DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “L.A. for Sale”

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou catch you up after the long weekend, beginning with a L.A. story with a personal connection to “Deprogram.”Is Los Angeles for Sale?: Austin Beutner, scandal-plagued billionaire and widely reviled ex-LA schools superintendent, plans to run against Mayor Karen Bass, criticizing her over homelessness and living costs. As ex-publisher of the LA Times, Beutner secretly conspired with corrupt ex-LAPD Chief Charlie Beck to fire and smear Ted because his cartoons criticized the police, and got fired due to the subscriber backlash and his boardroom plots. As Ted later learned, Beutner was a dollar-for-dollar match donor to the LAPD pension fund. Will Angelenos get conned by a grifter who makes Eric Adams look honest?Iran’s Trans Medical Tourism: Iran promotes gender transition surgeries to attract LGBTQ foreigners, offering low-cost procedures alongside luxury travel packages. Despite Iran’s reputation for affordable care, the policy stems from a history of coerced gender-affirming surgical operations.Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Clash: The Taliban confirms attacks on Pakistani troops, saying they are retaliation for airspace violations, with 58 reported deaths. Pakistan disputes the toll, and closes border crossings. Tensions soar as both sides trade accusations of harboring terrorists. Are Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a long complicated relationship, at the brink of war?Madagascar Crisis: About to be impeached, President Andry Rajoelina of Madagascar has dissolved his country’s National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, hours after saying that he had gone into hiding at an undisclosed location out of fear for his safety over weeks of Gen-Z anti-government protests over lack of water and power that have killed 22 people.Federal Workers’ Mass Retirements: A massive wave of federal retirements and buyouts is straining agencies amid the shutdown. Over 154,000 employees leave, overwhelming HR offices. But isn’t a workforce reduction what DOGE and Trump wanted?

tuning into the D-Program show with Ted Raul and John Curiaco. It's Tuesday, October 14th, 2025. The long weekend is over. Producer Robbie West is out today. He'll be back tomorrow, so I'm running the board. Please like, follow, and share the show. We're still working on the YouTube situation, but in the meantime, if you'd like to donate and you're a YouTuber,

we have an alternative. You can donate to the show at Deprogrampodcast at gmail.com. You can also email us there. We like your emails even better if it's accompanied by a PayPal donation, but you don't have to do that, obviously. Thank you so much for joining us. John, good to see you. I see you're back in your very cozy, comfortable bug-free location. I've already killed. There's a bug next to me. I don't know what the heck that is. I killed it like 15 minutes ago. I don't even want to touch it. Is it big? It's big. It's some kind of beetle of some sort. It's got the... those big hooks on the end of its head.

Oh, the pincers. Yeah. I don't know. This isn't for me. I mean, it's beautiful. You see the sunrise over the Sea of Cortez over my shoulder. It's beautiful, but I've never in my life been anywhere where they have this many bugs. And those don't bother me normally.

But when they're like billions of them and they're all over you, then it's different. So you're getting some comments about your very Greek shirt. Bustelo, Monserati. He says he must have one. So maybe that's a tourist shop shirt. No, no, I got it on eBay, believe it or not. Oh, okay. So maybe that there's your hint for people

who are looking to replicate John's fashion sense. All right, today we're going to be talking about one story that has personal effects on me. Austin Butner, the guy who fired me from the L.A. Times, as a favor to the LAPD is running for mayor of L.A., thus the question, is L.A. for sale? He's a multi-billionaire. We'll get into this strange story from Iran.

Iran is promoting medical tourism for trans people. We'll get into the details of that. Afghanistan and Pakistan, always with a fraught relationship, things are really heating up on the border there. There's fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan, And kind of an interesting story. And given just the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power and that it's a, it's a hot, you know, it's a powder keg.

We need to be on top of that. It looks like the president of Madagascar has been overthrown. It seems pretty clear. We'll get into that. Interesting story out of Washington in the middle of the shutdown, following the Doge layoffs and the layoffs related to the, the shutdown. Now, it turns out that a lot of federal workers are retiring on top of it. So the HR departments are completely overwhelmed and we'll get into what that means.

And of course, obviously, there's this major, you know, obviously the developments out of Gaza are massive. So where shall we start, John? You know, let's do Gaza first and get it out of the way. Donald Trump arrived in Jerusalem yesterday, gave a speech. Donald Trump is by far the most popular person in Israel. I'm sure many of our viewers saw the clip the other day when when, what's his first name? Is it Steve Whitkoff? Went to...

Oh, John, you're a little frozen here. I hope you can hear me. But John's on a very tenuous internet connection. And it's going to be like that for the rest of this week, probably, just because of where he is. And it's hard to, we're even lucky to have him at all. But unfortunately, he is frozen. I'm going to have to tell him that. I don't know if he knows that here.

John, you are frozen. Okay. That's unfortunate. It's fair. John has dropped off. He will, I'm sure, rejoin us here. Okay, so obvious, oh, here we go. Here's John.

Sorry about that. Sorry. That's okay. Yeah, it's like the longer I'm here, the worse the Internet signal is. They're wearing it out. Yeah. So you were. Last thing we heard, you mentioned Steve Whitkoff, and then you froze.

