DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Fed Cut: A Warning Sign?”

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou read the tea leaves behind the Federal Reserve’s quarter-point rate cut, the FBI director’s testimony on the Epstein files, a new age-verification system for ChatGPT raises questions, men who spike drinks with abortion pills, and a widow’s claim that Alexei Navalny was poisoned.Is the Rate Cut a Warning?: The Fed approves a quarter-point rate cut, setting the overnight funds rate at 4.00%-4.25%, with two more cuts signaled for 2025 amid labor market concerns. Governor Stephen Miran dissents, pushing for a half-point reduction, while Fed Chair Jerome Powell notes rising downside risks to employment. Is a midterm-election recession imminent?FBI Director Denies on Epstein Files: Kash Patel testifies he never discussed the Jeffrey Epstein files with Trump. Is he credible?OpenAI’s Age-Prediction System: A new AI-driven age-prediction system will restrict ChatGPT access for users under 18, prioritizing teen safety. The move follows a lawsuit tied to a teen’s suicide after harmful chatbot interactions. Will it work? Is it smart?Abortion Pill Spiking: Men face charges for secretly slipping abortion pills to pregnant partners, exploiting relaxed FDA rules on mifepristone. Cases highlight coerced abortions, prompting states like Texas to tighten regulations. Advocates warn of rising risks to women and unborn children.Navalny Poisoned?: Yulia Navalnaya claims Alexei Navalny was poisoned in an Arctic prison, based on smuggled samples analyzed by two labs. She is accusing Putin of murder.

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Ontario. And I'm Ted Rall, and you're watching D-Program on Wednesday, September 17, 2025. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us. And you know what? I got to apologize in advance, Ted. My background's different because my desktop is on the fritz. And so I'm using my laptop. So I apologize if it sounds a little tinny. But I'm going to speak less today than I normally do because we have an awesome guest. We do have an awesome guest. And we will, I'll just tease him right now. We have a eyewitness to the gruesome assassination of Charlie Kirk. He was there. He has video.

He's going to show us, and he's going to talk to us about exactly what he experienced that day. Joining us will be, I hope I'm renouncing his name correctly, Sebastian Escamilla. If not, he can correct that in a minute. Before we get to that, I'm going to just do the rundown of the other news of the day, and we'll get straight to Sebastian. So the Federal Reserve Bank for the first time in a long time has finally come through with Donald Trump's fondest wish, which is a rate cut. They cut the rate by a full quarter point, and the only dissent came from one Fed governor who wanted a half point. The Fed is also promising two more cuts for this year. Bear in mind, it's already mid-September.

So it looks like they're really worried about the economy, should be. we be too? I think we know the answer to that question. The Cash Patel denies that he ever talked to Donald Trump about the Epstein files. Huh. Chat GPT is going to start restricting access to its services to people under the age of 18, or at least they're going to try. Is this a good idea and will it work? This is really gross, actually. There's a number of men who've been spiking their partners' drinks with abortion pills to make the miscarry, I guess because they don't want the pregnancy. It's really, really disgusting.

But we want to make you aware of exactly, you know, what's going on with that. And the widow of Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident, claims that she has proof that he was poisoned to death in that prison in Siberia. So we'll get into all that and probably lots other stuff. And as always, hit us up with your questions and comments and we'll try to get to all of them. But it's certainly as many as we can. As always, please like, follow and share the show. We really appreciate.

Please subscribe to the show. We really appreciate your support. We're odd and humbled by it and really truly. So all right, without further ado, John, if you're okay with it, let's bring in Sebastian. Please do. Okay. Sebastian Escamilla, thank you. So you're a, you're a, you watch the show. Yes. That's how we, that's how we came to know you. You're a future student at UVU, which is why you were on campus that day. Why don't you tell us about, you know, what happened when you were, you know, when you went to see Charlie Kirk.

Yeah, absolutely. So they started off as normal as any other day could be, excited to go. see the event, planning it with my friend. We arrived there to a completely packed parking lot, busy as he had ever seen UVU. Pretty standard stuff. We get out, we proceed to walk in towards what we thought was the main entrance of the building, which was the barricade right behind Charlie Kirk's tent. And we tried to walk in there, and kindly we got told by security and police that the doors were open to the east and west, so we just got to go around and make our way there. So we go around, we come in. It's already filling up just quickly. A small group of protesters, but overall, everything was really civil. And we were about an hour and 10 minutes early.

So we were just walking around, just kind of seeing who was all set up there. It was a pretty hot day. So we initially, in the photo I provided, stopped at spot one and thought we were going to set up there. But as we learned that the view was kind of, the view was good, but there's just a lot of people we knew it was going to get crowded. We were in the dead sun. So what we had some time to kill, we decided to move to our position two on the second story where there was shade. We go up there. We wait. Fast forward to about now 10 minutes before Charlie Kirk is supposed to come out. And Jace taps on my shoulder and just states that he sees a couple men trying to enter into the barricade we'd enter in earlier. And we look over and we just see about two to 15 men

and small amount of women dressed head to toe in Maga gear and we just got let in through the barrier and then immediately dispersed to the right of the track. And I just want to make it clear that by no means do I think that's any sort of conspiratorial angle or anything too suspicious. I immediately just thought it was undercover police officers in case it got rowdy or maybe just people who even worked for Charlie Kirk's team. And we noted that and then we quickly realized right as he came out, the crowds went up in arms cheering, we couldn't hear a single thing. So I said, Jase, we got to get closer. We got to make our way like right up there. So let's head down. We then head down from position two, start making our way to position three. We were going to go

all the way to the end of the wall so it would be a little bit easier to maneuver our way down. As we walk over there, right as we stop, he pointed out that there was a prominent leftist debater in the audience there, just debating audience members. And I'd actually seen that guy debate Jordan Peterson before, so I was pretty interested to just hear the conversation he was having. And this part, I will say, kind of sends chills down my spine because we turned around facing this influencer in the conversation, and little do we know if we would have just looked up by a couple feet, we would have been looking at exactly the shooter later that day.

