DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Honey Traps Are Go”

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou tell you about the Pete Buttigieg surge, the last days of a fading Biden, covering up Israel’s murder of Abu Akleh, and how honeytraps are infiltrating the West. Team Democrat Is All About Pete: Confirming Ted’s prediction, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the Democratic Party’s early presidential frontrunner in New Hampshire, topping Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Kamala Harris in a new University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll. Capturing 19%, Buttigieg leads Newsom by 4%, with Ocasio-Cortez at 14% and Harris at 11%, while Bernie Sanders garners 8% and IJB Pritzker secures 6%. New Hampshire highlights Buttigieg’s dominance with a +75% net-favorability rating (81% favorable, 6% unfavorable). On the Republican side, Vice President JD Vance commands a massive lead in the same poll among 688 likely voters, securing 51% support and dwarfing former Nikki Haley (9%), Tulsi Gabbard (8%), and Marco Rubio (5%). Biden Report: A bombshell 91-page House Oversight Committee staff report, based on over a dozen interviews with Biden aides, declares that dozens of Joe Biden’s executive actions “cannot all be deemed his own” amid advisers propping up the president during his physical and cognitive decline. The document details Biden’s inner circle meticulously stage-managing appearances, lightening workloads, limiting steps walked, minimizing cabinet meetings, seeking Hollywood direction for events, and using teleprompters at intimate gatherings. Executive orders and pardons signed by autopen, including Hunter Biden’s sweeping clemency, face calls to be voided for lacking traceable presidential consent, with former chief of staff Jeff Zients admitting ignorance of autopen operators. Shireen Abu Akleh Shooting Cover-Up: U.S. officials are deeply divided over the 2022 fatal shooting of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank, with some convinced Israeli forces intentionally targeted her despite the State Department’s equivocal assessment blaming “tragic circumstances” without intent. Retired Col. Steve Gabavics, former chief of staff at the U.S. Security Coordinator office leading the review, publicly challenges the findings, asserting evidence like radio traffic awareness of journalists, clear visibility from a sniper vehicle, and precise shots indicate deliberate action. Gabavics clashes with boss Lt. Gen. Michael Fenzel, who sidelines him and stands by cautious conclusions to preserve Israeli cooperation, as internal drafts soften language on intent.Seductive Spying: Moscow and Beijing are unleashing seductive spies flooding U.S. tech heartlands, stealing secrets through lust and lies in a new “sex war” exploiting human weaknesses for psychological and economic warfare. Experts highlight China targeting startups, academia, and DoD projects with attractive operatives on LinkedIn and at conferences, while Russia revives figures like Anna Chapman and deploys honeytraps marrying targets for lifelong operations. Cases include Fang Fang seducing U.S. politicians, pitch competitions extracting IP, and thefts costing up to $600 billion annually, giving adversaries an asymmetric advantage as America avoids such tactics. Or do we?

Good morning. Good morning. You are watching Deep Program with Ted Raul and John Kirooku. It's Tuesday, October 28th, 2025. Thank you so much for joining us. John piping in from across the big water. Good to see you. Good to see you, man. Lots to talk about today. We're going to be getting into, we're going to handicap the 2028 presidential race. I'm going to pat myself on the back and say that my early, prognostications appeared to at least be currently looking good. We'll see if that lasts. The House Oversight Committee released its report about Joe Biden. Unsurprisingly, but probably correctly, it really slammed the former president for not being all there during much of the end of his presidency. And so there's some major constitutional and political questions to hash out about that. Shireen Abu Aclay, who was the Palestinian reporter, who was killed by the IDF in the West Bank by a sniper.

There's been some divisions. A lot of people on the left have long believed that she was targeted intentionally, or at least that a journalist was targeted intentionally. And now it seems that there were people who investigated this inside the U.S. government who believed that as well. We'll get into that division. Not everyone thought that. And, you know, a story tailor made for us, and specifically for you, John, can't resist

anything involving honey traps. It's an amusing and interesting topic. Reports are coming out that China and Russia are deploying them to seduce tech bros and try to get some cyber intelligence that way. So anyway, unfortunately, we have a program. note. Robbie West, our producer, is not with us today, and he probably won't be with us for the foreseeable future because someone doxed him. So someone called his employer and notified and basically told his employer that he had political views that they didn't like. Specifically, he was

accused of being transphobic and anti-Semitic for criticizing Israel on this program. And so he's in trouble at work. He's been disciplined. He's lucky not to have been fired, obviously. But, you know, he probably doesn't feel very lucky. And, you know, I got to tell you, I mean, anyone who likes me or John or this show should know better, right? I mean, the thing is, cowardly. There is, I mean, you know, this is like, this is a place where we have agreements and disagreements. And I don't believe, and I have always felt this way, and I've always said this, I have never believed in sanctioning anyone for their opinions. Back in the 1990s, when there was an effort to boycott the advertisers of Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Rush Limbaugh, who were both right-wing conservatives, I said this is a bad idea. We shouldn't be doing this.