Yes, Steve Whitkoff gave a speech, mentioned Netanyahu's name, loud booze all through the crowd. He mentioned Donald Trump's name. The crowd went crazy. Donald Trump really is that popular in Israel right now. So Trump arrived yesterday, lauded the release of the Israelis. Oops, John, you're frozen again. You know, that's a good idea. I'm going to, one of the persons in the chat is suggesting that John go,

I think that will really help if you go audio only, John, well, John can't hear me right now. But, you know, if that works, we can, hopefully you'll all have to put up my pretty face, but you won't get to see John's pretty face. John, I'm sure, we'll dial back in, and he'll get into it. Yeah, so I like what Vickie, Vic in Greece said, or is it, yeah, there's John. All right, John, do you want to just go, do you want to go audio only? The signal will be easier.

Okay, yeah. Let's try that. Yeah, let me do that. Okay. There we go. All right, there you go. So nothing, nothing about the Palestinians. And then later on in the speech, Trump talked about his desire and apparent pursuit of a broader Middle Eastern peace.

What that means is diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But again, nothing about the Palestinians, nothing. And then a couple of Middle Eastern leaders came out this morning and said, look, there cannot be peace in the Middle East without an independent Palestine. That's really what the, what the bottom line is. And they're right. No, there can't be. And no, I mean, I thought it was actually sick that the suffering of the Palestinians wasn't acknowledged at all, even in front of, you know, in front of the Knesset. John, you know, a little thing's been bugging me for the last 24 hours. I know you've got the real bugs to deal with. But for me, I keep thinking about the West Bank. Everybody is now focused on Gaza, and they want to breathe, understandably,

not least the people of Gaza, you know, hey, at least we're not getting bombed anymore and shot at, at least for the foreseeable future. But the West Bank isn't resolved at all, right? At all. At all. It's not even part of this 20-point plan. I mean, there's so much to unravel to, you know, to sort of break down there. But, I mean, I guess the first part is in terms of who's going to rule Gaza, we know that Hamas is the only, it's the only game in town, right?

So they'll just rebrand, won't they? I mean, this will remind me sort of like how the, you know, the Afghans, you know, during the civil conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, if, you know, they would join the winning side and either shave or grow out their beards or, where buy a Pakul or ditch a Pakul and buy a turban, right? I mean, that's basically how it's going to be. Oh, yeah. I agree completely, Ted. I think that's all it is. We're going to see a rebranding because there is no alternative to Hamas in Gaza.

There was a very brief clash yesterday, shooting clash, between Hamas and a tribal organization. That lasted about 15 minutes, and then it ended. But that's not a serious political problem for Hamas. It's just a little bump in the road. So, yeah, we'll see a rebranding. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then I guess the question then is about the West Bank. I mean, look, on both sides of the West Bank conflict,

I think this is the big chance for the militant settlers to really make some noise and get even more violent than they have been. and also for whatever resistance there is among the Palestinians in the West Bank to also raise some hell and make some noise. So either way, we're talking, I mean, I don't see that remaining quiet at all. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I hate to say it.

But I think you'll agree. I think we're at the point where we're going to start to see a new or renewed Israeli focus on the West Bank. I think it's going to get much more violent than it is right now. And that's where the next big fight's going to be. Yeah, no doubt. So I guess, you know, that's it. Okay.

Also, John, I have to ask you about this sort of talking point that I'm seeing on right-wing social media, that basically liberals and leftists and people who support Palestine are a bunch of ingrates who refuse to give Donald Trump credit. for his massive towering achievement of achieving peace in the Middle East. No, I would be the first to jump up and congratulate Donald Trump, but he has not achieved peace in the Middle East. There cannot be peace in the Middle East without some sort of accommodation for the Palestinian people. I hope he does achieve it.

I really, I pray that he achieves it. I think we're all in wait and see mode, right? I mean... Exactly, exactly. And I think, and I think, honestly, I mean, you and I think, honestly, I mean, you and I have both given him a lot of credit for what he's already accomplished, which is not nothing. But I would say this is like sort of on par with a lot of other efforts we've seen in the past, like Camp David and whatever, that have, you know, come together and then fallen apart later.

So, you know, I mean, that's sort of like it's whether it lasts. Look, when Palestine ends up with a free and sovereign state, I will give Donald Trump full props and nominate him myself for a Nobel Peace Prize. Seriously. In terms of that state, though, I mean, is it too early to point out that a demilitarized state is a non-starter for the Palestinians? You know, I think it's not a non-starter if... Oh, John, we're losing you even on audio.

Okay, I'm going to have to, I have to type into the private chat. Sorry about this, guys. This is when it's good to have a producer. Okay, so I'm going to sort of chime in on. to what I think John was going to say. He was going to say that there is a world in which there is, you know, obviously he thinks, here we go, there's John. Hey, sorry about that.