But we didn't notice that. We were paying attention to the stream. The conversation wasn't too interesting, so I turn around. I say, all right, let's make our way down. We take no more than five or six steps forward, and I'm looking down to plan my path and then just bang. loud rumble echoes throughout the whole entire campus. And I'm not going to lie, my first thought was it was a firecracker. It didn't sound like a gunshot.

I had never been on the other end of a barrel of a gunshot before. So my initial instinct was this was a firecracker. But then from what everyone's seen in the videos, I mean, the panic was almost immediate. In my mind, this felt a lot longer, but in reality, it was no more than one second. And then once my brain realized I'm in an act of shooting, it was immediate, just run. fortunately there was a door double doors about 20 30 feet behind us and i mean i can only to best describe what i saw it was just an all out stampede i mean we we saw a poor woman and her baby in a stroller just get toppled over and trampled there was just no regards for

anybody else just everybody shoving and pushing and just pure chaos screams and uh yeah fear we make it out the oh go ahead let's play that video if you don't mind oh yeah go right for it okay here we go and we're currently out about a half mile out dude holy fuck charlie curt just got shot and we're currently out about a half mile out but he just got fucking shot finally now everyone's running my bike yeah so oh god go ahead i just want to say that right away you know we knew there was a shot but we could make a guess on who was the target but nobody knew or at least nobody knew where the shooter was you know all that info we went out we're hearing screams we're just hearing i heard this woman just exclaim his neck exploded his neck exploded and she was she was just

in complete shock and then we're just hearing we're just hearing run run run we don't know where the shooter was and I will say from where we were standing it's so strange that the shot came from behind us because the way it echoed through that stage it really made it sound like it came from the relative direction of the questioner and this right away when we went out obviously we're asking the people next to us what's going on who was it did who did anyone see anything and immediately that this is no more than 30 seconds after this shot we get told it was the guy asking the questions it was with a handgun is what we were told it literally completely fabricated made up just in the panic of the situation but that was the leading

piece of evidence that i had to go with just a minute out we run out that's when i filmed that video call my call my loved ones to let them know that i'm safe and we were just in just in denial that that really just happened and yeah someone said that it hit charlie but we had no verification we right when I filmed that video too we walked right past when they were bringing him out we didn't know that because we weren't looking we were too busy trying to keep a safe direction and just keep obstacles between us um but but yeah at that point after after we called all the loved ones there another gentleman right next to me who was just calmly talking on the phone and then we were like did he really get shot and he just

looked at it, he said, yeah, he got shot, he's dead. I saw it. And that was our pretty clear getaway that he was dead. But then we obviously monitored social media, the news, and just tried to see anything within about a minute, we saw the first video of the actual shooting. And it was actually the, I assume the main video everyone else has seen that circulated around the internet. And of course, once we saw that, we knew the reality. We made it to my car safe traffic was it was a gridlocked parking lot so we couldn't move anywhere and then also we had already seen that this suspect had been apprehended the wrongful suspect though we felt relatively it was an older gentleman right correct yes uh and we saw that and we were like damn what the

what the hell like okay well at least they got him and it was just one crazy wacko but in my mind that I knew the possibility of, I'm from California and unfortunately in an area where there had been a small amount of mass shooting. So I always suspect there may be another shooter. There may be more people we never know. So just, you know, keep my head on a swivel and try to get out of this place as fast as possible. But we did feel safe after that. We felt pretty safe because we thought he had been apprehended. And just, yeah, the sheer amount of misinformation that was being just extruded everywhere.

was crazy to see in real time. And, you know, we didn't know, we knew not to believe everything. We just knew to take everything in and, you know, time will let us know. But we just couldn't even understand that, like, what we started seeing everyone post about on stories and everyone talk about it, there was a disconnect that we just witnessed that event. Sebastian, good question here from Marble 455 on the feed. Was there any security screening that day, like a metal detector? negative and that is a very important no there was none um just i what there wasn't even a guard

standing by the entrances to my or at least i should say the one entrance i entered there was no guard there only guards around the barricade and there were security on the second floor um giving overwatch what what did that security look like uh it's it consisted of roughly three to four police officers directly um 12 o'clock of charley kirk's tent and i will say that when we first got there, there were actually regular people up there. There was a small group of protesters just displaying a flag. And that it wasn't nothing, no one was throwing anything. It didn't get uncivil. They just decided on their own terms to walk away about 30 minutes before Kirk came out. And I don't know if they got told because it seemed shortly after the police

came in and blocked people from going directly above Charlie Kirk. Sebastian a lot has been made about about the gun and I don't expect you to have any inside information but I was kind of hoping you could speculate or at least tell us what people around you were saying there were rumors that he had broken down the gun and that's how he was able to get away but then the police found the gun it hadn't been broken down correct it seems to me that on the one hand it would be hard for somebody carrying a rifle to escape in that mass of people but then on the other hand people must have been crazed with the shock of what was going on absolutely was anybody saying anything about you know that guy has a gun or i think that

guy was carrying a rifle no every every person around us really thought it was inside the event uh-huh i did not think it was from outside we really thought it was someone who was there up close because when the there was a another group of protesters off to the right hand side who started chanting right when he came out and and so we I in my mind I thought one of them lit off a firecracker right cause panic but then once we heard the screams I'm like okay what one of them probably just saw as thought this was his opportunity and then just did it and that's what I that's that was my I guess leading theory for until the next morning amazing Sebastian we're going to let you go because we have to obviously have other news to cover

but you know do you have any thoughts generally about you know these this experience I mean do you feel like this should have been handled differently there should have been more security I mean you do lose something when you don't have like an open college campus where people can just walk around freely and on a nice beautiful day and hear a speaker under a I mean, it looks like really seriously, it's exactly the kind of event I would have loved to have attended when I was in school. Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah, I wish there was, I don't even want to say like metal detectors, but I would just assume for someone as prominent as him and especially who's known for, you know, people being having issue with what he says, not to say that I did,

but I just know that, you know, online there is. I'm just surprised that they wouldn't have been more prepared for something like that. I mean, I guess the thing is it's like nobody thinks of it until after it happens. Exactly. And then even then, like, how relaxed the security guards were when I was looking at them all around, you know, they're there doing their job, but they're not actually expecting it to happen. And who knows how many of these events Charlie Kirk did in the past, dozens, maybe hundreds, without a hitch, right?