It's anti-American. It's anti-First Amendment. and it's something that we ought not to ever participate in, lest it one day be deployed against us on the left. And, you know, so this has always been the way I felt. You know, Robbie's always been a welcome guest on this show. He is a good person. He's my friend. He's incredibly generous.

And he's helped make this show what it is. And so whoever you are, you really suck and you really hurt not just Robbie, Bobby, but you also hurt John and I. And you really kind of are contributing to the coarsening of, you know, this country and its ability to try to work, be able to work out problems. I mean, that's what polarization is. Polarization isn't when people disagree. Polarization is when people don't agree to disagree when they decide that they're going to, you know, hurt and censor other people for disagreeing with them. So, you know, Robbie. We will probably pipe into the chat whenever he can, but it's not going to be the same without him.

No, that's right. I'm so upset about this. I think it's cowardly. I think it's scandalous. And I can't believe that somebody who watches the show would do such a thing to try to ruin a man's livelihood. Rat him out like that? To what end? For what purpose?

I'm just sickened by the whole thing. Yeah. Oh, it's disgusting. I mean, you know, like obviously with someone who was just like, look, I mean, we saw doxing, you know, liberals be doxin, right? I mean, like liberals were doxing, you know, J-6ers and getting them part in their jobs. You know, I've been doxed many, many times and threatened because I'm too lefty. I mean, where does this end, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, three birds, one stone says it probably wasn't a person. It was just guessing here one of the many agencies employed by the Zionist machine. I don't know. I sure would like to find out. That's certainly possible.

Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, exactly. It's just, so anyway, we're going to try to figure out what we can do for and with Robbie. Yeah, we're going to have to assume it's a liberal snitch. I mean, I hate when someone, you know, I don't consider myself a liberal, I consider myself a leftist, but, you know, those are, you know, kind of people who I normally travel with and hang out with, and most people I know are liberal. And it's just a, you know, it just sucks when someone does something like this. And by the way, Robbie asked me to pass this along, and I think it's really true, you know, this is not a way to win hearts and minds. you know, no one ever has been doxed and had their livelihood threatened and their ability

to feed their wife and kids threatened and come out of it and say, oh, my God, I'm going to totally change my political opinions to match the person who's trying to kill me and my family. I love them. They're right. That's never going to work. So, you know, it's, you know, we'll, I'm sure talk about this again in the future, but John, what do you want to talk about? 2028?

Biden report. Yeah, let's talk about 2028. The Biden is going to make me mad. Yeah. 2028. So the Democratic National Committee is essentially telling us

that we all must support Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg is the guy, which, of course, we all predicted. I'm here to tell you, Buddha Judge ain't the guy. I think that. That's just not going to happen.

I think he's, I think he's deceptively conservative. I don't think that many Americans will vote for a gay man. They're just not ready for it. And I hate so much when democratic backroom, you know, movers and shakers tell us who to support. So as you note there on the screen, Buttigieg is leading in a 2028 New Hampshire poll. It's very, very, very early.

But this was done on purpose because the DNC wants us to support Pete Buttigieg. Just like they wanted us to support Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton and all these other losers that they handpick from the DNC, not doing it. Right. And I think also it's an interesting tea leaf to read from the DNC was Kamala Harris's book, right? where she said that she would have picked Pete Buttigieg as her running mate, and then said she didn't have the guts to do that because she thought it would be too much diversity on one ticket. She's probably right about that.

But, you know, I mean, so obviously the TEP here is the Democratic Party seems, the DNC seems really more interested in sort of ticking identity politics boxes than they are in, you know, winning elections. Look, Pete Buttigieg, I can really see why they turned in his direction. They think that he could probably put the big tent together. They think that, you know, the LGBT connection will bring in progressives, or at least some progressives. Of course, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris thought that the woman thing would do that, and it didn't.

You know, it's about policies. I mean, they just don't get progressives. It's always about policies for progressives. They don't care about anything else. That's why they voted for the old white guy, Bernie Sanders. It's about the policies. They didn't vote for him because he was white. They voted or despite it just doesn't matter.

I thought what was interesting was that, you know, obviously, Pete, I think, is a natural kind of also, you know, reaction to four years or four years or eight years, depending on how you want to count them because they weren't contiguous of Donald Trump. You know, Obama followed the very calm, Spock-like Obama, stealing that from Marine Dowd, you know, was an interest, was a reaction to the spazzy kind of manic George W. Bush in terms of tone and temperament. You know, the Pete Buttigieg is a bit of an automaton, and he's kind of reaction to, again, a manic kind of spazzy, wild and crazy Donald Trump. So I could see them also sort of doing it this way. People have been asking in the chat if we can, you know, donate some money toward Robbie. Yeah, we're going to organize that. We're going to, we brought, John and I have to put our heads together and we'll have like a day or two where we just, you know, raise some money for Robbie and we'll let you know when that is. But, you know, we always appreciate your donations to the show and we are remonetized on super chat.

