DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “France in Chaos”

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou start your week with a federally-driven crisis in Portland, where 300 California National Guard troops were federalized over that state’s governor’s objections, and were due to be sent to Oregon because Oregon's governor refuses mobilization. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek complains about "breathtaking abuse," saying there is no insurrection or national security threat. But a federal judge has blocked the invasion of Portland…for now.As predicted on DeProgram, militant moderate Sébastian Lecornu is out as French prime minister after 26 days. President Emmanuel Macron has three options now. He can appoint another prime minister. He can once again dissolve the National Assembly and call for new elections that either the far Right or the far Left would win. Or he can resign himself.Financial expert Aquilles Larrea joins to discuss the effect of the government shutdown on working Americans.A shocking development in the Middle East, where Trump's Gaza deal is being shoved down Netanyahu’s throat—and Bibi says he likes it, at least according to Trump. Israel will be forced into phased withdrawals and Gaza City bombings will stop at once in exchange for the remaining hostages. Hamas hasn’t agreed to disarm or give up control, but Trump tells Jake Tapper they face “complete obliteration” if they refuse. Is he referring to a nuclear option?In the Pacific, Fiji confronts a "national crisis" with HIV cases exploding 11x to 5,900 in a decade, fueled by meth-fueled "bluetoothing" blood-sharing and needle shortages amid conservative rule. Assistant Health Minister Penioni Ravunawa warns of 3,000+ new infections by year’s end, with 41 pediatric cases under 15 last year and experts fearing an "avalanche" from underreporting and resource gaps, as UNAIDS urges stigma-free testing.Finally, a wild situation roils the Philippines as a disinformation storm rages, with Duterte loyalists spreading rumors of fake CIA-backed coup plots and military defections on social media to distract from corruption scandals, eroding trust in Marcos's regime.

Good morning. Thanks for watching D-Program with Ted Rawl and John Kiriaku. It's Monday, October 6th. John, how are you doing? Nice to see you. I am tired and so hot, I feel like I'm melting. Thank you for asking them. Even at this hour? At this ungodly hour? The sun's just coming up behind me is the Sea of Cortez. And oh my God, I don't think I've ever been so hot in my life as I've been the last week. and then a tarantula came into the dining room last night during dinner so how does that how do you handle that

I mean do you do you kill it do you shoo it out with a broom what do you do all the women shouted for you know nobody to kill it so a couple of guys and they picked it up with a dustpan and put it back in the desert where it belongs that is my my my

my ex wife Taiwanese, she told me, but growing up in a little house with a dirt floor, Taiwan had an incredible population of poisonous snakes at the time. Highest density of poisonous snakes in the world. They had it, including the two-step, so named because you took two steps and then you're finished. Anyway, she said they'd come in during tsunamis. And they, not tsunamis, during, what was that big place? No, like the big, like the hurricane, but they, like...

Oh, typhoon. During the typhoons, that's it. I knew it started with a tea. Anyway, they'd come in during the typhoons because it's raining constantly, and they're trying to get some shelter, not drown. And they come into the house, and she remembered her grandmother, who was born under Japanese occupation, just sweeping them out of the house with her broom.

Like, you'd be gone. So that's how much things have changed, John. When we were kids, all the women would have been like, Kill it, kill it. Right. No, it's the guys that want to kill it. Anyway, all right, well, we got a lot to talk about, and we have even a tighter show than usual.

So we should just go ahead and get to it. As we predicted here on the program, Sebastian Le Courneux, the French Prime Minister, basically lasted about as long as Liz Trust in the UK. Out after 26 days, France in total chaos, we will get into that. There's this contretem over the National Guard where Trump tried to federalize the California National Guard in order to send them to Oregon. Currently, the Oregonians didn't want them there and because the Oregon governor refused to allow the National Guard there to be federalized.

So it's all currently in the courts. So the invasion of Portland is off for now. Yeah. The Gaza deal. Oh, my God, John. This is a great, I can't seriously can't even believe. This is probably like, I think no one saw this coming, including us. And Fiji has a national crisis.

HIV cases are running rampant there. And something we need to, even though it's very remote, something we need to keep an eye on. And in the Philippines, a story I'm dying to hear your take on, but basically Duterte loyalists are spreading rumors that the CIA is going to overthrow the government of the Philippines in order to basically try to like con people into supporting Duterte again. I guess. And we have joining us, a friend of the show, Achilles Larea, is going to tell ordinary Americans, this is about 20 minutes from now, what they can do and how they'll be affected

by the government shutdown. So what first? I want to ask you first about France, because this is something that I just can't wrap my head around. So France has been in this state of chaos for at least a year now. Yeah. I'm wondering, foreign policy aside, defense and NATO policy aside, just for the average Frenchman on the street, what does this constant turnover in governments mean? Presumably, French citizens are still taking advantage of government services, but you can't just have a never-ending collapse of government after government after government without there being some sort of weakening of the whole.

system. How does this work? Well, I mean, France used to have a very dynamic legislative system, and in fact, they have an annual constitutional amendment convention to amend their constitution, very different from what we do here, right? So the main takeaway is that nothing gets done. So in the same way that Americans have always complained about their do nothing Congress, the French legislature just is not getting anything done. There's no laws being passed, right? So anything that literally anything that's a concern can't get done. This major controversy now is about kind of something near and dear to the French heart. What kind of country are we going to be?

