DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Israel’s Discreet Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza”

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Is Israel furtively indulging in slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza to South Africa and other countries? South Africa suspects yes. Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou bring you up to speed on this shocking story as well as alleged prosecutorial screw-ups threatening the high-profile indictment of James Comey to global shifts in migration and education.Comey Indictment in Jeopardy: A federal magistrate judge drops a scathing 24-page ruling, slamming inexperienced prosecutor Lindsey Halligan for "fundamental and highly prejudicial" misstatements of law during her solo grand jury appearance seeking charges against former FBI Director James Comey for lying to Congress in his notorious 2020 testimony. Judge William E. Fitzpatrick orders immediate disclosure of incomplete grand jury materials to Comey's lawyers, raising "genuine issues of misconduct" that could force dismissal, while prosecutors scramble with an emergency halt request. The jurist’s extraordinary rebuke, amid doubts over Halligan's legitimacy, underscores unraveling Justice Department efforts, including Trump's ousting of her predecessor for insufficient evidence.US International Student Enrollment Plummets: New research finds a 17% drop in first-time international student enrollments at US universities this fall, driven by Trump administration visa delays, denials, and heightened scrutiny including mandatory social media checks following pro-Palestine campus protests. The Institute of International Education's survey across 828 institutions notes a modest 1% overall decline but warns of steeper losses in the future, as 84% of schools say they prioritize foreign recruitment amid $55 billion economic contributions. Universities respond with 39% more deferrals, countering factors like travel restrictions affecting 2% of students and growing perceptions of an unwelcoming environment, despite Trump's recent pledge to double Chinese student visas for business gains. South Africa Rejects Palestinian Charter Flights: South Africa's Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola bans additional chartered flights carrying Palestinians, calling the recent arrival of 153 from Gaza a "clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank" in an orchestrated global resettlement push. The group, routed via Nairobi without prior coordination, endured over 10 hours stranded at OR Tambo Airport due to missing departure stamps before intervention by a charity allowed 130 to enter the RSA on compassionate grounds. This follows a similar flight two weeks prior, amid Israel's voluntary relocation rhetoric criticized internationally, as South Africa—long a Palestinian ally since Mandela's era—investigates amid its ICJ genocide case against Israel.UN Security Council OKs Trump Plan: Highlights include the deployment of an international peacekeeping force and a possible path to a sovereign Palestinian state. The resolution, passed by a vote of 13-0 with abstentions by China and Russia, was the price the US paid for backing from the Arab and Islamic world, who are expected to provide peacekeepers. However, Netanyahu, restated his adamant opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state. Hamas rejected what it described as an imposed “international guardianship mechanism” and insisted it would not disarm. What now?

with Ted Raul and John Kiriaku, it's Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. And if you're watching this on the internet, you're probably lucky because much of the internet is down today due to a problem with the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, banks are down, X is down, truth social is down, chat GPT is down, open AI overall is down, GROC is down, you know, at a certain point it'll be just like the blizzard of 70s, where it'll be shorter to announce the list of things that are still open. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted.

How are you? I'm better than Cloudflare. I'm up and running, such as it is. Lots to talk about. We're going to be talking about the James Comey indictment. I'm sure you'll have one or two things to say about that, John. Also, the effect of Trump policies on student enrollment at American colleges and universities. We have some numbers. They're down basically 17% this year. That seemed actually

a little lower than I expected that drop to be. South Africa, that's the main story today for us. Israel basically seems to be quietly, ethnically cleansing by drip, drip, drip, Palestinians out of Gaza to other countries, yeah, like 150 people at a time. and also extracting money from them at the same time to do so. And the UN Security Council, apropos vis-a-vis that, is just signed off on Trump's plan. John, you called this yesterday. You said this is exactly what was going to happen.

And I'm just surprised by just exactly how you were totally spot on. I was like, really? That happened? But we have some problems. Awful, awful meetings. awful. And the sad truth is Russia and China just don't care about the Middle East. And if voting yes will make the Americans shut up, then they'll squeeze out of the U.S. side whatever they can and then just vote yes. It's really, it's really strange because it's so like the thing is, you know,

I'm a former banker. And one of the things I learned from negotiating contracts was it's not about necessarily, you know, a good deal. It's about a, you need a contract that works. And I don't see how the current 20-point plan by Trump, I don't see how it functions in a number of ways, including for Israel. I just don't see how it really works. We can talk about that, and we will. John, we have a couple of comments before we get to the main topics. Comment for me, Eric Adams, in kissing that wall in Jerusalem in a photo, saying that he came to Israel. to let them know he serves them as mayor of New York City. I mean, you know, Eric Adams is yesterday's news.

