DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Nuke Testing Is Back”

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou take you from nuclear brinkmanship to economic sabotage and humanitarian crises.Nuke Testing Is Back: Trump shocks the globe by ordering the Pentagon to immediately resume U.S. nuclear weapons testing after a 33-year moratorium, while en route to a high-stakes summit with China's Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea. Citing Russia's recent trials of nuclear-capable Burevestnik missiles and Poseidon underwater drones—said by the Kremlin to be non-nuclear detonations—and China's arsenal doubling to 600 warheads since 2020, Trump insists on matching rivals "on an equal basis" despite huge U.S. stockpiles leading at around 5,177 warheads. This reversal of post-Cold War policy, issued just 100 days before New START's 2026 expiration, draws sharp rebukes from Beijing urging CTBT compliance and Moscow warning of reciprocal actions, heightening fears of a renewed arms race.Argentine Beef Are Not America First: American ranchers erupt in fury as Trump's administration quadruples low-tariff beef imports from Argentina to try to slash soaring steak and hamburger prices, advancing the plan despite fierce objections from farm-state Republicans like retiring Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who corner USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins in meetings. House Republicans, including Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), fire off a scathing letter decrying the move as a "betrayal of America First principles," arguing it undercuts domestic producers amid record-high U.S. cattle prices and Argentina's unbalanced trade surplus. While White House officials tout long-term industry boosts like expanded grazing and disaster relief, the policy—tied to bolstering ally President Javier Milei—exposes deepening GOP fractures.SNAP Benefits Crisis Threatens GOP: As Saturday looms, 42 million low-income Americans face a devastating SNAP freeze, with Democrats accusing the Trump administration of "weaponizing hunger" by illegally withholding $6 billion in contingency funds despite prior shutdown precedents. A coalition of 25 states and D.C. sues USDA, highlighting the program's historic first lapse and available pots of money—like those tapped for WIC earlier this month—while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasts Trump for turning children, seniors, and veterans into "political pawns." OMB defends reserving funds solely for disasters like Hurricane Melissa, but experts decry the stance as "blatantly lawless," amplifying shutdown pressures as federal paychecks miss Friday's cycle and anti-hunger rallies surge.Dutch Election: In a nail-biting upset, centrist D66 surges to a near-tie with Geert Wilders' far-right Party for Freedom, each clinching 26 seats in the 150-seat Dutch parliament as 99.6% of votes tally, marking D66's historic near-tripling from nine seats and PVV's sharp drop from 2023 highs. Wilders, who triggered the snap poll by torpedoing the 11-month coalition over migration disputes, vows to block D66-led talks despite exclusion by rivals, while leader Rob Jetten hails voters' pivot to "positive forces" amid housing crises and healthcare woes. This unprecedented deadlock delays coalition formation, with analysts eyeing a centrist bloc excluding populism even as PVV-lite JA21 gains nine seats, signaling Europe's shifting tides against hard-right dominance.

a program with Ted Raul and John Kyriaku. I'm Ted Raul. That over there is John Kiriakou, the CIA Whistleblower. I'm the editorial cartoonist. It's Thursday, October 30th, 2025, the day before Halloween, if you care about such things. And, you know, or like where John and I grew up in the Midwest, where we had, Halloween was still scary. And they had, like, another name for, like, the trick or cheating, right? I forget what it was called.

But anyway, it was, like, not Halloween. It was like, you know, trick day or something like that. Right. Because it's like, you know, we're that old. We lived in the age of the needles and the apples. Yeah. Yeah. Needles and razor blades.

Yes. I don't know. I think that may never have actually happened, but that's like we'll see about that. Well, I'll look into that after the show. Lots to talk about today. Little bit, little housekeeping. Please like follow and show. share the show. We are still reeling from the doxing of our producer, Robbie West, who has

been, who is off the show for now because of the fact that some A-Hole decided to, you know, make it his business or her business to go after him over the fact that they didn't like their political, his political opinions. Stupid. So we're working hard. We're scheming here to get Robbie back, and we have plans, John and I have plans for how you guys can help us make that happen. No Robbie means a less efficient, less big show, and we're trying to grow the show, and it is growing, thanks to you guys. So, you know, we will have some ideas for you about that starting next week. Donald Trump has announced a resumption of nuclear testing. I have lots of thoughts about that. I would assume John was going to ask you if you believed in Ted or

or if this was just Trump being Trump? God, I mean, you know, that's the big question we can ask about Donald Trump all the time, right? I mean, it's kind of like, oh, he's just, I saw some comment from someone who was, you know, one of his supporters and said, that's just Trump trolls. He just says things. And, you know, that's true. He does. And then sometimes there's no follow up.

But, you know, my cold, cynical heart, John, wonders if this is just, His trolling is a way to run things up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes. You know, like, hey, I want to do this. I'll, you know, will anyone care? Will it stick? I mean, think about the way he campaigns so off the cuff, right? Like, no prepared speeches, just, just extemporaneous talking. He goes out there.