Are we going to be a country with lots of rights and privileges and a bused social safety net? Or are we going to be a country with austerity that looks more like the United States with longer working hours and fewer social guarantees? And that's mainly what this is about. It's a clash between the left and the right, both kind of want to have different versions, but they prefer in older France, the more classic one. And then the centrist moderates represented by Macron and his allies, they want austerity. They think that basically it's time to cut back on these programs. They point to the need in their view to massively radically increase the defense budget

because they think that Russia presents this massive threat as embodied by its invasion of Ukraine and its possible threats against Poland. And so they think, and with Trump distancing himself from NATO, they think that, you know, they need more money for defense. And so it's two radically kind of incompatible visions of what France ought to be. And it's fascinating because in the French parliament, you know, the snap elections were called, I think it was April of last year. two-thirds of the French parliament is either far left or far right. Then in the middle, they're not even a third. There's less than a third is the centrist, it's the center-right, the Macron people being squeezed, right?

Basically, the one thing the left and the right can all agree on is that Macron sucks. And so that's kind of like where things are. You know, Sebastian, Lecoigne, I mean, we all knew it was madness when Macron basically just kept trying the same thing over and over again. He's the fourth prime minister in just over a year. And we're going to go for a fifth one, Marine Le Pen. You know, when Marine Le Pen is the reasonable calm person in the room, you know, you have a problem.

Seriously, right? And I wonder how many people around the world realize that. The France has gone crazy. Here in the United States, we complain all the time like, oh, Trump and Kennedy, the U.S. has gone crazy. The same thing's happening in France. It's true. Except it's the moderates who have lost their minds. Yes.

And so Marine Le Pen said, well, the only sensible thing to do here is to call an election. Correct. That's correct. That's how the French system works. You have to call an election. I mean, look, I don't know what Macron was thinking. He called an election, which basically, you know, in the parliamentary system, is a vote of confidence. Well, you lost the vote of confidence, right?

You didn't get it. So now you're supposed to yield to the people's will. Instead, he's like, I'm blowing that off. You know, that was, I was wrong. The thing that's also baffling is we all knew the way that vote was going to go. And it went just the way, it just, you know, went just the way the polls said. There was no surprise here. But, you know, it's like Macron's living in a fantasy world.

And so, yeah, it's going to be, look, I can't imagine that behind the scenes in Elise Palace, that the powers that be who really run France, like the, you know, the CEOs of the big, you know, concerns, they're the big entrees, that they're not calling up Macron and telling him, look, you've had your four shots, okay? Stop. I mean, he's, I mean, look, I can't even believe he's still president. He ought to resign. That's one of his options.

I'm surprised that that isn't a part of the public discourse right now, because it seems like that's the only thing that's going to save the French. political system. I mean, yeah, or, you know, you can have an election, and he still should go, because if they hold an election and they honor the results, right? The right is united. So if that goes the way, like the polls show, then Marine Le Penh should, or her party, I should say, because she's not allowed to run for anything, will have a victory in this election.

She'll win a plurality. However, last time the snap election was held in April. it was La France Insoumise. It was the new popular front, the New Front Popular-Nouveau, which won, right? Which is an alliance of all the left-wing parties.

They won, and then second place, not by much, was the National, was the Rassamblee Nacional, Marine Le Pen's party. So that's probably what will happen again. I think the new Popular Front, which was an alliance

of convenience, will reassemble. We'll come back together. They'll reform. They'll get the band back together. And then they should probably win. But it's going to be, it doesn't, it's going to be, the left is going to have to work with the right. And I think they can. I think they have, both the left and the right in France are currently both have a populist orientation and they both have a nationalist domestic agenda orientation. So they can probably set aside their disagreements on social issues and you concentrate on the economic and, you know, and sort of relational issues. I mean, this is about the definition of what France is. And that's what's, and also this,

this chaos, the French hate it because the French are very ordered people. They're not Italians. It's like, you know, these people, they're buttoned up tight. And they think it makes them look bad. They think that like, you know, everyone knows we're a well-ordered, majestic society. it's like if we're if we're not doing things properly we look like shit i think that's what this is about so the god i thought greek politics were were bad uh there was a poll in greece over the weekend that greece had its first tax cuts in more than 20 years at the end of last week and that was supposed to provide a bump for the uh for the conservative party there's been no bump and the reason there's been no bump is and this is of course unique to greece there was a

train derailment a year ago in which 57 people, mostly young people, were killed and there have been no arrests, there have been no firings, and people are ready to overthrow the government because of this. They don't give a shit about any tax cut. They want justice for the victims of this train crash. It's like the same thing. Only the far right is moving up in the polls. The far left is moving up in the polls. The mainstream, you know, center right and center left, nope. It's not working. Yeah, the train thing got me thinking about the Epstein files. It's sort of like distract. We all know. We're all thinking about the same thing. Address it. That's right. That's right. Thanks for the donation from F. Sousseau just wanted to say, this is funny. France and Chaos

dogs are sleeping with cats, McCrone sleeping with a man. No, he's not. Okay. She's definitely a lady. If you've done any time in France, a lot of ladies there look like that. Okay, it's just like they're not all, I mean, she's an attractive woman, but she's not my type, but, you know. She's a handsome woman, as my mom used to say. That's exactly right, John. That's exactly what she is. She must have had something. I mean, Macron's an incredibly good looking dude, and she's a lot younger than her.