He's not going to be the mayor. He's in his nobody. Yeah, he's in nobody. he's a he's he's he's he's on notice he's been fired and uh he's but still i mean it is it is it's a it's not a good look and john uh langhorne langhorne clemens is saying just heard a retelling of your fib setup story with the japanese ambassador not calling it into question just curious how common is it for japan to send people to the united states that can't speak english i i have thoughts about that after you answer that yeah that that's a very good question i and i i don't take umbrage with it at all it's a very good question

the japanese are unique in this respect in that for example um when i was in bahrain the japanese consul general in chicago was named japanese ambassador to bahrain and we were kind of excited like okay the guy spent three years in chicago now he's going to come here he couldn't even say hello my name is in English. It's ridiculous. The Japanese are very unusual in that respect in that a lot of them just don't even speak a single word. I don't know how in the world they get through things. The thing is it's their national character. They're arrogant. They don't know, John. I worked, you know, as you know, I worked for the Industrial Bank of Japan Trust Company in the late 80s. And most of my colleagues were sent to the United States and all claimed

that they spoke fluent English. Like the people you described, they couldn't speak English for shit. They could not, and it was like they were, and like if an American didn't understand like a waiter, what they wanted, they would be like,

that person is stupid. And I'd be like, you can't speak English. And they use the word a lot. In fact, I wasn't going to tell the story, but I will now that you say that. The Japanese ambassador, the new Japanese ambassador in Bahraini,

It just arrived from Chicago. This was 1994 or 1995. And so we get this invitation that the ambassador is inviting our ambassador, our deputy chief of mission, our political officer, our economic officer, and our commercial officer. So it was five of us to dinner at his residence. And one thing about the Japanese, when they have a dinner, they, they, they, they, it's no holds barred it's caviol and the most expensive steaks and it's incredible you're like hey we're going to have dinner at the at the japanese ambassadors residents this is going to be great so we go there and we're all just kind of standing around and the younger guys

spoke some english the ambassador didn't speak a word well barely a word as you'll see in a moment and so um we finally sit down uh after you know an hour of chit-chat, pleasantries. We sit down at the dining room table, and our ambassador says, so, Mr. Ambassador, to what do we owe this pleasure? And the Japanese ambassador says,

your president, he's stupid. It turned out that when he was in Chicago, he somehow struck up this acquaintanceship with Dan Quayle, who had been the vice president. And Dan Quail said, oh, Bill Clinton cheats on his wife,

he's no good. so the Japanese ambassador called us all together to tell us. He didn't really literally mean he's stupid. It's that his English was so bad that he just couldn't convey himself. And our ambassador, David Ransom, loveliest guy I ever worked for, he stood up and he says, well, thank you for your hospitality. And he says to us, gentlemen, and we all got up and walked right out. Because, yeah, you're not going to stand for the head of state being insulted that way.

Absolutely not appropriate. and we walked out. But the point of the of the story was it's not unusual for Japanese to not speak any English at all, even though they're posted in the United States. And that was true about international banking at the highest levels. I mean, IBJ was essentially the Federal Reserve Bank of Japan. Wow. And the New York branch was the most prestigious branch to work at. And it's because in the 80s, right? That connection between New York business and Tokyo. And it was the same thing. I mean, I was amazed. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, there was a lot to like about the Japanese, but there was a lot to dislike as well. You know, during that period, and I'll tell this one story,

and we'll move on. You'll remember that there was a whole spate of biggest art sales of all time during that period. and Van Gogh's Sunflowers was one of them. Sumitomo Bank bought the, or was it Mitsubishi. It's either Sumitomo or Mitsubishi Bank bought Sunflowers for something like $60 million. I know there's several versions of it. I think this is like Sunflowers number four. Anyway, it's the one, or it's one of the ones. Anyway, it was the biggest art sale of all time.

And my boss was like an art lover. He's like, I want to see that. I want to see it. So he made a pretextual excuse. to have a business meeting with the president of the bank because he heard the painting was in the bank's office in the bank president's office that they had put it there. So we go over there and he was always like scheming like this.

So we had no business really with them. It was just like just we just wanted to be in there for 15 minutes just to see the painting. So we go over there and, you know, sure enough, there it is. And it was hanging over the radiator, over the right, like directly above. like where the heat's coming out directly underneath. And we didn't even, my boss,

my boss was brilliant like you. I loved working for this guy. He was my best boss ever. And Shibuya looks at me. I look at him, you know, we don't even have to say a word to each other. I'm just like, holy shit. We walk out of there and he should,

I remember he just says, disgusting. He's like, we don't, you know, like the, he's like the Japanese will get their come up and we're assholes, you know, because it was like they were flying. high in the 80s and buying real steel over the place. We thought the U.S. was done.

We all thought we were Japanese. Yeah. We did. Yeah. Remember there were those movies about like American, you know, workers having to learn how to do jumping jacks in the morning at the factories and stuff like that? Yes. I'm glad that didn't.

Honestly, they would not have been good overlords. So let's see. We should, so yeah, what do you want to talk about first? because we're getting a late start here. Well, you know, we should, we should say real quickly that Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman is right in Washington today. So this sort of completes his rehabilitation after ordering the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist.

You know, Trump loves the Saudis. The Saudis love Trump. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Trump family is going to be wealthier at the end of the day today than it was in the morning. and the Saudis are going to go back with a giant package of F-35s, which is the reason why he's here in the first place. The opposition of the United States is that we would not sell F-35s to the Saudis because the Chinese have infiltrated the Saudi defense industry,

and we're afraid that the Chinese would steal the design and the plans for the F-35. And Trump announced yesterday on the eve of MBS's visit that he would, would sell F-35s to the Saudis. So there you go. And he will. That will happen. So, I mean, how does that affect things? Currently, Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that has F-35s.

We've also promised them to the United Arab Emirates, which is another reason why the Saudis were angry and wanted them. Because traditionally, the Saudis are first and the Emirates are a very close second. We've flipped it on this F-35. So, yeah, the Israelis have them. the Emirates are getting them, and now the Saudis are getting them. So that makes everybody happy. Everyone has to have the right toys.