He gets, he talks randomly, takes note of the applause lines, and then repeats those. And that's just sort of, that's his. method. I'm wondering if he's in the same exact way. I mean, you know, like let's try a lot of things. Let's see what's popular. Let's, we're going to be talking about, for example, the Argentine beef thing, right? Importation of Argentine beef is really pissing off MAGA world and the farmers in particular

who are part of the MAGA coalition. He may back away from that because he's singed on that. You know, support for Israel. He's getting singed for that. So he's like, so he's a little gunshot. shy. But, you know, he doesn't seem to really think he's losing the shutdown. So for now, it goes on. So, I mean, it's just like, you know, he's the most, I just wonder if nuke testing is like, if no one responds, like if it doesn't seem to matter. And I don't think he's worried about the

international community. I think he's worried about, you know, domestically, will people think he's crazy? Then, you know, maybe it goes forward. But we have to talk about, what do you think, John, do you think it's for real? I mean, I kind of think it is for real. And I don't. And maybe I'm underestimating him. But he put this on truth social yesterday. And he ended it by saying, thank you for your attention to this matter in capital letters with multiple exclamation points.

And the Russians jumped up and down, the Chinese jumped up and down. There are already editorials and op-ed saying this is a big mistake. And I think what he was doing was just saying it to see what the reaction would be. I don't think it's going to happen. I hope it doesn't happen. I guess, I mean, okay, so I feel like, okay, it's been like an even 80 years since the first atomic tests. And, of course, the biggest ones we sort of used on two civilian targets, you know, those were kind of atomic tests. People don't really, aren't that aware of it.

But, you know, one of the big reasons we now know from declassified files that the U.S., that the War Department wanted to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was they wanted to study the effects, they really were not sure what they would be, wanted to see what it would do to a civilian target or to a city, right? accurately. But I mean, what is the purpose at this stage? I mean, I feel like I'm going to ask my father about this. He's aeronautical engineer, was deeply involved in the nuclear program. But I mean, at this stage, what is the point? I remember him telling me that, like, even at the height of the Cold War in the 70s, the Pentagon wasn't sure that, like, when we went to DefCon 4 and the, you know, that we turn the key and we launch. We're not sure how many of the missiles would even launch. How many of them would strike their targets? He said, he compared it to building a car in your driveway, but you never get to drive it, so you don't know how it handles.

And it's like you know how cars work. You know how to build cars, but until you start the ignition to go somewhere, you don't really know. I mean, aren't we kind of, you know? Aren't we kind of have passed that? I mean, nuclear technology is really well understood now. What would be the purpose of this except just, you know, brinksmanship, pollution? I mean, what's the point? Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. I don't know. Unless he's, you know, it may be this old school Trump strategy of just keeping everybody guessing on a myriad of issues, right? We, right now we're having conversations about restarting nuclear testing and whether or not he's going to meet with Kim Jong-un. The answer for today is no.

And what's going to come out of the China talks that end yesterday? And what about Argentina and Argentine beef? And what about what's happening in Brazil and rare earth metals? And there's just so much that he's throwing at us right now. I wonder if it's just to keep people preoccupied with other things, so they don't bitch about the government shutdown, for example. Or they don't criticize them for going all the way to Asia, meeting with the Chinese premiere.

What's his name? Chi. What's his full name? Oh, Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping, thank you. meeting with Xi Jinping and accomplishing almost nothing. So maybe this is just part of the Trump strategy to confuse everybody. I think it is what to make of all of it.

No, I think at this point, no one ever is, right? I mean, things are so random with this guy. It's impossible to know when he's being serious or not. But, I mean, I do think it's worth analyzing. And before we do, I do want to answer, I want to answer. F. U.S.O.'s question, we both should, about our thoughts on the Russian nuclear-powered missile that was arrested recently. I mean, it seems to me like that's what Trump's responding to. He's very reactive.

Yeah. Listen, I'm not an engineer, but when I first heard this, my thought was, how in the world can you safely use nuclear power to power a missile? I don't understand how the nuclear material doesn't burn up or explode. I think the propulsion system can be kept discrete from the nuclear payload, right? I mean, from the warhead. I think that's how it happens. Also, often the warhead is separate from the propulsion system, right? Usually it always is.

I mean, we think that nukes are fragile, but they're really not, right? Like, we've had so many, in the Cold War, there were nuclear, primitive nuclear bombs that, like, fell out of the sky. Like, where was it, Kansas or someplace? Yeah, yeah. In North Carolina, South Carolina, someplace like that. And nothing happened, right? It's because, you know, they're not, they're not just going to go boom, right? It doesn't work that way.

