DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: Guess Who’s Scouring the Dark Web?

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

On Friday’s episode of DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou, where political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou discuss MI6’s launch of a dark-web portal to recruit spies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) massive expansion plans, Trump’s polls showing disapproval of his crime and immigration policies, Israeli airstrikes on a media complex that killed 31 journalists, and a judge dismisses Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.MI6: MI6 launches a dedicated dark web portal today to recruit spies globally, targeting Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as announced by outgoing chief Sir Richard Moore in Istanbul. The secure messaging platform Silent Courier aims to bolster security by facilitating anonymous contact, with instructions available on MI6’s YouTube channel. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper emphasizes the portal’s role in keeping the UK ahead of adversaries. ICE Expansion: ICE is seeking 300 new office spaces nationwide to support hiring over 10,000 immigration officers and lawyers, with the General Services Administration forming special teams to expedite the “ICE Surge.” The expansion targets red states and cities, though no leases are signed yet. Trump’s Not-Good Polls: A Washington Post-Ipsos poll today reveals public disapproval of Trump’s plans to deploy the National Guard to cities beyond Washington, with a 10-point margin opposing his crime policies. Americans disapprove of his handling of immigration, economy, and foreign wars by double-digit margins. Despite this, Republicans hold a 2-to-1 edge on crime trust over Democrats. What’s going on?Israel Kills Dozens of Journalists: Israeli airstrikes on a Yemeni media complex on September 10 killed 31 journalists, the deadliest attack on media since 2009, per a Committee to Protect Journalists report. The strikes targeted Houthi-connected outlets in Sanaa, also killing a child. The IDF claims the site was a Houthi propaganda hub.Trump’s Lawsuit Tossed: A federal judge in Tampa today dismisses President Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, calling the 85-page complaint “impermissible.” Judge Steven Merryday criticizes the filing’s structure and intent. Russia Violates Estonia’s Airspace: Three Russian military jets breached Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes today in a “brazen” act, per Estonian officials. This follows Russian drones entering Polish airspace last week, heightening NATO tensions.

Happy Friday. You're watching and listening to Deep Program with Ted Rall and John Kiriaku. I'm Ted. Hi, John. I'm John. Hey, how are you? I'm trying to figure out my head here in my hotel room because there's this like piece of wood over. So I'm trying not to make my head too big. We had a conversation about relative head sizes the other day. And I'm like, okay. I'm trying to like, apparently there's some camera that adjusts these things for podcasters automatically. And I have one of these. I'm very excited. I ordered it. So we'll see if it works. It should be there by the time I get back to New York next week. John, lots to talk about the one thing that I promise not to talk to you about unless you wanted

to talk about is this, do you have this K-pop story? It's pretty funny. K-pop story, no. And I have a niece who's absolutely nuts for these K-pop kids. Well, so there's some K-pop band that is a virtual K-pop band. In other words, no one's ever seen them. There's just basically avatars. Oh, my God. Anyway, someone in Korea went online and said, you know, we don't know. They draw themselves as good looking as cute, but they could be ugly.

So the virtual band sued for defamation. It's like, you can't call us ugly. You don't even know that. And the defense was, well, they could well be ugly. We don't know that. Could be. They could be. Although Koreans, I.

me. Listen, I get to be very careful. I've never met an unattractive Korean. Okay, there. They're good-looking people. They're good-looking people. They really are. So probably if they're really, they might not be Korean, really, the K-poppers. This is like, what was that band? The Alan Parsons Project, right? That no one, they never toured. Nobody knew what they looked like or maybe they didn't tour. Yes. Anyway, so they were the Alan Parsons project of, of Korea. Anyway, they won the case. They were each awarded about $70 each, the members of the Avatar. $70. Yeah. So a very, a victory, not a major victory, but a victory, nevertheless, we're being called ugly. Wow, wow, wow. Okay, good for them. We're going to do the whole hour on that.

Yeah, yeah, why not? Why not? Sure. Okay, listen, we'll get into the implications of Korean law. All right. In real, seriously, though, obviously this MI6 dark web portal has your name all over at John. So there's no way we're not talking about it. Well, let's start with that. MI6 has decided to establish a presence on the dark web for the specific purpose of trying to get Russians who are on the dark web to allow themselves to be recruited by MI6 so that they can spy on Russia. I have to say, M.I.6 is a couple of years late to the game because the CIA did this years ago.

It's nothing new. And God knows the Russians are on the deep web, as are the Chinese and the North Koreans and the Iranians and the Israelis and everybody else who does this kind of thing. So it's newsworthy for a day. And they may even recruit somebody. But the thing is, look at it this way.

The dark web is a very dangerous. place, not just because of what goes on there and what you can buy or, can you explain for people who, who kind of pretend that they know what the dark web is, but have never, like me, have never been on it and wouldn't know how to access it if we wanted to. It's my understanding that you have to access it through the tour browser. You can't just type in dark web in Google and it takes you there. It's hard to get there. And it's a, it's kind of a hidden part of the internet where you have to now.

navigate a path to get to it. And that's where you can buy a fake passport, order drugs to be delivered to your house, guns, guns, child pornography, human trafficking, you get a slave, you know, sent to you from Mexico or Mali or whatever. It's a very dangerous thing. I know, right? Who couldn't use a slave? But it's a very dangerous thing.

And is it all like that or is there anything on there that's not illegal? Oh, no. There's a lot of stuff, like, for example, 4chan, 8chan, whatever it's calling itself today, is there. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. But the thing is, is the FBI is also there and the CIA is there and NSA is there and MI5 is there. And I mean, everybody, all the law enforcement's there. Look at all these guys like Kim.com or who's the guy that just got a pardon by Trump who, who, who, who, who. got like, you know, 75 years for selling drugs on the dark web, all the major national law enforcement organizations are there as well. And so if you're, if you go to the dark web and, you know, order drugs or engage a hitman to kill your spouse or whatever, which people have tried to do, law enforcement is going to be on you like white on rice. It's a really

dumb thing to do. I was momentarily tempted to download the tour browser just to see, you know, how it is to use it. And then I, no, I don't, I don't want to poke that hornet's nest. And so I ended up not doing it. Yeah, I feel that you and I, you especially, but me too. We have targets on our backs as it is. It's just not worth the trouble. Don't need the trouble.

