DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Israel Attacks Qatar”

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou analyze a day of escalation and bloodshed in the Middle East crisis.Israel Attacks Qatar: Israel tries and fails to assassinate Hamas ceasefire negotiators leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha. Qatar condemns the “cowardly” attack as a violation of sovereignty and international law, demanding a high-level UN investigation. The strike kills six other people, including a Qatari security officer, escalating regional tensions.US Angry at Israel: The White House says Trump promised Qatar, the mediator for many of the talks between Hamas and Israel, that more strikes won’t happen again. Press Secretary Leavitt says the bombing does not serve US or Israeli interests. Trump says he sees the incident as a potential “opportunity for peace.” But escalation seems likely to make things even worse.Nepal in Turmoil: Nepal’s army intervenes after protesters burn government buildings and politicians’ homes, killing 19 plus severe burn injuries to a former PM’s wife, following a reversed social media ban. Prime Minister Oli resigns amid chaos in Kathmandu. The crisis reflects public outrage over corruption and inequality.New York City Mayoral Race: Zohran Mamdani leads NYC’s mayoral race with 46% support, driven by his affordability platform, per a Times/Siena poll. Andrew Cuomo trails at 24%, backed by elites, while Eric Adams lags at 9%. The race tightens if Adams and Sliwa drop out but Mamdani still wins.Aegean Airlines Kitten Incident: A British couple reports the carrier lost three rescue kittens on a Crete-to-Paris flight, left in the hold. The traumatized cats were returned after two days, with no apology. This marks the airline’s second such incident in 2024.France’s Political Crisis: President Macron appoints Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister after François Bayrou’s resignation amid a budget crisis. But the public doesn’t believe there’s a crisis. Facing a divided parliament, Lecornu must navigate “Block Everything” protests set for Wednesday. France’s political instability stems from Macron’s 2024 snap election gamble.

So first awarding, if we just get blown up during the show, that's the Israelis. Yeah. They're bombing everyone else. They might as well bomb us, too. You're watching D-Program with Ted Rall and John Kirooku. I'm editorial cartoonist Ted Rall, and I'm with CIA whistleblower and national hero, John Kiriakou. I got a shout out in the UFO hearing yesterday, which was really, really nice.

That is awesome. Yeah, they were pushing for a shield law, right? A whistleblower. protection law, which is obviously it's kind of crazy when you tell people that we don't have one. They're like, what? Yeah, people can't believe it. Israel attacked Qatar.

Turns out that it was a failed attempt to assassinate the ceasefire negotiators. I guess that means the ceasefire negotiations could go on theoretically if they're not too upset about trying to the Israelis trying to kill them. But they did, the Israelis did manage to kill some people nevertheless. Not a total loss for Israel. And Nepal is in total chaos. New Pole came out in the New York mayoral race, which has, of course, become like sort of a benchmark

of the split inside the Democratic Party. And as we talked about earlier, Mamdani is comfortably pulling ahead. We'll talk about the fate of cats on Aegean Airlines. And President Emmanuel Macron has chosen his new prime minister, number five in two years, Sebastian Luckel knew. Where do you want to start, John? I want to start by saying that I'm really angry right now

and very revved up because I just was on the Mario Nafal podcast a few minutes ago, and he did not tell me that I was going to debate the IDF spokesman. And this guy was ugly in every sense of the word. So I'm very angry, and I'm starting this show off in a bad mood, but I'll get over it because now we're among friends. You definitely are above friends. Let's do something that's not Israeli and start with the Mamdani race. Okay.

The numbers, listen, if you're Mamdani, you've got to be dancing a jig seeing these numbers. Nobody's going to touch him, Ted. He's going to win. Can I tell you? New York Times. I should just go through the numbers, right? Currently, Mamdani is in a four to five way race, depending on how you count it. He's leading with 46% of the vote.

Cuomo, bringing up number two at 24%. Republican nominee Curtis Slewa at 15. The incumbent Democratic Mayor Eric Adams at 9%. Nine percent. The incumbent. The incumbent. And then meanwhile, the various elite business in the real estate business got together yesterday at an exclusive club to try to connive.

figure out how they can get Slewa and Adams out of the race to support Cuomo. But, you know, when I look at those numbers, I see 25 plus 15 is 39, 39 plus 9, it's 48, but you're not going to get all of Slewa's voters and Adams voters to vote for Cuomo. And they just sliced and dice the numbers. And even if it's a two-way race with Cuomo, Mamdani still wins, you know, it comes within four points. It's certainly spitting distance. But I don't see how the dynamics of this race are going to change.

And everybody else would have to quit the race and throw their support to Cuomo. And it's just not going to happen. Maybe if Cuomo hadn't killed all those old people at the start of COVID, maybe he might have a chance of winning this thing. But it's just not going to happen. And I'll tell you another thing, too. Also, he hates New York City and has said so repeatedly. Exactly right.

I wasn't even aware that he lived in a city. Yeah, I wasn't even aware that he lived there until he announced his candidacy. But Mom Dani met with Chuck Schumer today, and Chuck Schumer is still withholding an endorsement. But I had to chuckle because I thought to myself, Chuck, you're not the story here. Mom Dany is the story here. You should be asking Mom Dany for him to endorse you. He's more popular than Chuck Schumer is. Right.

Monsi doesn't need Chuck Schumer. My body could have used Chuck Schumer's support. You know, this reminds me of. My mom always told me before I got, before I met my first wife, that she would give me her old wedding ring because she was divorced. She'd give me the engagement ring, and I was poor. And it was like, you know, hey, I can save $10,000. So when the time came, I said, okay, I've chosen the person, you know her.

I want to propose. She's like, no, I don't approve of her. Look, mom was right, okay. But so she's like, no, you can't. So I bought my own ring and, you know, and then like after a year of marriage, my mom said, okay, I'll give you the ring. I'm like, Mom, I don't need the ring now. I'm already married. I needed the ring a year and a half two years ago.