No worries. Okay, so you basically started to say that a demilitarized state is not necessarily a non-starter, and then you dropped. Yeah, not necessarily a non-starter. If it has some sort of administrative backing from the likes of, you know, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. You know, if it's just a standalone little rump state with no military, yeah, that's not going to work. I think that's what the Israelis want, though. Yeah, it is. It's what they're demanding. And I mean, I just don't see how that's a, now obviously Hamas can, I could see

Hamas not necessarily disarming, but I could see them turning in their weapons into some new rebranded authority that then becomes like, you know, the Palestinian Police Department or the Palestinian National Police, and then they're reorganized into something that looks less like a guerrilla army and more like

a, you know, more like a conventional nation state. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably right. But we're getting out of ourselves and not even us, but the whole world right now.

I was getting ahead. So there is no peace in the Middle East right now. And so now we need to engage in intensive negotiations that include the PA, unfortunately, but even very well, sorry, West Bank Palestinians have to be represented. And we have to come up with something that's going to allow, allow a new Palestine to flourish, like an economy, for example. They need to build an airport. They need to build a port.

They need to build an electrical grid. need to build new hospitals you have to start from scratch the whole place is just rubble yeah well yeah that's obviously job one right um hey there's a question from gray harmonics um three killed katar diplomats died saturday in a car crash yeah yeah i gave an interview about this over the weekend three cuttery diplomats were on their way to the talks and um and they were killed in a in a one car crash they lost control of the car. John, you're freezing, you're, I'm not hearing you again. All right, let me, this is definitely a little frustrating.

Okay, John has dropped. He will rejoin shortly. Let's see here. Yes, so I agree with Vicky in Greece, who says all Palestinians need to be part of it. Yeah, and, you know, this entire peace plan, here's John. There you are, John. Okay, sorry. It's okay.

Yeah, I agree with Vicky and Greece. as well and um this guttery thing um listen it's possible we know the CIA can take over your car by hacking into the the computer system but why would you kill guttery diplomats after the negotiations are done that doesn't make sense to me i mean it's a bit of a it's a bit of a cliche but frankly arabs drive like fucking maniacs so you know i was going to say that a minute ago and then I thought, nah, people are going to jump on me. But they do. They drive like crazy people.

Yeah. Especially in the desert. Yeah, they do. Well, and you can see why, because it's like, it's a whole lot of nothing. It's boring as shit. Hell, I mean, total transparency. I lost a car, a rental car in Wadi Rum in Jordan. I was driving too fast in the desert, and I rolled it.

I still have the key. It was in that, bad shape. Oh. So I barely survived that thing. So, yeah, no, I mean, the point is it's easy for that to happen. I think Turkey for a long time, maybe it's still true, had the highest per cup per mile driven fatality rate of any country in the world. Wow.

I mean, they're not Arabs, but still, same difference. Wow. So I kind of think, I'm going to say sometimes a car accident, it's just a car accident. I think that's what this was. I think it was just a car accident. Should we talk about, what should we do next? We should talk about L.A., I think. All right, let's do it.

It's important, and I know it hits close to home. It does hit close to home. All right, so Austin Butner is a multi-billionaire who has had, like, if you live in L.A., you may have heard of him and you may not have heard of him. But basically, he's the guy who conspired with the LAPD to fire and smear me from the cartooning position at the LA Times. He's running for mayor next year against Karen Bass. And this is a guy who's basically long version of this is he's 65 years old.

He's tried to frame himself as a philanthropist. He was a close ally of Eli Brod, who is known for his gifts to L.A. area museums and such. Eli Brod died a few years ago. And so Boutner is this guy who I had never heard of until he went after me. But basically, his past was that he made his billions of dollars on the ashes of the former Soviet Union. He traveled to Moscow as a young investment banker and aligned himself with some of the up-and-coming oligarchs, some of whom were killing their rivals and people who were former public sector factory, managers so that they could basically steal former Soviet, you know, public enterprises and

turned them into private companies. This was the early 90s. There was a lot of blood in the streets of Russian cities at that time. And Butner was a big part of it. Unfortunately, you know, you can't really, you know, there's no way to prove that he knew about or planned anything, but he was involved with those guys. And that's where he made his money. He came to, he came to back home and co-founded an investment company called Evercore. In 2010, he became deputy mayor of the city of Los Angeles for a hot second. And he tried to run for mayor. So we know that he's had this plan before. The problem that he has is that all of his allegiances and alliances are among the ultra elite of L.A. But the people don't know him or like him. So he never even made

percent in the polls. And he was forced to drop out kind of ignominiously. He, he had a, he's had a lot of sort of, you know, half-assed stabs at things. So there was the deputy mayoralty. Then he, in 2014, he formed an alliance with the LAPD pension fund and the LAPPL, which is the LAPD union, to buy controlling interest in the parent company of the L.A. Times. And they, and just, it's really interesting. If you look at his donations up until that point, he and the LAPPL had the same exact donation list to state ballot initiatives as well as local candidates for public office. He didn't donate to anything else that the LAPPL didn't donate to. He donated in the same amount on the same day to the same people, day, you know, week after week, day.

day after day, year after year. He and the LAPPL were one and the same. He basically became close friends with Charlie Beck. He since had to resign as a disgraced, corrupt police chief. Charlie Beck basically walked over to the L.A. Times in 2014 after I'd been there for five years and basically told Butner, you know, who was basically his little butt boy by this point, hey, fire Ted Rawl, you know, we don't like his cartoons about the LAPD and about me personally. We know all this because this was all secret. This was never revealed to the readers of the L.A. Times. I found out about it during discovery when I sued.