No. So, okay, so my understanding is that the U.S. used this to try to recruit spies in China. And the Chinese intelligence agencies busted the encryption. and basically caught all the Chinese traders who tried to sign up. Exactly right. That's exactly what happened. Could that happen again? 100%.

And maybe by multiple services or organizations. I wouldn't mess with it at all. I really wouldn't. So if you're, I mean, what are the chances of this working, right? I mean, Russian people that I've met are not stupid and they've been living under authoritarianism their entire lives. they kind of know that you know it's not

smart to I mean they've got to think the FSB the GRU etc they're there you know I mean it's like probably I mean is anyone going to really is anyone worth recruiting

actually going to chance this thing with MI6 you have to plus you have to look at the the instructions are on YouTube so you go on YouTube and you know the FSB is like watching the YouTube with you and they're like

huh look at ted exactly look at ted ski exactly um i can't imagine that anybody's going to get away with this i i can't even imagine it no no i just don't believe so you think it's an incredibly boneheaded idea i do i think it's a terrible idea terrible idea unless you want to unless you're so desperate that you're willing to risk spending the rest of your life in prison for eunage. Don't do it. Are Russian spies hard to recruit? Yes. Yeah, just like Cubans are because their counterintelligence is so good.

Most of the spies that most of the Russian spies that the CIA has recruited over the years have been double agents who had been run against the CIA or MI6 by the Russian services. Yeah, the Russians are very good at this kind of thing. they know exactly what they're doing that's yeah i mean that's what i would have to think uh killer rabbit 123 thank you so much for the donation why is my six less murderous than the cia or the french that's a good question given that the uk has a similar history to france yeah in helping to found the cia yeah um you know it's funny because it's funny because the the british military British occupation forces over the year have had a terrible reputation for being murderous, right? They, they, look what they did in South Asia, in India and Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Look what they did in sub-Saharan Africa with their colonies there, Rhodesia, for example. They killed plenty of people. But when it comes to the services, you're right. They really don't kill people. When I was last in the UK, I was there in, I was there in March. And I was giving my speeches around, around Northern England. And the guy that that was my conversant, right, we're on stage, you know, he'll prompt me with a question, then I tell the story, et cetera, et cetera.

He was a retired MI6 officer. And we talked about this. And he said that on the working level, MI6 officers really don't like the CIA, not because we're not nice guys. We're all nice guys. We all get along well. We go out to dinner, have drinks, hang out, whatever. But it's because the CIA is just so quick to kill people.

And he said, it's just unseemly. It's ungentlemently. You just decide you don't like someone. So you kill him. You don't try to develop him. You don't try to recruit him. You don't try to neutralize him in some non-lethal way. You know, plant child porn on his computer and get him arrested or something.

At least you're not killing him. But the CIA is perfectly happy just to blow somebody's brains out without giving it a second thought. I mean, is that just a subset of America's general culture of violence? You know what? I think it is. And that's a part of it. And I think another part of it is that 9-11 gave us this carte blanche to do whatever we wanted and to not have to answer any questions about it. Next thing you know, we've got a torture program.

We have a secret prison program. We have an extraordinary rendition program. We've got Guantanamo. We've got Abu Ghraib. Nobody's ever paid any price. And not really. A couple of slobs in Abu Ghraib did. This slob did.

But not any of the leaders, the creators of these programs. And like I said, it's ungentlemanly to the Brits. They just have not been able to figure out why we did this. So since you brought up gentlemanliness, what about ladylike behavior. Myra Gobnaz wants to know, what is the role of, think about this answer while I read an ad. What is the role of women in the spy world? And I have an ad to read for us, and off we go. Sorry about the little delay. This is smoother when Robbie does it. Hey, Hey, everyone, tired of paying outrageous prices for your medications while other countries pay a fraction of the cost?

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Call 1-888-350-1353 or visit blockbusterhealth.com. Americans shouldn't have to choose between their health and their wallet. Check it out. Yeah, yeah, good. Okay, that's a good ad. I like that ad. Me too. Women in the spy world.

There's a story there. So women in the spy world. until 1994, women were discriminated against at the CIA. Women just did not rise up to the top levels of the CIA, with a couple of exceptions in the Directorate of Intelligence. In the Director of Operations, they did not rise to the top until 1994. In the late 80s, CIA women filed a class action suit against the CIA, saying that they were discriminated against because they were women.

In 1994, a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, not only ruled that, yes, they had been discriminated against, he also ruled that, not ruled, but he also said in his ruling that he had never seen a case where the defendant had so clearly documented his own crimes against the plaintiff. And so what happened was every woman in the CIA at the level of GS, I think it was 12 and higher, got $100,000 and a two-grade promotion. Now, that's incredible because you're sitting next to somebody today who's your assistant and the next day there you're superior, literally. Now, in theory, that was a good thing. In practice, it wasn't necessarily a good thing because it promoted a whole bunch of women like Gina Haspel and Mary Margaret Graham into the Senior Intelligence Service. And they were utterly unqualified to be there.

And so post-1994, but especially post-9-11, men and women were equal and women were just as likely to be murderous animals as men were. Like Gina Haspel. Like Gina Haspel. I mean, we called her bloody Gina Haspel for a reason. She was a, she, she watched, she personally supervised waterboarding. Yeah, she sure did. She flew all the way out to the secret prison just so she could sit there and watch a torture session just to get her rocks off. Not for any other reason.