They need to, you need to trigger the chain reaction through the detonator. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. It makes sense, actually. But the fact that it's nuclear powered, it's kind of. of neither here nor there. It doesn't really represent anything other than a sort of energy savings. It doesn't, it's not like a special missile, a more dangerous missile, a more

nuclear nuclear missile. It's not, you know, it's not something that should really worry. It seems that it would be more dangerous, far more dangerous in the event of an accident. That's true. I think that's right because, you know, you're going to have more, you know, more radioactivity, accidental radioactivity release. This is unrelated, but you and I are especially qualified to answer this question from Boncetkin. How is Ohio and Pennsylvania the Midwest, John? Well, yeah, Ohio is definitely the Midwest. Pennsylvania, the part of Pennsylvania where I'm from, I guess the mentality is that of the Midwest. It's funny, I always considered myself to be an Easterner until I went to school in D.C. And then I realized I was very much not

an Easterner. I was kind of raised as a Midwestern. Yeah, you have, no, you have Midwestern culture and values. No question about, I mean that in the best possible way. For people who are not from the Eastern part of the United States or from the United States, they don't understand the history of why it's called the Midwest, right? So, It's the Midwest because it was called that when the country was a lot smaller and a lot eastern, more easterly than it is today. And it's a legacy thing. It's sort of like why the Middle East is called the Middle East.

Logically, the Middle East should really be like, I don't know, Kazakhstan. You know, if you think about it, logically, the Midwest should be Colorado, you know, but it's not because it's a legacy. think that's the answer to the question really um but you know in terms of and it's and i do think there's a major difference in culture between the plains estates and uh the proper Midwest to me the Midwest is the old Northwest territory right like that's that's really what it is and then when you start getting out into Kansas to me that's not really the Midwest it's still fly over a country but it's not the Midwest yes agreed agreed

Okay, so let's get back to this issue with the nuke testing, right? So I have thoughts about this, a little bit personal. So my ex-wife, her sister, she and her sister and her family, they all lived in Utah in southwestern Utah back in the 1960s and 70s. And her sister got and died from leukemia. years later when I started when I met her we were friends she was like still obviously as you can imagine traumatized by the death of her 13 year old she was 13 her sister was 8 died you know horrible death now it's a leukemia is not a death sentence but it was then and you know and I remember

coming across this amazing statistic that 50% of leukemia cases in the United States during the 60s, 70s, and 80s were in the state of Utah and Nevada. And those are really not populous states, right? I mean, they probably represent 1-200th of the population of the United States, maybe. And so I was like, they need to get two senators. Yeah, they do. And I was like, but I was like, how'd that happen? And then I remembered Nevada nuclear testing and the prevailing winds and, most of the continental United States are from southwest to northeast. It made perfect sense. You just have to look at a map. That's the way that the radiation flowed. I mean, I'm thinking about one of my French relatives, deceased, not related to nuclear, deceased husband. And he was a diver

for the, I think we talked about him, for the French nation. And he was involved in, he helped carry using mixed gases, French nukes down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where they had these tests pretty late, I think, into the 80s, right? The whole world arrived at a consensus in the late 1980s that nuclear testing was unnecessary and terrible for the environment. I mean, you're literally releasing, you're basically nuking the planet without even having a war. What is the point? So, I mean, it's, it's really an incredibly retarded thing to do. And here we are.

So that's, I mean, I think it's important for people to be reminded of like, there's a massive ecological toll to be paid. This is exactly the last thing we ought, that anyone, the U.S., Russia, China, anyone ought to be doing. And you know, Pentagon people that I have known over the course of my career, who, who, who, who, who, have sort of operational jurisdiction over nuclear weapons tell me that that we don't need to physically test them anymore that we can test them using computer modeling right that nobody needs to physically test them actually detonate nuclear weapons anymore because the technology that we have the technology that we use is so sophisticated that you can just do it as a computer model and then learn from the model. Detaining this stuff, you know, underground or in the atmosphere at some

atoll down in the South Pacific, all it's going to do is kill people in slow motion. Totally. John, we have a question from Toa. Thoughts on the recent intel operation to recruit Nicolas Maduro's pilot. I don't know anything about this story. Yes. So the CIA apparently attempted, apparently pitched Nicholas Maduro's personal pilot with the idea that this was, well, this was clearly a CIA operation, if it's true. It probably is true. But the idea would be that you recruit the pilot. Maduro decides to flee Venezuela. He's going to go, let's say, to Cuba or onward to Russia, and instead of landing in Cuba, the plane lands in Miami. No.

And then he's under arrest. What? The CIA has done that. There are three, there are three operations that I can think of off the top of my head where the CIA did that. Really? Yeah. It's not hard.

A little bait and switch. If you're in. Wow. I mean. Yeah. And you know, with Trump's. The whole world that he had approved a covert action finding, which you're never, ever supposed to talk about.

To me, that would be kind of an obvious part of a covert action operation. And so, I'm sorry, I missed this story, John. So what happened? So how did the story come to light? Somebody blabbed. It was a couple of days ago. I'm going to look it up. but somebody blabbed

I mean did he yeah did the pilot come forward and say hey guess who called me yeah the the Associated Press oh here it is here it is the Associated Press wrote about it first but then a Japanese newspaper is saying that the idea was that

the plane would land in the United States a long time U.S. long agent, rather, secretly tried to recruit Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro's pilot to join a plot to capture the Venezuelan leader and deliver him into U.S. custody to face international drug trafficking charges. Details of the plot are emerging as the Trump administration exerts increasing pressure on Maduro. The Trump administration is offering $50 million for Maduro's arrest. So they were going to try to do to him what they did to my Manuel Noriega of Panama.