What do you make of the reporting that we're hearing about this visit where people say, it's the assessment, they keep saying, it is the assessment of the intelligence community that MBS ordered the Khashoggi killing. That's true. It's also the assessment of just common sense and facts. I mean, the Turks, they recognize. They have an audio recording that's on the internet that anybody can hear of MBS being basically tortured and killed. Yeah, in fact, they know exactly what happened to him.

The Saudis started chopping him up while he was still alive. And he's screaming as they're cutting off his arms. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and then they dissolved him in acid and dumped him into the Istanbul sewer system. I mean, I mean, it's not. also just like, oh, the order that he ordered the killing. That's, okay, true. But it's like, in this case, the details really matter. I mean, he was lured to a consulate. And while his

fiancee was waiting outside and they did that to him. I mean, it's a, I mean, I know the US kills people every day. I mean, you know, talk to the Venezuelans. But this is on a whole level of perfidy and like, I mean, basically to me, the reason it's less, about Khashoggi, but if I were the American president, it's kind of like the Saudi is saying, you know, we can do whatever the fuck we want, and you're our bitch, because we have so much oil and money, you're going to do whatever the fuck we want and like it. I mean, that to me is the, that's the real, you know, power politics problem with this whole thing. Yeah, that's right. We need to let's, um, put Robbie in. Robbie has some housekeeping to take care of. This is

day two of Robbie's return. And we're going to welcome back, Robbie, again. Again, it's so good to have you, especially on a day like this with so many tech issues. You had some housekeeping you do, and so go ahead and do your housekeeping. And also, you're going to have to, the ads you're going to have to feed me, remember, because I'm not on the Rumble Room. Okay. No, I got that. So good news is the audio works. The bad news is if you're on YouTube, I can not see your chat.

It's gone. You're talking to yourselves. Oh, if you won't see it. It's just not coming across cross platform. So I'm not able to see it on the studio end. So if y'all want me to put your comments up on the screen and be able to just kind of feed them over to John and Ted, jump over here to Rumble because I can see those naturally because I'm a Rumble Studios. That helps.

I'm going to pull up that chat too. Also, if you come over to Rumble, frankly, John and Ted get paid more and more money is always a good thing. Rumble pays much better than YouTube. And lastly, if you want to get a copy of what's left, Ted's book, we're going to be Picked. that out. Let's go to rawl.com. You can order yourself a copy, a signed copy of what's left. Ted actually sent that to me and gave me a copy. And then my son bought a copy when he was here in Callisville. And speaking of buying, I'm going to be working on setting up book signings for Ted. So if you have a bookstore in your town, unlike mine, please email me, West Glacier Gaming.

Let me know. And I will see if I can get a book signing set up in your town with Ted Wall. West Glacier Gaming at Gmail. Correct. Westglacier Gaming at gmail.com. I'm going to work on building a producer email. It sounds a little bit more professional and less retarded, but I am retarded. So I'm going away now. Okay.

And I take you away. All right. Housekeeping kept? All right. So what next? Should we talk about Comey? Maybe get that out of the way? Yeah.

Let's talk about Comey. Sure. All right. So basically the federal magistrate drudge complained that prosecutor Lindsay Halligan fucked up the James Comey indictment.

She issued a really angry 24 page reaming where she basically accused the prosecutor of fundamental and highly prejudicial misstatements of law. The judge William Fitzpatrick ordered that all grand jury materials be released to Comey's

attorneys saying that basically this is I guess common misconduct, right? Like is that the defense doesn't receive everything that the prosecutor has, although they're supposed to always do that, but you and I hear those stories all the time. How serious is this? Is this a political judge, or is he right? No, this is serious. I think the judge is right. This is one of those situations where where the government picked the person that they wanted to screw and then looked through the law books for something to charge him with.

Remember, we talked about the book three felonies a day by Dr. Harvey Silverglate. He's a professor of law at Harvard who says that we are so over-criminalized and so over-regulated in this country that the average person on the average day going about his or her normal business commits three felonies. And that's this situation. They hate Comey. They want to screw Comey. so they just look for some felonies to charge him with.

And I hope this is not the case with John Brennan because I know John Brennan to be a criminal. With Comey, it's much less clear, and it looks like this case is falling apart very, very quickly. Remember, they wanted to charge Comey in the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District said, I'm not seeing any crimes. And so what they did was they just fired the U.S. attorney and named a new U.S. attorney who said, oh, I'll find some crimes. And the judge is just saying, oh, no, you don't.

That's not how this is supposed to work. I want to thank Kukaki over in Rumble for becoming a paid monthly supporter of the D-Program show. Wonderful. Thank you, Kentucky. totally um so yeah by the way this cloud flare thing um cloud flare is sort of glossing over this at first they claimed that it was a poorly administered update which happened a few years ago i'm sure you'll recall um but you know then i'm thinking that uh they said they reported an unusual spike of traffic right before the crash that sounds to me like a denial of service attack yes Yeah. I'm looking at chat GPT right now, and I just get an error screen, and it says, please unblock

challenges.cloudfair.com to proceed. So then I went on to comment to try perplexity, and it gives me exactly the same message. Yeah, yeah. And apparently Canva has the same exact thing. So, I mean, Cloudflare is all over the place. And of course, it's just a reminder that the Internet is basically tied together with, like, duct tape and bailing wire. Remember when this was sold to us? You know how compact discs were sold as like, they're indestructible?