There's no reason for somebody who's SIS 4 leading an entire army of paramilitary people to fly out to a secret prison. in the jungle to just sit in the room like this and watch a man be tortured. Utterly unacceptable. Buddy Darma wants to know, John and Ted, any comments on TikTok hiring former Israeli military officials to moderate TikTok and them cracking down on free speech against Israel and its interests? You know, Ted, when I read this, I wanted to believe that it wasn't true, but of course we have to believe that it is true. I think that there's an international program.

When I say international, I mean U.S., Israel, probably others, UK, Canada, whatever, where our First Amendment right to freedom of speech is just simply not being respected. It's being squelched in the name of Israel. I was at this event last night in Chicago I put on Facebook. It was the first annual independent journalism awards. And a couple of people gave very pointed speeches in which they said that we're looking at this whole Israel thing the wrong way. We're looking at it as a freedom of speech issue. We should be looking at it as a freedom of religion issue because the White House at all have now decided that if you,

you don't, if you don't support Benjamin Netanyahu's version of Judaism, that you're anti-Semitic. And what that is, is that's the government interfering with the practice of a religion. So maybe, you know, instead of jumping up and down and yelling and writing op-eds about how our freedom of speech is being squelched, it's not actually speech we should be focused on. It's religion. That this arch-conservative Zionist brand of Judaism is being forced down our throats. And if we don't like it, then tough shit for us.

Well, yeah, no, it's interesting, right? I mean, because we saw that giant split emerged during the campus protests over Gaza, where the Zionists basically have scrubbed anti-Zionist Jews and big groups, like Jewish Voice for Peace from like the historical narrative.

It's like they don't exist. even though they're really very significant in the United States. You know, a lot of anti-Netanyahu, anti-genocide protesters are Jewish people who are absolutely horrified at what's going on. That's exactly right. But basically, it's sort of like a subtext, a subset of the fact that these are, you know, reform Jews. And, of course, you know, hardcore, like ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox and conservatives don't consider them to be the real. thing. They're like, you guys are fake and, you know, there's even some, you know, even the right of return isn't automatically guaranteed to an American reform Jew, although it is

for any other variety of Jew, right? Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. Yeah, it's, it's rough. What about Lulu wants to know? Ted and John, there's a rumor that Novichok, the nerve gas is an MI6 invention. What do you think? I don't know. I have no idea. It was my understanding that the inventor of Novichok was a Russian scientist who was greatly celebrated and honored during his lifetime for this invention. I hadn't heard that it was British. It was always my understanding that it was Russian and that they were proud of it. Well, this is, okay, here, this is a tough question. This is a brutal question. Brian wants to know. I wonder if the Mossad would kill an American inside of America.

Oh, what makes you think they haven't? Oh, my God, really? I would bet money on it. Do you have anyone specifically in mind? No, but it's been my experience over the course of what now has been a very long career that the Mossad does literally anything it wants, anywhere at once against anyone at once. And it's almost impossible to protect yourself. We know that they, are spying on us in practically every defense contractor in America, just like the Chinese are spying on us in every major university in America, in Ph.D. programs in the hard sciences, the Israelis have penetrated or are attempting to penetrate every single defense contractor

in America. And because they're Israelis, we don't have the guts to do anything about it. We just shake our heads and say, wow, that's a real shame. that shouldn't happen yeah well that's that's wrong sky this guy has a one for you john what's stopping pakistan from getting it from giving its nuclear program to saudi arabia oh i i would bet my next paycheck that they have what really listen in the the saudi started seeking nuclear weapons technology in the 1980s this isn't this is not something that's new and um the rumor always always was that it was the Saudis who paid for AQ Khan to buy the technology from the North Koreans. So nuclear technology was sold by North Korea to Pakistan for AQ Khan to develop

the Pakistani nuclear program using Saudi money. This is something that, gosh, I have to be careful on this one. This is something that has always been of interest in the intelligence community, but not of enough interest for the intelligence community to actually do something about it. And I'll tell you the reason why. The reason why is that the conventional wisdom has always been if the Saudis were to develop a nuclear weapon, it would be for use against Iran. And we didn't have a problem with that. We should have a problem. It's a very dangerous world. And we should have a problem with that. Yes. Oh, thank you very much for the $20 donation from Mount 16 and 7.

Hi guys from Mike in Nottingham. Do you have any thoughts on Peter Mandelson, UK ambassador to Washington, being fired by Kier Starrmer over his friendship with Epstein last week? You know, it's that he lied about his friendship with Epstein. Officially, he was like, yeah, yeah, I knew Epstein. I met him once or twice, you know, years ago,

of course, years ago before all the problems. well no no you were joined at the hip with epstein you went to his house you went to his island god knows what else he did but the thing is it that he lied about it he lied about it to keir stormer he lied about it in in the course of his uh his investigation for his security clearance and you know this stuff's bound to get out so you better nip it in the bud right now and just yank him and that's what happened he'll he'll never he'll never be anything of import again in the in the british foreign service um speaking of epstein patrick white

says i'm so hung up on the line in the trump letter to epstein where he said enigmas never die yeah what the heck is what on earth does that mean p f patrick asked is that a reference to something it's like a code i'm stumped you know i'll tell you something i wrote one innocuous memo one time in let me think in the spring of 2002 and i i used some terminology that i always use i said i know this sounds crazy but and then i said what i wanted to say it didn't sound crazy it's just it's just something that i say sometimes when i'm writing an email next thing i now, FBI comes to my office.