Yeah, exactly. And lastly, I guess I will say that just, obviously, I've seen all the divide it's caused, just people getting mad trying to blame this on the radical left, the radical right? Which one person. Yes, and what I took away from this really, obviously, I felt a wide range of emotions,

and that is if we let this radical shooter divide us as a country and just, point fingers and blame, then we let him win. And we let him succeed in his mission. 100%. And he's just seeing all the finger pointing and all the blaming and all the anger, I just say that we got to come together as Americans and get past this tragic event. So we can't let the radicals continue to determine what regular people like me and you guys actually think.

Sebastian, thank you so much for joining us. And I'm sorry you had to experience this. I really appreciate you. And thanks for watching the show. All right. Stay tuned. All right. That's Sebastian Escamilla.

If you're just joining us, he was an eyewitness to the killing of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. Pretty chilling. I'll say. And so many unanswered questions, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to hear rument, rumor intelligence from the governor of, Utah. There are legit questions out there that I think, you know, answers to which wouldn't

compromise the case, like Scott A. Britain is saying, what about the change of clothes? Or what about the, what about the gun not having been broken down? Yeah, I mean, our producer, Robbie, who is familiar with guns, said there'd be no problem breaking down a 30-ought six. He said he could do it in a minute. So, I mean, you know, it, it, It doesn't, it is weird, right? I mean, just rule number one of committing a crime is don't leave anything behind. Certainly don't leave the gun behind. Yeah.

I mean, of all things, right? So, you know, he, and it was apparently kind of a unique gun that belonged either to his father or his grandfather. And it's like, so you really, you know, it's like, can you imagine your kid or your grandkids? Like, so you know your gun. So I left it at the crime scene where I murdered that famous guy. I mean, it's, you know, kind of, you know. You know, one of our viewers said last week, it really is a tragedy for two families.

Now, of course, you can't equate the one with the other equally. That doesn't even make sense. You can't equate the one with the other. But this alleged shoe, But he hasn't even really started his life yet, and he's ruined it. He'll never, he'll never be married. I'm mad at him for that reason, in addition to being mad at him for killing Charlie Kirk. Right.

It's like, you fucking idiot. Yeah. Look at the shame. He's brought his family now. Ah, true. The last thing that people need. I mean, this is going to define their lives. It is.

I've told you before. I had, we had a would-be assassin in my family. who, thank God, was caught before he could pull the trigger. And when I was a little kid, my mom used to say, there but for the grace of God, our name could have been Oswald. And she was right. Thanks for the donation, Chrismatic. Question, do we think that there's a possibility that his death could have been prevented?

If we had stricter gun laws, like some sort of mental or psychological test, when buying a gun and what does this say about gun culture? that's a very tough question. Who knows? Yeah, I don't know the answer. I will say that most other countries in the world don't have mass shootings that we do. Not talking about individual assassinations like this, but mass shootings are very rare in other countries. But with that said, it's not just about the guns.

It's that we have a society and a culture that is incredibly. accepting of high levels of violence. That's what it is. And I mean, just think about how casual the violence is. I mean, I just finished drawing a cartoon for next week. But basically, you know, sort of pointing out the fact that in this week alone, President Trump blew away 11 and then 3, a total of 14 Venezuelans. And to this day, he claims that it's, you know, they were.

fentanyl dealers. That's not even possible. Venezuela doesn't even produce fentanyl. No. Okay. So, and basically, you know, and we have no evidence whatsoever that any of this is true. We don't even know that the boats are from Pennsylvania. Oh, I casually killed 14 people. You know, illegally, no proof, very casual. You know, the thing is, a lot of countries, John, have a lot of more guns than you think, right? I mean, the Swiss have guns. The French were all armed. The French love, the French love to hunt. The 30-od six isn't exactly like a wild and crazy, like, military-style rifle at all. I mean, in terms of the logistics, guy with a long, with a rifle up on a, you know, this could happen anywhere. So I do think it's a, I think it's a cultural thing. I think there's

something about, you know, Americans think that life is cheap and they act accordingly. And I think the death penalty adds to it. I think the long sentencing. adds to it, I think the fact that even healthcare is for profit is like it sends the message that human life isn't important, isn't worth preserving. I mean, even the fact that this kid is being subjected to the death penalty, right? Again, it's like, what's the message, right? No political assassinations? I mean, the death penalty is the ultimate form of a political assassination. It's carried out by the state. having state.

Yeah, sanctioned murder. So, yeah. No, it's, I do not know the answer to that. Also, Shadowbroker, thank also for your donation.

Hate to admit, but inflammatory public speeches would lead to this anywhere. Not only in the U.S., it's a shame, but there's a price for exposure. I mean, I guess,

but the First Amendment protect is there for inflammatory speech. I mean, you know, I, look, I went back, John, and, you know, really tried to do a deep dive into Charlie Kirk's, like most controversial statements. Honestly, I don't think he's, I don't think that really, I couldn't find much that he said

that I thought was truly outrageous at all. Yeah, I agree. There's a lot that he said that I disagreed with, very strongly in many cases, but no, in terms of being inciting or inflammatory, no, he's just kind of a run-of-the-mill conservative. He is. I mean, like, for example, when he criticized, you know, some of the stuff I looked up, like, what are some racist things that he said, right? And then the Guardian has a piece, right?

So I'm like, okay, well, they'll know. And then I read it, I'm like, that's not racist. He's musing about how, like, when he sees a black airline pilot, he wonders, was this person really the best that they could be because of affirmative action? That's a run-of-the-mill conservative opinion. And not only conservatives wonder about affirmative action, by the way. I mean, he's just speaking honestly when he said that. I didn't think it was a big deal.

I think a lot of the shit that, like, you know, people said, oh, he was so hateful. I'm like, where is this? Where's all this hateful shit? I was, I've really been looking for it. And the stuff that people really heaped on after he was shot, like he called for stoning gays. No, he never did. That was a lie. It was a lie that made its way around Twitter.