They can't scratch and they will never skip. They will last thousands of years. And the internet was sold to us like even in nuclear war. It can't be destroyed. It will all have a workaround. I'm like, I don't think we, I think like a good big thunderstorm will probably take the whole thing down. Oh my God.

Yeah. I'm afraid the same is, is, uh, is true. And I wonder, you know, is this going to have any, there you go. That's right. There you go. Good. I'm looking at your feed or the feed on Rumble right now. You just put up the book. So good. Anyway, I'm hoping that this doesn't affect banking or something today. Or even if it does affect banking, they can get this doggone thing fixed in the next few minutes because, you know, we need to. The market's open in eight minutes in New York. You're exactly right.

And weren't we just talking yesterday about the film trading places and how on the commodities exchange, they no longer use these little slips of paper. Everything is computerized. Everything is computerized. We're talking about the global economy here. So they best get their act together. Too much shit is automated.

I mean, it's like, you know, I don't know. It's like everyone should learn from the Iranian. with the Stuxnet virus. It's like... Yeah, remember that? Iranian nuclear scientists shouldn't need to cyber commute. You guys should drive to the plant

and work there. Here we go. If you haven't already... I just got an ad to do this here. If you haven't already, make sure you download the Rumble app. It's free, simple to use, and the best way to stay connected

to the content you want. Once you've got it, search for our channel and hit follow. That way, you'll get a notification every time we go live. No missed shows, no extra steps. You can grab it right now using the link in the description of the four of the pinned live chat. Download it to your phone and you're ready to go.

And if you prefer watching on the big screen, as I do, Rumble is available on all major streaming devices and smart TVs. Just search for Rumble, follow the channel, and be part of the action. All right. That's exactly right. At least we solved some problems. We solved my packet loss problem yesterday. That was very irritating. So good to have Robbie back.

Did I say that? It's really good to have Robbie back. So, James Comey, so if Comey, the Comey case falls apart, will Trump come back for another, will the DOJ come back for another whack at the pinata? Or will they politically say, you know what, we looked foolish and best to move on? You know, isn't it sad that we even have to stop and consider these two positions? Yeah. My guess is they're going to jump up and down and scream and holler.

and then move on. I think they have a stronger case against Brennan because the argument with Brennan, the argument with Brennan is that- And he's more popular politically than Brennan. Much, much more popular. Good point. The thing with Brennan is that,

the accusation is that he tried to initiate a coup, tried to deny the voters in 2016, their choice of president of the United States. That's pretty serious. It is. And the argument, it's seditious, what do they call it? Or something sedition, I forget the term that they've been using. But anyway, they argue that the conspiracy remained ongoing until Brennan was charged.

And so there's no statute of limitations, at least not one that can prevent his trial. somebody one of my attorneys sent me the videos a couple of weeks ago of Brennan being confronted at George Mason University and and poking that congressional candidate in the chest remember and then like three or four hours later he's arguing with some heckler on the on the subway platform at the Virginia Square metro station and my lawyer wrote what do you make of this and I watched both of the videos a number of times. And I wrote back and I said, he's scared. That's what this is. I've known John Brennan for 35 years. And I've never seen him lose his cool. Really? Because he's scared.

Well, wow. And he's responding with anger, as many people do. If you so, thanks for the buck. Black Friday dream purchase this year, John. What's your? Say that again. Do you have one? What would be your dream purchase for Black Friday, you know, the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. It's usually, typically it's electronics, typically. Yeah. When I was a kid, I never understood it when I would ask my parents what they wanted for Christmas and they would say, nothing, we have everything we want.

My mom would always say, all one is to have good kids, right? Mm-hmm. But I'm at that point now. I'm 61. You're 62. I have everything that I want to need. And I just, I just don't need anything. No, I know.

I'm the same way. The truth is, if I need something, I just get it, you know. I mean, just get it. Yeah, I mean, it's not like, yeah, it's not like being a kid where you just don't have that cash flow. I mean, you know, I probably do need a new scanner, John. I have a flat, I'm a cartoonist and I have a, I need a big flat bed scanner like an 11 by 17. There you go. And, uh, my, my current one has.

However, it's the oldest working electronic in my house. It's from 1997, and it's still going strong. So, you know. That's amazing. Hulet Packard. Yeah, I mean, it's like a beast. I kind of like want to see how long it'll go. Anyway, so, all right, let's, we can talk a little bit about,

we'll get to the meaty stuff a little bit later, get the, let's get the easy ones out of the way, knock them down. So obviously we all know what's going on with Trump's, you know, anti-immigration policies, and he's been doing everything he can to lean on colleges and universities to deny student visas so that they can't attend. Anyway, long story short, international student enrollments are dropping. If it hadn't been dropping, you'd have to wonder what the hell is going on. But the Institute of International Education surveys 828 American institutions,

and they find a 17% drop in first-time enrollments this year. only a 1% decline overall. So overall enrollment, but they say it's going to, you know, obviously it'll snowball. You know, John, I'm torn about this. How do you feel about it? Yeah, I'm a little torn too. I don't know, man. You know, it just seems to me like we have so many important things happening.

It's almost not possible to be worried. about everything. They're going to worry about everything. You have to do anxiety triage. Yeah. You know what? That's a great way to say it. Yeah, it is.