Exactly right. Exactly right. With the fake drug charges. I mean, I'm sorry, those were fake drug charges. Yeah, they were. They were fake drug charges. I mean, listen, everything that Manuel Noriega did, he did either at the behest of the CIA or with the knowledge of the CIA because he was a paid CIA asset.

Even when he was president of Panama, he was a paid agent of the CIA. Yeah, it's like Saddam. It's an employment. It's an employment dispute. Yep, exactly. Exactly. Okay, so what do you, we never got to the little rundown, but other stuff that I had in the rundown.

And obviously, as always, if you're watching live on Rumble and YouTube, please go ahead and chime in with your comments and questions. We'll try to get to all of them. We have this Argentine beef thing, the SNAP benefits. dual deadline falling off a cliff November 1st, Saturday, both the expiration of food stamp benefits as well as the Affordable Care Act subsidies, Republicans fueling the heat, and then the Dutch elections. So what do you want to do? Well, let's do the Dutch elections real quick, only because it's big, big news here. I told you, the only English language TV station I get

is the French English language 24-hour news station. And man, it's been just all about the Dutch election. What I find interesting is that Vilders, the far-right anti-immigrant candidate, he's the one who forced this election a couple of weeks ago when he pulled his party out of a very fragile governing coalition. The governing coalition was made up of four parties, all right of center. His is an extreme right party that wants to round up all. the immigrants and the refugees and throw the mountains and send them back to their countries.

He believed that public opinion was with him. Public opinion had moved to his side and that not only would his party pick up seats in parliament, they would pick up enough seats so that he would become prime minister. In fact, yesterday he lost a seat. Not only did he not win so big that he would be prime minister today. he lost a seat and now the other parties are trying to form a coalition that would not include him the guy that won his name escapes me now because i'm not a regular follower of dutch politics but the guy who won is like 30 something years old and he's going to be the youngest ever

prime minister of the netherlands but the government will likely not include these these haters from the far right so so what do you make of that John. I mean, what is the implication? I mean, it's so we're always trying to read the tea leaves of some sort of which direction is, is the West and Western Europe in particular drifting. You know, we look at France, we look at Germany, now we're looking at Holland. Is there, I mean, is the, is the trend here that there is no trend? What is it? You know, I think that what we saw the Netherlands yesterday is similar to what we're seeing in France, similar to what we're seeing in Italy and in Greece, maybe to a slightly lesser extent, Hungary and Poland, because they

already hate immigrants. But I think we've gotten almost to a tipping point where far-right candidates are going to be elected to Parliament. But we're not at a point where there is such deep and widespread hatred of immigrants that it's the far-right anti-immigrant candidates. candidates who actually form the government that's super interesting so nativism is a plurality and but not a majority yes that's exactly how i how i feel yeah you just they just can't they just can't get to roughly 50 percent can't quite get there no super you know and greece too just using greece as as an example the greeks have a real hatred and distrust of fascism because of their experience during the Second World War with the Nazis.

And even beyond the Nazis, the Greeks have had fascist governments over the years in the form of military dictatorships. They never, ever want to go back to those days. And so about 10 years ago, a new party formed called I Hiri Siavi, it means the Golden Dawn. It was an avowed Nazi party. the mainstream parties weren't prepared for it and so they won eight seats in parliament

the idea that if you ignore them they'll go away turned out to not be workable and so there was a second election they won 12 seats so what the government did was hate speech is a crime in greece And so when the leader of the party gets up on the floor of parliament and says that he hates all immigrants, he hates all Jews, he wants to throw the immigrants out and throw the Jews out, he's arrested as he's walking off the floor of the parliament. He and the party spokesman then are put on trial for hate speech. They're convicted and they're given 13 years in prison. He just got out last week. Well, so that's how you break fascism. At least that's how they did it in Greece.

suspect that the Dutch, the Danes, maybe the French, others are headed there. I mean, it's funny to me. You mentioned the history of World War II, something I'm obsessed with. I don't, I mean, so one of the big takeaways of World War II was that people were trapped behind borders and it killed a lot of them, right? I mean, if German Jews had been able to escape if you know into France and Spain more easily and then out of the out of Europe entirely they would have been saved or Spain would have been good enough I mean yeah so it's kind of like the ability to I mean the EU with the open borders policy was meant to sort of be a solution here and you know that my reading is that the assert the migrant flow from North Africa

that started you know 20 years ago in a major way just basically you with a tipping point that just drove people crazy and they forgot that history but I mean if you're European you feel this need like you might need to be able to leave and if you might need to be able to leave maybe you should be sympathetic to other people's

need to cross borders but I guess you know a lot of people don't feel that way yeah I think that's right you know and I see in the chat you know what a nice democracy that is yeah you're right it's fascist it's anti-democratic to squelch free speech but you know we deal with the same

with the same issues here in the united states like is shouting fire in a crowded theater an act of free speech so threatening the life of or threatening the life of the president of the united states exactly there's a limit to yeah there's a limit to free speech so yeah does it squelch free speech sure it does but uh you know there's going to have to be an end to free speech at some point. The Greeks just happen to do it differently than the Americans do. Yeah. I mean, and of course, obviously, like countries like England make it, you know, have very strict libel laws. As a victim of libel, I would say that, you know, I'm sympathetic to that. Right. Right. Right. So, all right. So, question here for you, John, from Sean Pat 6882.

did you see the alternate story on the bin Laden raid? Some guy on TikTok claims that the ISI, which is Pakistani intelligence, gave him up to $25 million, basically to let them in the door, and then they spread his body over the mountains. I heard the mountain spreading the body over the mountains story. I honestly had not heard that, no.