Of course, she also beats him, so there's that. Yes, she does. Which war comes first? Iran or Venezuela, Fuso wants to know. I think Iran, you know, for us, we're going to have to manufacture some kind of provocation for the Israelis, they're ready to bomb Iran at the drop of a hat. Always. And I'll tell you, a lot of really very well-informed people are very worried about this.

I've interviewed a half a dozen Iran scholars over the last three or four weeks. They all think it's almost imminent. I agree with that. Yeah, I think it has to be. we should just talk about Gaza now. Yeah, yeah, you should. Because it's all related. And I think this, I think Iran is the linchpin.

It's, it's BB's get out of jail free card, literally. So over the weekend, we saw a development that, like, it's absolutely insane. So basically, Hamas dragged their feet, like we said here on the program, that they were going to do. And then they came back and they basically said, like, in the middle of the news dump on late Friday, early Saturday. okay we're going to work with that we have a few little nips and tucks but thank you president trump we think you're awesome we love you we're we're all for your plan you're we love you just a few little details to work iron out but you can have all the hostages back which when you think about it why not right who cares what they're going to do with them what yeah they've served their

purpose up until now they serve no further purpose and more of them will just die every time the Israelis keep bombing Gaza City. So the, so they're going to let them go. And then they're like, well, there's, the Israelis rightly are saying, well, there's the detail of whether Hamas will still be in charge of the Gaza Strip. And Hamas is like, well, you know, Trump goes immediately, balls to the wall on truth, on truth social. Thank you, Hamas.

You're awesome. You agreed to total peace. Peace in the Middle East. Nobel Committee, get going. And so then now suddenly, who would have seen this coming? I mean, Hamas are the master chess players in all of this from day one. And they have played it correctly. They played Donald Trump.

And now Bibi's like fucked because if he says no, which of course he's going to say no, then he's the only human being on the planet who's basically stopping Middle East beast. and then he's even least popular, less popular than he is now. And, you know, domestic Israelis already hate him because he's corrupt and he doesn't care about the hostages. So his only way out is he has to go big against Iran because then the country has to unify against its commander and behind its commander in chief.

Oh, the Gaza gets back burned, back at table, all eyes on whatever's burning in Iran, right? I mean, is that right? Yes, I think that's exactly right. You know, it's funny because usually it's Netanyahu who outsmarts everybody else on these issues. And this time, he got played, and he got played by the likes of Donald Trump and Hamas. I'm pretty entertained by the whole thing. Oh, me too. It's totally like, get out the popcorn.

I mean, the thing is, though, this makes me, this is where we see the rift between Trump and it and BB, right? Obviously, behind the scenes, B.B. is irritating to Trump as he's been irritating to previous presidents and to, you know, and in general, like on TV. Everyone just, he's in, he must be annoying the shit out of Trump. And at a certain point, this is his way of like Trump paint painted him into a corner. And, and now he's like, got, well, I was going to say no way out, but he has a way out, but it's ugly. There's a way out. Sure. there's a way out and that is that Netanyahu has to get with the program this thing needs to

wind down like now but then he goes to prison well yeah if he yeah I mean he very well could I believe he should but yeah deserves it he deserves it yeah but I mean maybe I still think he should he should be allowed to flee into exile that's the graceful exit here um you know go I mean, he would have to come to the United States. Yeah. Can you imagine Netanyahu, a permanent resident in the United States? Oh, my God. He would never keep his mouth shut.

I know. It's true. No, I mean, no, he's got to, maybe we can send him to Fiji. Yeah. What the hell is happening down there? Oh, well, let's get into that because we have our guests coming in on a few minutes. So it's really crazy. So there is, so Fiji has a national.

crisis due to HIV. So basically, it's like unsafe sex, needle sharing, and something called Bluetooth thing. So otherwise known as hotspotting, John, I had never heard of this. I don't get out much. This terms, this refers to where an IV drug user withdraws their blood after a hit and then injects it into a second person, who then does the same thing for a third and so on. So the director of an NGO called Drug Free Freeji has personally watched it. She saw, she was, she was walking along on the street in Suva, which is the capital, and saw seven or eight people huddling together. I saw the needle with the blood. It was right there in front of me. This young woman, she'd already had the shot. She's taking out the blood, and then you've got

other girls, other adults, already lining up to be hit with this thing. It's not just needles they're sharing. They are sharing the blood. Bluetoothing is also popular in South Africa and Losotho. These are countries with the world's highest rates of HIV, and it's become really popular now in Fiji. So there's a drastic, and also the problem is politically, John, there's a right-wing government now in charge of Fiji that got rid of needle exchange programs, and they're trying to, and so they're cracking down instead of treating the problem as an addiction, they're treating it as a crime. And we, you know, we've all, the West has already been down this road before. But that's, that's make, that's exacerbating the issue.