That's what Chuck Schumer's endorsement would be like now. Who cares? Maldonni needed it earlier. He's, you know, he's winning without having to kiss any rings. He doesn't owe anyone in the Democratic establishment any favor. any favors whatsoever. That's right. Fuck them.

If I were him, I wouldn't even bother them. I don't know if I would even, I guess I would take a meeting with Chuck Schumer. You have to. But that's the bottom line. Yeah, you have to. And that's the bottom line. And if anybody wonders why Mamdani is so far ahead of everybody else in the polls, it all comes down to the issue of affordability.

You look at the numbers in the New York Times article. New Yorkers just cannot continue to afford. to live in the city. It's just simply too expensive. Rents are too high, food is too high, taxes are too high, and it's driving people out. You know, time was where you could go to Brooklyn and, okay, you know, have a decent life. Then Brooklyn got expensive. And then people went to Queens. Now Queens is too expensive. So now where they're going to go? Nobody wants to live in the Bronx. John, the Bronx is over, okay? You know, it's now, you know, how they have cute little acronyms for all the neighborhoods.

Yeah, they're changing the names. South of Houston, right? Yeah. There's, um, and in, uh, the South Bronx is now Sobrough. Oh, come on. There are, there are hipster high rises all over the, you know, the South Bronx in these areas that used to be literally two blocks away from Fort Apache, the Bronx, the notorious police precinct.

There's a hipster high rise there. Sobrough is over, man. You can't afford to live in the Bronx. You know what? I went up to, I went up to the Bronx, I'm going to say five, six weeks ago, because I needed to take pictures for my, not my coming book, but the book after that. So I thought, well, you know, it's New York's expensive. The hotels are expensive. I'll stay in the Bronx. I stayed in a holiday and expressed in the Bronx. Lovely. Next time you stayed at Chateau Raw. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Ted. And, um, and, and then. The Bronx was, we stayed in the South Bronx, which everybody, of course, had warned me not to do.

And it was perfectly fine. They had good restaurants. There were bars to hang out. Totally. I found street parking and didn't pay a cent for the entire weekend. The Bronx isn't so bad. No, I guess not. The people are lovely.

And, yeah, no, it's in. You mentioned, what was the movie just now, Fort Apache, the Bronx? that was like when I saw that movie I must have been 13 or 14 years old and it had an impact on me that lasted for years like never, never ever go to the Bronx

and the cops are just as bad as the criminals are and so I finally went to the Bronx it was pretty much fine. The cops are just a different gang that's all. No for sure well I mean so I think the interesting thing here is I mean yes he's running on affordability

and look they're a genuine questions to be asked as to whether a 33-year-old guy with not a lot of experience can be mayor of New York successfully. He wouldn't be the youngest. There was a younger guy. He is going to win, though. And he's going to, and it's going to shake up the political establishment, and he's going to have to decide what he wants to do. I mean, he's going to get a stern talking to from the one person who can really lean on him, which is Governor Kathy Hokel, who holds a lot of the purse strings that control the flow of money to the Trump. Transit Authority into New York City and so on.

But he also has to remember who brought him there, and he's got massive popular support. And his ace in the whole, and I hope he watches the show, is City Council. He controls. City Council agrees with him. He's got allies in City Council. He can get bills through City Council. And that's the key right there. He's not just going to wing it.

He's going to have City Council supporters. and he's going to have experienced advisors, he's going to be fine. I mean, my big advice is, look, the city has a major fiscal crisis. Do what Tokyo did. Tax Wall Street. Tax the New York Stock Exchange. Impose a $50 per transaction fee on every trade in the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange. And all the city's financial problems will go poof.

The city of Tokyo did it. They're swimming in cash. We have some questions. Oh, okay. I guess we're going to be moving into the foreign policy sphere here. Sasa Vukovik wants to know, how can future belligerents believe they will negotiate good faith if they legitimately expect to be bombed?

Yeah, seriously. Seriously. I don't even think, I think that answer and that question answers itself. Jesse Mayan, what are your thoughts on the recent ice raids on the South Korea auto plants that were under construction. I'm glad you thought of that. That's a good question. Yeah.

I didn't know that there were undocumented South Koreans in the United States, let alone undocumented South Koreans working for South Korea's largest auto manufacturer in the United States. Like, what? Where did that come from? I don't understand it. I used to work for a Japanese bank that did a lot of business with major auto producers, like Honda and Toyota. And, you know, I can't imagine the Japanese opening Honda of Ohio or Toyota in Kentucky

or any of these other facilities in Tennessee, Nissan's in Tennessee in Smyrna. I don't understand how these guys, they would never have thought of doing anything not by the book. How could the South Koreans be just sort of winging it like that? I guess this dates back to the Biden administration. but it's it's kind of fucked up. And then the South Koreans got pissy about it. Like, well, then fine. We'll send a plane for our people.

Fine. Fuck you. Dicks. What? Yeah, exactly right. Oh, my God. Soden, thank you, 23, 24. Thank you for the generous, almost $20 donation.

John Tanjad, I was watching a documentary on a CIA mole, Harold James Nicholson. And he was released from prison a few years ago. His son was caught spying as well. Why wasn't his case as big as Ames? Was he a scumbag? You know, I worked with that asshole in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. I never liked him. I didn't work directly for him.

I worked, thank God. I worked with him. But I'll tell you what he did. Besides being a mole for the Russians, which is bad enough, he outed more than 100 undercover CIA officers to the Russians, blew their identities. They had to, what the CIA calls. What time period is this?

Oh, this was in the 90s. I'm going to say 97, 98, something like that. It was in the late 90s. Clinton was president. I do remember that. But a lot of these people had to be brought in from the cold, which meant that they could never work in an undercover capacity again against the Russians. Now, that worked out fine for a couple of them.

They ended up becoming senior officers. But Nicholson was a traitor. There's just no other way to say. Now, Sotom, first of all, thank you for your donation. The question is, why wasn't his case as big as Ames is? the reason why it wasn't as big as Ames is because the people that Ames outed, besides the, you know, 80 or 100 CIA officers, Ames gave the Russians the names of our recruited Russian assets and more than a dozen of them were executed. So he had the blood of all those people on his hands.

