like, it's like the rules of being a vampire. You have to be invited. So if people invite me, you know, I will go. But if I'm not invited, I'm not going to go. Yeah, whatever. So, you know, let's see here. Oh, Toby, thank you for the $2. Can I share more about my master class? Yes, I'm going to send out another announcement today on Substack,

and I'm going to put it on Twitter as well. I'll put it on Facebook too. So I'm doing a surveillance and surveillance detection class, but we're extending it to eight different pods. I'll do three on surveillance and surveillance detection, and we're going to do five on cybersecurity and how to protect yourself and your computer systems. We're doing it in conjunction with Bay Path University in Massachusetts.

So I'll send more information out today. Thanks for asking. John, should we talk about this FBI story? Yeah, let's talk about the FBI story. This is nuts. So basically insider, inside the, inside the bureau is accusing the internal counter-espionage cell. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems like the counterintelligence branch. That's exactly what it is.

To make sure that there's no one working against America and the FBI within the FBI. No Robert Hansen's. It turns out that they have a quote-unquote executive exemption that prevent. events that sell from looking into fraud, allegations of fraud, retaliation, or espionage, even if there's a credible tip that comes in from another U.S. government agency, they've been, anybody who's tried to violate this rule has been punished and basically retaliated against, ironically. And so this is starting to break now in the Washington Examiner and other right-wing media places.

It's so far not getting much traction in democratically aligned stuff. And of course, obviously, you think right away about Robert Hanson. Following Robert Hanson, how could there be an exception for any one up to and including the director? Right. So Brian Kelly was a friend of mine at the CIA. he was a senior officer in the CIA's counterintelligence center. Robert Hansen accused Brian of being the mole in the U.S. government. We knew that there was a second mole after Aldrich Ames was arrested.

And Brian was not just suspended from the CIA. He was threatened with the death penalty. And his daughter was threatened with arrest if she wouldn't rat out her father. Well, Brian was completely innocent. The mall was actually Hansen himself. And so finally, Hansen, who was the head of the FBI's mole hunting unit, was arrested for being the mole and sentenced to life without parole. He died two years ago in his steel bunk in the Supermax in Florence, Colorado. So we know from history that Russian.

moles or Chinese moles or Cuban or Israeli or whomever can be in the FBI just as easily as they can be in the CIA or the Navy or wherever they happen to be. If what this whistleblower is telling us is true, this has to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. And the way things like this have been said- It's obviously true. It has to be true. Because, I mean, I'm a student of of official, corporate and government denials, right? Well, so the absence of a denial here means that it's true. I mean, there's no denial at all, right? They're not saying, that's not true.

We don't have such an exception. Right. Right. I mean, by definition, it's true. By definition, it is true. We know historically that it's true. Yeah, and it makes perfect sense. Yes.

I mean, it's just, it's incredible, though. I mean, it's like nobody learns from history. I mean, if Hansen gets access to the news in prison, he's got to be laughing his ass off. Yeah. And Nicholson, get this, there was this asshole I used to work with in the counterterrorism center named Nicholson. And when Aldrich Ames got caught, it never occurred to Nicholson. A, that there was another mole, or B, that the CIA had moles in the KGB. So Nicholson was pissed off that he had been passed over for promotion.

So he volunteered to the KGB to be a mole for them in the CIA. And he outed more than 120 undercover CIA officers to the KGB, all of whom had to be, as they say, brought in from the cold so they could no longer be undercover. Nicholson was caught, was sentenced to 30 years. He did the 30, and he got out. So he's like living high on the hog now here in the Washington area. Like everything's perfectly fine. But to make matters worse, when he was in prison, he asked his son to go visit him. And when his son went to visit him, I think it was in Oregon. He was in a federal prison in Oregon. He gave his son this list of additional names that he had thought of.

And he told his son, give these names to the KGB. And they'll give you some money and hold the money so that when I'm released, I'll have a little nest egg to come home to. Oh, my God. And the FBI caught the son. Well, did they just search him like at prison? Or did the son try to do this? You can't pass stuff back and forth.

The son was an idiot. He was going to do it. But the FBI caught him. And so they added like five years or seven years onto Nicholson's prison term. So he did that. So totally unrepentant, total traitor. Unbelievable. Uh-huh.

Yeah, you can't make this stuff up. I do kind of, I mean, I do kind of admire people who have the strength of their, of their, of their corrupt conditions. It's like, it's like, well, it's like, well, it's like. I know what I am, and this is what I do. It's hilarious. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's fantastic.

How does military intelligence work? Paul wants to know. Oh, that's a good question, too. Military intelligence is normally very specific to order of battle intelligence. You know, I half jokingly say all the time that my eyes would just glaze over when these guys would start their order of battle. briefing. What order of battle means is they'll say elements of the First Army Corps are located here on the map and elements of the you know, this group are over

here and then this platoon is positioned here to move north and 13 kilometers and none of that means anything to me. You and I are so wired the same way. Like in history, I hate military histories. Hate it. You know, like, oh, then the Pince movement and yeah you know like it's a traditional flanking or exactly i don't care yeah it's just not for me but that's what they focus on the the bigger filled chats hilarious that makes my day Andrew Wustamante found all the moles that's great but anyway yeah this this military analysis

intelligence analysis, it means nothing to me. Thank God we have guys who love it because it's important. It is important. No, no question. Just like military history is important. Yeah. I mean, obviously. Yeah, it's just like, you know, just because I'm not interested in something doesn't

mean that it's not inherently interesting, you know. That's right. Although there are things that I'm not interested in, and I think no one should be interested in, like curling. Why would you be into curling? I don't understand. I like that. It looks very relaxing to me.

But also, there are a couple of guys from my church, guys my age, you know, pot bellies. And they went to the Greek embassy and they said, listen, we're all Greek Americans. We want to create the Greek Olympic curling team. And so they did in the last winter Olympics four years ago. And so all these, all these, you know, 50-year-old guys from church, they're doing. curling they didn't do well they came in like eighth or ninth but by god they made it to the olympics i was so happy to watch them on tv it made me very proud we have a quick robbie announcement and then we're closing out and moving on to the tmi show here we go robbie you have an announcement

for us okay quick announcement y'all been asking for it now you're going to get it y'all are going to be getting a a deep programmed merch store it will be going live next week uh it will go live on YouTube first. I will work on the way to make it go live over on Rumble. So you wanted it. Now you're going to get it. Awesome. And we're coming up with all kinds of things. And it's a good thing.

They were friends with the graphic artist. That makes this easier. Yes, I've heard that we know a guy like that. Thanks, Robbie. All right. Thank you. Robo. Follow and share the show. We're going to be back here tomorrow. No, we're going to be back here Monday. Monday through Friday. So we have the weekend off. It feels like I don't even know what to do

with that. Anyway, 9 a.m. Eastern time, Monday morning, be here or be square. We'll be here all next week. Well, well, we'll figure out what we're doing about Thanksgiving. I guess we probably won't be here at Thanksgiving. But we'll work all that out and let you know what's up with that. But we'll be here Monday. Thanks. And please stay tuned for the TMI show with Ted Rollin Manila Chan. That's half of that is me. And we'll stay right here. If you're in the Rumble room, it'll just happen automatically because it's weird like that. Anyway, take care. John, nice seeing you. You too, Ted. Have a good weekend. You too.