I mean, wasn't that the Cy Hirsch story? was that the body wasn't really disposed, wasn't really buried at sea, that they basically chopped him up or maybe didn't chop him up, but threw him out from the chopper over the mountains. But if you control the skies and the sea, why would you risk somebody finding the body?

Right. That doesn't make any sense. No, and it's a much more traveled place. than people think, yeah. Yeah, it is. That's right. So, well, I mean, in the 25, yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

I heard that he's living in Brazil under an assume name and with the plastic surgery. I've heard all kinds of silly stuff. No, bin Laden's dead. Very fun question for you, John, with you being X-CIA, can't you use your contacts to find out who docks Robbie, then we can docks that that bastard. I know.

It's very tempting, let me tell you. I have to say I'm very upset about what happened with Robbie, and I'm personally offended that somebody would do this to him. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the only bright spot is, I guess this show is getting so big that it's starting to attract that when you get attention, you get the wrong kind of attention too sometimes.

Yeah. Hey, not to change the subject, Ted, but did you happen to see this breaking news from the New York Times just a few minutes ago? There is a new poll, which they're calling a comprehensive poll from Emerson, which is really good. And it's among likely voters in the election on Tuesday.

It has Mamdani at the magic number of 50 and Cuomo at 25. Curtis Lewa has 21. Curtis Lewa is nibbling away at Cuomo, not of all things. That's right. Well, it makes sense, right? Because, you know, the Cuomo vote is an anti-Mamundani vote. You know, it's, I have a sort of indirect contact inside the Mamdani campaign is the best way to put it.

And, you know, I know that this is the, I think I mentioned this here on the show, like a week ago, that the internal polling was showing. that Mamdani was at 50% and they really, the campaign really wanted that so that there couldn't be a talking point on the right or the Cuomo right to say he's not legitimate

it's a plurality, it's not a majority I mean look there people be having talking points no matter what but that is interesting it confirms what we heard last week and get this the poll found further that among New Yorkers who have already voted. Fifty-eight percent say they voted for Mumdani.

Now, I think, so I went to the polls. I asked the election workers, granted, this is only in my, in my precinct, but things were sleepy. I was like, house turnout. And has it been busy? And they said, not that busy. Now, this is pre, this is early voting. And it might have just been like, I think I went on like day two or three. It might have been like, just like an anomaly, but that's what I was told. So apparently lower turnout would benefit Cuomo, is the current thinking. Yes. But like the powers that be, I think, have to have accepted that reality, you know, I mean, I'm very curious how this mayoralty is going to look, but I suspect it's, People who are hoping for a radical left turn in New York City are going to be disappointed.

It's not going to happen. You know, because that's not what he's going to want to do. And it's like it's just, you know, it wouldn't probably be smart from his point of view. And, you know, I'm curious, like, how Cuomo's feeling about this. I mean, you're the governor. Did you have to see Cuomo yesterday talking to a group of New York City reporters, he was getting desperate. Somebody asked him how he could criticize the nominee of the Democratic Party when he spent his entire life as a Democrat, and now he's not a Democrat. His response was so telling.

He said that he is the only Democrat in the race. that Mamdani is a socialist who happened to win the Democratic line on the ballot. He said, I'm an independent, but I'm actually a Democrat. Mamdani is a socialist. He's a socialist like Maduro or Castro or Stalin or Kim Jong-un. Ask them about socialism, he says. And I was like, oh, my God, you're Ronald Reagan all over again. You're no Democrat.

He's fucking old is what he is. Yeah. And he's desperate. Yeah. I mean, you know, looking back on, you know, I do really miss those Theodore White making of the president series. Oh, my God. I still have every one.

And they're so good. And I really miss there was like a major campaigns that there was some great historian or historians who did like a series of these. This would be a great campaign to do an after action report on, right? Like what exactly, how did Eric Adams fuck up? How did Andrew Cuomo fuck up? It's Andrew Cuomo's race to lose, right? It was Eric Adams' race to lose, and they did.

Everybody just assumed that he was going to be mayor after Adams. Adams was such a disaster. I did. I assumed that. I did, too. I did too. So what happens? Like, I mean, it's, I mean, there you are.

You're the former, I mean, this is, I guess it's like, is he really just that unskilled and out of touch of a politician? It's hard to believe. I mean, maybe he is. Maybe he's just like the apple fell far from the tree with him. Mario was a very skilled politician. Very skilled. And, you know, I mean, it seems to me like he's just, he never read the room, right? The key here, if you were going to, honestly, the key here would have been to out Mamdani and Mamdani.

