DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “SFPD vs. ICE”

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, back from Mexico, tell you about the reaction to Donald Trump’s radical move to demolish the White House’s East Wing to replace it with a hulking a $250 million ballroom, San Francisco’s bold legal stance against immigration raids, with local officials warning that federal agents could face arrest, and the military’s lethal strikes on boats in the eastern Pacific.Trump’s Ballroom Blitz: A White House wrecking crew tears down the historic East Wing to build a massive $250 million ballroom, evoking Obama’s 2011 satirical vision of a garish Trump White House. Critics, including historians, condemn the project as a symbol of his disruptive presidency. The National Trust for Historic Preservation urges a pause, citing the ballroom’s overwhelming scale. San Francisco Threatens ICE: Nancy Pelosi and SF officials warn that federal agents conducting immigration raids in San Francisco could face arrest for breaking California law. DA Brooke Jenkins’ strategy focuses on prosecuting excessive force, though legal challenges loom. The plan sparks debate over state versus federal authority. U.S. Attacks Boats in the Pacific: The U.S. military launches lethal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the eastern Pacific, killing five in two attacks this week—refusing to provide any details about the victims. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calls the targets “narco-terrorists,” but Colombian President Petro denounces the strikes as “murder” of innocent people The escalation raises concerns over legal authority and transparency.

into D-program with Ted Raul and John Kiriaku. I'm cartoonist Ted Raul, CIA Whistleblower, John Kyriaku is here and back from Mexico as of yesterday. We have a lot to talk about. It's Thursday, October 23rd. I know you're missing the tarantulas. So, yeah. I dreamt about them last night.

Did you? I did. I dreamt about them. Like, just grand. Have you ever seen that 1950s horror movie? Teretula. Yes. they become giant.

I even have a book on, it's a coffee table book on the history of horror movies. And it's in there. It's a, I remember seeing it as a kid on like, this is an old reference on UHF television.

And it was just like, oh my God, like that is like, and I suffered from arachnophobia terribly. So it's like, I still really hate them. I have to say. I think I told you,

they're gross and, scary because they're like very hairy and they're very big but they're way more afraid of us than we are of them it's the it's the scorpions that frighten me the most because i saw i i killed three of them and then there was the big brown one that we saw at the end uh as we were loading up our van it was underneath one of our of our tarps and the the brown ones are smaller the black ones are bigger i killed three black ones but the brown ones will kill you. Oh.

Are they, are they, so I've never encountered scorpions. Are they fast? They're not as fast as tarantulas. So you can get them, like with a shoe. Yeah. Yeah. And their stinger lays flat unless it feels threatened. And then it, then it sticks up like this.

So the three that I killed were just kind of sitting there and then I stomped them. But, uh, but that, that brown one, he was ready to duke it out. My uncle, French uncle, was in the French Foreign Legion serving Algeria, woke up in the middle of the night, and there was a huge scorpion on his chest. So his buddy wakes up and sees it. And he's like, don't worry, I got you. And he takes his boot and smashes it on his chest so hard that it did kill the scorpion, but it also broke a couple of his ribs. And he was like, you asshole. You know what?

I would take the broken ribs. It's worth it. It's worth it. Yeah. Most things scare the daylights out of me. Well, they're terrifying. On our first day in Mexico, and I'm sorry to not jump into the news, but our first day in Mexico, they gave us these, like, welcome swag bags.

And it had, like, a water bottle in it and an umbrella for the sun. But it also had, well, it had cream for the mosquitoes. and why am I telling you this? What was in that swag bag? That was so important. Oh, I know. They had little flashlights, and we had to carry the flashlights around

everywhere we went because it's so dark out there. You can't see the scorpions and the tarantulas, and they come out at night. Good times in the desert. I would walk like this with my handout going down the paths because every single night, the spiders start to make webs across,

the path and every night you walk through the webs and rather than have them hit my face which they did the first couple nights are those are those those those those big banana spiders yes the banana they're as big as your hand yeah and they and they make webs they're like six feet in diameter yeah they're a big thing in the florida we talked about the florida keys the other day about the floor the deer and they yeah they're all over the place when you go hiking there and you walk through those giant webs it's the ultimate creepy crawley. I hate it. So, all right, lots to talk about, as you point out, including stuff that we didn't put in the rundown, but we are going to talk about. But stuff in the rundown, we're going to talk about a little bit about Trump's, the reaction to the giant,

massive, hulking ballroom that is basically the same size as the White House. It's bigger than the White House. It's crazy. It is bigger than the freaking White House. It makes no sense. I mean, it has no, there's no sense of proportion. It's actually kind of, it's one of the rare times when I think that actually whoever comes in next should just demolish it. Share it down. I said the same thing yesterday on another podcast. I hope that whoever happens to find himself as the president next, I don't care who it is. Yeah. It tears this monstrosity down. It's just atrocious. Yeah. San Francisco, it really has a basically, you know, we know California has a law now that says that ICE and other officers have to show their faces and present ID in order to operate in the state

of California. The feds were like, well, we're ignoring that because we're the feds and we have the supremacy clause in the Constitution on our side. Anyway, San Francisco, right as the ICE is about to go into San Francisco, they're going to be the San Francisco DA, Brooke Jenkins, says that she's going to go ahead and arrest ICE officers based on, Prosecution for excess, of course. She has a whole novel theory about how to do this. So that's setting up the stage for a serious showdown between local and federal government.