Yeah. And I'll tell you, sorry, did James, did Nicholson do it just for money or for ideological basis? At first, at first he had been. passed over for promotion he was in like singapore malaysia something in southeast asia and he'd been passed over for promotion he was pissed off so he approached the russians and said hey i can give you intelligence that'll knock your socks off but i want money and he he did it in part for the money he did it in part for the revenge for being passed over for promotion he was a gs 15 and he didn't make it to the Senior Intelligence Service.

So what he did, he got convicted. And from his prison cell, he drew up a list of additional people that he had thought of after being convicted and convinced his stupid half-retard son to approach the Russians and give them the extra list of names. And so they grabbed the son

and they prosecuted the son. and then Nicholson came to this deal, don't prosecute my son. I'll do his time. They added time to Nicholson's statement. Frankly, until Sodon wrote his question here in the chat, I did not realize that Nicholson had been released. He was released. It says here in November. I think it said November. November 24th, 2023. From the Supermax, the ADX Florence. Now usually if you are in a maximum security penitentiary, and you behave yourself, you are dropped down to a medium, you continue to behave yourself, you drop down to a low, and if you're a really good boy, they drop you down to a minimum security work camp.

He was in Supermax until the last day of his sentence, and then they let him out from Supermax. I hated Nicholson, scumbag. Let's have a few more questions that we get to. another story, pertinent from Mr. Athenian, 89. Any news regarding your pardon, any chance that Donald might pardon you and give you your pension back? Thank you, Mr. Athenian. I have to be careful.

Yeah, no, this might, you know, you are allowed. I will cover for you if you decide to just say I can't talk about. You know what? I'll say this. I'm in touch with all the right people. All the way up to the top. All the right people. So hopefully, I mean, it seems like it's been taking a long time, but yeah.

I'm optimistic. Yeah. U.S. Triple X A Rod 21. Thanks for the donation. Is it true that there are more Asian undocumented immigrants than Hispanic? Always heard it anecdotally, but not sure. Process that.

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be a full-time Q&A. Very true. Anyway, Asian undocumented immigrants, I don't know. Yeah, listen, let's put it, think of it this way. There are more Chinese restaurants in the United States than there are McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger Kings combined. And they've got this system, this illegal system where undocumented Chinese workers arrive, whether, you know, in giant shipping containers or across the border for Mexico or whatever, they enter into the Chinese restaurant system

and they'll work in a Chinese restaurant for four or five, six months and then they're bused to another Chinese restaurant in a different part of the country. It's this network, this illegal network that they're all a part of. And frankly, you know, this is not something that the FBI does

because what does the FBI do, really? And it's only now... According to you, According to your episode four of your autobiography that we've been recording for Rubble Premium, apparently they spend a lot of time in trapping people and trying to get them to commit crimes that they wouldn't have thought of in the first place. Amen. That's what they do.

And trapment should be illegal, and it's not. Yeah, it should. But it's not. It's not. And it should be. Don't get me started on the Route 82 bridge plot. We could talk about that at some other time. But let's, we should, we should talk about, let's talk about Nepal.

Yeah. And the Paul's in total chaos. The police, the military have been called in. Government buildings were set, were torched. Politicians' houses were set on fire. The former prime minister's wife was literally set on fire in her own house and may die. They basically were very, they targeted the elites. Catmandu is in a total state of lockdown and chaos, airports, hotels, government buildings, all under fire.

Some protesters have grenades and rifles, which to me would indicate an insurgency more than sort of garden variety protests. John, what's your take on what's going on in Nepal? I mean, I know it's kind of a hot zone that people don't think about. See, I was going to say exactly the same thing. It is a hot zone that people don't think about. How many Americans remember just a few months before the 9-11 attacks? There was a minor prince in the Nepali royal family, got into an argument with other members of the Nepali royal family, and then he killed everybody, the king, the queen, the crown prince, the crown prince's wife, the crown prince's sister.

the crown prince's kids. And then he killed himself. He literally wiped out the entire Nepali royal family. And that's why Nepal doesn't have a royal family anymore. It's not a monarchy anymore. It's a, it's a democracy, although it has a lot of bumps in the road. Clearly. Nepal has, Nepal is in a tough position because it's surrounded by India and China and

it's landlock. It's tough to get there. It's, what do they call it? The world's, the, the, the, the, Roof of the world. Rooftop of the world. Yeah, yeah. Because it's where half of Everest is.

Yeah, half of Everest. If you climb Everest, you are not coming from the Tibet side. You're coming from the Nepal side. Correct. And so it doesn't have a whole lot going for it. I mean, they're great in that they tend to be self-sufficient. But besides at Mount Everest, they're leery of foreigners. They're leery of tourists.

It's hard and it's expensive to get a Nepali tourist visa. um they even ration them right and you can't just go to the embassy and say hey give me a visa and get your passport stamped and then fly in nepal i happened to be in deli airport one time waiting for it to catch a flight to uh cobble and um and i went to the gate early and there was already a plane there waiting to take people and it was flying to catmandu and i was surprised first of all at what dicks everybody was to the passengers just openly hostile rude they checked their passports and these were almost all indians they checked their passports three times to make sure that they had napali visas the nepalies don't want foreigners well protests happened there with

regularity there's not a whole bunch of reform and every once in a while things boil over and that's exactly what we have seen the last two days boiling over. And it's not like they can say, well, we're going to tap our sovereign wealth fund to spend some money on public works to make everybody happy. There's no such thing. They don't have anything there. John, one of our Rumblers is in Nepal. Oh my gosh. In Kathmandu. He says he's at the capital center. Everything is burning down. Wow. That is DFC-91. Ted, I'm in the capital center. Everything is burning down.

Oh, my God. It's crazy. I mean, you know, the power of the internet that to be able to talk to someone literally on the other side of the world in real time as this is happening. Army was not trying to take over, but they were kind of forced to take over.