He should have pulled a Clinton and co-opted Mamdani's big ideas about affordability and high, and excessively high rents. then said, I'll give you all of that, but I'm experienced, and I know how to deal with Albany. I mean, you know, I'm writing my column about that this week, but basically voters have a chance in most elections, they're just picking a job, but in some elections, they have a chance to send a message, and sometimes sending the message is more important than who you pick. That's an election like this, right? Like, New Yorkers are like, yeah, we will vote for a 34-year-old state assemblyman over the two-term, sorry, three-term governor of New York who's, you know, from a political dynasty,

we will do that because we're trying to tell the DNC we're pissed off. And also Michael Bloomberg's probably the guy who really elected Zohran Mamdani because every time we got those racist mailers that have like Ramdani's face darkened and stuff or he's dressing, he's wearing like a, you know, his Islamic gear, whatever, there's always at the bottom. You know, paid for by Michael Bloomberg. And it's like, everyone's like, fuck you, Michael Bloomberg. We respected you for your mayoralty, and now we don't.

That's right. That is right. People don't want to be told what to do. You know? You know, and there's some years, and this is one of those years, where it's just simply time for a change. People want to change. Eric Adams, my best friend from college, Tom, Patrick. He used to come on on my radio show with Michelle every once in a while. He spent 32 years

as a judge in New York City. He's a lifelong Democratic Party functionary and one of my best friends in the world. And I actually stopped having him on because he would just spew out whatever the latest DNC press release was, you know, say stuff like, you know, we need to trust in President Biden because he knows what's best for all of us. And it's like, are you crazy? Anyway, we, I remember four years ago, we were talking about Eric Adams. And he said he was going to vote for Eric Adams. And I said, how in the world could you vote for a guy, first of all, who's a lifelong

cop. He was a captain, a captain in the New York City Police Department. So he's, I'm sorry, but a fascist, heavy-handed, badge-heavy cop, number. number one. True. And those were the nicest words I could think to say what I, what I mean. And,

and he's, he's a conservative. And he said, yeah, but the subway system's really bad and it's dirty. And a homeless guy punched my 15 year old daughter in the face, which was true. That happened.

A crazy person just walked up to his daughter. She's walking up from school and just punched her in the face. And then look what you got. You got Eric Adam. You knew exactly what Eric Adams was going to be like. He told us what he was going to be like. Okay, now look at Cuomo. Have people forgotten the hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths that Cuomo was responsible for when he warehoused elderly people in nursing homes knowing that they would get COVID and die?

Yeah. I haven't forgotten because I lost two years in New York City from COVID thanks to, thanks to Cuomo. So, no, I don't think people have forgotten. My mother was in a nursing home and fortunately died two weeks before the lockdown, right? But if she was a New Yorker, and she would, that would have, that could have happened to her. Yep. Yep. So I just don't see why anybody is surprised that Cuomo is losing this election.

I never, you know, once, once Momdani made a name for himself, I, I didn't think. Cuomo had a chance. Yeah, I think, I mean, look, Gmdani has been, also what's interesting is he's really a gentleman, right? Mumdani is a happy warrior. He's always polite. He takes, he rolls

with the punches. He's nice. And, you know, meanwhile, he's getting beaten up by these goon-like characteristic characters like Cuomo. Right. Como, like, like, was on some talk show the other day and he was like,

laughing at the idea that like that somehow we'd have another 9-11 because Mamdani was the president was the mayor of New York and just wallowing in the Islamophobia he's not getting it right I mean I think people would have really voted for Cuomo if they thought that he could deliver the stuff that Mamdani is interested in delivering I'm not going to say will deliver is interested right is interested. Hey, um, uh, sneaker dad 1020 says, Cuomo campaign reminds me of Hillary Clinton campaign 2016. There's a sense of entitlement. That is absolutely right. That is absolutely right. It's like, oh, it's his turn because he's smarter than everybody else. And he was governor.

So now he's going to come and rescue the city, save the city. Uh, uh, we don't like you. You're not going to be the mayor. Yeah. And that's it. yeah that that is exactly it um shall we talk about this argentine beef thing yeah let me go on record first to saying i went to argentina on my honeymoon 20 something years ago and i couldn't wait to get there to try the beef because it's supposed to be the best beef in the world right and i hated it i thought it was gamey and strong tasting and they eat literally every part of the cow the guts, the intestines, the stomachs, everything. They eat everything. So I don't know what the craze is for Argentine beef. I much prefer American beef. Yeah, I mean, to me, it's like, look, American farmers

have long been a semi-protected sector of the U.S. economy. And I'm all for that. I think, you know, you know, obviously nothing's more essential than food, and you always want to have control domestic production of food as much as you can. You know, that's just, to me, Matt left or right. That's just common sense. But what is this hard on that President Trump has for Malay? I mean, he's sending first 20, then $40 billion. He knows that this is going to be, this is going to anger his America first base. Now he's going to, he's going to, to import foreign Argentine beef, it probably won't even reduce beef prices in the United States