But I did no idea that any of this was going on. And it's only after I was fired and smeared by the L.A. Times that, like, you know, and I sued that the L.A. Times was forced to reveal this secret. meeting. Boutner had already, by the way, received the Badge and Eagle Award from the LAPPL in 2014. That's against the rules of the newspaper. Newspapers don't allow their employees to accept any awards that are not journalistic awards like the Pulitzer or the RFK or something like that. So he was really a turd. Aside from me, and it's pretty funny because a friend of mine, close friend of mine, who was at the Tribune Tower at the time, overheard Butener being dressed down over my case by other members of the board of directors. Over 14,000 Angelenos canceled their

subscriptions to the L.A. Times over my case. And they were really pissed off at him. Butner then conspired with Brod to overthrow the board and take over the Tribune by himself. he failed. The Tribune had him fired, unceremoniously, escorted out by security with a banker's box, turned off his email account, so he had to announce it on Facebook. Anyway, then he went on a few years later. He decided he wanted to be superintendent of schools of the city of Las Angeles, of L.A. Unified School District. That's the biggest school district in the United States, bigger than New York. And so there was a woman there, a woman of color who was extremely qualified and very popular among parents and teachers. He sidelined her. I wouldn't be surprised if envelopes were exchanged, but there's no evidence of that. But basically, the city council mysteriously changed their minds and decided to appoint him as school superintendent.

He did that for a couple of years. And then things got spicy during the pandemic because he was trying to institute austerity at the same time during the pandemic. He became really unpopular with the teachers union. They went on strike because of him. They were so pissed at him. And Boutner, so then, you know, in the middle of the pandemic, Boutner said, fuck it. And after all his big lofty promises, after, you know, this is going to be my job for the

rest of my life, I care about the kitty poos, blah, blah, blah. he abandoned the job and walked away in a fit of peak. And so that's basically the last job he's had. I got to say it's very hard for me to speak calmly about Austin Butner because I've done so much research about this guy. And Butner, in my opinion, and I talked to other people, other journalists about this who've looked into him, I think he's the most corrupt politicians.

I've ever personally encountered in my entire career. And he went after me personally. I mean, this guy makes Eric Adams look like a paragon of honesty. He's just a really bad person. So, you know, what we're going to try to find out now is whether the people of Los Angeles are going to be conned by this guy. I mean, they have a pretty lame mayor right now. But Karen Bass is, you know, I mean, basically this guy,

He's like so covert. He's a Clinton Democrat. He worked for the Clinton administration on free trade and other issues, which tells you a lot about him. But basically, he's a Trump Republican in Clinton Democrat clothes. You know, his chief ally is the LAPL still is. That's, you know, that's Maga World up there in the 818 area code in the valley. You know, he's, and he's masquerading as someone who's like, you know, going to go.

And he's going after Karen Bass, who these days has her hands full fighting off ice in her community, right? Let me ask you a question, Ted, if I could interrupt you for a second. Karen Bass is unpopular. She's been a terrible mayor, just terrible. True. She's got ice to worry about. She got a failing grade in her response to the fires. is the L.A. mayoral race or mayoral office something that Butner can purchase?

I don't know. I mean, the thing is, my experience with Angelinos, and look, I did, I worked out there for a long time. I not only was at the L.A. Times, I was also at KFI Radio in L.A. And so, you know, what I came to learn is that Angelinos, first of all, are extremely politically savvy and they have long memories and they don't and they don't they don't like being slighted. I don't think, you know, Ted Rawl aside, I think I'm like a number 17 on their list of issues that anyone's going to care about in LA, some people will, but the vast majority are going to care about his, what he did to the school system. And, and they're going to be, you know, I think for that reason alone, he's not going to win. You know, he's also a very unpleasant person.

You know, he's very awkward. He doesn't really like human beings, which is hard when you run for political office because you need their votes. You know, so I think it's going to be, I don't really think I have to do anything. I think I can just eat popcorn and watch him fail again. But look, on the off chance that he wins the mayoralty, he's running for governor in 28 to replace Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom's getting term limited out in 2028.

John, you're, John's out again, but he'll be back. And he'll be term limited out. And then, you know, at that point, I think he would love to move to Sacramento. And that's what, you know, from all of my research, Butener has wanted that his entire career is to be governor of California. And we'll see what happens there. but I suspect L.A. is not for sale. There's also been previous attempts to buy California. People might remember the senatorial run, I believe it was, of Ariana Huffington's first husband,

who was a closeted gay guy, as it turned out. He ran for, I think it was Senate from California in what was then either the or certainly one of the most expensive campaigns in the history of the state of California. And he failed miserably. Californians were just like, we do not care about all your money. So it's very interesting because billionaires in California think that they want to be liked. They have power, but they're not liked. And so, you know, I don't think that's going to change.