Yeah, that's been the reporting is that basically they've been called in to restore order. It's not a military coup. Right. It's not like, it's not like, It's not like Washington, D.C. or Chicago, where it is a military coup. Wow. Yeah, it is.

I hope we have time to even talk about Chicago because that's the next fight. Yeah, for sure, for sure. So I guess we're going to continue to watch this. Well, be careful, DFC. For sure. What do you make about, oh, they say he said that they burnt an effigy outside his house. Wow. Question.

I mean, you know, what do you make of the fact that some. protesters were armed with grenades. Yeah, where does come from? Right? Unless they raided a military, you know, armory. Where do you get a grenade? Yeah. I don't know, man.

Not at the tourist Tchki shop with the tie-dye t-shirts. All right. We got to also talk about France. We're putting off the... Oh, Jen. Thank you, Jen. Thank you, Jen. Thank you so much.

She's been praying for your pardon since I heard your story about three years ago. I hope this administration makes things right. Oh, I appreciate it very much. I'm, man, I wish I could say more, but I'm this close. I've been in personal touch with the U.S. pardon attorney. I'll tell you this much. I spoke to the U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin. He's the former Attorney General of Missouri, very, very conservative.

conservative. And yeah, thank you, Scott. I was blindsided. Nobody ever said I was going to have to debate this guy. But anyway, so I texted Ed Martin and I said, I understand that this friend of mine talked to you today. Thank you for taking my letter. And I appreciate everything that you're doing. And then I excited, I excitedly called my lawyer and I said, hey, I just texted at Ed Martin. I got his cell phone number. And my lawyer says, oh, no, no, you made a big mistake. I said, why? I just told him how much I appreciated his time and thank you for considering me for a pardon. And he said, no, because you, first of all, you texted him on his private cell phone, which now makes it liable to a Freedom of Information Act request. It's a violation of his privacy.

I was like, ah, crap, I didn't even think of that. And then he said, and now, if he's ever questioned he has to say that he knows you because you've been in touch with him and you know people are going to say oh well he was in touch with kiriaku and they spoke and you know maybe you know i don't even want to say maybe what i said oh no i was so excited i wasn't even thinking what i was doing and my lawyer says he's never going to respond to you so don't be offended and i said okay and as soon as i said okay a minute later bing he responds to me. And he says, and this was all he said, he said, I'm a big fan of yours. I am. And I was so excited. I just sent him back a heart emoji. So today, a friend of a friend called me and said,

hey, did I ever mention to you that my best friend is, is the U.S. partner attorney, Ed Martin? And I said, oh, my God, no. And I told him the story. And he said, And I'm going to call him. I'm going to say this has to get done and it has to get done now. So I don't want to go any deeper than that, but you've already shared a lot. I think let's just leave that there. Yeah, yeah, I think I'm going to do that. All right.

So let's talk about France. So we talked yesterday about the French situation. We have to follow up. We don't have to spend a lot of time on it. But it's worth noting that Emmanuel Macron made absolutely the worst possible decision that he possibly could have. He moved quickly. That part's not bad.

But he chose another corporate center-rightist, which is exactly the path that has gotten him into trouble. You predicted it, though. You predicted it. He can't help himself. Yeah, he can't help himself. You know, he's like the scorpion offering the ride across the swollen river. You know, it's his nature.

Sebastian Le Courneux was an outcast. and cabinet minister, he's been picked. So now there's going to be these massive protests tomorrow and eight days from tomorrow called the Block Everything protests, which I think is self-explanatory.

There's going to be you know, and when the French protest, they do it up big. Big. It means the metros grind to a halt. It means the airports close, the rest of the cafes and the restaurants close. No baguette.

you know, no, no, no, no, no, you know, the cops go on strike, everyone's on strike. On greve, right? Oh, baracad. So, Francis, you know, right now you're talking about a president with a 15% approval rating. And, you know, the thing is, John, it's like all over kind of like pixie dust. It's like, oh, we have this terrible, you know, crisis. And, you know, what's the crisis about? The crisis is they want to spend a lot.

more money, well, the government wants to spend a lot more money on military spending. And for what? The reason is because the bad Russians are on the move and the Russians are threatening Europe, except the Russians aren't threatening Europe. And the Russians aren't coming into Eastern Europe, much less France. I mean, it's just not true. But basically it's like, it's sort of like, you know, the situation you described in Washington. Crime is getting really bad. No, it's not. But because crime is really bad, we have to send in the National Guard because you guys can't control it. No, we've got it under control. No, because you guys, we are going to come and help you.

And it's kind of like the same exactly thing. Because the Russians are coming, they're not coming. Well, we're going to have to build up our defense. No, we don't have to, which is going to cost a lot of money, which we don't want to spend. And so that's why people, the French people are not buying what the elites are selling. This is going to just get uglier. Yeah. I think so, too.

You know, the question for me, though, is because I don't know very much about France, other than what I just read in the headlines, this can't be maintained over the long term, right? There's got to be a point where French people just say enough. You know they've got it in them. Oh, yeah, they do. So what happens next? Well, I mean, how bad does it get? We know they're going to take to the streets,

but are we talking about 1968 all over again? I think we could be. We're probably looking at 1968 followed by 1958. I think we're going to looking at the end of the Fifth Republic. There's a move now to overthrow the Constitution on the part of Jean-Luc Melanchon on the far left, and Marine Le Pen on the right is not against it. And basically, the Fifth Republic under DeGuard.

created a very strong central presidency. And that that's something that Macron's been using and abusing in the minds of many Frenchmen. So I think they're going to come back and they're going to, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to create a weaker presidency with a new constitutional convention. I'm, I don't think Macron's going to finish his term. He's due to finish. He'll be term limited out in 2027. I don't think he's going to make it. I can't imagine he makes it another two years.

It's a long time. 15% approval rating. And it's never going to go up again, ever. No. Right? So, I mean, the French are like this, right? Once they're done with you, they're fucking finished with you. They're not like Americans.