Looks like the Defense Department is moving its boat droning attacks out to the Pacific. Now we're not told what nationality the victims are, although we're, I guess, reduced to guessing on shows like this. So we will do that. And, you know, it was brought up that we met. We forgot to talk about John Bolton. Yeah.

What's wrong with us? The walrus. And we should throw John Brennan into that, too, because he was, the House Judiciary Committee referred him to the Justice Department yesterday for prosecution. What first? Yeah, let's do Bolton and Brennan real quickly. Okay. And I'm of two minds here. That's actually not true.

Well, okay, I'm going to present it as of two minds. John Bolton has been arrested and was arraigned late last week on 18 separate violations of the Espionage Act. 18 violations that that's 180 years in prison that he is facing um i mean he's in great health but i doubt he's going to make it yeah i doubt he's going to make it and um you know being an espionage act uh charge he wouldn't be eligible for uh for a minimum security work camp unless that was just me And it may have been just me. So anyway, specifically under the Espionage Act, he is being charged with illegal retention of classified information.

He's not charged with releasing the classified information. He's charged with retaining it, which is still 180 years in prison. Why wasn't he charged with disseminating it when you consider the fact that he saved it for the purpose of writing a memoir? That's right. Because he argued that he was involved in negotiations with the Publications Review Board for two years and that they finally approved the final version of the memoir that was released. Now, he made changes to the memoir after its approval. So you could argue that that should be re-reviewed.

But they went for the low-hanging fruit on this. The question is very simple. did he have classified documents in his possession yes or no and the answer is yes the FBI found them and confiscated them now the reason why I think that he's in real trouble not Donald Trump fake made up trouble is the U.S. attorney who's prosecuting him in the federal district of Maryland is a Biden appointee not a Trump appointee and if this were political at all, there would have been no arrest and no charge in the first place. I mean, he really did have these documents in his house. He really was not allowed to have

these documents in his house. And if I'm looking at it objectively and comparing it to previous cases over the last 20 years where people were charged with illegal retention of classified documents, I'm going to say he gets two and a half years. Well. And how old? old is Bolton? He's well into his 70s. He's got to be 76 or 78. I'm going to look right now. Is there any, I mean, I know federal sentencing guidelines are basically like a Excel spreadsheet and they're pretty strict. Yeah. He's 76. Is there is there is there is there any possibility that he can play the old man card? No. No. Can't do it. Can he negotiate can he negotiate can he I'll tell you stuff you don't know if you...

Yeah. My attorney's taught me that literally everything is open to negotiation. Hmm. Literally everything. Except as we know from like whether or not you get sent to a camp versus a prison. Yeah. They make a promise that they might not decide, not necessarily. That's right.

And the, whatever the final deal is has to be approved by the attorney general. And this attorney general is weak and can't make a decision like that on. her own and so she's going to bump it up to the president right well i mean being weak is the she that that's a feat that's a core feature as far as trump is concerned uh thank you for the donation from hefuso uh for the dollar and uh thank you and the joke come to beautiful venezuela for our combat fishing adventure uh-huh fishing is bomb what want i tell you ted i've got i've got another podcast deep focus we were talking about before we started and um i have a friend who is a PR person. And he asked me if I would interview this client of his. What turns out the client

is one of these guys who was arrested storming the beach in Venezuela. And I said, no, he's not a whistleblower. He's not a truth teller. He's just a paid mercenary who was so stupid to believe that they were going to throw flowers on him when he, when he, you know, washed up on the beach in Caracas to overthrow the Maduro government. No, I'm not going to interview your client you know john i have a question for you this this definitely you of all people should be able to answer fulsomely um has this kind of like frederick forsyth dogs of war scenario ever worked where you have like you know a hundred mercenaries storm a beach or or parachute into a you know godforsaken capital with you know corrugated tin rooms and topple the government

successfully? No. That's a great question. Ted, when I was in high school, I read this book. It was titled something like how to overthrow a government or something like that. And the truth is, you can't just like shoot the leader, right? You have to seize the communications organs of the country. You have to seize the radio and television stations. You have to control the major intersections on on the maiden roads you have to control the military you have to control the military number one yeah so no this kind of thing never ever ever works never but these guys fool themselves into thinking that as soon as they go in and do the initial strike then the marines are going to parachute in and everybody's going to live happily ever after and that never

ever happens. Why do people not look at history and say, well, this is not a replicable, there's no model to replicate here. Because most of these guys are knuckle-draggers who finished high school and joined the military. And then when they finished their military service, they joined these mercenary, you know, paramilitary, Eric Prince kind of groups thinking that they'd make some money. Well, they're no smarter than they were when they finished high school. They don't, they're no more worldly. They don't know any. more about history and they what about the eric prince is the people who actually finance these operations and what eve of them i mean are they idiots too no eric prince is very very intelligent

but for eric prince it's all about the money so long as the check clears he's perfectly happy to throw a couple dozen guys into the grinder it doesn't make any difference to him right it's sort of like i used to always say about wall street like yeah you're a broker you make a commission if you buy you make a commission. If you sell, you always make money. Exactly right. Exactly right. Hey, and before we leave the John Bolton issue, we should talk about John Brennan real quickly. So yesterday, day before yesterday, at least two dozen different people forwarded to me a link to one of the many articles about John Brennan being referred to the Justice Department. I want to put this into context because I don't want people to get excited. So what this is is called a criminal referral or a congressional criminal referral.