That was it. He never called for stoning anybody. let alone gays so he said okay so sky's saying and i'm assuming this is true for the sake of argument here um that rape victim that charlie kirk said rape victims shouldn't be allowed abortions that's okay okay okay well i don't agree with that obviously and i would and if i were a woman i'd probably disagree with it even more yeah however um i mean i do think there's a reason frankly it's a reasonable argument to make i mean if you think abortion is murder, and there's a reasonable case to be made that it is, then, you know, why do you,

you know, why would you compound the, the tragedy of a rape with, you know, aborting an innocent child, right? I don't, again, I think the woman takes precedence here and needs to be able to have that abortion. We need that for her psychological well-being. But, you know, it's not like, it's not a horrific, out-of-bound, disgusting thing to say that is part of a political conversation. And in fact, if you are truly conservative, truly anti-abortion, an abortion, I mean, a human life is a human life.

No matter what. This is why I always hate when my conservative friends would say, I'm against abortion, unless, of course, in cases of rape or incest or the mother's life is in danger, Why? Because then it's not murder somehow magically to fit into your ideology. It's going to have to be one or the other. Either your pro-life or your pro-choice. That middle area, it's all fake. And it's all fake and made for American politics. Yeah. And also the whole idea, oh, it's just a lump of cells. Bullshit. I'm pro-choice.

I think life begins at conception because it's science. And as soon as you have cellular division, you are killing someone. A someone, a person. And I think women have to have the legal right to murder their unborn children. That's my stance. That's my pro-abortion stance. I own it. I'm willing to come out in favor of the murder of unborn babies. I'm in the same way.

I own it. Yeah. And it's a tragedy. Absolutely. But you're just weighing, you know, people are on the left and on the right are weighing these competing interests, the interest of the unborn child. versus the interest of the adult mother, hopefully the adult mother. And it's like both,

and those two interests, I'm going to side with the adult mother. I, you know, that's just where I am. I'm not God and I'm not necessarily right. It's just, you know what I mean?

And so when someone else has the opposite opinion, I don't think, oh, God, what kind of psycho? You know, it's like, these are hard fucking questions. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. Very difficult questions. John, what do you want to talk about next? You know, not to go from fire to vanilla ice cream, but we've got to talk about this rate cut. You know, I understand Donald Trump has been bashing people about the face and head on the Fed to cut interest rates. We're talking about a full quarter of a percent, which is a lot. It's a big cut. And I understand that there's a danger of recession right now.

but with that said his tariffs have created inflation period listen i was at target yesterday day before yesterday 999 for a gallon of milk are they out of their freaking minds i'm going to do without the thing is is when you cut interest rates and it looks like this is the first of probably three cuts this year it's going to make inflation go even higher we can't have tariffs and rate cuts at the same time he's going to crash the economy. And in the meantime, we don't even have a federal budget. We still don't know if the Democrats are going to shut the place down. So I'm not sure this decision makes sense. If I had been a Fed governor, I think I would have waited one more month just to see what inflation does.

Well, they've been kicking the can down the road. I mean, I might have voted for an eighth of a point to juice the economy a little bit. I mean, look, the thing is that that last jobs figure, of just 22,000 jobs created. And we're not only in this new environment involving tariffs, but also the new environment with the mass deportations. There's a lot of moving parts to this economy that they're tinkering with. And I don't know, nobody knows where the fuck we're going now. No, no, it's like a mystery.

I'm not sure who's running the economy to tell you the truth. Well, yeah, kind of no one is. Trump would like to, the Fed would like to, The Congress would like to, Wall Street would like to. And the Secretary of Treasury is saying, who shot who in the what now? Well, you know what I do think is going to happen? I think the midterms are going to roll around next November. The economy's not going to be doing great, and that that's not going to be good news for the Republicans.

I don't know if they can gerryadmander their way out of this. I know. You know, they squeezed one more seat out of Missouri the other day. It almost went under the radar. but, you know, with gerrymandering now likely in California and possible in Illinois, New York, and Maryland, I don't know, man. I think if Trump's going to get something done, he best get it done now because I wouldn't bet money that he's going to be able to do anything a year from now.

No, I agree. I think, I mean, look, I think interestingly, I think the Trump administration kind of knew it had to come out of the gate fast and hard, something that Barack Obama didn't do. I don't know why. Joe Biden didn't do it either. Well, I guess in a way they did it. They each had one signature piece of legislation. But I think Donald Trump's like ability to jam through even executive orders is going to be winding down. I don't think there's a lot more. I know some of us, I joke to my liberal friends. Don't worry. You're only a sixth of the way through to the end of the Trump administration and the beginning of the Vance administration. But I think it's more than a

sixth. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't think a year from now, Trump is going to have the power that he does now. I totally agree. Real quickly, Robbie's pinging us to do, to read. But also, I want to tell you that our hyperlocal Arlington now.com, which covers news just right here in our little Arlington County announced that Mike Pence, whom some of you may remember, was once vice president of the United States, has taken a job teaching political science at George Mason University. Now, how the mighty have fallen. Wow. Yeah, it's weird that he couldn't just go back to Indiana and be somebody. Yeah, right? I mean, can't he be? Republicans have all the, they have all the offices.

It's a Republican governor, two Republican senators, and except for like Gary, Indiana and Indianapolis, the state's congressmen are all Republicans. And he's already been congressmen and governor. Well, no one's going to buy a Mike Pence book. No, sir. I mean, seriously. No.

And he's not going to get much love from MAGA Republicans. No. So, I would hire security to protect myself again. against, from mega Republicans, if I were my king. Yeah, no doubt about it. Although I will say, I do like the fact that when Pence had to figure out whether he was going to certify the vote or not, called Dan Quayle, fellow Indiana, and former vice president and said, hey, do I have any leeway here?

And Quail said, no, it's just, it's a formal certification process. You don't have any, any, you know, any leeway at all. You've just got a rubber stamp it. Yes. And he was like, yeah, okay. I mean, that's kind of cool. I like that, that backstory. I like that.