Like, with Americans, like, you go away, like, for a little while. You come back. You're redeemed. Everyone forgets, like Jeffrey Tubin. Everyone forgets that you were naked at the New Yorker's Zoom meeting. No, no one cares. It's fine. You're Jeffrey Tubin.

You could be back in the New York Times. We love you, Jeff. Jeffrey Epstein, if he was still alive, he'd be forgiven. He'd be at the White House right now dining with Donald. But the French, man, you know, they're old school. They're 2,000 years old. They have a long memory. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. I'm surprised he's made it this far. I can't imagine that he makes it two more years, but we'll see. So you think this could actually result in the end of the Fifth Republic? I do. In fact, I would say it's slightly more likely than not. The question is whether there's going to be violence. The question is how much violence is there going to be?

Are we just talking about yellow vests running street battles and burning trash cans? Or are we talking about something more serious? I mean, the French domestic police force is a lot more militarized than it ever has been. and it was historically a force, that they're the ones who crushed 1968. So they can do it again. You know, I mean, a revolution could be put down. Do you think it could come to that, really?

I think it's possible. The rage is so intense. I mean, you have a government that just, I mean, the thing about being the president of France is you should wake up every morning and say, to yourself, this is where revolution was invented, right here. That's true. That's why we study it. And this is where the guillotine was invented and used to great effect. So like, and this is a country that has had repeated revolutions and uprisings, right? So it's like, you should be scared to death

of the French people. You should be terrified. You know, like, John, you've been to Kabul. You know, you know, Chicken Street, the main shopping district in Kabul. And there's a spike, right? on the entrance to chicken street that used to be there. I think it's been ripped it down. But it used to be like whenever there was an uprising in Kabul, you know, whoever was being overthrown, their head could end up on that spike, like Najibullah. You took the words right out of my mouth.

That's where Najibullah ended up. So the point is, you know, people, if you rule Afghanistan, you know things can get spicy. Afghanistan, I mean, France isn't that different. You know, I mean, these are, these are very angry people and and they and they don't they'll sit for a while but you know i mean they're miserable right now they're really pissed you know so yes their whole way of life is in trouble so um is is under threat so i think you know when your entire identity you know we've

heard you know like producer robbie talk about like you know the issue of identity when when identity your national identity is under threat you know you you you could you'll feel very desperate. You'll feel trapped. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So, oh, Jen, thank you. Well, you know, hey, I wouldn't roll out a 90-minute show in the future. Let's get this one off the ground, see how it goes. You know, then we can spend more time on it. If there's the demand, I'm only speaking for myself here. Okay. So, John, are you ready to talk about, are you ready to talk about Israel's latest attempt to basically, it's like, let's start, let's, let's bomb another country. Yeah. So we know what Israel did. I don't know if we have to, I guess we do have to say.

So Qatar or Qatar, depending on how you choose to pronounce it, has been hosting Hamas's leadership for many, many years. Yes. And they've been brokering the ceasefire negotiations, such as they've been for many, many years, well, ever since 2003. And so basically, the Israelis decided that they would try to assassinate the ceasefire negotiators. They bombed right in downtown Doha, which is the capital of Qatar, this building. They didn't, apparently, according to Hamas, if we believe them, the targets all escaped with their lives.

But six random people, collateral damage, including a security officer. officer, Akutari, who's the son and also the son of Hamas's Gaza chief, Khalil al-Haya, and one of his aides were all killed. And I guess there probably were injuries as well. I thought the White House reaction was very interesting. Basically, Trump sent the message through his press secretary that this was not something that he had been consulted on or had approved, believed that this attack was against both U.S. and counter to Israeli interests as well.

Yep. Apparently, as soon as the Israelis, the Israelis notified the Americans while the planes were up in the air. And by the way, I got to ask you, these planes flew across Saudi airspace. Exactly. So the Saudis. And the Israelis are saying that it was 15 fighter jets. It wasn't just a drone. They had to know.

I mean, I know, because my dad sold them the AWACs. He was part of the negotiating team. Oh, my God. They knew. They definitely knew. So how come the Saudis let it happen? How did they sign off on this? I mean, look, effectively, Qatar would be totally in their rights to do, sure,

they're going to the UN and asking for an investigation, blah, blah, blah. They could go to war, right? They have every right to attack Israel. hundred percent this is an act of war cutter has the has the right to defend itself but but let's look at the at the region everybody hates gutter everybody the Saudis and the gutteries actually i mean i'm laughing when i say it but when i was living in bahrain they actually started shooting at each other at the at the border you can there's actually a land border between gutter and sadi Arabia. It's a no man's land of, you know, of desert, but they actually do have a road. And, you know,

somebody said something about the other guy's mother or whatever it was. Next thing you know, they're shooting. Everybody missed. But it was an international incident that these border guards are shooting at one another. And then the Saudi sent the army and the gutteries sent their army, none of whom are guttery. They're all Pakistani. Of course, they're all Pakistanis in the Saudi army, too. And then the U.S. got involved. Bill Clinton was the president. He got everybody to back off. The gutteries were for decades in a near state of war with Bahrain

over uninhabited islands called the Hawar Islands. The International Court of Justice finally awarded those islands to Bahrain. And to their credit, the gutteries just walked away. The gutteries and the Emirates don't get along because the gutteries were trying to sort of stay. deal business, mostly banking business from Dubai, so there are bad feelings there. The Kuwaitis just ignore the gutteries because Kuwait has its own problems. And gutter made a policy decision about 25 years ago that they're going to do whatever they want that sticks in the

craw of the Saudis. So if the Saudis, for example, hate Iran and break relations with Iran, gutter is going to improve relations with Iran and exchange ambassadors. The Saudis are going to consider signing on to the Abraham Accords. The gutter is going to have Hamas and are going to finance weapons sales to Hamas or weapons transfers to Hamas through Syria. Whatever the Saudis do, the Qarries want to do the opposite. So now we've got a situation where the Israelis fly 15. fighter jets. By the way, which is

apropos of Adam Fighters' question, why use fighter jets instead of drones? Surely Israel has drones in Qatar. I would assume the Israelis have drones all over the doggone place. It's a good question. I don't know. I think they did it just for the

just for the the site, the the fright of having actual live jets. Anybody can send a drone. To send jets that far. And also bigger orders.