to any appreciable amount. You won't notice, shoppers won't notice the difference, but American farmers feel like they will as their wholesale, I mean, sorry, their wholesale prices drop. The, even the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith from Missouri, you know, very powerful Republican,

high-ranking, fired off a scathing letter, calling it a betrayal of America First Principles, saying that, you know, basically cattle prices have never been higher. So the costs for the farmers, for beef farmers, is our sky high. And you're going to hit them right when they're down with this. I mean, this is, this seems like, what's the opposite of what the president should be doing? yeah yeah yes totally agree but i think that he's got this love affair with milay because milay quoted him during his own presidential campaign he announced that he would be the donald trump of argentina it's it's it's that ego stroking that trump so loves milay jumped right

into it with both feet and so he's being paid back with a 40 billion dollar bailout and uh and the lowering of tariffs on Argentine beef. And screw the American cattle farmers, right? Trump's going to win, or a Republican's going to win Texas anyway, and Oklahoma and all these other places that raise beef cattle. There it is. Well, I mean, big question. Does Donald Trump care about the future of the Republican Party after Donald Trump? You know, after 2016, I would have said no. or 2020. I would have said no. Now it looks as though he's actually trying to school J.D. Vance. That has surprised me because, and you and I have talked about this, I would have thought that he would have chosen Marco Rubio to be, you know, the carrier of the torch.

It looks like it's J.D. Vance. So I think that he's at least putting some thought into carrying on, you know, his MAGA legacy. Well, yeah. I mean, but it's like this, I mean, the Argentine thing is like, I think it's misbegotten from his own point of view. I would have been like, Mr. President, this is, you know, no one in the United States has ever voted in favor of a candidate because they're pro-Argentina, but lots of people who have voted for a candidate because they're pro-farmer,

who aren't even farmer. I'm pro-farmer. Yeah. I don't want to farm ever, you know. I am too. Yeah. I have an uncle on my dad's side who was a beef farmer. He raised cattle for beef in Virginia.

He ate a 550 acre farm. So yeah, I mean, we need them as Americans. We need them. So why are we importing this foreign beef? And, you know, one of our viewers had a good question in the chat. why is there no country of origin designation on beef? I want to know if I'm buying foreign beef. You know, me too.

Orzantine, Brazilian, you know, whatever it is, Chinese, so that I can choose American beef. Yeah, me too, for sure. Hey, we do have an ad. We've got to make some money. So let's go do that. Looking for smarter ways to browse and enjoy your favorite. content without ads, get the Perplexity Pro bundle with Rumble Premium.

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Head to rumble.com slash premium before December 31st to sign up and unlock your premium experience. Hey, John, have you checked out Grocopedia, the Elon Musk's take on Wikipedia? I tell you the honest to God's truth. I'm boycotting it. Oh, really? I am.

I want nothing to do with Elon Musk. Nothing. Gotcha. Well, I did check it out. It's definitely a different. Of course, the first thing I did was check out myself. And these main differences, instead of being edited by people, it's put together by AI. And so it's a language model.

So it flows, it has a beautiful flow, I will say. It's like writing a story of someone's life. But it couldn't resist calling me far left. political cartoonist and commentator, Ted Raul, as opposed to. But Nicholas Fuentes was just influencer, just influencer. So he's not far right. Look, I'll own the far left, but I'll label. Totally.

Not ashamed. But I don't think Nick Fuentes is ashamed of being far right either. No, I don't think he is. He was on Tucker Carlson yesterday or the day before yesterday. kind of trying unsuccessfully to come off as a moderate. But he did jump in on the side of Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey and others criticizing Israel, which was actually nice to see. Although you would kind of expect that from a neo-Nazi.

So there it is. That is true. God. Yeah. Yeah. That seriously sucks. anyway oh you're in marble 455

thank you for the donation and marbles asking us if we have any thoughts on the guardian angels you know every time i go to new york as a visitor and i go regularly to new york i always enjoyed seeing the guardian angels on the subway not that i expected them to

necessarily to protect me or anything but just because i thought it was a cool idea i think it's a cool idea too and it's also like you know It's part of the great show that is life in New York City. Like, it's sort of like, look how cool this is. It's very 1970s. It feels very, the Warriors come out and play.

So that said, I think it, I think it's a grift, right? I mean, the point is, it's not like you can ride the New York City subway every single day for 10 years and never see a garden angel. And that's kind of like my point. It's like they're hardly ever out there. And all they can really do is hang out. And they don't even have walkie-talkies. I mean, I guess they could have cell phones now. Right.

But, you know, I mean, can you think of a single incident where it's like, well, an old lady was being held up at gunpoint? But then the guardian angels came along and saved the day. I don't think that's ever happened, you know? No. And they've been around for, you know, most of my. life. So I'm kind of thinking, yeah, I think it's a fundraising opportunity. But, you know, those cats aren't going to feed themselves. That's right. That's right. And it did engender a lot of goodwill for Curtis Lewell. So, you know, maybe he's an idiot. Maybe he's not. Maybe he has

an idea of how to govern. Maybe he doesn't. But I think his positives are way higher than his negatives. Not to say that that translates into votes, but I think people have a generally positive view of Curtis Lewa. Yes, I would. Look, I have a generally positive view of Curtis Lewa. I mean, he is, I think, a good soul. This is, I think, the best way to put it. I agree. So, all right, well, so let's talk about, we got time to talk about this. Let's talk about. Let's talk about the looming deadline coming up in 48 hours or less, where basically November 1st kicks in. We've got SNAP benefits. There's like basically a lot to tease out here, right?