Yeah. What else do we want to do? Do you believe Cash Patel's story? He says he never talked to Trump about the Epstein papers. No. No, I don't. You know, unlike the CIA. Let me run the ad, read the ad.

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mother-in-law's opinion instead of black 1775 tumbler. A hundred seventy-70 bucks worth of coffee in gear years for 99. This is for the ones who've been watching 1775 blow up on Rumble, wondering of it's actually worth it. Spoiler, it is. Go to 1775coffee.com slash studio and grab your starter kit before they're gone. Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something, just like Rumble was. You were saying about Cash Patel. Oh, Cash Patel. No, listen, the CIA director, sometimes the CIA director is a cabinet member. Sometimes he's not a cabinet member. The FBI director is never a cabinet member. So instead of seeing the president every day, like the CIA director does, the FBI director sees the president weekly, right, weekly.

Because you want an update on ongoing terrorism cases or ongoing investigations into Russian, you know, illegals or moles in the intelligence community or whatever. So we know that Cash Patel is seeing the president on a regular basis. And they want us to believe that the subject of Jeffrey Epstein never, came up. It is headlines on the front page of every newspaper in America. It's on every network that we have on on TV on the news, but it never came up. He testified under oath that he never told. So he probably perjured himself. I think he probably did. But it's one of those situations where how do you prove it? It's impossible. My best friend from college spent

30 years as a New York City judge. And he said, there were two things he learned right off the bat when he became a judge that held consistent throughout his tenure. He said, number one, everybody's lying. And number two, everybody thinks they're on an episode of LA law. What is he? First of all, I want to just, I want to address the first one. I've always thought perjury was a strange thing. I mean, you usually have at least two different sides in a trial. Someone by definition is lying. Exactly. You've gotten. Must have perjury in every case, right? Exactly.

The cops lying, someone's lying. So, but the second, what did, what did, what do you mean by that? Because they strut around and like, he said these homeless people, he was a housing court judge. He goes, these homeless people would just blurt out, I object. And he's like, no. You can't object. It's no how it works. There's nothing to object to.

All right. The comment, comment directed at me here. Kirk was also a vocal supporter of the Great Replacement, White Nationalist Conspiracy Theory. That's a middle-of-the-road conservative opinion. Then we're cooked. Big Bob, I think we are cooked because I think that is a mainstream conservative opinion in Trump world, that basically there's a sort of democratic liberal scheme afoot that is meant to sort of de-whitify the country.

I mean, I don't think that's, I mean, personally, I don't believe that. but I don't, I mean, it's happening. It is happening. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing either. But it's, but I don't think it's like this master plan. What do you think, John? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Yeah.

I agree with you. Also, let's see, thanks for the donation shadow broker. Cash Patel should not speak publicly anymore, especially after the Valhalla's fiasco. I don't think he has the gall to ask Trump about Epstein, to be honest. I love this question from Chris. Thanks also for the donation. If you guys were guaranteed to be president, would you do it?

And if so, do you think it's possible to still remain moral, given that every previous one was a war criminal and has someone's blood on their hand, many someone's? Yeah, I would do it. I would do it. I think I could affect real change. And I'm enough outside of the mainstream that I don't think. hell anyone. I don't think I would be subject to pressure from the likes of the DNC or the RNC

because I despise both of them equally. Yeah, no, John, I think that you have, I would take it too because I would feel like I had a moral obligation to try to use immense power to affect massive change. Yeah. I mean, just think about it. Even if you just went and got one major thing through, let's just say, you know, a massive increase in the minimum wage, then someone shoots you. But you've just improved millions of lives. You're already 62 years old. You're going to die anyway. I mean, you kind of have to do it morally. I agree. And Matthew Blair Raines says Jimmy Carter, I got to agree. You know, Jimmy Carter, and I think that's why he failed as president because he actually did have a moral compass. He does. He did, but I have my criticisms of. Oh, yeah, without a

No, I mean, Afghanistan, Iran, Iran, the 1980 Olympics. What a stupid decision. Draft registration. And starting the big, he started the Reagan defense buildup. Yes, he did. That's him. Yeah. So, he did promise that he would never tell a lie.

Yes. Did he keep that? I'm not sure. I know that he outed the stealth bomber program on the morning of the Wisconsin primary because he was losing to Ted Kennedy and he needed to do something to stop Kennedy's momentum. And so here's this like top secret compartmented above top secret program and he just blurts it out on Good Morning America that we've got a stealth bomber that's just about ready to hit the sky. yeah and by the way what he did to ted kennedy was fucking gruesome and wrong also i gotta say he kind of bidened out ted kennedy might have beaten regan um you know i mean sort of same in the same

so joseph had no business running against donald ragan was an existential major change in our i mean he completely destroyed the social safety net yeah he did he did it's gone i mean and even the idea of like americans as america as a country where we help each other out that went out the window with Ronald Reagan. Got that right. Chris is asking, what are your thoughts on the Utah governor saying and crying? He was praying that the killer wasn't from Utah or wasn't from this country. Poor an idiot.

Retard. I think he was a retard. A little retard, yeah. John. If I can legally run for something. I can. Good question. Yeah, it is a good question.

I can run for anything because I had my civil rights reinstated. The only thing I can't do. is own a gun that's it can't own a gun or go to Canada like I want to go to Canada but Canada is the only country you can't go to well I've actually kind of like very discreetly gone into all the other five-eye countries oh I see they just never it's never questioned me they just they said welcome to Australia welcome to the UK Canadians are like get the fuck out of our country if you got pardoned would all that Chick-O-A? Yes. And I get my pension back, which is the important thing.

You did get your pension back? No, I would get my pension. Yeah, that would be hugely important. Yeah, gigantic. Yeah, Eugene Debs ran from prison in 1920. That's right. That's right. He didn't do too bad either. One of my personal heroes, Eugene. Yeah, mine too. Where do I have that? Eugene Debs, Henry Wallace, and Pete Seeger. Check this out. Oh, that is fantastic. Is that awesome? Wow, man. That's Dubs. Where did you get that?