I mean, let's not forget, L.A. is a majority Latino city now. It is a city that is much more working class than anybody thinks. And J. Rock is hilarious. He sounds cool. I hope he wins. Well, you know, I mean, hey, there's one vote if you live in Los Angeles. So we shall see what happens there. But anyway, he is a, I encourage people to look into him. Austin Butner is a serious piece of work and, you know, needs to be,

is someone that everyone should be aware of. I mean, this is the fourth largest city in the United States. It is obviously the center, it's the center not only of Hollywood, but also of the gaming industry, at least big part of it. It's not all in Silicon Valley. A lot of it's in L.A. So we shall see what happens there. I'm a little getting a little bit worried about John because he's not back.

Let me see if I can text him and see what's up with him. All right here. Are you there, John? Yeah, I am going to be happy when he is stateside again. That would be good. So anyway, I think we can pronounce the Austin Butener story. completely over here. Matina V says, yes,

get popcorn ready in debt. Adam Fider's asking, is he running as an independent? I would suspect no because he is nominally a Democrat. Butener is a Clinton Democrat. There's John. And I say John just was answering a question about whether Butner

is running as an independent. And I said, I suspect no. I don't know if L.A. has ranked choice voting. The state of California does, but I'm pretty sure he'll be running for the Democratic nomination because he is a Democrat. He's a Clinton Democrat. He's been a Democrat for a long time. So even though, you know, he's not my kind of Democrat, but he's a Democrat. But we can, I don't know, if you have anything to add to that before we move on.

No, you know this race better than I do. All I know is that Karen Bass is very, very, very. unpopular. She's eminently beatable. But the thing is, is who then is there to beat her that would be a better representative of Angelinos? Yeah. Well, there are a couple of other candidates in the wings. So, but there's a, the Republican, I don't think is going to make it for, it's sort of like the, it's analogous to New York. A Republican can't really can't be mayor of Los Angeles. It's to to the city, the city's too blue. There's just no way.

So, you know, by the way, Karen Bass is, her polls have improved as of late as she's made herself more of a figure in the anti-Trump, anti-ice resistance. And that seems to be helping her. Interesting. Interesting. Otherwise, on a day-to-day basis, do you have a feel for what Angelinas think about her? Yeah, I mean, I do. The people who I know are still there basically view her as like a lightweight and, you know, kind of just like not up to the job of this, of being the, you know, the city.

It's a tough, I mean, mayoralty is a big, big city mayoralties are tough jobs. Yeah. And L.A. is massive. I mean, for people who haven't been there, you know, it's like half the size of New Jersey. I mean, it's big. It's a sprawl. And it goes and goes and goes. it's not vertical, it's horizontal.

And there's so much, it's so complicated. I think she's just viewed as like too, like, just like too small for the job. You know, physically, physical stature as well. But, I mean, really, you know, there hasn't been a really popular mayor in a while. I mean, Eric Garcetti was the mayor when I had all my shit going on with my lawsuit. And he was a little bit more, he was viewed as more. competent. But it's, you know, L.A. is a dysfunctional city with a dysfunctional system. Yeah. Tammy Landergren said lightweight is a fair assessment in his humble opinion.

So, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing that L.A. works the way it's set up. Here we go. Double D is saying maybe I'm thinking Trump mentioned the Palestinians at the Egypt meeting. Maybe. Perhaps. I mean, he doesn't, Trump does know how to read a room. Yeah. Shall we talk about, I don't know, Iran, Afghanistan, Madagascar? Yeah, I'd like to talk about Madagascar just because we never do or would otherwise. But first, we should probably address this border clash between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The numbers of casualties are they vary wildly. the Afghans say that the packs killed eight Afghans The packs say that they killed 200 Afghans And then the Afghans say they killed 68 packs The packs say that the Afghans killed 12 packs So either way There was a fight A bunch of people died

They're probably all from the same tribe But you know this British border all of a sudden, people are taking it very seriously. Yeah, the Durand line, right? That's right. So, I mean, when you're in Afghanistan, Afghans, they have very dark views of the Pakistanis. I mean, they basically kind of feel like, you know, every time, you know, the weather is bad,

the Pakistanis are behind it, right? Like, it's always like, oh, it's the Pakistanis are plotting against us. And I can see why they think that, because in particular, you know, Pakistan always viewed Afghanistan as sort of its backyard, often where dirty deeds get done and where like militant jihad is sort of, you know, fostered and festers. And it's always been like a place where the Pakistan feels like they can manipulate them and they look down on their like Pashtun brothers across the Duran line and think that they're that they're hicks and rubes who can be pushed around. The Afghans

really resent the Pakistanis. I'm not sure the Pakistanis are quite, the Pakistanis fear the Afghans and think that they're basically wild and uncivilized. I think, would you say that's inaccurate? I think that's 100% correct. And then you see, too, the closeness of Afghan diplomatic relations with India

only because the Indians are the enemies of the Pakistanis. And the reason I never really understood that was because for the most part, the Pakistanis and the Afghans, at least along the border, are all members of the same tribes. Yeah. They're all related. It's very strange, right? Because it's like the Brits created this artificial divide on purpose to split, you know, the big dream there is to have a unified Pashtunistan.