It's anxiety triage. Yes. And so, yeah, no, it's like, well, I mean, I went to college and I valued my relationship with international, with foreign students. Oh, my God, me too. When I first went to college, most of the upperclassmen who were foreign nationals were Iranians because they had been stuck in the United States because of the Iranian revolution. By the time I left, most of them were Lebanese because they had fled the

Lebanese civil war. But looking at this operationally, Ted, we want foreign students to come here and we want them to study hard sciences. Why? So the CIA can recruit them now as students and send them back to work in the Chinese missile program or the Russian nuclear program or the Iranian nuclear program or whatever. And they're already assets in place. So we want foreign students here, especially foreign PhD students here. Does anyone with Trump's ear tell him that from the CIA? I doubt it. I doubt it. I doubt it. Because remember, most of the time, the CIA director, most of the time. is a political appointee, and they're really not thinking about these longer-term issues.

I mean, it does bug me that, like, what a profit center they are, and that, like, I think it was Harvard that said that 27% of all of their undergraduate enrollment was international students. And think about how incredibly competitive it is to attend Harvard. I mean, literally one out of four spots there is taken by foreigners. I mean, I can't think that one out of four spots at the Selbon or the University of Tokyo are taken by foreign students. Right. Yes.

I doubt it, but I think you're right. Oxford. I don't think so. Well, yes. Okay, good point. Anything else to say about that before we move on? No, just that it could be a very important operational opportunity law. This is a funny comment.

So I'm just going to read it. T. Zoli says, I want my adult stepson to move out so I can experience time with my husband before I die. Can I get that somewhere on Black Friday? He's only 36, but I don't feel badly one little bit. Only 36. Don't worry. Once they hit 42, they fly the nest. It'll be fine.

That's really funny, though. But that's the new economy. I mean, that's how things are now, right? Yeah, that's great. Oh, this is a good question. This is from Rod and Gou, 9864. Thanks for the two euros. Can Trump and Mundani find a way to coexist?

I'm glad you brought up that question because there is reporting today that says that Mamdani, his team, asked Trump's team for a meeting. And Trump said that he's amenable to sitting down with Mamdani talking about. John, what do you make of the fact that like all the people who came out so, harshly against Mamdani, the communist who was going to, you know, restore, to bring, bring Marxist Leninism to the five boroughs. Now, you know, you have your favorite Gristides Greek grocer. He says he's not only not leaving the city. He wants people to cooperate with Mamdani so that things work out really well. Trump, who had all sorts of shitty things to say about

Mamdani is now saying, oh, I'll meet with them. Governor Hokel, who refused to endorse him until the last second. I guess I'm still waiting. Hillary Clinton might endorse Mamdani, like halfway through his term. But, I mean, all these established people, I mean, Mamdani's wielding a lot of power, so it's a two-part question. How do they look in all this? And then here's the other thing.

How can voters take any of this seriously when you, you know, when they hear this, This person is evil and terrifying and far left and communist. Oh, hey, hey, welcome to the White House. That's it going. Yeah, right. Ted, you and I are both old enough to remember when the Democratic Party was a big tent party. When everybody from Ted Kennedy to George Wallace were Democrats, you know, when when almost every Senate seat in every southern, southern state was held by a conservative Democrat. and I mean conservative Democrat.

Yep. And the Democrats claim that there's still a big tent party. And they're not. They're not. Now they are so middle of the road that they're just stuck. It's like being stuck in neutral where they don't want these conservatives, but they also don't want these liberals either. And it's going to end up being the demise of the Democratic Party.

Well, I mean, the question, If the Republican Party doesn't fall apart first, I mean, the civil war between the Trump wing and the MTG wing is really heating up. Right now, I got to say, I didn't expect to see this. I mean, Trump is still such a canny politician. Like, even the way that he's pivoting on the, on the Epstein files, it's really, I mean, it's, you know, it's a master class, really, in many ways. but even though it's cynical.

But I don't know that he's winning the war with MTG. Right now, she's the one who's coming out smelling like roses. They both backed off yesterday, but she has won this little kerfuffle. Yes. Her reputation has improved dramatically. I think the secret sauce was admitting that she had contributed to the toxic atmosphere and expressing regret for it. I mean, I don't know about you, John.

I mean, I'm a huge, you know, I grew up Catholic. I'm a huge sucker for penance and repentance. If someone's an asshole and they say, oh, God, I was an asshole and I shouldn't have been and I'm sorry. I'm like, I got nothing. You win, you know. That's because that's all you can ask from people. They can't go back in time. I agree.

I agree. Robbie is saying that Tucker has. doubled down. Tucker has doubled down. You know, and it's funny. People ask me all the time what I make of the new Tucker Carlson. And all I can say is, you know, the guy answers to nobody.

And when you have, when you don't work for anybody but yourself and you don't, you're not doing it for the money, you can say anything that you know, your heart desires. And we're seeing a totally liberated and free Tucker Carlson

right now. I can't even imagine speaking of which like when you when he was at fox like how many memos came down like okay so our our point on this topic or this person is this don't deviate from that i mean i know from internally i've heard about how msnbc like now NBC now how they they did that all the time i mean they sent the word down like you know ed shultz right you know he he was told in no on certain terms, you can't discuss Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary. Like, really, you can't talk about a major primary candidate? Ed was a friend of mine, and we ended up working at RT together. He never forgave MSNBC for doing that. Never forgave them. Well, it's

disgusting. And of course, you know, I mean, I think I told you this story, but like my agent, you know, told me that MSNBC was interested in trying me out. like late night on a weekend. And they said the only thing I had to promise was to never criticize the Democratic Party. And I remember what I said. I said, well, you know, tell them, like when it's like France and there's 26 parties and if there's one out of the 26 that I can't criticize, that's fine. But there's only two.