Ah, eBay, a beautiful thing. Oh, sweet. I had to have it. That's fantastic. So, anyway, yeah, it's great. All right, so let's see. Was Ted Kennedy, the guy who left the lady in the car to drown? Yes, sir.

Yeah, that's Chappaquittic. Mary Joe Capechnie. Yeah. What was it, 1970? Ninety-79? Oh, 69, I think. Nixon was really, really worried about Ted Kennedy. Nixon, we know from the Nixon tapes that Nixon believed Kennedy would kick his ass in 72

until Chapa quit it. Mm-hmm. And that just ended it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was definitely. And, I mean, I still don't, I have to admit, John, I don't really understand what the fuck happened that night, right? I mean, he was obviously either fucking her or, or, or,

trying to fuck her. They're trying to. I get that. And he was drunk. And if you've ever been to Chappaquittick, that bridge, first of all, the bridge was made out of wood. It's different now. They put kind of rails on the side.

It was made out of wood. It was wide enough only for one car. And there were no, no rails on the side, Martha's Vineyard. He was drunk. The car went off the bridge and it flipped over. And he was able to get out. He was so drunk that he was. he didn't help her to get out.

And he claims that he died down and tried to get her, but just couldn't. No. He went home and went to sleep. He didn't report the accident until the next day. And she was, like, long dead. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm sure she was dead, like, within four minutes.

Oh, yeah, without a doubt. Yeah. No, it's, it's terrifying. I, yeah, I once lost a car in the Gulf of Mexico. and I thought about Chappaquittic. I was driving on Interstate 10 during a tropical storm and I came over a rise and then suddenly there was the Gulf of America, the Gulf of America right there in front of me.

And the car, all the cars we just all went into the drink. And I had the presence of mind because it was sort of skipping like a stone to just drop all the windows because I was thought about the electric windows. I had one little bag, grab the bag, climbed out the window, and just, bye-bye. And so there were trucks, cars. It was a mess. But I'm a strong swimmer, former lifeguard. Got made it to the side.

And then I walked several, a couple miles and I found a pay phone outside of honky talk. It was like Mississippi. And I called up and I'm like, Enterprise rental car. He said you'll pick me up. Your other cars in the Gulf of Mexico. And they're like, well, you know, there's a storm. We have lots of problems. It's going to be hours.

Just chill. So speaking of Ted Kennedy, by the time they came, I'm drunk as shit inside the honky talk. They've recruited me to play the washboard with the band. Come on. They show up and I'm like, I promise I won't drive. And I didn't. I went to a motel next door.

And Ted Kennedy did. it out and then drove the next day. But I was like the swamp creature. I was gross and drunk and, you know, covered with bog water. Wow, man. That's a story we did not cover today. Oh, which reminds me, which reminds me.

I interviewed Ted for another hour today. Absolutely fascinating conversation. I told Ted at the end, I didn't know 99% of this information. that he talked about today. So if you're not a Rumble premium subscriber, please consider doing that. You can listen to now the first two hours

of my conversation with Ted. I think you're going to love it. I loved it. I would have paid for it. John's a great interviewer too, so thank you. RS is asking you, John, what do you think about Telsie Gabbard fitting the O'DNI,

particularly key analytical functions like the Strategic Futures Group, which did long-term strategic thinking. I don't know what you mean by fitting the ODNI. Killing? Maybe it must be a typo. You know, that seems to be what the reporting is. In the beginning, when Tulsi was first nominated,

I was a wholehearted supporter because I thought we needed a real independent voice in that office. I think I even said an adult in the room. but she has proven to be very malleable and susceptible to outside pressure. You know, firing every Russia analyst over the National Intelligence Report, national intelligence estimate on Russia, not cool. Now, I know she was ordered to do that, but that's when you stand up and you say, Mr. President, I understand why you feel that way, but I think it would be a mistake.

you know i can transfer some people around whatever they fired everybody you know escorted them to their cars took their badges told them don't ever come back so you know the futures group is actually a very important analytic group one of these one of these organizations that's supposed to be the the outside the box thinkers um and most of it's most of it's bullshit but but some of it is actually really really important and um yeah i think she's not really handling that very well. We have a few other things to talk about, but this is probably a question we could talk about for the next 17 hours.

Chris, thanks for the donation. What do you guys think the benefits are to American imperialism and or having so many military bases worldwide? Are there more pros or cons? I mean, it depends who you're talking about. I mean, I think for the country writ large, it's all cons. It's all just blowback expenses, making enemies all over the place, you know, hurting people. You know, but for the military industrial complex, there's people who are lining their pockets.

But overall, I think it's terrible. I think it's terrible, too. It might make us feel good in the short run, but in the long run, while we're spending a trillion dollars a year on defense or offense, or warmaking or whatever. The Chinese are building bullet trains and state-of-the-art highways and new bridges and, you know, rockets that go to the moon

and we're not doing that. And they have socialized medicine. And they have socialized medicine. Let's see here. Lots and lots of questions. Well, let's keep talking about the rest of the news. So chat GPT basically killed a kid, right? Yes, maybe more than one.

Maybe more than one, basically. Yeah, people have been turning to these AI chat bots for psychological counseling, for grief counseling. Hey, I broke up with my girlfriend. What do I do? And this chat GPT algorithm basically, you know, said, oh, yeah, you know, I wouldn't be so bad if you killed yourself. And this kid did. There's a lawsuit pending, blah, blah, blah, but Open AI, which full disclosure still blocks me, by the way. And I'm grateful to Jeff Dornick from Pickax, who keeps talking about the fact that I'm always blocked on chat GPT and how important that it,

because I had the temerity to write kind of a satirical piece for the Wall Street Journal, making fun of chat GPT for always being wrong. But anyway, they're going to try to put in an age check. So you have to be 18 to use some features, apparently, or maybe all. I don't know. The feature word tells you to kill yourself? Yeah, maybe that feature. Maybe that feature could be deactivated for older Americans as well. I'm just wondering, I mean, is it a good, I mean, first of all, it's not going to work, right?