You know, so their HIV caseload has increased 11 times over less than the last 10 years. They're also doing meth. So there's going to be three thousand, you know, it's a small country. There's only going to be three, there's 50, there's going to be 3,000 or more new infections by the end of this year, including last year there were 14 cases under the age of 15 and then there's massive underreporting according to the UN so you know we may start seeing these you know a resurgence of HIV AIDS that you know probably that we didn't expect to ever see again because you know things due to prep and everything else here in the West is well under control I mean AIDS is not it is not a death sentence in the

West no but it is in places in the developing world. you know i'm i don't even have words to to respond to this uh you know that now tired a phrase play stupid games win stupid prizes i mean this is this is it right here you have to live under a rock to not know how hiv is spread and that in a country like fiji or lesotho or south africa is indeed a death sentence i have a i have a relative who is HIV positive um and has been for 25 years and she's the she's the picture of health oh a lot i know several people like that makes it all seriously yeah yeah yeah if you keep it under control i mean it's crazy there are a lot of people who are HIV positive who have a unprotected sex

with a married partner who and the married partner never gets it because they have it so their viral load so well under control. I mean, one detail of the AIDS crisis here in New York in the 1980s that goes underreported is the fact that a lot, yes, it was a lot of gay people. But a lot of those gay people didn't die because of sex. They died because of sharing needles. There was a massive problem with IV drug use in the gay community in the 1980s in clubland. And that's underreported. I mean, Ivy drug use is, I mean, you know, you've got to use clean needles if you're going to do that. Don't do it. But if you're going to do it, you have to do that.

I mean. That's right. That is right. John, question for you from Nicholas Franco's. For you, can you give an update about the Rogan podcast? You said it was going to be on October 9th. And he's asking because you're in Mexico right now. So he's like, what's up?

I have a lot of travel coming up. Yeah, I'm going to fly out. out a day after tomorrow on the 8th and arrive in Austin overnight there. We do the show on the 9th. I leave the morning of the 10th and the show is supposed to drop on the 10th. So everything is still just the way it was when we first. Everything is A. Okay. By the way, it's just a little bit of business. If you're on YouTube and you're looking to donate while we figure out the YouTube donation block, which is probably going to be. resolved in a few weeks. You can PayPal us a donation. No pressure, but we really do appreciate it.

And we can use it. The PayPal address to send that to is deprogrampodcast at gmail.com. So we should talk about the Philippines, John. So basically, you know, Duterte is in court where he belongs. Yeah, and yeah, total scumbag. And anyway, so his loyalists are spreading rumors throughout the Filipino military, basically saying that the CIA is planning to overthrow the government. And I guess the idea is that only a strong man like Duterte could stop such a thing. And it's all, it's about distraction. And it's, but it's getting a lot of traction in the Philippines.

And I mean, look, obviously you could see why, you know, The Philippines has a long history of U.S. involvement and interference, but there's all these plots against the, you know, current president, Marcos. And, you know, and it's just like the, it's all fiction, but it's, you know, it's, it's working. John, you're a little bit frozen there. I hope you can hear me. If you need to reboot, you can reboot. Let's see here. Let's see if there's something else we can talk about while John. John, if you can hear me, you should read.

There you are. Sorry. I guarantee you that the OD is, you know, number one, Russia, Ukraine, number two, China, number three, terrorism, Gaza, that kind of thing. the Philippines is not on the list, the operating directives list, because nobody gives a shit. Our relations with the Philippines are quite good. They're very close.

Much to everybody's surprise, Bongbong Marcos has turned out to be a perfectly fine president. But the problem is that the CIA has such a long history of overthrowing governments and of interfering in the foreign relations of other countries. that these kinds of unfounded rumors can grow legs. And that's what we're seeing here. Listen, the point, though, is that Duterte is already, I should say, in custody, in the custody of the International Criminal Court. He's not going anywhere, and they're not going to be able to save him.

He's going to have to pay for what he did. Yeah, right. I mean, he's out of their clutches, right? I mean, the Filipino military can do anything they want. I mean, they can take off. They can launch a coup. They can do, they can, not going to make any difference, right? Yeah.

I'm just wondering, I mean, they know that, right? They know that. They're desperate. That's what this is. It's, it's super interesting. I just thought it was like more than like, you know, it's not, it's not like an actionable story, but it's definitely a story about just the, the residual effect of, you know, over a century of American colonialism in the Philippines, which is right where we go.

where we got really into waterboarding for the first time was in the Philippine, fighting Filipino insurgents. Question for, did you see the $55 billion Saudi takeover of electric arts, the gaming company? Why would the Saudis be interested in this? I mean, I think they just, I think it's about the money, John. I think they just, I mean, it's a, gaming is incredibly profitable and electronic arts is incredibly profitable.