everything. Please like, follow and share the show. Again, if you're just tuning in, we're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Tomorrow is a rerun show, but the chat will be live, so feel free to come in and talk to each other, but we, John and I will not be here. We both have stuff we do tomorrow, but we'll be back on Thursday. Anyway, no, no, I mean, I, you know, that's funny, you know, I hadn't immediately thought this is the DNC shoving this down our throats, John. But you're right. It always is. They can't help themselves. They have to put their thumb on the scale, always. To tell the truth, I don't give two shits who Pete Buttigieg has sex with. I don't care. It's none of my business. I have zero interest in it. So supporting somebody just because he has

sex with a man, I just don't understand the rationale. What I do care about is that, in his four years of federal experience, Pete Buttigieg proved that he was literally the worst secretary of transportation in American history. It seems like every time there was a transportation emergency, whether it was a train derailment or a train strike or the trucker strike, the guy was on vacation in some foreign country every single time. He didn't even bother to go to East Palestine, Ohio, for months, to the best of my recollection, after the train derailed there and spread deadly chemicals all over the place.

So the guy was a terrible, terrible secretary of transportation. Why should we then reward him, rather, by making him the Democratic presidential nominee? I'm not getting it. And listen, you speak 16 languages. Awesome. Congratulations, you're a genius. But all you've ever done is you were the mayor of a town of like 9,000 people. In Indiana, that doesn't qualify you to.

to be president in the United States? And aren't you tired of having unqualified presidents? I am. Well, we had an unqualified, yeah. I mean, but he speaks good, John. He does. He speaks real good.

Yeah, so the thing about, he talks good. Wasn't he talk real good? Wasn't he also like a, wasn't he like a sort of a radar O'Reilly kind of character in the Iraq war? Like, he was a supply guy, right? And then later he, when he ran for president, he claimed that he was like this, you know, badass, like, you know, GI Joe.

That guy. Right. Right. I don't want to hear it. Yeah, it's kind of like, well, the funny part, let's, you know, my, my brief against Buttigieg's first is twofold, most of all. Number one, it's like he went on, on, he took paternity leave his first year in office, right? Now, the thing is, you might say, well, it's unexpected. But see, this is where the fact that he fucks guys does come into play because his husband and him, they by definition, plans this out, right?

They know when they're going to have a kid. Like, you know, quote unquote, heterosexual couples don't always know, but they know. And so literally it's like, oh, you know, you're, oh, you're going to, hey, Pete, aren't you going to be secretary of transportation next year? maybe let's kick the can down the road a few years we're both young it'll be fine now let's go ahead and do it we'll just take six months off i mean it's not an important job and then the other part was i looked into this i wanted to know how many buses and uh you know the mayor of south bend indiana was in charge of you know in the trend so you're going to die so there's like just there's as you'd imagine there's like i don't know 50 but here's the thing they're all under control

of a separate transportation authority. So the mayor of South Bend has literally zero to do with public transportation. Oh my God. Oh my God. So it's literally, you're not even getting

someone from the regional transit authority of South Bend who would have been far more qualified than the mayor. Yeah, he's just simply not qualified. It's as simple as that. But on the other hand, now with Donald Trump, you can say that doesn't matter anymore. Yeah. Yeah, right. Now, that's what we're supposed to believe. It doesn't matter. Because you're right. He checks these boxes that are important to the DNC.

Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm not buying it. We do have to answer Mr. Athenian's question here. Let's talk about Steve Bannon's remarks that Donald Trump will absolutely. get a third term. Yeah. And then we just all have to get used to it. Yeah. Well, no. It's not happening.

The Constitution is crystal clear. You're allowed two tries, two elections, rather. He was elected two times. That's it. It's over. And it doesn't matter that they're non-contiguous, right? It doesn't make any difference. And it doesn't matter if he runs as vice president.

And then the vice president, resigns nope nope does not matter he cannot run for another term period okay well so the thing is who enforces it right obviously the Supreme Court enforces it um would they they're gonna have to otherwise we have anarchy anarchy in the country I'm I'm gonna predict if they don't we're gonna have riots in the streets like unprecedented uprising in the streets Because then nothing in the Constitution will mean anything. Right. It becomes a dead letter at that point.

No question. We should also talk about, you know, we should give a passing thought to J.D. Vance. Not surprisingly, the sitting vice president and appointed heir to Maga is leading the polls on the Republican side in New Hampshire. he's got a lot bigger of a lead than than Buttigieg has on his side. So Vance has 51% of the New Hampshire vote. And these others, like the others who are coming in, number two, three, four are Nikki Haley.