Absolutely. Way bigger. But you're right. The Saudis had to have just, you know, turned away and pretended that everything is fine. When I was still at the agency, there was this odd thing that took place. One day, out of the clear blue sky,

all Saudi air defenses, went down. They just shut down, went offline. And the Israelis started flying planes across Saudi Arabia. They got to the United Arab Emirates, and then they turned around and flew back to Israel. And then the Saudi air defenses came back up again. Well, the Israelis said, oh, no, we were just doing an exercise. And then, you know, we noticed that the air defenses went down. So we thought, well, we're just going to go finish this exercise. And the Saudis are like, yeah, we don't know what happened. Our air difference is just, there must have been some kind of glitch in the system.

And then they came back up. No, we're not morons. The Israelis and the Saudis have long talked, despite the fact that they don't have diplomatic relations. And the Israelis wanted to do a practice run to see how long it would take them to get to Iran. So if they were to go to Iran, bomb and return. turn, how fast could they do that? And the Saudi said, yeah, no problem. We'll just take down our air defenses. You guys do your practice run against Iran and then just turn around and go back. We'll put our air defenses back up. That's exactly what they did. So today, when I got this push notification

that the Israelis bombed gutter, I thought, well, of course they did with Saudi help the whole way. Now, interestingly, the Israelis announced immediately after the bombing that they had informed the White House that they were going to do this and they got the thumbs up from the White House. Donald Trump says that is absolutely untrue that they did it without informing the United States. The reason that's important, well, it's twofold. Number one, we're supposed to be the ones working with the gutteries to encourage the Israelis and Hamas to negotiate. But number two, gutter is the home to the largest American Air Force base in the world. Whoa. In the world.

So the gutteries have to be, you know, they must have summoned the American ambassador today and said, what the fuck? Yeah. Either you're here to protect us or you're not. And if you're not going to protect us, then I'm not sure we need this giant American air force base in our country. right so we'll see how it plays out it's ugly on a lot of different levels i mean the cutaries are obviously rip shit yeah um yeah i mean they're and you know they they they kind of like it's sort of this reminds me a little bit tell me if you think there's an analogy here remember when there

was the massad assassination um that took place in dubai absolutely we studied it and the agency and the uh and the emir was pissed Right? Amir Hamid, yes. And he decided to burn the cover of the Mossad agents by splashing their pictures on the front page of the newspaper with everything that they knew about them. And basically the message was, you know, this is Vegas of the Middle East. People come here and they need to be able to relax and not have to worry about things like this. It's going to fuck off our entire tourist model, our economic model.

You can't do this anymore. And this kind of reminds me of that. I mean, Qatar's like, don't fuck with Qatar. Yeah. Yeah. This guy, this IDF spokesman that I debated earlier today, too, was saying, well, the Qataris deserved it because they're a terrorist state sponsor of terrorism and their media outlet that some call Al Jazeera is a supporter of terrorism.

And they're tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Taliban. And there are reports that there's ISIS in Doha. And it's like, what are you talking about? Just make shit up. Throw shit at the wall. Oh, it was bad. It was bad. Yeah.

I mean, it's kind of their genius. They just throw lie after lie after lie after lie. And you can't keep up with them all. And then you're kind of like, if you let some go, effectively those are getting through unchallenged. But if you spend your entire time just challenging them, then you never get to make your own point. And that's the problem that I ran into is I jumped on the guy.

first he interrupted me constantly until mario told him to shut up and uh and then i could finally get a thought out but i don't know i felt like it was two against one it was it was tough that sounds extremely like being on sean hennedy um ella ellie louise uh thank you very much for the 10 pounds will the israeli government get their nuremberg for their war crimes and genocide one day or was nuremberg singular i think nuremberg was singular agree And Matthew Blair Raines, thank you very much for the five pounds. Given the animosity between Israel and Ireland, when Irish unification happens, could you see Israel trying to disrupt it, e.g. to fund paramilitaries? 100% yes.

Absolutely positively, yes. And they could do it through a cutout, so the fingers wouldn't point right back to them, and they could do it relatively cheaply. Yeah. Ron, thank you for the $25. Oh, thank you. And Abdullah as well. What are, that's a different currency? What is RON?

Abdullah, thank you very much. You know, I don't know. We'll have to look that up. But thank you. We know it's money. Thank you. Thank you. How do we think, what do we think Gulf?

How do we think Gulf countries will respond? I guess you're saying not by much. I think not by much, which is a shame. I think they should, listen, the GCC, the GCC, the Gulf, Cooperation Council has been, has been a thing since the early 1980s. That's Romanian, by the way. Oh, thank you very much, Abdullah. And so they should respond, you know, in a unified fashion.

They won't respond in a unified fashion. My fear is they're not going to respond at all. They're going to say, oh, well, this is a problem for gutter, that gutter shouldn't have aligned itself so closely with Hamas, which is disingenuous because the United States asked them to take on this role as intermediary. And I don't know, man. So, okay, so let's, but let's get, why did the Israelis do this? What was their point here?

I think they really did want to decapitate Hamas. Look at, look at Hezbollah. For all intents and purposes, Hasbullah does not exist anymore as a fighting force, temporarily. It's going to come back. But right now, Hezbollah is no threat to Israel. and it's because the Israelis decapitated it. I think they were trying to do the same with the Hamas leadership, and they failed. They failed today.