But do you think there's an intention, intelligence-related aspect to this as well? Okay, John is, your signal is frozen. I'm going to go ahead and bring in our guest, and John, maybe you can, like, reboot, and I'm going to bring in Achilles. Okay, Achilles, thank you very much for joining us here on D-Program with Jed Roll and John Kiroku.

John's got a little, a few little tech glitches piping in the program from Mexico. Um, as soon as he pops back in, he will, I will pop. I will, uh, I'll bring him in. Thanks for joining us. Aquila's, uh, oh, there's John, to be here, Ted, always pleasure. So, um, John, hopefully your signal is back. So we have Achilles on. I thought, uh, you know, he was in the back. Hey, yeah, yeah, just get to just get to it. So, um, the government shutdown is now in its fourth or fifth day. It's not going to stop any time soon. Um, we're going to start to see, you know, obviously.

some effects like in terms of parks closing down and government services getting slower. But economically, in terms of how this is going to affect ordinary people, particularly ordinary working Americans, can you tell us a little bit what you see in the days and weeks ahead? And I do think, and John thinks, too, we're looking at weeks. Yeah, I agree with that. We may be looking at a month on this again, you know, simply because both sides are so entrenched in their beliefs, in their actions. You know, they're not even talking right now.

So let's talk a little bit about what happens to a local economy when this happens. I'm going to take New York as an example. Federal, if we just look at the federal sites here in New York, the Statue of Liberty, if you look at Ellis Island, they're both controlled by federal agencies. And a lot of money is made for tourists who come in and they go to these sites. But a lot of money is also made in the local economy. So if you can imagine, you're coming to see the Statue of Liberty. Now you can't go see.

If you're lucky, the boat will pass by a little bit, you know. And you get to the boat stops in front of the pedestal, you know, the footing, and then that's it. You know, it is a chain, what I call a ripple effect, you know, a chain reaction of events. Because when people stop coming here, which may well happen, you don't know. But if they stop coming here, they stop spending local businesses suffer. Not the big corporations, not the, you know, the conglomerates of sorts. but the local economy starts to suffer. When the local economy starts to suffer, the ripple continues.

Then small businesses have to start laying off workers. Small businesses are laying off workers. Then we're seeing an economic slowdown or shutdown of sorts. Now, I'm not predicting that that's going to happen, but the longer this drags on, the more likely it will have an effect. But now remember the last time this occurred during the Trump administration, it was 11, it cost the United States $11 billion or more. I think it was almost $13 billion the last time this happened. So absolutely seeing a ripple effect here.

We're going to start seeing it within the next few weeks. The longer that this goes on, the more this gets dragged out, we're definitely going to feel the pain at some point. point, along with that we're already seeing an economic slowdown. You know, we're seeing higher unemployment. We're seeing inflation starting to creep up. That's why the Fed is doing its cuts right now and being proactive with that. You know, by the way, the Fed has always been right. You know, I mean, they've been wrong a little slow to the punch.

I was going to say, not in the early 80s. Yeah. I mean, they've been a little slow to the punch. sometimes. Yeah. But that doesn't mean they're wrong. Why are, why are mortgage rates not coming down even though the Fed's cut interest rates? Yeah, that's interesting, Ted. The reason why that has happened is because the third year mortgage is not tied to these overnight rates, which is what the Fed is in control of, all right? The 30-year mortgage is more akin to the 10-year mortgage.

bond rates out there. And those have been moving up and down, but they are not as volatile as per se T bond, you know, that goes out there, you know, and they are not correlated with the Fed funds rate as well. So you cannot look at those two. You know, it's kind of like an apple to an orange. You can't look at those two and say to yourself, hey, you should be coming down. As a matter of fact, let's actually step back, Ted. What I would tell you is that can you imagine it you know the Fed starts cutting rates as they did mortgage rates actually went up and the price this is the one that nobody's talking about the pricing on homes has gone up as well because they're trying to yeah they're just trying to bump up as

much as they can, you know, citing a potential demand in the market. So that, you know, that's the reason you're not seeing lower rates at this point. Now, is it going to happen? Absolutely. Absolutely going to happen. But you're going to see things, rates spike up first. Is there also kind of an anomalous sort of lingering post-COVID work at home effect where people are leaving cities and going out to the suburbs and rural areas as well that's feeding the housing market? Well, we're seeing that, but I think it's more to do with a lack of inventory, you know, in the metropolitan areas, you know, we're seeing a... People are locked into low interest rates from their previous purchases and they don't want to move. Correct. They don't want to sell and then all of a sudden, you know, they had a 2% mortgage or a 3% mortgage and now they're facing...