I had forgotten about her. Is she still alive? Tulsi and Marco Rubio in that order. I would have thought Marco would be a little bit higher up just like sitting secretary of state and he hasn't fucked up or anything i mean i personally can't stand him but like you know yeah i don't know yeah that that surprises me i i would have expected two things surprise me i would have expected rubio to score higher this early on because he's a name that's been out there for a long time he ran for president in 16 he's been in the senate

forever and he's still a young man so i would have expected rubio to be higher you know who we don't see is ted cruz right ted cruz is telling everybody who's willing to listen that he's going to run for president again he's going to lose again of course um but he doesn't even factor into this like he's an afterthought yeah that's funny right i mean i think Ted Cruz ruined ruined himself uh first of all by being cupped by Trump over letting him smear his father as a Kennedy assassin, as the man on the grassy knoll. And I think, and I think the beard did him no favors either. I agree. I agree. He just looks like a weird. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, and if you're going to do the beard, you've got to go like Hamid Karzai. Like, that's a, that's a good looking, like, that's a robust,

manly but like it's it conveys like this is a man who's got it together who maintains a beard that looks like that um you know i briefly had a beard that looked like that and i'm like you know i think i i gained like two points on the 10 scale just from that beard but like when you have a raggedy ass beard like a ted kaczynski beard um yeah yeah that's not good so no no it's really not I mean, people might be like, this is an analysis show, and it is. But this shit is part of the analysis, you know? Well, you know, people say, scholars told us back in, in 1948 that Thomas Dewey lost because he lost to Harry Truman because he had a mustache. And it just reminded too many people of Adolf Hitler.

And in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, they were not willing to vote for a guy with a mustache. Yeah, it's funny. I was literally just looking at a Thomas Dewey button in my collection a couple days ago. And I was thinking, that's a weird mustache. He also kind of looked like a jazz guy. There's a black reporter. I think he's on NBC who also has this, like, jazz guy, kind of like a mustache. And I'm always like, it's very, very strange.

Real Real is asking us about the Cameroon crisis. I'm glad this came up, too. Does the opposition include both? anglophone and francophonic components. So, you know, the sitting, the president of Cameroon is the oldest, continuously, oldest and longest continually serving a political leader in the world, if I'm not mistaken, right? Right.

He's, he's going, I mean, he's pushing 100, right? And he's oldest shit. And so he's just got reelected, got to use those. scare quotes. And so this was one of those things where there's sort of the Gen Z uprisings all over the world. And the Gen Z people on the street were kind of like, don't do it. Don't fucking do it. We know what you want to do. Don't do it. They did it. So the Cameroonians are pessed off. And my understanding here is that this is more of a francophonic, you know, kind of street protests, but not uniquely.

What are you hearing? Yeah, I'm hearing the same thing. I was surprised to see the video that was all over the international media yesterday. People are really mad. Like, in the streets, setting stuff on fire kind of mad. They're right. Yeah, they're totally right. They are.

They're right. I mean, it's a fucking dictatorship. I mean, you know. It is. And there's a lot going on in Chad, right now too um just today the chatty and minister of education uh announced that schools are closed until further notice why because al-Qaeda has cut off gas shipments and so there's no way to heat the schools so they shut them down that's crazy yeah yeah so i think we're going to see

we're going to see more rebellion. And it's funny too, right? Like the way the coverage has been about Cameroon and the Western press is kind of like they just don't get it. And it's like I'm just seeing every day I see more and more indications that they have reporters who are either being censored vigorously or are just too young and inexperienced to know what they're doing. I mean, did you see the article in the New York Times yesterday about Josh Shapiro

and how he's recovering from the firebombing of his house? yes i saw the article today and like the thing is okay like let's be clear here no one should be doxed for being transphobic and no one should have their fire their house firebomb for being you know pro-israel fact that said okay that said the way that they characterized him in the article they said it's uncertain why it happened what the motives of the guy who did it who had mental illness, where, however, you know, he's been, some people have accused him of being a little pro-to-pro-Israel. Literally, that's how they put it, a little too-pro. And I mean, like, he's, he's been videotaped signing bombs that were dropped on Palestinian civilians with a big

ass grin on his face. Okay, that's not a little too pro-Israel. That's being a Zionist maniac. yeah yeah yeah you're like you're on team genocide all the way you're not even like oh jews need their own place too that you know like this is like the ancestral homel no it's not even that argument it's like no i want to kill palestinians that's what it is that that's the bottom line remember this guy served in the idf he didn't join the american military he joined the israeli military he should run for prime minister of israel not president of the united states He might stand a better chance than Netanyahu. Yeah, he probably would.

He's certainly probably more popular. Without a doubt. Yeah. So, all right, so before we move on from the 2028, because we do have a lot to talk about, J.D. Vance, you know, he's sitting pretty right now. Basically, he's just like thinking, don't fuck up. Don't let Trump have a third term. You know, stay the course, and I will be president.

Yeah. Is that true? Because, I mean, I mean, he doesn't seem to me like, You know the Brady Bunch episode where Greg gets, like, recruited by like a Svangali type character, and he's forming a... Yeah, because he fit the suit. He fit the suit. And, like, J.D. Vance fit the suit. But that doesn't mean J.D. Vance has the certain... I mean, look, anybody who denies that Donald Trump has the Riz is a fool. He has the Riz. And he has it in spades. but J.D. Vance doesn't have that kind of Riz. Will the, will MAGA world accept the dauphin as the new king?