I'm at the CIA, and the FBI comes to my office. They're like, what did you mean? What did you mean by this? And I'm like, I don't even remember writing it. Okay, think, because this is important. And it was about the Scooter Libby case. I happen to be the note taker in this meeting where Cheney came in and lost his shit because he was screaming like a crazy person.

and he said, why didn't I know that this woman was a CIA undercover operative? Why do I have to read about it in the Washington Post? And I went back and my boss said, listen, you got to send an email to all of the executive assistants asking who knew that Valerie Plame. I never met Valerie Plain. So I didn't know Valerie Plain was a deep cover officer. I knew Joe Wilson because I met him in Baghdad. when he was the Charger de Fair. So I'm like, I know this sounds crazy,

but apparently Joe Wilson's wife was a deep cover officer for us. Do you know, blah, blah, blah. It was the wording that kind of got me tripped up. So the point that I'm trying to make is sometimes you just dash something off in an email and you don't give it a second thought. And then later on, people are like, whoa, is that a code? Because it kind of looks like a code. And the FBI thought that I knew something that I didn't know and that why did I say it sounds crazy?

It's not crazy. You know, Scooter Libby is going to go to prison for this. I'm like, oh, shit. By the way, I was in the Scooter Libby trial. I was CIA officer number four. Ah, I'll look up with that transcript one. I testified. Yeah, I testified behind a sheet.

I mean, it's funny, you know, you should say that sort of, that story reminds me of this. So I had a, you know, I did a lot of freelance illustration as a cartoonist. I still do. And I got a gig doing a book cover. And it was just, it needed a skyline. So, and I thought it would be fun. So I drew the skyline of New York City. There's the city court building, the Twin Towers.

This is before, several years before 9-11. And I drew, I drew a plane flying into one of the world tricks. This is from like the 90s, man. It's like 96 or something. See, but then conspiracy theorists would say that raw, he must add something to do with it. Yes. He's predicting.

He's telegraphing in advance. Yeah, he knew. And so I got like, yeah, I got these. So, yeah, I got a lot. Every now and then, I still get queries about it. Wow. You know, it's from 9-11 type people. And it's like literally.

I just drew it. I mean, I just drew it. You know, the Simpsons is like that, Ted, where the Simpsons have predicted accidentally, 20 different major world events over the course of 38 seasons. Trump's presidency, Trump's presidency being a big one. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the thing is if you have a series that's on for over 30 years, right? I mean, you know, you're going to cover so much ground. They just signed up for their 38th season. Oh my God. Yeah. And if you've had, and if you know, and in my case, if you've drawn, on like 5,000 cartoons, you know, you're going to probably hit a few, there's going to be some coincidences. Christopher Guest and I follow each other on Twitter, and I DMed him one time, and I asked

him, I said, are you tired of, you know, sitting in the, sitting in the writer's room every week? And he says, we haven't even seen each other in years. He said, I live in New Orleans now. We all have little studios in our houses. We all voice our characters. We send them to L.A., and some engineer puts them all together. He said, we haven't seen each other in years.

That's funny. Yeah. No, I mean, God, I got to sit through a read-through, a Simpsons read-through once. Oh, my gosh. You're kidding me. Yeah, Matt McRanning was like, come over to the lot. Of course, you know, Matt Graning. Yeah, no, he's, well, he's a very, when you're, he's very open to cartoonists.

It's like, he goes to comic on. Yeah, he was, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people, and, you know, a lot, it's funny, a lot of, speaking of coincidences, a lot of people think I'm influenced by his, his drawing style. His drawing style definitely predates mine. Yeah. But I never got to, I never lived anywhere where his cartoons ran. And, you know, I saw them later.

It's sort of like this, just this week. Like a weird coincidence, right? So I drew a cartoon and the image is basically like this steroidal, like, ice meets like World War I Hun with the spike helmet, mega steroid violence. And it's basically, it says GOP. and he's like beating a woman with spikes, you know, a bat full of spikes over the head. And he's like, kumbai, I wanted to, my original idea was kumbaya, motherfucker. But he said, it's like, kumbaya, libtard scum, right? And, you know, about, you know, I mean, we know what this is about.

Anyway, I inked the cartoon days ago. And then I, you know, I was going to color it and I sent it today. This morning, I see the Kevin Callagher of the Baltimore Sun. and the economist, he did a cartoon. It's not the same, but it's got that image. There's two of those kinds of images with Trump in it. And I'm kind of like, damn it, if I'd seen that cartoon, I would not have drawn this cartoon.

But I'm also, I love my cartoon so much. I'm not sending it out. There you go. You know, Matt Grinning did a cartoon in the early 80s called Life and Hell. Life and Hell. Thank you. And it ran in city paper. and I remember one, it was so stupid that it made me laugh out loud and it was so funny to me that I still think about it.

It was titled The Meanest Dog in the World. It was two panels and it was a it was a drawing of a dog on a chain and the chain is stretched as tautly as it was go. John, that's not Mac Greening. It's not. You're going to freak out when you figure out who that is. That's David Lynch. No way. David Lynch.

yeah it was called the angriest dog in the world it ran in alt weeklies i saw it a same paper it was the same image every week every week so it's two panels like you said it's a bleak post-apocalyptic like where we grew up in the landscape with like a factory in the background with like everything's bored up and the dog and so the dog is like someone says something stupid to the dog like and it's It could be something cultural, right? Just whatever. It could be like, we need more diversity, equity, inclusion. And then the dog is just like, grr.

It's so stupid that it makes me laugh. I can't help it. That was so well done. It's David Lynch. What? Yeah, all you had to do, it's kind of amazing. All he had to do is change the text everywhere. And he got paid.

I was like, what a racket. I was like, what a great. I mean, only years later did I get a rocket that came close to being that good. But, yeah, I mean, oh, man. Ted, we have a, we have a bunch of people to thank. Poonbanger, Poonbanger 69, that, that is, that is great. Poon Banger 69, gifted five subscriptions. Thank you very much for that.

Thank you. Times five. Thank you for that. Thank you. And Angela Falalala, la, la, la, thank you for the $5. Thank you. It helps a great deal. Hey, you know, we should, we should tell our viewers and listeners about our little brag from yesterday.