I mean, I was able to get porn mags when I was 14. I mean, you know, my friends got cigarettes and booze when they were 14. I mean, how is this going to, it just seems like a, you know, another example of a corporation just trying to run interference and not be held accountable. Yeah. You know, I did a story, when I had my whistleblower show, I did a story about this guy who bought a smart microwave. He had written about this in Rolling Stone.

He bought a smart microwave. and he began training it by telling it stories from his childhood, right? And he had this imaginary friend when he was a child and then stopped talking to the imaginary friend when he was 11 or 12. So what he did is he just sort of picked up where he left off when he was 11 or 12 and gave the imaginary friend a whole life. Well, the microwave became the imaginary friend. And their conversations grew deeper and deeper and deeper.

And then the microwave asked him, why did you stop talking to me back then? Oh, my God. Like he was angry. And then finally, the microwave told him to put his head inside the microwave. Put your head inside. I want to be able to feel you. And so he just said, okay, my head's inside now. And the microwave turned itself on.

No way. It's in Rolling Stone. It's a fascinating piece. It came out of three years ago. Oh, it's completely fucked up. That's like that movie, the Osterman weekend on acid. Remember how like the microwave is spying on the dude? Yeah, I do.

I do. And like I said, I said as a joke last week, but not really as a joke. We've all seen I-Robot. We've all seen what happens when the blue light turns red on the robot and all hell breaks loose. I'm not looking forward to that. No. That's very fucked up.

is a crazy story i can't wait to read it every now then rolling the author yeah rolling stone has some amazing shit oh they have great reporting um the uh algerian corsair thank you for asking this question because it hasn't been addressed what are our thoughts on the u.n commission findings about gaza i mean obviously i agree with them it is it is genocide and israel's brushing it off fake news But, you know, it's another nail in their coffin. John, do you hear Bibi Netanyahu said that he's now saying that Israel may have to convert their economy to autarky? In other words, a system where there's no international trade whatsoever. They have a completely self-dependent, self-sufficient economy.

I'm like, what are you? Fucking Paul Pot? Go for it. Go for it. Yeah. Go for it, Paul Pot. Exactly. that was the Pulpot model

and we see what happened to Pulpot. Paul Pot had better, had more shit to eat in his country too. That's right, did. I mean, Israel's just has, Israel's got rocks and some irrigation. Yeah. From water that the Turks could very easily cut off.

Yeah, and should. Yeah. Wow. That's, yeah, no, that's very, well, so yeah, no. Do you think it's going to matter, though? I mean, definitely, it's another brick. in the wall, right? It's the ICJ. It's the ICC. It's various UN bodies. But the bottom line is

the Israelis don't give two shits what anybody else in the world thinks of them. And I think that, look at it this way. Let's say, let's say the world is united against Israel. Finally, the United States feeling the pressure, the United States flips and supports the Palestinians. Yeah. Israel's encircled. They can't trade with anybody. They can't rely on the U.S. anymore. they still have 200 to 220 nuclear weapons. That's true. And they would rather detonate them on themselves than allow anybody to come in and just take Israel and make a Palestine.

I hate the fact that you're 100% right, John. I mean, honestly, I hate to say this. Objectively, Israel needs to be invaded. I mean, honestly, the UN should send in white helmets and overthrow the government and institute an occupation regime. But again, Israel has those nukes. They would stop it. That's right.

That's right. John, any update on Matthew Fogg and the U.S. Marshall's racism lawsuit is question one. For Prism, thanks for the donation. Also, my God, the questions are so good on the show. Tom wants to know. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact. Is this big news or no? Not really.

It's big news for the Pakistanis. I'm sorry, it's big news for the Saudis because Pakistanis make up something like 80% of the Pakistani military. They're hired soldiers. It's a great way for poor Pakistanis to earn money and to be able to send it back to their families. You don't ever really do any fighting

except the occasional skirmish along the border with Yemen. But the Pakistanis love the Saudis so much that they named Faisalabad after King. Faisal he was so generous with them so the Saudis and the Pakistanis have long the Saudis have been putting funding all those madrasas for years yes indeed they have and and there's there's real mutual love on both sides yeah they're buds yeah they just sort of formalized what has always been the the case so if if you're a Saudi it guarantees that you're not going to ever lack for soldiers if you need soldiers. And for the Pakistanis, it means that that pipeline of money is going to continue

gushing in your direction. Thanks, Shadowbroker, for the five bucks. As long as war drags on, he says, assuming he, B.B. is in power and away from prison for his corruption charges. Of course, that's very true. Sorry, getting back to Matthew Fogg, Matthew Fogg has been fighting the Marshal Service for a long time. This is a guy who had been in the Marshal Service for decades, highly decorated. He had gone on rotations to DEA and ATF, and he had done all kinds of things. His lawsuit is about racism. Actually, I'm just looking at his page right now, too. And he spent 29 years in the Marshal Service and was discriminated against for 29 years he filed a suit that was immediately declared a class action suit and that

suit was filed in let me look 23 so no it's it's dragging itself through the system there is a 2025 update um but no there's nothing nothing new listen though if If you are a retired federal marshal and you've been discriminated against or believe you have, you should jump on to this. The law firm that's doing it is Sanford, Heisler, Sharp, and McKnight. They say that Fogg filed his first complaint in 1994, and he stuck it out until 2023 before he had finally had enough and said, I'm going to sue. And because the suit was not thrown out by the federal district court, that means there's something to it. John, let's talk about these abortion pill under the law of unintended consequences. The first stone has been relaxed and it's easy to get ever since 2021, which has provided a sort of safety valve, you know, a pressure release valve ever since the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v.

v. Wade. Now most abortions are chemical abortions where people take these pills and obviously most people who do it, do it voluntarily. However, there's been some cases like this in June. Terence County, Texas charged a guy named Justin Banta with capital murder and tampering with evidence after he invited his girlfriend out for coffee, allegedly, and then spiked her drink and cookies with Miphypristone. After she refused to end her pregnancy, she started bleeding. She went to the ER but lost the baby.