Yeah. You know, that's a really good question and an important issue. Funny thing, Trump never really appeared to like Mike Pence very much. Called him an idiot, called him a moron, called him a retard, all kinds of words like that. And J.D. Vance, Trump appears to have gone out of his way to school J.D. Vance in how to be a leader, a senior leader. What's funny to me is in these notional Republican polls, they still include, for example, Donald Trump Jr. to see what his level of support is. Well, Donald Trump doesn't want Don Jr. to be president. He appears to want J.D. Vance to be president. And I'm surprised that he's been so public about his grooming of Vance when he's got Rubio being not just Secretary of State

but National Security Advisor as well and a former senator for a hell of a lot longer than the two years J.D. Vance was a senator. So I'm surprised that he's come out so strongly for Vance. I would have thought that like Ronald Reagan, he would have waited until the field thins a little bit and then make his his announcement or his endorsement. But it's clear right now that Trump wants J.D. Vance to be the nominee. Yeah. So, I mean, of course, there's the bigger question of whether J.D. Vance can, you know, be elected. And I kind of, I don't know. I mean, this might be really a hate-off kind of, you know, race. If it's like some, it's Buttigieg versus Vance. I mean, again, you know, people like me are like,

I got to go third party or not at all, right? I mean, there's just no, there's nothing there there. All right, are we done with 2028 or we could move on to 2024 and the Biden report? Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's talk about this Biden report. So obviously, there's nothing new really to talk about in terms of Joe Biden being, you know, having been incapacitated. And what this basically seems to center, this report mainly.

centers around is, of course, what is being called an autopen gate. And, you know, the idea that the auto pen was used to sign Joe Biden's name to stuff that he was not aware of, right? So the whole, the way it's supposed to work is President, you know, President Kyriaku is, is away, or maybe he's just like, has a cold or whatever. And then, President Kiriaku calls Secretary Raul and says, hey, you know, Ted, can you auto pen that pardon of that spy? And it's like, yeah, I'll take care of that for you. And then that's it. That is acceptable. I mean, it's weird, but that's how it has worked. And it's always been acceptable. It's always been acceptable. Almost everything that

president's sign is autopened. I mean, it's weird. It's like Louis the 14th couldn't do that. Louis the 14th had to personally affix his signature and wax seal to otherwise it wasn't a royal edict right but yeah anyway it's strange it works that way so apparently there's considerable evidence and I can't say this is surprising to me

but they drag they subpoenaed and dragged in a lot of his former staffers some of whom took the Fifth Amendment others of whom basically confirmed that he signed up that the auto pen signed off on stuff like pardons and executive orders that Trump, that Biden didn't know shit about, was never told about, we're not even getting into, you know, whether he would have been able to understand it or not if he was too mentally or physically frail.

That's not even the issue here. The issue is that he did what didn't know. The doctor, Kevin O'Connor and Jill Biden's chief of staff, Anthony Bernal, who was part of the so-called Politburo, according to the book by Jake T. Tapper, of course, I would encourage anyone who hasn't seen our interview with Jake to go back and look at that. Basically, both took the fifth, but they issued, but like Dr. O'Connor basically didn't administer any cognitive tests or neurological tests to the president at all, but then basically said, oh, he's good. He's fit as a fiddle. John, when my mother was

dying of Alzheimer's. We found out she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I was in the room when the doctor diagnosed her. He administered a bunch of tests. It was, I'll say, chilling to watch. My mom, you know, this with all, you know, no exaggeration, the most brilliant person I've ever known in my life, had just declined to the point where she couldn't, she didn't know her own age. And she couldn't, didn't know the name of the supermarket where she went. At that point, I was like, well, I'm taking the keys, right? But the point is that he didn't even do that. So this doctor didn't do that.

It's the president of the United States, and we have no procedure, right? It's basically all voluntary. It's like whatever they want to do. Okay, so there's so much to dig into here. First of all, don't we need a set of procedures that govern, where there's some kind of committee that assesses the ability of the president, to mentally and physically to serve, right? Don't we need something like that?

We do. In a way, that's what the 25th Amendment is supposed to be. But, you know, it leads to another question. Where other countries, Western countries, advanced economies, have systems where a president or prime minister can be removed with some relative ease. Why don't we have the same kind of systems? The system that we have now is that the vice president has to tell the cabinet that he or she believes the president is unable to serve. And then the cabinet has to go through a period where they observe the president, ignoring the fact that most cabinet members only see the president but once a month for lunch.

And then the cabinet has to decide whether to remove the president. It has never happened in the history of the country. Ronald Reagan was demented. Joe Biden was demented. Donald Trump, who knows, maybe at the early stages, judging by some of his behavior. But we just don't remove our leaders. And it's to the detriment of the country that we don't. We shouldn't be afraid of setting a president.