I mean, don't you think this is also trying to send a message to the world? We're not interested in anything short of total victory. We're not interested in negotiations. And they say that right out. Or ceasefire talks. This is a fuck you to Donald Trump is what it is. Oh, totally, totally. And if I were Donald Trump,

call baby nut and Yahoo and say lose my number never call me again somebody just asked a question that you put up on the board uh and of course uh youtube has gone to commercial so let me skip that okay there we go um why use fighter jets instead of drones that was an in-your-face policy decision that we can do anything we want with as many assets as we want and What are you going to do about it? You can't do anything about it. That's why they did. All they need it, if they really wanted to do this,

I said this at the beginning of this awful Mario and a Fall podcast today. It was at 3.45 Easter, by the way, somebody asked. I said, if you're Israel and you want to kill Hamas' leadership and you know where they are, then you send in a team and, you know, you do it silently like that. Or you put a bullet in the head. You don't send 15 fighter jets to gutter. to bomb the shit out of one apartment building.

Right downtown. Right in the center of downtown. It's a big fuck you. It's really, let me read an ad. Hey, how football fanatics? Are you ready for some primetime NFL action? Tune into Westwood One for all the gridiron glory you crave from jaw-dropping touchdowns to game-changing plays.

Don't miss a moment of the excitement. Catch every snap, every tackle, and every victory on Westwood One. You can listen to the NFL on the NFL app on the Westwood One. Westwood One Sports app on the Westwood One Sports.com via Westwood One station streams or by asking Alexa to open Westwood One sports. If it's the NFL, it's on Westwood One. That is not easy to say fast. Just saying. So, yeah, so consequences.

Did Donald Trump call BB and say what the fuck or not? It's my understanding that he did. He tried to defend himself. The Israelis are playing games with him. Excuse me. And making it look like this was Trump's idea or at the very least that that Trump had approved it. And that's just, I don't know.

That doesn't make sense. That's not true and couldn't be true. I mean, no, I mean, that's a categorical, the kind of categorical DC denial that I completely believe. there's going to be a Cutter's gone to the UN and requested an investigation. How does that look? How does that work?

What happens there? Listen, I worked at the UN and nothing gets done at the UN. They're going to, it's one of these things. We used to joke in the office like, I'm going to write a very strongly worded letter. Yeah. It's like, okay, knock yourself out. So yeah, I mean, they'll make a,

an official complaint to the Security Council and they will take it under advisement and nobody will ever hear anything ever again. That's all. That's what's going to happen. It's really depressing. Kiki and Jasmine, thanks for the 10 pounds. Much appreciated. Thank you. Brueaille de Finitif says he would have, he or she would have preferred an epic pager 2.0 up. I don't know. I don't think that's, I don't think that's, that's a oneer. Never going to have happen. Right. That was my argument about 9-11. Like, we shouldn't have to do the TSA. Like, they're never going to do planes again, ever, you know, like, ever. It's going to always be something new. Okay. The most pressing and grave news issue of the week, of the day, as you know, John, is this

horrible issue from your native land from Ted Egeon Airlines I was so disappointed when you sent me this Aegean Airlines that I love so much I actually joined the frequent flyer program Egean Airlines for the last three years at least in a row has been ranked as the best regional airline in the world

the planes are brand new it is immaculately clean the food is delicious the flight attendants are beautiful. My cousin's a flight attendant on Aegean. She goes all over the world. But there's one problem. They keep losing kittens.

They do. A British couple was the latest victim. Bethany and Adam Mulcahy-Stevenson lost three rescue kittens on Aegean from Crete to Paris. They were left in the plains holds. By the way, if they're kittens, why can't they just be put in one of those little carriers and yeah just put a carrier yeah exactly flown back to uh Thessala key that's a easy for you to say and and apparently the cats were traumatized upon return to Paris after two days I'm betting they didn't get fed or anything um this is the second time it's happened on a jean

there was a Crete to Munich I think Crete is the issue here to Munich flight from in March 2024 that was more disturbing because the cat was permanent lost. The kitten has never been seen or heard from ever again. So, you know, you check in your cat. You're not happy when you arrive and, oh, I'm sorry. And the cat didn't make it. Well, actually, a damaged carrier showed up in that instance, but with a hole in it. Oh, my God. There was an article in Greece's top newspaper, Kathimetti, last week. I sent it to my son. because he loved all the cats walking around everywhere, every island, Athens, Thessaloniki, they're everywhere.

And I said that there are three different rescue organizations based in Greece that are now encouraging tourists to take a cat home with them. So cute. Yeah. I mean, everybody loves these cats. They have cat calendars in all the tourist areas and little cat charms and all kinds of stuff about the cats. So you can rescue a Greek cat.

and take it back to your country. If you're in the UK, there's a little wait time because they have weird animal importation laws in the UK. And then this appears where Aegean Airlines is supposed to be one of the best airlines in the world and they keep losing cats. Now where the heck are the cats? Magister Militurn brings up a news you can use thing.

True, put a tracker in your pet's collar. That's right. Put an air tag on the collar, right? Seriously, you'll find out where the cat is. Alicia B. says never put your animals in the belly of a plane, American sweetheart, points out that it's cold in there. And that's true. There's been cases where the animals have been injured because it was so cold in the bowels of the plane. Yeah, like 30 below zero cold. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Hey, we have a question from

Reed, too. In the show, Fowda, why are those agents always playing mobile backgammon? Great question. Because you can chat. in mobile backgammon and NSA and GCHQ and the Israelis and the bad guys, the Russians, the Chinese, they're not monitoring game app chats. They're monitoring cell phones, right? So you can say classified information in a mobile backgammon chat and nobody's going to intercept it. They don't think to intercept it.

that's why they do it the Israelis were the ones that started that and then real quickly you remember the terrorist attack in san bernadino a few years ago oh yeah yeah yeah it was that was a isis um self radicalized situation right that's right self radicalized ISIS situation and after the attack the FBI discovered that they were chatting on their game devices that's why that's why nsa never intercepted, anything related to an upcoming attack. Interesting. I guess that's secret's out the door now. Pedro, Luis, wants to know, do we think the UN's coming to an end like the League of Nations before World War II, even though the UN has an enormous body when you compare it with

the League of Nations? I mean... It kind of looks that way. I mean, who would take the UN seriously? You can't. It's a waste of... It's a waste of time, energy, and money, right? I mean, what do they seriously do? I mean, I'm really, I mean, I'm asking in a serious way. I mean, I saw them certainly. They do conduct relief operations in places like Afghanistan. They do.