Oh, yeah. We were the second most watched show on Rumble yesterday, second only to Fox News and by only 50 views. We kicked OAN's ass. How do you like that? We beat Bannon? I'm amazed by it. Yeah, I'm amazed by it. but it's because it's because of these folks right here so thank you very much we're able to brag

because of you guys thank you very much and robbie and robbie is a frigginious when it comes to this stuff i don't know i can't keep all that straight in my mind all this tech stuff no the tech stuff is hard yeah i mean like we're lucky we're still on air right now you know what saying I'm one like retarded swipe away from knocking the whole thing down it's like it's like basically like a cat is it is next year champagne fluids that's right nothing good is going to happen no sir um no it's just a quick note i don't know if you want to i mean we did talk about trump's 15 billion dollar defamation suit against the l a times yeah the judge was so pissed at the retarded way in which it was written

and basically it's a giant editorial Trump style like truth social type rant instead of a properly written legal brief that he tossed it he called it he called it impermissible he was so he was furious now that said he's going to let them the editorial the editorializing that the judge did

himself in basically saying like this like you have no business wasting the court's time like this. It's really worth reading. I mean, if you... That hurts. Yeah, the judges, I mean, basically like, oh, you can refile. I would say it's probably not a good idea to refile this same court. I most certainly would not refile.

But, you know, this is like a normal thing now. It's like every time I get a push notification on my phone or every other time, I look at it. And it's some Trump lawsuit that's been thrown out or some Trump policy that a district court judge has frozen yeah that's that's all it is i mean he's throwing so much shit at the uh you know at the courts at the at the wall and hoping that it sticks the problem is the supreme court let some of it stick yes yeah that's exactly right um okay i want i do have to hit hit this so what do we think about the estonian situation so according to the estonian government uh russian three russian fighter jets We're in over Estonia for about 12 minutes today.

This, of course, follows that incident where the Russian drones were over Poland last week. And, you know, Russians are like, it is mistake. We do not know how this happens. It's most definitely not a mistake. This is the Russians probing. Listen, the Russians are doing very well right now in Ukraine. I had dinner with a bunch of Russian. studies professors over the weekend, Peter Kuznick and a bunch of people who work with him

at American University. Universally, they said the Russians are kicking Ukrainian ass. And that's why there are no peace negotiations right now. They don't need peace negotiations because they're winning. So number one, number two, you do this once and it's a mistake. And then diplomatically, you write a little message, you send it through the back channel. we're sorry we violated your sovereign airspace. We'll be more careful next time. That's not what's happening here. The Russians are probing, whether it's over Romania or Poland or now Estonia,

just to see what NATO's reaction is going to be. And the reaction has been no reaction other than to run to the media and say, oh my God, the Russians violated our airspace. What's what NATO's going to have to do is they're going to have to shoot something down, whether it's a Russian jet and they're not using jets. They're only using drones so far or the drone. I don't know if one drone can shoot down another drone. I suppose that it can. I don't see why not.

If you can load a guided missile, if it can carry a guided missile, then certainly you can. Or I suppose you could do it from the ground. I don't know if the drone generates enough heat to... See, that's what I was thinking. It would be effective for a heat-seeking missile. Yeah.

But that's what's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously it could be targeted, you know, remotely, right? I mean, Yeah. I mean, the thing is drones normally, I mean, aren't drones normally air to surface? I mean, it's... Yes. Yes. They're air to surface. They're not usually, you know, air to air. That's sort of like calls for a fighter jet, I think. I think so, too. But you see, then we get back to that old question is do you... You could also bet you could also bet you could also bet you could also bet you could

also collide your drone into their drone. That you absolutely can. Or you can laser it. If you shoot lasers at a drone, the guidance system becomes confused and it crashes itself. There's a fantastic video. The Russians are good at that. Oh, there's a fantastic video of a student demonstration in Santiago, Chile. If you go on YouTube, it's an amazing video where hundreds of students have those little laser pens and the cops have a drone that's watching the crowd.

and they're all firing their laser pens at the drone and it just starts to wobble and then it just crashes and people start cheering and screaming. It's very effective. But getting back to my main point, this is the Russians actively testing NATO and NATO's failing the test so far.

I mean, John, it's 12 minutes. I mean, that's a long time. That's a long time. Either jet can go five times, six times the speed of sound. you know, Mach 5, Mach 6. I mean, so they're traveling a long way, potentially, in 12 minutes. Yeah. And as one of the, one of the, one of the people here, one of our commenters said,

Brio de Finitif, think, Erdogan shot down a Russian jet for breaching Turkish airspace for just a few seconds. I remember that. Oh, I remember. Yeah, from Syria, right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Stephen Victor Andrews has a good question.

Hasn't the DNI now done her part to pave the way for the prosecution of John Brennan at all? I would think yes, but remember that there is a grand jury meeting in Washington. And so I guess that we're just going to have to wait to see if the grand jury indicts. But remember, we had a conversation about that grand jury where we wonder. why they called a grand jury in Washington. Why not in the Eastern District of Virginia? John Brennan is a Democrat for all intents and purposes. And so why not indict him in a place where he's more likely to be convicted?

I don't understand. Oh, hey, Mike. Thank you for the $20. I row with a former CIA officer. He told me this morning, John was one of the few guys with balls at the agency. that makes my day it's funny when I first read that I thought he said I row with the for CIA officer and that would be fun too that's different that's different that's very sweet that really does make my day thank you I'll tell you one other thing by the way so these were yeah

these were yeah so I'm so so so uh yeah yeah 97 saying no jet can fly mock 5 Mach 6 I don't think that's true I think experimental jets can but you're right um Stevie he says this is these We're apparently SR 71s. They can fly three, Mach 3. So, um, mock 3 is pretty doggone fast. You figure Mach 1 is what, 640 miles an hour, something like that? That's right. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, and, uh, over on, um, where am I, Rumble, uh, was it rumble I saw? Somebody's, maybe not, I can't keep these straight. somebody said it was a it was actually a mig rather than a rather than a drone see and that's that's what's going to be so dangerous is if we're going to be if nato is going to be forced to to try to take down a mig i mean i i don't know what the russians get out of this other than some propaganda and and they get to stick their thumb in in nato's eye which is perfectly fine but is it is it really worth it to send up a mig it seems like a really bad idea i mean you know it's

kind of like it's sort of like north korean like behavior right like hello we're here pay attention to us remember us yeah yeah i i don't get it scott mathes and statute of limitations will prevent any prosecutions for epstein perpetrators according to judge napolitano Judge Napolitano is exactly right. And nobody's going to be prosecuted for what happened with Epstein. But with Brennan, I understand that the attack that they're taking is to accuse Brennan of, well, let me back up. He was first accused of lying to Congress. Big deal.