Well, and because the thing is that the person who triggers this, right, the vice president is literally the person who stands to benefit the most from the removal of the president because they will ascend to the presidency. I mean, I'm going to go back and look at the, you know, the people who passed the 25th Amendment. I mean, this was ratified by two-thirds of the states, right? I mean, what the fuck were they thinking? This is a stupid fucking system. I mean, stupid system. I mean, it's really retarded. Yeah. And so, okay. So, And then it also, you know, brings up the question of accountability.

I mean, is anyone in Biden world ever going to be called on the carpet or charge with anything? And then there's the question of the executive orders and pardons that were signed by an auto pen that basically seemed to have a life of its own. Yeah. I mean, does that, does that meet? I mean, surely those should be invalidated, right? but I would think are the U.S. I think they probably should. But there's no mechanism by which to invalidate them.

That's the problem. There's no law that says, well, if the president's demented, then X, Y, Z, you know, has to be reversed. We don't have such a law. It's funny. When the 25th Amendment was being written, the purpose of it was to prevent another situation like we had under President Woodrow Will. Wilson, where the president is completely debilitated by a stroke, nobody can get into see him, and the first lady is essentially the president. That's what it was meant to correct.

But you know, what's so funny about that is that, you know, even if under Wilson, his vice president, like, he would never have triggered it. Marshall, never, temperamentally, that guy never would have pulled the 25th Amendment trigger. it wouldn't have worked under Wilson no you're right it wouldn't have worked under Wilson because you're right the vice president has to pull the trigger

and basically it's a general majority vote of the cabinet and they all have so you're asking the person who stands to benefit the most and who will be looked at as a self-dealer extraordinary to

trigger the process and then you need a simple majority vote from the people who've been appointed by the guy that they're being asked to get rid of. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's like, I guess it's almost like the people who wrote the 25th Amendment never heard the three words conflict of interest before. Yeah, you got that right.

It's very, it's very strange. And then, of course, John, I was going to ask you more broadly, do you, how often do you think about like when you're a kid, we all were kids, and we're told the American constitutional system is pure genius. Its system of checks of balances was ingenious beyond belief. It was full proof. That's why it served us over 200 years. It's like, and looking now, I'm like, hmm.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that it was divinely inspired. If so, I want a new God. What it does is it 100% ensures gridlock. Maybe if God is a retard. If God has Alzheimer's. Well, he's real old, so he could have Alzheimer's. Right.

Right. What a mess. Totally. What a complete mess. But then you look at the people, some of the people that Biden pardoned, besides his crackhead meth head son, a Chinese spy the judge in Pennsylvania

who literally sold children into bondage only to have several of them commit suicide those are the people I could get behind the death penalty for that judge yeah seriously I could too yes and I'm anti-death penalty me too I could too yeah

ridiculous all right so let's all right so we have I guess we probably should talk about Abu Ackla, right? Yeah, this makes me so angry. So obviously, Shereen Abu Ackla was the Palestinian-American journalist, very well-known, Al-Jazeera, right? Al-Jazeera. She was the top international reporter for Al-Jazeera.

And if it matters at all, she was Christian, Greek Orthodox. Mm-hmm. Yep, it does matter. I mean, it shouldn't matter, but it does matter, like, for context, just as a reminder that it's not just a Muslim versus Jew thing over there. Anyway, the IDF, an IDF, no, some facts are not in dispute. An IDF sniper shot her. And the, and then they basically, the IDF said, well, we didn't know she was a reporter. She was wearing a vest that clearly said press or media, I forget which.

And also, the IDF had been notified that there were reporters in the area. So they were well aware of that fact. Also, so basically, the U.S. security coordinator is the office that reviewed this incident. And there was a division among the people on this team that has just been revealed now, where Colonel Steve Gabavik, he was the former chief of staff. of this office. So not a slump, not a schlub. And he said that basically there was a cover-up, that there, you know, there was radio traffic awareness. And he also, and also several other investigators went to the scene. They went, they walked over to where the sniper's position

had been, who delivered the fatal shot. And they said they could clearly see the spot. It was unobstructed. It wasn't hard to see, even with the naked eye, much less through a sniper's scope. Scope. Yeah. So therefore, yeah. So, I mean, they could see very clearly. And so the question, no one's really arguing that Abu Akla was was sort of targeted specifically for being her, although that's certainly possible knowing the idea. But they're arguing that, like, hey, there's a reporter, and we're going to shoot her. And so he's, Gabavix is on a tear, and he's fighting with his former boss, Lieutenant General Michael Fenzel, who basically is saying, well, you know, Gabavix is wrong.

So this is, I mean, we were not told that there was such a deficient. We were told it's just like tragic circumstances. It's just, it's basically file it under shit happens. Yes. Yes, indeed. I agree. You know, I was especially angry when Shereen Abu Akla was killed. I knew her a little bit from Al Jazeera. I used to be the counterterrorism consultant at Al Jazeera. I did that for two years. And she was the most highly respected, the most important journalist at the network. Everybody knew her. Everybody loved her. She was famous. She had an apartment in Washington. So she did. did a lot of reporting from Washington. And then she's in Israel.