So how can you do your job? It wasn't even a matter of integrity. It was literally like from a practical standpoint, I don't know how you can do this without sounding ridiculous. And the truth is you can't. They do sound ridiculous. I want to say two things. First of all, Morrow, thank you very much for the donation.

$4.99. Appreciate that very much. And then James Jameles, hey, James. James says, John would love Lincoln's stove pipe hat for Christmas. You know, the stove pipe hat is on display in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History. It's an incredible thing to see. but I will add that he must have had several

yeah but the one that he was wearing the night that he was killed he was on display yeah he actually had taken it off and had put it on a table next to him so there's not like a hole in it or anything right because a gentleman didn't wear a hat inside that's right that still bugs me

I'm old enough to like when I see dudes wearing baseball caps inside I'm like take that fucking thing off asshole so this past week I spent in Oxford, Ohio with my son, Max, my third son. And Max loves antique malls as much as I do. So we drove to Indianapolis, which isn't too terribly far away. It's about two hours from where he goes to school.

Boring, fucking drive. Boring, boring, boring. Just farm after farm after farm. It's enough to make you want to cut your throat. Anyway, there's this one dealer that we like that I've bought stuff. from before because he has impeccable provenance for everything that he sells

and I bought a hunk of wood from the gallows where the Lincoln conspirators were hung and it includes a scan of the of a handwritten letter dated 1889

from the soldier who was one of the members of the crew that took the gallows down and he kept one of the planks and then divided it up to give to friends what was with that like you know there's all these when they used to hang people the gallows often seem to be improvised they didn't have a permanent facility that's right any and do you have any understanding of why that is i don't well in this case it's because um people weren't normally hanged at this base it's it the base still exists it's now bowling air force base um or or they call it joint base bowling something something or they just changed all the

names a couple of years ago uh now the site of the gallows is the officers tennis courts so there's no there's no trace that these gallows were there and that they hung the lincoln conspirators including the first woman to be executed by the U.S. government. So. Wait, there was a woman, there was a woman conspirator? Yeah, Mary Surratt. She ran the Surrath West House. She, she plotted with them, and she's the one that hid the gun that John Wilkes Booth used. She hid it behind the stove in her kitchen. Wow. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I do, I do, I definitely have a wish list for my political

ephemera collection. All I'm lacking now is I want a pardon signed by Abraham Lincoln. They're out there. They go for about $10,000 to $14,000. I'm not in a position to buy something like that, but I'm hoping that 2026 turns out to be a really great year for me, in which case I'm going to, I'm going to grab one. That's cool. I'd rather, frankly, I'd rather you got a pardon signed by President Trump, but that's just me. Me too. Me too. So, although the Lincoln one sounds cool too.

All right, so let's, we should probably talk about the situation in Israel. All right, so let's talk with, let's first like get into the UN Security Council. So we all know, I'm not, we're not going to, we talked here on the show about the 20-point plan. And if you're watching this show, you probably have a pretty good idea of what's in here. But, you know, as I mentioned, John, this is not a plan that seems to have, you know, enough, enough meat on the bone. to make a lot of sense. Okay, so there's a peacekeeping force, that I understand. It's going to be a bunch of Muslim countries,

including Pakistan, that I understand too. But who are they keeping the peace from? They're going to disarm Hamas. How? Hamas says they don't want to be disarmed. They had no seat at the table here. They called this an international guardianship mechanism, which is kind of reminiscent of, like, say,

the French mandate over Lebanon and that kind of thing. I don't think they're wrong. And then, you know, basically this is a non-contiguous state. Israel, by the way, just parenthetically rolling this back, you know, Hamas justified October 7th by saying if they hadn't done something like this, they would have never achieved statehood. Now Netanyahu says, we will never agree to the creation of a policy. Union State, retroactively basically confirming what Hamas said, and kind of justifying October

7th after the fact. I guess it's like so many, so easy to see all the ways this passes that this can't work. And yet, this agreement now has the force of international law. Yes, it does. Is it a dead letter? Or is this, are they going to try to do this? Let's try to parse it out. There is no meat on the bone when it comes to the issue of Palestinian statehood. So the vote was 13 to nothing. China and Russia abstained, just like we predicted that they would do. And the reporting doesn't talk about China's abstention, only Russia's abstention.

Only Russia's. That's right. But almost all of the council members, France, Guyana, Pakistan's, Slovenia, Somalia, complained that there was no language about an independent Palestinian state. And that's where we're going to get wrapped around the axle again. Everybody agrees that there needs to be peace, there needs to be respect for Palestinian human rights, et cetera, et cetera.

But Benjamin Netanyahu said, here's this quote. I have it right here from New York Times. our opposition to a Palestinian state in any territory has not changed. There will be no independent Palestinian state if it's up to the Israelis, ever. In any configuration, it's not going to happen. And so you're going to be forced down their throats is the question. Or will it be? It can be.

It can be. Not as things sit today. Now, can the Israelis just be sidelined at a certain point? because, I mean, you know, international relationships rely on cooperation. If the Israelis are uncooperative, maybe you just don't work with them. So, and what do you think of this, Ted? Is this just an accident or is Donald Trump a genius here? Where you've got, you've got all these Arab countries, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, and other Muslim countries, Indonesia, and other Muslim countries.