it's a it can be a felony it's usually not it's usually a misdemeanor statute of limitations is up anyway nobody cares anymore um number two it was some other misdemeanor with congress i forget what it was nobody cares but if what we're being told is true that he actively sought to deny donald trump the presidency in 2016 and then kept that going with the letter you know from the 51 c i people that's an ongoing conspiracy and so the statute of limitations hasn't even really begun to run yet because it's an ongoing conspiracy that's where i think they're going to get it and you know i hate to be that guy that wishes ill on anybody but john brennan is a dangerous sob and i i really do hope that he gets what he has coming to him yeah it'll free up some airtime on msnb yeah seriously

Ugh, MSNBC, their lost cause over there. You know, I, Ted, I switch around the networks all the time. Today I decided to watch Morning Joe for the first time in ages. And they are, they are pathetic, but not just pathetic. They don't realize that they're pathetic. Like they pretend to run and scream and yell about. Donald Trump. And then we read in the Washington Post that Joe Scarborough called Donald Trump to say how sorry he was about his friend Charlie Kirk being killed. What's that all about?

I mean, he's a worm. I mean, he's a suck up. Suck up in the worst way. He always has been. He likes to play all sides. You know, he's he's Vichy. He doesn't have an opinion. He's just, I mean, honestly, if a socialist revolution came out tomorrow, he'd be wearing a a Mao jacket and a Fidel Castro hat and a hammer and sickle all over. You're right. You're right. You know, when Brian Becker and I had our show, I used to watch Morning Joe every day because we would talk a lot about politics. And Brian would always say, John, you watch Morning Joe, so the rest of us don't have to. What did he have to say about this? And the truth was, I was watching it so nobody else would have to. Now I can't force myself through it. it i just can't well it's also liars it's also boring right it is boring yeah and then and then who's that guy that they have on oh my god it drives me crazy the one from boston um uh who got in trouble for plagiarism the plagiarist he drives me insane mike mike mark mark barnacle

attached like a barnacle to the ass of american journalism yes i mean how is it that the dudes pulling down maybe a million dollars a year or or ish yeah you know i mean bloviating i mean he never explained himself i believe in redemption but it's not like he redeemed himself he there was never any penance um you know i mean he did it he was a plagiarist and so oh yeah whatever oh yeah and then lulu's correcting us she thinks we mean MS now she's right oh right it's ms now now i forgot about that it's like the golf of a America. Everything's getting renamed. It's like, by the way, Donald Trump's, we should talk about his polls. New Washington Post poll is out, right? So it turns out that the National Guard in the

cities went over like a lead balloon. So 10% among Republicans. Among Republicans. Overall 10 point margin is against his overall handling of crime. I thought that would have been one of his strong points, they're against what he's doing on immigration, the economy, and foreign wars by double-digit margins. But even so, Republicans trust Democrats more than, they trust Republicans more than, sorry, Americans trust Republicans more than Democrats by a two-to-one margin. So what's going on is that basically just like, I mean, here's my take. I think the voters basically are saying, we don't like, we like the generalized. idea of coming down on crime and illegal immigration, all that.

We don't like Donald Trump's execution. And when it comes to the Democrats, we don't trust them. We think they're completely incompetent and can't do anything. I think that's it. I think you've hit it on the head. Everybody's upset about the current state of politics in the United States. But the Democrats are so weak, so spineless. that as popular, as unpopular as Donald Trump is,

the Democrats are simply unable to capitalize on it. Because they're even worse. They're even more unpopular. Yeah. Donald Trump would still win the election against Harris. Yes, he would. Yes, he would. Hey, speaking of Harris, did you see yesterday that both Buttigieg and Shapiro came out swinging

in response to Harris's autobiography? Especially Shapiro. especially Shapiro. And I have to say, Harris did herself no favors with this book, because talk about spineless, she admits, yeah, I was kind of spineless. Yeah. Yeah. I pretended that Biden was sane, just like everybody else did. Yeah, I should, I probably should have said something in retrospect, but I didn't. And then what, John, I'm going to, I'm going to push back on you. Okay. So, you know, you and I both have read a lot of political memoir. Oh, yeah. You know, I think I probably, we probably agree on which ones are great and which ones are not. To me, President Grant's superb. The gold standard. The gold standard.

One of the greatest presidential memoirs has ever written. I didn't like President Truman, but I like his memoirs. Bill Clinton's very bad. Terrible. But anyway. In part because he wrote them himself.

Yeah, that's funny, right? Well, I do think, though, however, you know, what's usually lacking in the modern memoir is candor. Yes. And I think Harris gave us candor. I can see that. I can see that. Yeah.

And I mean, I feel like, don't write a memoir. Don't write a memoir. And you know what the signals to me. She's done with politics. She doesn't care about burning bridges with Pete Buttigieg because she's never running again. No. I think you're right. You know, one of the things that was most interesting to me was the complaint that

Shapiro had that when he went to interview. for the vice presidency, they immediately didn't mesh. And they didn't mesh. Well, he was literally measuring the drapes already as soon as he got there. Yeah, he was. And he said something, this was the most fascinating to me. He said something to her that he would like to sit in on important meetings of state. Because as vice president, he would need to know, you know, what's going on.