She's wearing a bulletproof vest and a bulletproof helmet that say press, press, and she was shot in a face by an Israeli sniper. You know, there's nothing new here. I mean, it's a bit, it's a dirty secret is that the military often targets reporters. When I was an absolutely, we knew that. Like one, one thing that we were

all told was we were worried about being targeted by the U.S. actually. And we, it was the belief of most of the international press corps, including Americans, that if you used your Theriah or your eridium sat phel, you might be targeted. They didn't have drones, but that you might be, you might be, you might be missile attacked. And it was good to make your call like in a cup for a few minutes and then and then change positions yeah and you know to make matters worse her funeral was held in the Palestinian territories in the West Bank the pallbearers were carrying her coffin out of the church to go to the cemetery and IDF soldiers went inside the church and beat the pallbearers to the point where they dropped the coffin.

I remember that. It's a fucking fiasco. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Thank you. Is it rational? 275 journalists killed in Gaza alone. Of course, many of them are stringers because Israel still isn't allowing Western reporters or, for that matter, Asian reporters.

And that does not make a stringer any less of a real reporter. Just putting some flesh on the bones of that story. But to put that into perspective, right, my convoy in Afghanistan had a total of 45 journalists, right? Eight were killed. That until up through 2001 was the highest number of journalists who'd ever been killed in a single conflict. Now we're at 275 in Gaza. Oh, my God. In only two years.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's crazy. And we let the Israelis get away with it without so much as a complaint. I really hope that Netanyahu goes too far without killing anybody. Just like does something to piss off Donald Trump so bad that he stops,

that Trump stops returning his calls. I think that would be awesome. Well, as we said yesterday, day before yesterday, Donald Trump said that he runs Israel, which I thought was very funny. well that's kind of true actually right even though it's not something that they ever like to say but it is true um i've read that netanyahu has been shocked that so many americans think that he controls american foreign policy it's like well of course he controls america foreign policy why is he shocked that's been his goal all along yeah yeah no it's it's it's

yeah well i mean that's the thing is he controls american foreign policy and we think that we're israel's bitch but israel is our bitch and this is a this is a very strange it should be some sub relationship yeah it should be that's for sure yeah it should be but it's not very very very very strange shit um okay so So we, okay, so I guess we have, we should talk about this story. How seriously do you take this, right? At the agency, where honey traps are real thing? According to the reports here, there's a ton of basically, basically a honey trap is a hot chick who seduces,

I guess you could have a honey trap for a woman, right? I don't know if that's ever happened where you had a hot guy. Sure. A woman's target, but most targets are guys, right? Some of those targets are guys. You have a woman basically from Russia or China. They're going on LinkedIn, and they're going to tech conferences, and they're seducing tech bros and trying to extract IP and other information.

According to this report, $600 billion a year of industrial espionage happens here. You know, is this a real story or is this bullshit? Well, from the U.S. side, we do not use honeypots or honey traps offensively against other intelligence services or other intelligence targets. We stopped in the 1970s. They weren't reliable. They didn't work out very well. But when I left the agency, and I've been gone for a while now, when I left the agency,

the Russians and the Chinese, but especially the Russians, were very, very much using honeypots. Yes. See, if you're a CIA officer or an FBI agent, you're trained to, you know, resist this kind of thing. You reported immediately. You're supposed to be cognizant that you may be targeted. But if you're just Joe Blow working at Northrop Grumman, you haven't had that kind of training or you haven't heard a counterintelligence warning that the Russians or the Chinese or the Israelis. are going to try to get to you to get your information using a sexy woman. So sure they do. They use them all the time. Gotcha. Sorry, I'm like doing, I'm doing stuff that Robbie normally would be doing, but he's not here. Oh, my God.

It's so annoying. So, yeah. Anyway. Yeah, so I guess, so do you think, I mean, I guess there was an argument, there was an assertion that the so-called P-tap would be kind of like, it was kind of like a Russian honey trap operation, right? We know it didn't happen, but let's just say for the sake of argument that, you know, something. So, I mean, this argument is also that there's kind of like, like that TV show, the Americans, there's a long con. that there are people who actually are assigned to not only seduce a dude and get some pillow talk out of them, but even to marry them, to go that far and become like a long-term operative who sleep, you know,

and so you have people like, you know, I guess you get like a hot chick like Anna Chapman from Russia to go after, you know, whatever. or Sergey Brin or someone like that and get stuff out of them. I mean, do our, do, why do, I mean, do other intelligence agencies do this? Do they find it more effective than we do? No, most of them don't. Most of them have concluded that it's a waste of time. Because you're not going to get, you're not going to get a, you're not going to get a lasting relationship that way.