That's right. And that dream seems to be fading now. And it's, I mean, yeah, when you could, the India, Afghan's Afghan connection is bizarre. It's also cultural because there's a lot of Indian cinema makes it to Afghanistan and stuff. But it's weird considering that like, you know, their big mountain range is literally, Hindu Kush means killer of Hindus. I mean, that's so it's kind of like, I mean, I always thought it was weird when Hindu, when like Indian construction workers would be like attacked in Afghanistan. It's like, you're Indian and you went to Afghanistan? I mean, they hate you there.

And, you know, the last time I went to Afghanistan, Ted, I had to go through Delhi because there were literally no flights from any of the major Pakistani airports. You just couldn't get there from Pakistan. Right. That's so funny and strange. So you have to, so what did you do? How did you, did you just travel over land or? No, I flew from Delhi to Kabul.

I had to go all. the way to India to then go west again. I mean, there's always land crossings. I'm a big fan of land crossings because they're more discreet. One thing I've always wanted to do, it runs sometimes. They have this old Raj era train that goes

through the Khyber Pass. Right. I'd love to do that. And the Khyber rifles right on top and guard it. Oh, yeah. It's a tourist attraction, right? I want to do it. Very cool. Very cool. And dangerous. It's got to be a dangerous tourist attraction.

Oh, my God, it's good. Anything that takes you by Jalalabad is dangerous. Yep. So, you know, count me in for sure. Where's that going to go? I mean, is this going to become a hot war? I mean, I think a lot of people aren't paying close attention, and they're just sort of striking like, you know, you know, Central, South Asian is going to be South Asian. But it's a little, I mean, it could get, it could get ugly, right? Oh, it definitely could get ugly. I think what the Pakistani should probably be even more worried.

about though, is Pashto terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. Remember, there's this organization called the Pakistani Taliban that carries out terrorist attacks, mostly in the north. There's ISIS and ISIS K. They'll carry out terrorist attacks all over Pakistan. So it's not just border guards, Afghan border guards that the PACs have to worry about. It's everybody else. And those borders, I mean, you would never know. And of course it was ISIS Khorasan that blew up those people at the gate in August 2021 during the evacuation of Kabul. Yeah, exactly right.

So yeah, there's a lot to worry about. For you, John, from Ray, wants to know, are you ready for Brennan to Purpwalk? Oh, my God, yes. I've been calling for it for weeks at least. Yes. Although there's a little fly in the ointment here. It is that when

Trump ordered Tulsi Gabbard to fire everybody who had anything to do with the Russia Gate analysis. Many of the people that she fired were people who would have testified against Brennan. And the Washington Post reported a couple of weeks ago that they've all told the administration to go take a hike if they think they're going to testify or do anything after being fired. So I think that's why we haven't already seen Brennan arrested and we have seen Comey arrested. Brennan actually conspired, allegedly, to deny the American people their choice of Donald

Trump as the elected president in 2016. It's far more serious than what Comey is accused of having done. But he hasn't been arrested yet, and I think it's because maybe they're not sure they can make the case. A couple more questions. Adam Fighter, I think you guys should talk about the first Syrian parliamentary elections after the Assad regime. Yeah, we should

We should That whole country is changing so quickly Let me do some research on that We can maybe talk about that tomorrow Because I don't know anything about it Thanks for the donation from Real Real John, what are the new strike capabilities of Ukraine, giving Ukraine

Tomahawk missiles Also, wouldn't it take U.S. servicemen to actually program and fire them? Yeah, answer the second question is yes and tomahawks would be a serious upgrade in this conflict because they are they are laser guided cruise missiles they can travel as low as 10 feet above the ground and so they're undetectable by radar so can they be intercept can they be intercepted by the russians you know i'm not sure to tell you the truth 10 years ago i would have said absolutely not but now

it's it's possible but they're very very hard to defend against very hard because they're they're fast they're laser guided and and they're they fly under the radar and the payload is huge huge huge you can take out a whole building just with one tomahawk they make a big impression yeah yeah this would be bad um all right so we talk about madagascar yeah kind of crazy So President Andri Rajoyalina, who actually came into power himself in a coup, looks like he has fled into exile, right? So he first went into a secret undisclosed location, which we assumed might have been inside Madagascar. Now it looks increasingly like he's left, he's fled the country.

He attempted to or ordered the lower House of Parliament, dissolved. And that was the house that was about to start impeachment proceedings against him. So that's convenient. Donald Trump take note. There's, and so the Gen Z protests are basically that are sweeping that part of the world have gotten pretty serious there. And they may have claimed their first, the first head of state. Over 22 people have been killed. And basically these protests started because there's constant water and power cuts and young people in particular, but obviously other Maglazies are pissed off. And, you know, I mean, we should probably, the Gen Z protests are a major phenomenon. I should point out that the whole idea that

Gen Z would be politically active and aggressive was kind of predicted by the demographers, is Neil Howe and William Strauss in their 1988 book generations where they said that like around 20 between 2024 and 28 there would be a major political crisis that would hit the U.S. and the world on par with the civil war and that that young generation would take charge and and affect not radical change. You know, they're calling this the Facebook revolution because all of these protests that kicked this thing off were organized on Facebook

and by then it was too late for the government to step in and try to ban Facebook or take down the internet. It all happened very quickly. But you're right and the authors are right this is a result of demographic changes and it's not happening just

in Madagascar. Look at Iran. You know, Iran is another one that has a gigantic youth population and and not enough jobs to provide for them. So it's happening all over the place. Another thing about Madagascar, too, I've always wanted to go, almost went once,

but just having had a chance to get there. It's so isolated, so hard to get to. Well, that means it's also hard to develop, right? When your closest neighbor is, you know, whatever, Tanzania or whatever, I think it's Tanzania. Almost everything you have has to come from Tanzania or has to come from somewhere in Africa. and so it's just very, very difficult to develop an economy in a place like that.