She's like, uh-uh, that's not the way it works. when you're vice president, you don't get access to all the important stuff. It's like, maybe you didn't get access to the important stuff. I was going to say, I'm pretty sure Dick Cheney got access to all the important stuff. The question for Dick Cheney was, do we give Bush access to come into the meeting? That's exactly right. Wow. Yeah, I thought that was very telling.

I thought Shapiro's ask was not only a fair ask. It's also what prepares you to step in in case something happens. That's right. And you end up taking the top job. Well, like Harry Truman. Harry Truman had no idea that we had a nuclear bomb. Yeah. It's like, by the way, because FDR hated him and thought he was a rube.

And cut him out. Yeah, it's like LBJ, who was not an idiot, but was frozen out by the Kennedy brothers. That's right. And, you know, he got up to speed right away, but Jesus Christ. So I thought, yeah, I thought, but I mean, I was sympathetic to her about Shapiro, because Shapiro does, it rung true to me. Shapiro does strike me as a dick. And I was like, I can see him basically coming in like, oh, yeah, I'll be your vice president.

And I, but you know what was missing there. I don't know if it's in the book. I'll read it. I don't understand the elephant in the room about Shapiro is Gaza. I mean, how could she, she would have lost by even more if she'd had Shapiro. No way Shapiro will ever be able to be. a president or vice president in the Democratic Party, not after his bloody embrace of Netanyahu.

The guy was an IDF soldier. It's ridiculous. It's like a bad joke to me that he has the balls to run for president of the United States when he served a foreign country. Yeah. A foreign country that's probably caused the U.S. more harm than any other foreign country.

Yeah. And I'm going to throw in Russia and China. to by comparison agreed no it's it's it's it's it's it's completely insane but oh my god yeah it's it's fascinating i think it is by the way what about um ice so ice is poised to become the biggest armed force on the planet by the end of next year yes and uh so now we know that they're out so by the way the good The economy may suck, and there were only 22,000 jobs created last month, but ICE is hiring. They're hiring over 10,000 immigration officers and attorneys. 10,000.

The GSA is forming special teams to expedite the search for 300 new office spaces, John. And they're going to try to send, this is kind of like a military project. They're trying to send as many of these offices as they can to the red states and cities to put, get some money, to pour some money in there. Yes. So it's the deportation industrial complex. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is.

And, you know, one of the bad parts, in my view, is there doesn't seem to be any strategy here. You know, it's not that, let's say, they're targeting California vegetable growers, right? or they're targeting North Carolina chicken processors. It's just wherever they happen to pick up some poor sap, you know, waiting in front of the Home Depot, they just take them.

Or they target innocent people who should not be expelled, people with valid green cards, for example, as they're walking out of an immigration office or out of court. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Speaking of green card holders, Mahmood Khalil, former Columbia University grad student, he was just ordered,

deported by a Louisiana immigration judge. The decision is stayed because of the federal court ruling saying that his First Amendment rights may have been violated. Certainly they were. But I think he's going to win that ruling. I think that

judge in New Jersey is slow and deliberative, but he'll come up with the right call. But, you know, meanwhile, and at least Khalil's home with his wife and newborn child, which is great. But, I mean, can you imagine that's that immigration court judge, it's like, you're going to deport a dude who, you know, he committed no crime. And he's got to, he's just a dad. And he's because you don't like his blabbing about Gaza on a college campus. That's it, really? Green card.

Green card. Yeah. That should be just off limits to ice, off limits. Yeah, unless you're plotting the overthrow of the American government or planning to blow up a building somewhere, okay, fine. The Secretary of State has the authority to revoke a green card, but otherwise, forget it. No, agreed with that. So, I mean, hell, they can even technically deport you if you're a naturalized citizen, right?

Yes, yes, they can. My mother always worried about that. She's like, oh, I'm going to get in trouble. I worked with a husband and wife team at the agency. The husband was a close friend of mine. He was the executive assistant. He was the other executive assistant along with me. And he married a woman who was naturalized.

She was originally Lebanese. She had been at the FBI for 10 years and she transferred over to the CIA. And it turns out that she called a cousin in Lebanon and the cousin then, And just to say hi, how's grandma, you know, that kind of thing. The cousin then married a guy who had briefly been a member of Hezbollah. And so they grabbed my colleague, the FBI did. This was a big fight between the CIA and the FBI. They grabbed her.

They suspended her. They charged her with lying on her citizenship application. Oh, boy. Yeah. And she lost her security clearance. she lost her job. She was almost deported. And finally, George Tenet went to the president and said,

please put a stop to this. And George W. Bush finally told the FBI to back off. Well, Aaron Albrecht has a question. Chris Hedges said that this ICE infrastructure is constructing, building up for a secret police crackdown. First they come for the migrants, then they come for, you know, us. Yeah.

I mean, you know, it may not even be planned that way, but history shows that infrastructure like this tends to get used, right? And organizations are self-perpetuating. They, you know, there's a mission. It's sort of like I always say, the American Cancer Society would be seriously bummed if cancer went away. And, you know, it's like, I think there's a serious, there's a, I mean, you know, Yeah, you're going to build out this.

Like, what if ICE successfully deports all the illegal immigrants, then what? Then the economy collapses. Yeah, what do they do? They go home? I mean, you know, mission accomplished. Yeah, great. And then we're not going to have any fruits, vegetables, chicken or pork. That's going to, or beef.

That's going to be the end of it. And then what do we do? And no one in Manhattan will ever have their apartments cleaned, but by anyone but themselves. Never. That's what I mean. There's no strategy here. No.

I keep going back to this deal that George W. Bush negotiated with Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico, in the months before 9-11, where they agreed that people who were here illegally could apply for nine-month work visas, work the nine months, pay taxes, go back home for three months, come back again for another nine months, and then everybody's happy. and it ended up not being implemented, not even being presented to the Senate for ratification because 9-11 happened. And then everything just came to a screeching halt. It was a good idea. It was a program that would have worked and we have never revisited it.