And you're going to get way, way more information with a lasting relationship. If I can convince you that I am your best friend to the point that you're willing to commit espionage for me, that's a relationship that they're going to want us to cultivate. But if you send a woman to, you know, bed this guy after he picks her up in a bar, that's not a lasting relationship that's going to lead him to commit espionage. It just generally doesn't work. What would you say is the most famous example

of a honey trap in espionage? Or the most famous case? Well, there was one that we had at the agency that we were taught in training where we directed a honeypot again. against an Iranian religious leader before the revolution. And she had sex with him. We had the room wired for cameras.

And we took pictures of them in every position from every angle. And then we bumped into him to force a meeting. And we said, look, we've got these pictures. We laid out the pictures. And he said, ooh, I'll take that one in an 8 by 10. And give me two of these in 5 by 7. And how about wallet size for these ones? I'm going to pass them out to my friends.

he told us get the fuck out of here i'm not going to work for you guys and that was kind of the one event that pushed it over the edge where this is a bad idea it doesn't work and we're just not going to do it anymore got you because it's you know it's just sort of assumed like well sex is a very potent uh motivating force yeah it is yeah Yeah. Rebellious rainbow uniform is that one of the law or something like that. Oh, yeah, Epstein Honeypot thoughts.

You know, that that is like that's the assumption, right? Is that is that Epstein basically trafficked, well, that some people believe that Epstein trafficked some of his underage girls, or maybe not all underage, but young girls to compromise people. I don't know. I'm still, I mean, I never really believed that. I think he didn't share. I think he kept everything for himself.

But the reluctance of this administration to release those files has really, you know, made me suspicious where I never was before. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like I say, it leads me to conclude that other countries certainly are doing it. And the Russians are famous for it. The Israelis are famous for it. I would have to assume that the Chinese do this kind of thing as well.

Because the Chinese are most interested, almost exclusively interested in tech, you know whether it's civilian tech or defense tech it's tech and what you do is just target these nerds in northern california or at the defense contractors and hope for the best um matina v says mordecai vanunu in 1986 a female Mossad agent learned lured vanunu a nuclear technician from london to rome with the promise of her romantic liaison once in rome he was drugged that's pretty funny he was broke in Rome and and kidnapped and brought back John question for you do you know anything about the near assassination of the Shah of Iran back in the 1950s I assume this is raised of Pahlavi not the one that was overthrown

gun was in a camera and the bullet went through his military cap not sure who did it or why John Don't know That I don't know Oh no Hey breaking news Ted We just bombed three more boats Off the coast of Venezuela

Three Yeah I mean clearly the Yeah I did I got that I mean, that's horrible. Three. You know, obviously Trump's trying to spook, you know, the Venezuelans into toppling their regime.

I don't think it's going to work this way. I think he could blow up every boat in Venezuela. It's not going to work. I mean, hello, hello. Man, I'm sorry, man. My connection is so bad. Let me move over to the window. We've only got to get three more minutes.

Hello. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah, I hear you. So, all right, so obviously, how far do you think Donald Trump is willing to go to get rid of Nicolas Maduro? and then that's part A. And part B, who does he want to? Yes, John, do you hear me? Hello?

Hello, hello. Can you hear me, Ted? Yes, I hear you now. You're freezing, though. Can you hear me now, Ted? Ted? Yeah, I hear you. Yes.

Sorry, man. My connection is terrible. Yeah, sorry. Oh, my God. Okay, there's Jim. let me okay here we go sorry about that let's just go with the phone from now

like starting on Thursday this is the phone oh shit all right so I heard about the three boats how far do you think Trump is willing to go to overthrow Nicolas Maduro is he will you know what what is and then what does he

have in mind for a post Maduro Venezuela who's going to run I think I think this is all about keeping the Chinese out out of the Caribbean. The Chinese buy more oil from Venezuela than anybody else does now. The Chinese built a refinery in the Caribbean

to clean the sulfur out of Venezuela's notoriously high sulfur dirty oil. I think this is really not about Maduro so much as it's about the Chinese and pushing them back. And I don't think he cares who runs Venezuela so long as it's not Maduro. I wouldn't be surprised.

Well, I said earlier to a friend, I wouldn't be surprised if Maduro ends up in Havana. And he said, no, he's not going to stay in Havana. He'll go all the way to Moscow. Gotcha. All right. Well, I have to do some tech stuff for TMI anyway. And I will smooth out this process and become not quite as good as Robbie,

but I'll become like one-tenth as good as Robbie, which we'll hope will have to suffice. Thanks, everyone. Hold on, thanks everyone for tuning in. Please like, follow, and share the show. We're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. If you're watching the program with Ted Raul and John Kiriakou, please stay tuned.

TMI show with me and Minna Lachan is coming up right at 10 o'clock Eastern Time. That's just in a couple of minutes. And thank you, and we will see you later, please. And, you know, please think of Robbie. And we'll come up with some way to, finance him so he can quit that stupid fucking job of his. Okay, bye everyone. Bye. Thank you.