seven percent you know that's the last thing you want to do so that's another reason another reason is cost of living you know the minute you get out of the cities the cost of living is going down although it's changed and the cost of living is actually starting to go up in the rural areas so you're not getting that big benefit as you once it and property taxes in a lot of areas have skyrocket double digit increases we seeing in the metropolitan areas, not as much, but definitely if you go not suburban and rural are seeing property tax increases of above double digit percentages on the way up. So that's another thing that's slowing this economy down. So high unemployment, higher inflation. And the

worst part about this is there is no easy fix. We might be talking about the R word right now, which is a recession we might be talking about way overdue right absolutely we thought this is going to happen two years ago honestly you know but now we're talking about stagnation right where you're having this negative growth along with high unemployment along with higher inflation and this is going to create this environment of stagnation where nothing good can come of it we saw it in japan in the 80s We've seen it around the world at times when companies and countries do not react to the environment that's happening around them. You know, we're seeing it being created here by tariffs, by trying to take our economy back 80 years. It's to me, there is no rhyme or reason for this.

I think we're just putting ourselves in problems. I think we know better than this. We're a better country than those countries were that hits stagnation. That doesn't mean we haven't gone through it before, but we're a better country than this. And we need to implement policies that make sense that are not just for the privileged few. Okay, so give me an example of one or two of those policies. I mean, when we're talking about tariffs, who ultimately pays for the tariffs? We do.

Don't kid yourself. You know, when the electronics are coming in from abroad, guess what? You're paying a 50% higher price than you did a month ago. And it's going to drive some businesses out completely and they're going to lay off their workers. Correct. So you're creating more unemployment. Now, I also want to caution, remember, we are entering a time the last quarter of every year companies do massively. layoffs to get the fat off the books. It happens every year. It's like right now, if you look at

October, you know, in September October, the market traditionally gets weaker because hedge funds are selling off, mutual funds are selling off, large investors are selling off their, you know, they're declaring their gains, declaring their losses, harvesting their losses for the year. So, it's making a bad situation worse, in my opinion, doing these tariffs without really any benefit at this time because it's tied up in the courts. Courts have already said that these tariffs are not legal and it's, you know, they're waiting for it to go to the Supreme Court. But the courts have already ruled on this. So we have to see what's going to happen next on that front. Aquila, Frasmataz commenter wants to know, are we looking at a deflationary trap like Japan in the 90s?

You know, I hesitate. Japan was a different story because Japan, the Japanese were not flexible in their policies. And just the society had a lot of ingrained in flexibility to respond to the conditions. Bank at that time, I can totally validate that. It's part of the culture. Yeah, it's ingrained in the culture from the get-go. You know, there are some positives, there's some negatives, but absolutely we're not the same as Japan during that time.

We, however, are creating our own mess here by, you know, putting electronics, 50% higher by being in a, you know, we're already seeing that slowdown and we're creating even more of a slowdown. We need to ask ourselves why. Who benefits from this? Why are we doing this? And what can we do to adapt? Achilles, what can an ordinary person who is not in a position

to set or affect policy do in order to minimize the damage or even thrive? Yeah, well, I mean, Personally, you want to take a step back, look at your finances, make sure that any subscriptions that are unnecessary get off the books. You also want to make sure that any discretionary that really doesn't make sense at this point needs to come off the bucks. Then you need to continue to invest your money in your 401K. if you have some disposable that can go into an IRA to lower your tax consequences and such, albeit, if you're 50 and above, you should be doing the catch-up provisions in your IRA in 401K. If you're 55 and older, you should be looking at a Roth 401K.

And you can reach out to me. I could talk to you more about that if you're interested in that kind of deal. So the last thing I would say is to be strategic, to be smart with your money. Most people do things by default, not by design. If you take care of those two things and you work with a good advisor, you should be able to write out the storms relatively comfortable. Achilles, producer Robbie West, you know him well. How's a question for you?

I'm popping him on. Robbie, go ahead. not just a quick question you do that's a quick question boss man uh so you mentioned how the tariffs are are a bad idea that someone's profiting from it but it's it's not the workers so what my question to you is if tariffs are a bad idea then what can a government do what for example gree somebody they're exporting their their younger population because there's no work there the country isn't a demographic winter our economy here here in the u.s is falling is collapsing so if terrorists aren't off the answer, what can the government do to incentivize companies actually bringing jobs back to this country?

Because there's been other answer besides piss off, we don't care about you. Because that's what we're hearing right now. So what's the answer? Well, there's no simple answer. But what I would say is, can you imagine if companies started implementing programs to retrain workers to adapt their skills to a new modern era, which I don't see happen? Can you imagine you create, quote, unquote, a new deal of sorts for these workers? The government could implement where they say, we are going to upgrade your skills to work in the modern era, and, you know, you're going to do X amount of work for the government, but we're going to pay you. And we're going to pay a decent living wage and set an example to the corporations that, unfortunately, at times just the wages are stagnant they're not going up can you imagine you know i i talked to

a buddy of mine who works in ups and he was telling me back in 1988 he was getting x amount of you know salary he says that the guys right now haven't seen a big raise you know per se that keeps up with the cost of inflation in the better part of 20 plus 30 plus years. So, and that's not just you, yes. I mean, our system doesn't view people as a valuable national resource. It views them as just trash to be exploited.