That's super interesting. So I guess what happens next, right? I mean, is there going to be, I mean, this is a revolution, right? I mean, is it going to be a coup or do you think there will be democratic elections? Well, there is a democratic history there. And so I think in the end, it is going to return to a democratically elected government. that may take a while. It may take, you know, six months, 12 months, two years.

Who knows? But, yeah, I think eventually it'll return to democracy, if only because there are so many young people and they're willing to take to the streets. Well, we will, of course, follow that for everyone here, and we'll keep you up to date. I think it's an interesting story. And, you know, this is going to probably be like how the Arab string

started in Tunisia, right? And that sort of seemed like a local story that didn't mean much, and then it spread. You know, the effect, I don't think you can overstate the effect of being inspired by what happens in other places, right? I mean, like the seapoy uprising against the British in India, the 1860s, like, you know, they failed. But it sort of taught everyone, the Afghans and everyone else that the Brits were, they were conquerable. They were vulnerable. And, you know, I think it was sort of like the very first beginning of the end of the British Empire. Yeah, that's right.

These things normally don't happen overnight. They fester for years, sometimes for decades. But, yeah, this could be another example. Let's see. What happened? Oh, yeah, this is good. Ray wants to know what happened to the protest outside Ice Portland. Oh, yeah, they attacked an ex-Navy vet in a wheelchair broken.

his shoulder and got the camp cleared off the sidewalk, ADA violation, he should sue the city. Yes, I agree with that. What's going on in Portland is really, it's crazy. You've seen the crazy animal costumes that they're wearing up there. And I mean, it's like, and it's also funny about right wing media. They're like, they're throwing all the nude in, like apparently a bunch of nude or half nude people like laid down on the freeway to protest ice. And, And they're like, this is the kind of shit that happens when you vote for Democrats. I'm like, you know, I don't care that much about Democrats, but that makes me giggle and therefore make any more likely to vote for them.

I agree. So funny. Hey, let me ask you, um, federal courts have, uh, told Trump that he is not permitted to send National Guard troops into Chicago. Um, that's obviously been appealed. Do you think that we'll see in the coming week or two, the National Guard moving into Chicago, and do you think it would be more akin to what we saw in L.A. or what we're seeing now in Portland? I think it'll be, first of all, I mean, we've already seen like ICE is being greeted by Chicagoans with, you know, a lot of anger, right?

I mean, there's a lot of video online of ice caravans being basically bombarded with, you know, projectiles as they're. They drive at high speed through the streets. Their windows are getting broken. I think, yeah, I think the National Guard are going to show up in Chicago. I think Trump's spoiling for this fight for his base. I think his internet base wants it. And I think it's going to be, I think Chicago is going to bring it up, is going to step it up a notch.

I mean, Chicagoans are, you know, I mean, we've already seen the way they're reacting to ice. They're well organized. They're driving around, you know, following ice. reporting on their movements. And you already got that infrastructure of resistance in Chicago to ICE. I mean, the National Guard is just going to be further provocation. So, yeah, I think so. What do you think?

Yeah, I think that there are a lot of people in Chicago who don't care if they get arrested and who are going to make life for ice very difficult there. In Chicago, they're not going to take off their clothes and lay down. on the street. They're going to fight. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm very curious as to what'll happen here in New York if and when that happens. I think maybe Governor Hockel behind the scenes is, you know, currying enough favor with the Trump administration that she's able, at least for the time being, to keep the federalization at bay. But if and when it happens, I suspect the reaction would be the same as it is in very similar to Chicago, right?

I mean, yeah, yeah, I think that's right. You don't get to see him, but Clovis is on the air. There have to be two of us, even if one of us is a cat. And, okay, so let's talk about, we got to talk about, well, I got to ask you about these federal workers. So I got to say, John, I found this whole story very confusing. 154,000 federal workers have basically taken retirement. That's a much higher number than usual over the last, ever since during the current Trump administration, right?

Yeah. Okay, but I don't get it. Like, Trump has been dying to cut the federal workforce, right? I mean, that's what a big part of what Doge's mission was for the first five months of his administration. it's something that he's doing now. He's using the shutdown as a pretext for mass layoffs, as he says of quote unquote Democrat agencies and bureaus. So why not do, why not be happy about this and just say like the more retirements,

the better because then it's like these are people you don't have to fire. Or is the firing kind of a feature and are they depriving him of the ability to claim some scalps? I don't really get it. You know, that has to be it. I thought about this since Trump announced these firings and we started seeing this wave of retirements. If you're qualified for retirement, you can take retirement. It doesn't matter if the president or whoever happens to be the president at any given time, if he says you're fired or you're not fired, it doesn't make any difference.