Indonesia, Turkey, that have agreed to send troops, these peacekeeping troops, but they're very afraid of their troops getting into an armed conflict with Hamas. So you're going to have Muslim armies shooting Hamas paramilitary forces. Arabs killing Arabs, Muslims killing Muslims. Is that what Donald Trump planned, or did it just kind of work out that way? I don't think that's what he wants, right? I think, I mean, I think he's really kind of hoping that Hamas will not fire at them because they're Muslims and that they'll be. I mean, look, I guess another question is, do you think Hamas will handle this the way the Afghans handle an invasion? you know they go to ground the afghans go to the mountains they they study the enemy then they do

probing attacks and eventually they come back and and flood the field and and the invaders never knew what hit them obviously there's no mountains in Gaza to hide in and they can't even hide in those tunnels forever but basically they can take off their uniforms and slip back into into civilian life and just wait to get the call from their commanders right it's a cell structure right like you know You're my commanding officer, and you command me and like a couple other people, and then I have someone under me and so on. I mean, it's a resistance organization. It's a classic resistance organization.

Classic. So will they just sort of, okay, guys, you know, just go back home, try to rebuild the best you can, and, you know, will outlast and outweigh these Pakistanis and so on. And then, you know, we'll get our country back. I mean, is it going to look like that? I think it very well could. The bottom line, though, is what we said a minute ago. The Israelis are going to have to be forced into this.

And it really, we do need to force the Israelis into this. There has to be an independent Palestine. There must be. There has to be. There's no other alternative. There has to be. For Israel's own good, by the way. And what an independent Palestine was called for in the Security Council resolution that created the state of Israel in the first place.

Right. And reasonable Israelis all know this is essential for their own security. Yes. Yes, exactly right. And by the way, the non-continent, nobody is addressing the contiguous, the contiguous. What's the noun for contiguous? What, contiguosity? Contiguousness. Contiguity. Yeah, continuity. Anyway, the fact that it's not contiguous, the fact that it's not fucking attached, that's a problem. I mean, to ask East Pakistan whether that's a problem or not. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Now, they made it work in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but that was an unusual situation. Right. I mean, look, so the Israelis, I don't see them granting a corridor, but they have to. You're going to have to. I mean, I guess a bridge, right, like a big, long bridge, like the way that they have over the Florida Keys so that the Israelis can go underneath and stuff? Oh my God. I can't even imagine.

It's got to be something. Well, it's not that far. I think before that happens, we're going to see the proposed Trump-Pooten Bridge Tunnel connecting Siberia with Alaska. By the way, that's actually a good idea. Yeah. I would actually drive it just to say I did. I also think it's a really, I do think it's a good idea for political and economic reasons. I mean, it's like, I mean, Siberia, it would be great for American business to have access to Siberia.

And it would be fun. You know what I did with my kids a couple of Christmases ago? Christmas, I find Christmas to be very, very depressing. And I don't decorate. I don't put up any, any tree or decorations or anything. I just pretend it's a normal day like every other day just because I get too depressed even. function so how come what you always were you like that as a kid we always like no no Christmas was wonderful when I was a kid but I don't know I'm divorced twice and it's just not I just can't do it

so what I did with the kids a couple of years ago I said hey let's open your presence and then let's get on the subway and we'll go to every single station on the entire subway system without doing that in New York City oh you can do it in New York City there was an article about it in the times and a guy did it in 25 hours which is like record fast i was going to say because i've been to every station in the new york city subway system and uh i used to explore it in college and i was going to say you'd have to it would take a long time a lot of planning because there's a lot of backtracking but anyway we did it in nine and a half hours and we did take a break we did actually come up out of the station at the zoo and we had lunch and then we went back down in

and finished it. We have similar impulses. I'm not a big fan of the holidays either. I hate Thanksgiving more than Christmas, but I want to spend Thanksgiving, sorry, Christmas Day with two friends exploring the abandoned subway tunnels under Cincinnati. I don't know if you know about that. Yes, in fact, my son and I were just talking about it day before yesterday. Cincinnati has more abandoned subway tunnels than any other city in America. It's a, it's, I don't know if it's I bet it's not as accessible as it used to be. But back in the day, you could just, like, there was a place in a public park

where you could just break where someone had broken in and you could just, like, walk in there. If you just brought, bring a flashlight and plenty of batteries and you could walk like 12 miles. It was really crazy. And there's fallout shelters in there from the Cold War, including with like a podium where someone, where, you know, people were going to address the crowd.

There's a blocked arsenal that you couldn't break. into. Wow. I mean, there was bedding, you know, it was really cool. And in the end, finally, you, you're sort of like, there's a ladder. It's like, oh, I think this is the way out, climb the ladder, and there's a manhole cover, and you lift the manhole, and there's cars going over. And it's like, oh, oh, better time this carefully.

Yeah, yeah, it was cool. Anyway, so, okay, so this, so I do think that Trump, to get back, to your main question, though, he is kind of a genius in that as fucked up as this plan is, this is progress, right? I mean, I don't think we'd be here with under President Biden or President Harris. Yeah, I think I think the Israelis would still be bombing. I agree with you. As pro-Israel and pro-Zionist as Donald Trump is, he expects people to do as they're told.