Yeah, that's been happening quite some time. And, you know, the government needs to lead by example. If we create some sort of new deal that could retrain the workers, get them to work, not make blue collar work a dirty work, because that's something that's happened over the last, I want to say 40 years, where, you know, being a plumber, being electrician, you know, steam fitter, all these different professions are now lacking individuals. to work to apprentice there was a formal training program it still is there was a formal training program to become those that didn't take as long didn't take as long as college that's for sure and right from the get go you would make a ton of money within the first two years working in these professions how does immigration how does immigration depress wages we say a lot in Western Europe

and here in the United States. Is that a valid concern for blue collar workers? I mean, if you can import them from around the world, why do you to train your own? Yeah. You know, I guess the issue ends up becoming, all right, we start bringing in these workers as we did

in the past. Then we say to ourselves, yeah, we don't need to bring anybody in, but it's not a sustainable solution. We need to have a solution that's sustainable over time. You know, I mean, people, if you think about it, H-1 visa person is coming in. Yeah, you know, you have some great work ethic.

You have some great employees. But then at the end of the day, they go home. And when they go home, they build the capital, the human capital over there in their respective countries. And what are we left with? Oh, we've got to find somebody else. You know, that's not a way to sustain. And they often took a job from an American. Akela, thank you so much for joining us here.

We love talking to you, but we have a lot more we have to get to. But we'll talk to you again soon. Achilles Larea is the CEO and co-founder of Larea wealth management here in New York City. And always a pleasure to talk to you soon. And hopefully, the ride won't get too bumpy too soon. Thanks, Achilles. Thank you. Okay.

Okay, so, John, hopefully your signal is a little more stable. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, what are you going to do here? There's a question from Nick about the $55 billion Saudi investment in electronic arts. Why would the Saudis be interested in gaming besides the fact that it's insanely lucrative growing industry? I think that's the whole reason. I think that this takeover, if that's really what it is, or, you know, enormous investment is because EA has long been wildly profitable.

I invested in EA, I'm going to say 20 years ago and made a little bit of money. I think that that gaming is such a big deal now. And it's mostly a cash cow that that's what they were interested in. That's why they moved into it. Got it's a good investment. Oh, yeah, for sure. Just a reminder, by the way, please watch us on Rumble. and please like, follow, and share the show.

You're watching Deep Program with Ted Raul and John Kierakou. And we are these days around Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern time. And just a reminder, we may be sticking to some sort of a morning schedule going forward. We had been thinking about going back to the afternoon. But it looks like the morning's popular. But if you have thoughts about that, feel free to email us or at the same address as our PayPal. You can email us at Deep Program Podcast at gmail.com. add here, and we'll continue the discussion. Hey, football fanatics, are you ready for some

prime time NFL action? Tune into Westwood One for all the gridiron glory you crave, from jaw-dropping touchdowns to game-changing plays. Don't miss a moment of the excitement. Catch every snap, every tackle, and every victory on Westwood One. You can listen to the NFL on the NFL app, on Westwood One Sports.com via Westwood One station streams, or by asking Alex at open Westwood one sports. If it's the NFL, it's on Westwood one. Okay. A few other questions to get to.

What would... Well, that was for Achilles. This came, John, this question came up in my interview about you, which, by the way, is a Rumble premium, five-part episode. If you want to know all about John's fascinating life, and it really is fascinating. We did a five-hour, five-part,

one hour each interview where I interviewed him about his life in pretty much chronological order. And this episode came up. So subscribe to Rumble Premium if you haven't already. But you mentioned that your first wife didn't know that you worked for the CIA and divorced you when you returned to the U.S. from Athens. When did she learn your real job and how did she react? Oh, John. Okay. John, did you hear all that?

No. No. Okay. Okay. So the question was, your first wife didn't know you worked for the CIA. She divorced you when you turned to the U.S. from Athens. When did you learn she learn about your real job and how did she react? Oh, she knew I worked for the CIA, but that was literally the extent of her knowledge. She never learned what I did for the CIA until my book came out, which is also when she stopped speaking to me, which is a day that I sell. celebrate. But no, seriously, though, she never, she never knew what I did for the CIA on a day-to-day basis. Never knew it. Okay. So that's that. Oh, and by the way, it's just a little other business. John's interview with me, four-part series, because my job, my life is 80% as

interesting as John's. Your life is very interesting. The first hour it drops in drops today, according to producer Robbie West. Thank you very much, Robbie, for that info. So that's also a Rumble Premium thing. Let's see, nine minutes left to go. All right, we've got to talk about this National Guard situation, which I think is becoming increasingly worrisome. So basically, we all know that Trump's been sending the National Guard

to places like Washington, D.C., and Chicago, where someone's already managed to get killed. And now he has his, he's drawn a bead on Portland, Oregon. He asked the governor of Oregon, Tina Kotech to federalize the National Guard and allow or to authorize the state National Guard to go to Portland. She says, listen, there's no problem here that the police can't handle. and we don't need or want them. Portland, obviously, is famously a very democratic, very liberal city, very progressive.