So they snap slash food stamps, whatever you want to call it, older people prefer food stamps. Snap was the effort of the Democratic Party to rebrand it so that it would be, you know, less politically fraught. But anyway, this program is running out of money on October. 31st, appropriately enough Halloween. And starting Saturday, there's not, there's not any money for it. Now, there are supplemental emergency contingency funds available, $6 billion that Congress basically anticipating in its infinite wisdom that something like this might come up appropriated. But the Trump administration, the Office of Management and Budget, saying, no, no, we're not, we're not going to spend that money. And their logic is pretzel logic.

It's supplemental. We can only use it as an addition to the regular funds if they're not available. Actually, their contingency funds, basically by their standard, there would never be any kind of scenario in which those funds would ever be made available. There's currently 25 states, and including some Republicans who've joined this, are suing the government to the OMB to say, look, Congress has appropriated. This is a bigger issue that we have now. If Congress appropriates funds, is the executive branch obligated to spend them as Congress directs, right? There's the question of, we already know that the courts have said that Congress can't appropriate, I mean, that the executive branch can't spend monies unless it's been appropriate,

but what if it's the other way around? What if it's been appropriated, but the executive decides not to spend it? That question, I think, remains before it's going to need to go before the U.S. Supreme Court. It won't happen before Friday. So politically, Republicans are getting beaten up, and they know it. And it's kind of a double crisis because the government shutdown is being blamed on them. And they're taking heat over the lapse of the ACA subsidies.

And everybody's getting these bills now all over the country saying that their health insurance is about to become a lot more expensive. What happens next? I mean, I've always said Republicans are going to blink. am I right? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I think we've lost both streams. Are you serious? Yeah.

Oh, um, weird. Okay, let me see if that's true. I'm just hitting. Oh, um, I'm trying to. You know, Rumble is funky and finicky and weird. But Facebook, or Facebook, YouTube did the same thing.

Well, that means it's the Rumble Studio that's, like, going down. Shit. Yeah. If I hit re-me, I'm going to, okay, I'm going to do something. I'm not going to lose you. I'm going to hit refresh on this and see what happens. Okay. Crazy.

Hmm. Okay. Never a dull moment here. It's always something. No, always, always something. Let's try this. It's not letting me do the full screen, ironically, but Well, who cares?

We can be lethal screen. That's okay. Okay, we're back. Okay. You see it? Yeah, I see it. All right, cool. I hope we have sound.

Oh, they can't hear. There's no sound. Oh, my God. What? I don't understand. Hmm. Okay. It's so annoying.

No sound. Okay, let me try this again. Dang it. Okay. Okay, now, let's see. Any luck? How's that, folks? Can you hear us?

No. Hello, hello, hello. testing testing that is so irritating all good okay so irritating all good okay great we're sorry apparently a rumble studio glitch apparently it's been glitchy all morning and that can happen okay so we were just talking about i was asking john about the uh the the the shutdown and and the SNAP benefits and, you know, ACA, what's going to happen with Republicans? You know, I'm not ashamed to say that within two weeks of my arrest, I had to put my family on food stamps.

We literally didn't have enough money to buy food. There are tens of millions of Americans who are in the same predicament. and this thing is running out of money tomorrow. The Democrats, I fear, see this only as a campaign slogan. The Republicans don't give a shit if people go without food because the Republican view of anybody on food stamps is that they're lazy and they're refusing to work. And that's just not the case.

There are plenty of people who work full-time jobs who are on food stamps. So I'm not optimistic, Ted. I don't think Donald Trump gives a shit about people who are hungry. Nobody should be hungry in the United States. But I don't think either one of the political parties really care about the issue either. No, I don't think they really care, actually.

But I do think they're going to, I think the Democrats are currently eating the Republicans lunches politically in terms of popularity. I agree. I think the Republicans are going to blink. They have to. Yeah. Yeah, they have to.

Yes. Well, I think we should probably wrap it up because we have a minute to go. And also, apparently, our sound is all fucked up too. So thanks everyone for bearing with us. Really appreciate you. Just a reminder, that D-Program with Ted Roll and John Curiacu airs live at Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. That's 6 a.m. out on the Pacific Coast.

Thanks all of us for joining. Please like, follow, and share the show. John, have a good time out there in Europe. You're still there tomorrow? Still there tomorrow? Coming back, sending. Rumble screwing up here, state side, but you were great. You know, your signal is great now.

Finally. Never a dull moment. Please like, I already said that part. We will see you tomorrow. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with Ted Rall and Manila Chan. That's me, Ted Rall. We'll have a very, I think, pre-Hawloveny. kind of take on the on the news so uh anyway keep that going and we will talk to you later

bye everybody hi john Thank you.