Yeah. He won't do as he's told. And so you've got to force him. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about is Trump. He does understand power and leverage. It's the only thing he really understands, but he understands them really well.

And, you know, I still have to say, I'm in complete agreement with Tucker Carlson and his rant about, you know, Israel is inconsequential. We don't need them. They're a liability. We should have nothing to do with them. And we don't need to be,

we have lots of friends in the Middle East. You know, we get a lot of friends. along with, we have Jordan, we have Egypt, we don't need Israel, this tiny little country with no natural resources at all. That's right. Egypt's far more important. Anyway, that's just, so, okay, let's talk about this South Africa story. I'm fascinated by this.

Yeah. So this is a- Nobody knew this was happening. This is a dark story. So basically these Palestinians are reporting, well, this happened, right? So basically these Gazans were told, hey, so like I know how you can get out if you want to get out. You've got to give me $1,600 in crypto per person in your family who wants to leave and then show up at a certain point and we've got it all figured out. So for the people who decided to bite on this, which probably wasn't most of them, because there's so many scammers, so many lying sacks of shit in a war zone situation like that, that, you know, you'd be very, I mean, that's a leap, a seriously. of faith that most people wouldn't take. But some people did. And for those people, they ended up

being put on a bus and routed down to Con Unis and then taken to the border crossing and waved by Israeli troops. And the Israeli troops finally right before they left the Gaza, the occupied territory of Gaza, this is very sinister. The Israelis said, you have to leave all of your belongings behind. then so they so just with just yeah very familiar um very 1942 and they they they they then got they were they boarded uh they got into Israel proper they were taken to the airport and uh and then flown they didn't know where they were going um this one group they flew to Kenya they went to Nairobi um and then they were stuck for 10 hours on the airport tarmac they have no

idea where they're going. This is also familiar. It reminds me of the ship, the St. Louis, right, that in World War II that's flying around. But maybe this was all part of the plan. This obscure charity that appears to have serious probably be a front organization for the Israeli government or for the Mossad or both. And then basically arranged all this and they found themselves in the Republic of South Africa. South Africa has long historic ties supporting the Palestinians for obvious political and cultural reasons. And so the South Africans, this has been going on for a while. And now the foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, finally became aware of it.

And he's like, wait, wait, we see what you're doing here. You're like, we welcome our Palestinian friends and brothers. But you're ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, like drip by drip by drip. And there's been a lot of flights to us. other countries in Africa and possibly other continents as well. This is what it looks like, right? It does, I mean, the South Africans are right. And this is exactly what the Egyptians have been warning against since this whole thing started is, yes, they love their Palestinian brothers.

Yes, they want to help. But to open the border and allow Palestinians to come across the border into Sinai would do nothing but to abet. Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing. That's it. Yeah. You can't do it. No, because as soon as that happens, the Israelis are like, well, what can you do? It's empty now.

It's like, you're going to eat that or what? If you won't, we will. And then they move in. And it's a fait accompli. I mean, that's already what they've done to 60% of the West Bank. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's so, I mean, I got to say, I'd

admire this level of cynicism. It's amazing. It is. And you know, one of the things that's pleasantly surprising to me, and don't take this the wrong way, because I don't mean that, you know, Palestinians should suffer more than they have already. But it's good and it's important for these countries to stand up to the Israelis. Finally, stand up to them and say no. Yeah, for sure. Thanks for the donations over on YouTube, guys. Much appreciate the super chats. $4.99 from Morrow. Really, really appreciate that.

And thanks for tuning in. Alex Bruce, also $4.99. Thank you very much. He's a Christian who leans conservative, but greatly appreciates our insights. Thank you very much. I hope we're not blurry on my YouTube. We're blurry, but I don't know. Mine looks pretty good.

Okay, so that's probably that packet issue that Robbie filled me and filled us in about yesterday. So, yeah, so I guess that puts an end to it. I mean, what happens to these people when they get to South Africa with just the clothes on their back? I mean, one of the little girls in the family said she loved being able to go to the store and buy things, something they couldn't do in Gaza. Obviously, someone's giving the money so that that can happen. So there must be a support infrastructure there.

I really fear that they're going to be forcibly returned. Do you think? I can't imagine that. I hope not. I seriously, I can't imagine the South Africans doing that. I mean, they've been such a good friend to the Palestinian people at like the ICJ and everything. I mean, I just don't see it. Well, yeah, I'm trying to look and see if there's any last second question.

or comments that we need to get to before we say say sainara until tomorrow. Okay, good. We don't look blurry. Okay, very quickly, John, off-topic question. Have you been following Kuwaiti news at all? If so, any thoughts? I have been following Kuwaiti news, as a matter of fact. There is a very serious significant split in the Kuwaiti royal family that has spilled

into the media and I'm worried about it because the Kuwaiti response has been to dissolve parliament which isn't going to help the split in their family any we'll see where it goes okay well I have no I was not asked that question and I'm glad because I don't have an answer for that question guys thank you so much for tuning into D program with Ted Rall and John Kariaku. We will be back tomorrow Wednesday, 5, sorry, 9 a.m. Eastern Time. We're here Monday through Friday.

Please like, follow, and share the show. Please stay tuned to the TMI show with me, Ted Rall, and Manila Chan coming up right after this. And take care and see you tomorrow. John, take care. Bye, bye, talk about it. Bye, bye, take care. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.