And so obviously this would be very incendiary if it were to happen. So as a work around, the Trump administration reached out to the California National Guard, which it's already federalized, and said over the objection of that state's governor, Gavin Newsom, we will send the California National Guard to Oregon. John, I've never heard of such a thing. And now a federal judge has blocked that move, but it's only a stay, which means that, you know, there's going to be hearings about this. It's going to work itself out in court. But this is a grasping, sweeping attempt to change the relationship between the federal government and the state national guards.

You know, when it comes right down to it, I hope I'm not. not overstating it. What we're seeing is state militias invading other states at the behest of the president. I think I've told you I went to visit a friend in New Jersey a few weeks ago, and his parents were there when I went to visit. And they said, you must be so glad to get out of Washington. And I said, you know, it's always nice to get out of Washington for a couple of days. no no we mean with the crime situation and i said there's there's really not much in the way of violent crime in washington certainly not in the areas where you know we would be and they looked at each other like well what about what the national guard was sent to take care of and i said that's

that's a red herring there's no violent crime in washington there's like drug dealer on drug dealer crime sure but there's there's no crime in washington well we're seeing the same thing in Portland. We're seeing the same thing in Chicago. These National Guardsmen are not going to go to, you know, Cabrini Green or whatever Cabrini Green is now that it's been torn down and bring law and order. This is all for show. It's all so Donald Trump can feel like he stuck it to the libs. You know, he made the libs cry and all this other nonsense. But something you said, Ted, that's very important people are dying now right a woman was shot in uh in chicago it could be worse in uh Portland which trump last week called a hellscape a hellscape at war with itself it's like no

it's not you're just making this shit up there's no rhyme or reason to it even in congress nobody's saying anything like you know oh we need to go liberate the hellscape that is Portland, Oregon. It's all it's people are dying because of it. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, though, if this works, I mean, the problem is that not only will Trump have sweeping powers that he never, the Constitution never intended for him to have, and not only will, is there a strong possibility that he'll abuse those powers, but those powers will rest in the executive branch forever.

Right. I mean, basically, once those, once the executive sees his power, it just keeps expanding power, as we've seen, really, since, you know, since Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Wars. I mean, it just, they just keep going and going and going. Hey, Clovis, what are you doing here? So, it's, you know, this reminds me a little bit of the, you know, the war over the city of the Toledo Strip, right? when the Ohio and the Michigan militias went to war with each other in 1835. Yes. And the Michiganians fired, the Michigan militia fired at the Ohio militia over this border dispute. If you ever look at that border between Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, that should be a straight line. And the reason that it's not is because of this border dispute.

It's fought over it. Yep. It's true. it's a yeah it's it's very very serious ohio also has a just ohio was an aggressive state though ohio had a border dispute over the ohio river with kentucky it claimed that like because it was called the ohio river that it owns the ohio river all the way to the shores of kentucky and the kentuckians are like fuck off but it never came to blows there do you think that we're going to get to a point where we see

National Guardsmen refusing to be deployed. God, like, I mean, hell, we've seen more of that in Israel with Refusenix and the IDF. And by the way, God bless them and thank. Yeah, that's a very brave and very risky thing to do. And noble. And before we ran out of time, there was a great article, I think it was in the Washington Post over the weekend,

maybe in the Times. I think it was the post about suicides among ID. F soldiers. It's triple. Off the charts. Off the charts. I don't think we'll see that in the, you know, I don't think that tradition exists here. And I think the kind of people who join the National Guard, I hate to say this. For the most part, yeah, some really just want to, you know, they want to save people from floods and stuff.

And there's just good people who want to help. But I think for many people, it's just a job. You know, it's like, this is a job that has some benefits and maybe I can get some training and become a cop later or something like that. I don't think, you know, I could be mistaken. I've never served with those people. But I don't think we're going to see that, you know, there isn't really a long, I mean, we didn't see those kinds of resignations after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We should have.

I mean. Yeah, we should have. Yeah. So, yeah, it's very, very disturbing. And I guess the, yeah. So I guess before we go, Let's handicap the situation in France. I think this is going to get worse before it gets better.

You know, the right move is Macron should resign, but he got to resign. But he won't. Yeah. No, he won't resign. He can't govern. It's going to devolve further. I mean, it's kind of like the national, it's crazy. It's like our mayor here in New York.

He can't even run for, he can't get his own party's nomination. He can't run. run for re-election. He's at 8% in the polls, but he's still the mayor. Why hasn't he quit? Yeah. I mean, nobody wants him. No sense of shame anymore. No, no sense of shame. Absolutely. John, always a pleasure. I hope you have a good day filming out there in, I know, on the mosquito goes. Oh my God, it's hot. Yeah. And anyway, we will be back here on deprogram with Ted Roll and John Kirooku tomorrow Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. We'll be bringing you the latest on all the news from around the world and everything else we feel like talking about and everything

else that you feel like talking about. Thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you later. Bye, John. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you.