Yeah, no strategy, none whatsoever. I do want to address this. I'm glad you brought it up, Stephen, Victor, Andrews. From my view, the hysteria over ISIS just democratic partisan talk. talking points. We've had a high-tech police state forever. Yeah. None of this is new. Good point.

Well, the high-tech police state is well taken. You know, Snowden reminded and exposed it more. But I got to disagree that there's nothing new here. I mean, there's something very new when you have guys in unmarked vans in masks and no ID driving around and scooping people up randomly. and dragging them off into the night and they're supposedly government agents and we already know there's been cases of impersonation. I mean, that's Gestapo-Stick shit. And, I mean, the infrastructure for the Gestapo shit

has been here. For example, when you drive on the Triborough Bridge, also known as the RFK Bridge, that connects Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, you'll notice these flashing lights go off as you get on. Well, those are all facial recognition of flashers that take your picture and if you come up, if they get

a ping and says, oh, there's an outstanding warrant for that asshole Ted Rawl. The state troopers are waiting on the far end of the bridge to pull you over. Yeah. Totally serious. But at least those follow the law. Yeah.

This is like, this is creating a new non-law law, I think is the way I would put it. I think this is different. Oh, that's frightening. I didn't know that. You know, I will say a couple of years ago, somebody stole my back license plate, probably some kids.

And so it was during COVID, so the DMV was closed. I had to get a new license plate online. It took three weeks. So I called the cops because the DMV said, you have to have a police report. So I called the cops, and they sent me a form to fill out. I fill out the form, and then they give me a letter. And the cop said to me,

listen you're going to get pulled over like all the time until you get the new license plate so just show them this form and they'll let you go there's a facial recognition thing and a license plate reader at the corner of 15th and constitution avenue as you crossed past the back of the white house i got stopped six times in six days well and finally i lost my temper the last time. But yeah, they'll grab you. They'll grab you. I'm also glad this brought up, Stevie's asking. Curious about a general strike, like during Occupy Wall Street when they were talking

about a general strike, as some proposed, what would it accomplish? Well, first of all, I want to just say a general strike cannot happen without an organized left-wing infrastructure. Amen. It won't work. a general strike would be like one of the it's a late period pre-revolutionary move that would come right before the overthrow of the government

we are this is like sort of like your you're nine-year-old it's like oh so I want to argue my PhD thesis now like we're nowhere near that right now like right now we need to sign up for pre-case And hopefully they'll let us in.

That's where the left is. I mean, general strike. Plus, how many other countries are there where a majority of labor union members vote for the likes of Donald Trump? Right. Well, the good news is there's only 9% of American workers are in a union to begin with.

That's right. So that's only, you know, 5% of whatever. Down from 25% 20 years ago. Yeah, crazy. A couple, okay, so we're getting, we're getting to the end here. Probably should take note of the fact that the Israelis never, never, never enough blood for them. They decided to attack a Yemeni media company. They killed 31 journalists.

They claimed this was a Houthi TV station in Sana'a. They also killed a random kid. The IDF said that the media. building was a hootie propaganda. Oh, for God's sake. Shame, shame on them. You know, yesterday at this event in Chicago, Ali Abunima from the Electronic Intifada was supposed to speak

and to collect an award. Unfortunately, his mother died yesterday morning, and so he couldn't be there. But one of his colleagues was there, and she put a slide up. We had a minute of silence for, journalists killed in Gaza, I did not know that since October 7th, the Israelis have killed 220 journalists in Gaza. It's the bloodiest period for journalism ever recorded.

By far, John. I mean, you know, my journalistic con, my journalist convoy that went into Afghanistan in November of 2001 at that time had the highest fatality rate of any group. of journalists in the history of war correspondency. All told, we lost eight out of 45. Eight. And people were appalled. It got international coverage. It was, you know, a big deal.

I got to question Victoria Clark at a press conference about it. It was, you know, she was the defense press secretary. And the point is, that was a big deal. Eight. This is over 300. I mean, you know, that was only 24 years ago when eight was a shocker. Yeah. I mean, 300, it's like, I hate to say it.

We don't care as much because they're most, they're Palestinian stringers. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. They're not white enough. It's just, it's sick. Truly. It is sick. Well, guys, let's see.

No, no more ads. So I guess that's it for today and for the week. Unless, John, you want to add anything? No, I, well, I've already announced here, but I finally said on Facebook today, October 9th, the Joe Rogan Experience, starring John Kiriaku. It'll be broadcast on the 10th.

Please check it out. I think it's going to be a big day. I know. I certainly will. Everyone, please like, follow, and share the show. watch us on Rumble if you can even if you hate Rumble just keep the Rumble running and watch it on YouTube God bless Rumble

we're working on the donation thing on YouTube Robbie has a ticket in we'll see if and when the alphabet ever gets back to us we're here Monday through Friday 5 p.m. Eastern Time we'll be back Monday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time one little quick pitch I have a book out let's see if I can make it even appear here

maybe not add to stage there we go never mind the democrats here's what's left radical solutions for radical problems and it's basically a thought experiment what would happen if the left were to come to power and had the same exact budget and the same tax income and everything that the current government has how could that money all be reallocated and into things that are you know actually serve the people So, you know, it's a, it's, I just thought it's, you know, obviously it's not going to happen, but it's a way of sort of saying, look, there's benchmarks. And for example, we can completely abolish. We can make college free. We can have free health care. We can completely get rid of homelessness, solve the homelessness crisis overnight. So we have the money. We have the resources. And I always thought, like, I think we do, but I wanted to sit down and spreadsheet that. shit and make sure it was true and it is true and it's basically me proving that so anyway um thanks all and uh we will see you monday bye john bye bye bye boy that went fast It was good.