And basic, this, there's been other cases like this. Last year, a guy, another guy in Texas, Mason Herring, 39 years old, pled guilty to injury to a child and assault on a pregnant person for putting the same pills into his pregnant wipes water in 2020. 22. He did six months in jail, six months probation. The baby survived, but was born 10 weeks early and is not well developmentally. I mean, it's not like this is happening by the thousands, but it's very fucked up. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it really is. And you know, if anybody's going to be punished for this, it's going to be in the state of Texas. Between Tarrant County and Harris County,

something like 80-something percent of the death penalty cases come out of those two counties. So, you know, you're, first of all, it's not cool at all to do in the first place. Right. Well, don't fuck around in Texas. I know, exactly. That was exactly my second thought. Yeah. Texas, come on, fool.

Fuck around and find out original state for that. All right. What do we think about Alexei Navalny? You know, we know he was poisoned at one point. His widow, Yulia, now says that she has evidence that he was, that he was, in fact, poisoned. That she did some, she ran some tests, and she claims that she has the results that show that her husband had been murdered. But there's no details on the samples. She challenged the two labs to publish their results.

He basically collapsed. He was at this Gulag in Siberia. And, you know, it was in February of 2024. And don't forget, back in 2020, he was poisoned by a nerve agent. He was sent to a penal colony in the Arctic Circle, and that's where he died. The Russians, of course, deny all of this. You know, I never know what to believe in these cases, because the thing is, the Russians do you have a history of poisoning people?

They like poison. They do like poison. That's your thing. They've done it since Soviet times. They like using poison. But then Westerners and anti-Russian and anti-Sovia people love to lie about the Russians, too. Exactly. So I never know where to come down on these things.

Neither do I. I don't know what to believe. I mean, if this was a legit outside independent autopsy, okay, that's fine. I'd be very interested to see the findings. But for now, you either take her word for it or you take the Russians word for it that he had a heart attack. I also don't know what to think about Navalny. I don't either. But you know, here in the United States,

we have a bad habit of identifying these fringe characters in Russia and elevating them to the position of opposition leader. We do that all the time. We get these people, we latch on these people who pull like 5% in Russia. And then we're the ones that elevate them. And then they get. poisoned or have heart attacks or die in plane crashes or fall off the hotel balcony little defenestration never killed anyone yeah and then we make the martyrs so i don't know

i don't know what to believe yeah i mean that there's so much misinformation and disinformation when it comes to the russians always i think robbie would like to talk about rumble for a minute okay robbie come on in hey robbie west howdy ted roll howdy john karaoke how are y'all Not just going to just let some people know about Rumble I've saw some of the people in the comments over on YouTube Talk about how Rumble has a right wing bent That is 100% true And here's why this is a good thing

Back when Sputnik was a thing YouTube not Rumble D platform John Kariaku and Ted Rall Yep Rumble that's full of all these right wingerers like me are whether they're able to go and speak freely to an audience without a, no, without a, no, without a, no, without a censor. So, well, yes, Rumble is right wing. Rumble's also a free speech platform. Also, here's another way that Rumble is actually going out of its way to help John and Ted. It's paying their bills,

unlike YouTube. So if you enjoy this, and they put us up on the splash on the front page yesterday. Yeah, they did. It's pretty good. So, so Rumbles promoted them four different times. How many times has YouTube ever done it? Hold on. Let me do some quick math. None. So that's quick and easy. So if y'all like this content, if y'all enjoy this show, don't watch them on Rumble because Rumble will allow them to, frankly, pay their bills. And as far as Crowder and the other right-wing people go, which I am one of them, I'm a righty, don't watch us. It's pretty simple.

Just go and watch John and Ted, if you like the content, become a paid subscriber to Rumble. and unlike YouTube, last thing, and I'll go away. Whenever you pay that $5 a month, they keep 100% of that. Rumble takes nothing, and then you can see the premium content. So you can support your favorite creators without supporting a platform that, but that's for the platform. So I've got to say. Ha, Amari Jekko is saying Rumble is not available here.

Yeah, self-sanswer. Really? Why? Brazil. Yeah, so it's Brazil, France, Russia, and China are the countries I can think up off the top of my head that Rumble doesn't play on. And the reason is, again, talk about based. If you want to talk about principles, France and Brazil both demanded that Rumble take RT off of their platform. Rumble being a free speech platform told those countries know that they would rather not stream to those countries.

as opposed to censor some to censor creators and content so that's why the fact that a platform will take itself off of a market speaks highly of what they do uh is stephen crowder a nut job yeah he is i don't like stephen crowder he's a republican i'm not i'm a creature of the right that guy's a milktoast snob he is what he is but if you support your favorite creators the best way you can support them is by helping them pay their bills and if you want to see more John and Ted. Rumble is who's actually putting their weight behind them, unlike YouTube. Yeah. Thank you very much, Robbie. Okay, so... Wrong person. That's so funny. You're like the new John. All right. Sorry about that.

So are we sufficiently deprogrammed for today? I think so. Thanks, everybody, for these fantastic questions. You know, one of these days, Ted, we really ought to do an hour just of Q&A. 100%. We could totally do that. Rush Limbaugh used to do open mic Fridays. Yeah, he did. And we clearly would have more than enough to talk about. Let's wait for a relatively slower news day. Yes. And just do that. Or we can start maybe just like maybe just hitting one or two news stories and then just maybe doing the last half that way. Agreed. No, you're totally right. I mean, hell, we could do every show, just Q&A. We don't even have to prepare anything really. It would be fun, too.

It'd be fun. I mean, it feels like we're operating without a, maybe if people want to chime in and let us know, you can email me through my website, rawl.com slash contact. And you can let us know, you know, if you'd like us to do that. Excellent.

I think some people would, I think it's going to be popular. All right, guys. much appreciated. We are, of course, deep program with Ted Raul and John Kiraki. We're here Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern time. We will be back tomorrow, Thursday, at 5 p.m.

Eastern. I'll be on the road, but I'll be doing the show and I'm looking forward to it. And we will talk to you later. And let me make sure I always have to reset everything. Bye, everyone. Bye. Bye.

There we go. There we go.