Because if you qualify for the retirement, I will say there were a couple of people, of things that Trump said that were just wrong, wrong, wrong, saying that he's going to fire tens of thousands of federal workers. He said it's never been done before, which is not exactly true. But he also said that he's going to fire people in Democrat jobs, whatever the heck that means. The Washington Post today says that means people involved in the implementation of programs to help the elderly, the sick, college students, and veterans. It's like, okay, that's fine. That's half your constituency right there.

But if that's who you decided you want to piss off, that's on you. But secondly, the Civil Service Act forbids him from making a lot of these firings. You can't just arbitrarily fire people because you don't like their politics or you don't like what they stand for. That's against the law. That's why we have a civil service act. So already the federal employees union has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington. There's a temporary injunction.

So as it stands today, nobody's getting fired. The courts are going to have to decide this. So we shall see. So, yeah, I mean, I guess politically I'm trying to figure out, yeah, well, it's weird it's also i don't i didn't understand the uh the shutdown threats of layoffs because i mean again are there people that doge left behind right right i mean that's i guess what we're supposed to assume another thing that trump is doing that is panicking people is the federal government has always always paid back pay to people who were furloughed during the

the government shutdown, right? Always. Sometimes you're shut down for an hour. Actually, during Reagan, most of the shutdowns were for about an hour. Sometimes you're shut down for three or four weeks, as we saw under both Clinton and now Trump, Trump won. But everybody always gets their back pay until now. Now Trump is saying that he's considering just not paying anybody anything. Now, on the one hand, if you were considered to be necessary employee, right, like CIA, DOD, State Department, NSA, etc., that's a violation of the 16th Amendment. You can't force people to work for free.

That's called slavery. Right. Obviously, it's not to mention, like, any number of laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act. Exactly. Like, you just can't do this stuff. And so it seems to sound like a broken record, but this is going to have to be decided in the courts. And with appeal after appeal after appeal, it's going to all end up in the Supreme Court. John, we would be remiss if we didn't talk about this story from Iran.

Yeah, this is nuts. So basically, correct me if I'm wrong, because look, I messed up on, we messed up last week on trans stuff. So let's not go zero for two. So my understanding here is that basically Iran is having a public international PR campaign to encourage people who want gender affirming surgery to come to Iran and have it done there. Basically, it's like a lot cheaper. You basically, it's like any medical tourism, but the pitch is, come here, we'll do the job for. for a fraction of what you'd pay in the West, you can stay in a nice hotel and have a nice vacation

while you're here at the same time. And even with all of that, you're still going to save money. My in-laws used to do this with a, they had dental implants done in Taiwan for a tenth of what they cost in the United States. Lots of medical tourism in Mexico, right? Right, right. Cuba even. So anyway, so that's not unusual.

But obviously Iran's an Islamic republic. And so it came as a big surprise to hear that they would be doing, you know, and they're marketing themselves as pro-trans. But part of the, I guess, the criticism of Iran is that it's very interesting. Like basically the allegation, and I don't know how well-sourced it is, but this was in the New York Times, was that Iran has a history of encouraging people who identify. as not their gender assigned at birth

to transition. In other words, like if I said, you know, I can't, here in the West, I can identify as a woman and just say, I'm a trans woman, but I don't have to do anything. I don't have to get surgery, right? I mean, it's like I will,

some people will accept me as a woman if I just look and dress and act the same as I am now and my physicality doesn't change. I don't do hormones. Nothing. In Iran, They're like, you have to, you, oh, okay, Ted, you want to be, you know, Tadena. You've got to like, you know, you've got to do it.

You've got to go, you've got to commit to this fully. And they pressure you to do the surgery. So it's coerced. Like, oh, you want to be a woman, then you have to be a woman, you know, physically. I mean, that's my understanding here, right? That I don't know. I don't know. But I will say that Iran is very much like Pakistan in this respect in that they are.

are oddly liberal on these issues. You're 100% right on medical tourism. Iran is well known in the region for medical tourism and dental tourism, right? People go from all around the region, from the Central Asian republics to Oman, India, Pakistan, lots and lots of people go every year to Iran for surgeries because they're cheaper and the doctors are in general quite good. Pakistan, believe it or not, has a trans rights law that protects trans people. It's oddly out of place in that part of the world.

But Iran has the same kind of view about trans people. That if you believe that's how God made you, then go with God. And so they have no problem with it. It's so super interesting, right? It's just totally not at all what you would expect. No, not at all. Crazy. so with that we come to the end of our show we are back tomorrow Monday we are here

Monday through Friday 9 a.m. One of the questions in the chat was what's our schedule going to be like next week. John and I will we'll touch base and figure that out and let let you know tomorrow or the day after. I'll be back Sunday. But right now we're Monday through Friday 9 a.m. We'll be back tomorrow Wednesday at 9 o'clock of the morning. Please like follow and share the show. Please consider donating to the PayPal for those of you who are not on Rumble and can do it there or who are watching in the not the live chat or watching the repeat. Thank you guys. Talk to you later and be cool. Bye, John. Bye, Ted. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.