You see their white planes. Yeah. And they're white jeeps. So, but the main purpose, which is adjudicating differences between nations, they're not fulfilling that. It's more like an NGO or an umbrella organization. NGOs and it would probably be cheaper to just have the NGOs right i had a teacher in 11th grade dorothy polino she was one of the best teachers i ever had and it was the class was uh world

politics or world something or other and i remember she was very very conservative and my god she was a patriot in fact she was a navy captain she wore men's suits every day and had a men's haircut. But she was straight. Her husband was in the Navy, too. So she had been captured by a Soviet ship and held hostage and was part of a prisoner exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and then decided to just come back home at the end of her Navy career and teach high school. She was a wonderful, wonderful teacher. And she told us once that, why am I telling you this? what were we just talking about you just said what did you just say ted oh the u.n and the you and the u.n thank you she used to she used to be so proud of the fact that the united nation

that the united states had never ever vetoed a u.n security council resolution so i'm talking up to 1982 and well i didn't i did not realize that it was the soviet union they always used to veto stuff. And it was like, see how much better we are. We work with all these other countries. Well, the first one, Resolution 242. Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. And now we veto everything.

Everything we veto. Like, oh, let's commemorate the deaths of innocent civilians. Nope, veto. Wasn't Reagan who stopped paying our dues? Yes, Reagan stopped paying our dues. And Trump, a week ago, threatened to stop paying our dues. I don't understand. The UN is our bitch.

It's in New York. I can walk from my house to it. Well, you know, this four miles away. This denial of, this denial of visas for the Palestinian delegation, say 80 people. We denied all of their visas, which is a violation of the UN charter. Now Modi is saying he's going to boycott the UN General Assembly. And he's suggesting, just like people did in the 80s, that the U.N. UN moved to Geneva, Switzerland, so the U.S. can't have a stranglehold on it.

That's not going to... It's a great idea, but you need the Security Council to approve it, and we are going to veto that. There's that, right? Sidone 23-20, but if we leave, then we couldn't. That's right. Stodon 23-24 says, Gaddafi asked the same thing at the UN General Assembly. What's the purpose of the UN?

And he was right. He's totally right. And by the way, fresh sub, yeah, pay your dues. Yeah, you're a member. Pay your dues. I mean, you know, I was the president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. I was calling all my members, like, all the time, pay your fucking dues. Otherwise, you're not a member.

Don't come to the conventions anymore. We've got a comment from Stephen Victor Andrews. World Trade Center 7 was the largest CIA facility outside of Virginia, I heard. And that is where they debriefed all the spies at the UN. Not true. World Trade Center 7 was just a. normal office, like any other CIA office, anywhere in the world, no bigger or smaller than, you know, a normal embassy. And the CIA would never, ever, ever, ever debrief somebody in

a CIA office. You take them to a hotel. You take them to, you know, a car in a dark parking lot. You take them to another town where nobody's going to see you after doing a long surveillance detection route, never, ever, ever would you bring somebody into a CIA office? So Robin Hood says W.T.7 will never go away. Psychologically, I've always been kind of intrigued by why people are so fascinated by that. And the only, for me, the only thing I can think of is the events all started at 842 in the morning. And that building came down at like 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And it seemed like sort of like this should be over. Why are buildings still falling down so much later after the initial attacks? Something must be up. And that along with

the question of like why did all of these buildings pancake instead of tip over? I really think the visuals of it had a, and the timing had a lot to do with it. I mean, kind of the the genius of the plan, right, of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's plan, was just sort of the theatrical cinematic aspect that really plays into an American public's sort of the psychology of the one-two punch. But wait, there's more. This was all day long, but wait, there's more sort of thing.

Yes. I mean, what do you make of the fascination of seven world, with Seven World Trade. I think that people generally think so little of the government, for good reason, that they tend to doubt official explanations of things. Oh, well, for sure. Yeah. Well, especially because it doesn't seem to be transparency.

Yeah. You know, they always seem to be covering up and not telling you the full story. Yeah. If only there were people who worked in government who thought that they would make it their business to tell the public what was up. If only there were people like that. Yeah, right. Right.

But nothing bad would ever happen to them. They would get medals. That's right. And imagine. And a ticker tape parade down Broadway, which you do deserve. As it happens. Hey, thanks. Thanks.

We ran out of time, unfortunately. We are out of time, indeed. So much to talk about. Oh, my God. And this is only Tuesday, right? Well, last question. Is dancing Israelis a real thing or conspiracy BS? Oh, no, I mean, there were actually Israelis dancing,

but what they explained, and I think this is probably true, they were dancing because they knew, just like we did at the CIA or at the State Department, that the United States was going to have to respond to 9-11 by killing thousands and thousands of Muslims. And that's what they, that's exactly, what they wanted us to do. Yeah.

Well, and with that, I think that's a depressing, but appropriate place to leave it. Let's go to, oh, last question for you. How was the harvest? Pamela Drew wants to know, how was the harvest? And I was just writing her. I saw it on Facebook. I put it on Facebook, but I'm going to put it on substack.

I think it was a really great picture. I tried to do a deep space picture, and I was having all kinds of problems. Like, I couldn't get it to, to level and the level that's built in is telling me it's perfectly level and I just I couldn't get it. So I said, well, the moon is amazing. It's the most orange moon of the year. I took a shot of the moon and it turned out to be perfect. And Stephen Victor Andrews, thank you very much on Thursday. I'm going to try really, really hard to make that lunch. But I'll be there in the

morning. So I'll be there. I think I start at 845. So looking forward to seeing you. awesome and with that um i think we're going to call it a a show um thanks everyone for tuning in uh thank please like follow and share the show um i uh thank you know i'm trying to find the outro video place and it's just like not letting me choose it so you know this god it's like it's so annoying anyway so we're just going to be like no little fancy video we're out Bye. Bye, everybody. See ya.