All it is is the chairman of a congressional committee saying, we believe that John Brennan committed a crime when he testified before our committee. So they refer the file to the Justice Department. That does not mean that anybody is going to be prosecuted, let alone, I mean, investigated, let alone prosecuted. And there's no obligation on the part of the DOJ to investigate, right? None. In addition.

It's a tip. It's a tip. You know what? That's a great way to say it. It's a tip. And in addition to that, the crime that they're accusing him of having committed was contempt of Congress, specifically it was lying to Congress. That's a misdemeanor.

And the maximum sentence for it is six months in the local jail. First offenders aren't going to get six months in the local jail. It's just not the way real life works. So I was mentioning this to a friend of mine. And he said, well, look at it this way. He said, this may be the first salvo against Brennan. This may just be an indication that the administration really is willing to prosecute him. Remember, when Donald Trump was upset with the CIA's findings in an NIE, a national intelligence estimate, saying that, I forget what it said, something about Russia that he disagreed with, he fired everybody that had anything to do with that paper, remember?

And Dr. Gabbard accidentally outed two people who were undercover. Wasn't that about the Hunter Biden laptop? I can't remember. There were so many of those. Yeah. Like basically the weasel words of it is our general considered opinion that this has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. Yes. Yes.

So many of the people who were fired would have been witnesses against Brennan. Now, if they were federal employees, they would have been compelled to testify against Brennan. now they're not compelled and all they have to do they're unemployed they don't know don't know don't trump anything all they have to do is go up to the stand and in answer to every question say i don't recall i don't recall that's it memory failure is a powerful defense um we are politics of heroin 1312 has a question for you john from youtube and by the way YouTubers, the superchats are remonitized, and so if you're so moved and you want to support what John and I are doing it, please feel free to do that.

John, why as a leftist, do you still refer to groups like the PFLP and DFLP as terror groups rather than revolutionary national liberation movements off topic? But I've heard you say that more than that. Yeah. Well, because it's my view that if you walk into an airport in Europe and just open fire, with machine guns on people, that's not in the interest of national liberation for the Palestinian people. Sorry, that's just, that's just terrorism. No, I agree with that. Yeah, I mean, I have, I've had thousands of hours of conversations with my grandfather who was, you know,

really a hero of the French resistance. And he said, like, the number one thing, if you're, when you represent, when you're in the resistance and you're trying to emancipate the people, is you do not kill innocent people unless it absolutely can't be helped. That's right. And if you, because after all, these are the people you're trying to liberate.

You can't kill them. You don't go into a... I mean, and that's like the problem with like Al-Qaeda or something like that. Yeah, right. Exactly. And may I add one other thing, Ted, Frazmataz says here,

this is important because I get this a lot. Question for John. Did Brendan play a role in the creation of ISIS? I've heard that he is a practicing. Muslim, which I always thought was maybe bogus, someone says he's a Sufi, WTF. He is a devout practicing Catholic. He goes to St. I think it's St. Hermans in Herndon, Virginia, every single Sunday. He is a devout Catholic. People on the far right have come up with this thing that he converted to Islam and he went to Mecca and he made the Hajj. No, all of it's a lie. You know,

I spoke at an event at a bookstore in New York, I don't know, a month and a half ago. A guy that I know wrote a book about Brennan and asked me to write the forward. So I did. And then there was this event. And he had some comedian who also fancies himself as a right-wing commentator, sort of emcee the thing. And the first thing that the guy said was John Brennan, who has confessed to converting to radical Islam. It's like, no, what are you talking about?

So the first thing I said was, I'm sorry to throw a wrench into this five seconds into the start of the event, but John Brennan is not a Muslim. He has never been a Muslim. He's a practicing Catholic. But even if he were a Muslim, who cares?

You don't confess to becoming Muslim. There are, There are, man, are there over a billion? I mean, they're over a billion. Over a billion. And the chief of operations in the CIA's counterterrorism center, the guy who killed Osama bin Laden, he's a Muslim. What do people say about that? I worked, I worked for that guy for eight years.

He's not just a Muslim. He's a practicing Muslim. Who cares? Right. Well, I don't know how. You know, the thing is, of course, there are lies, right? And then there's lies that couldn't be true. That's one of them, right?

I don't understand how lies that came to be true stick. You know, that part, that's weird. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Like it's so outlandish. It's so ridiculous, though. Yep, couldn't agree more. So let me get back to Brennan for one second.

Brennan may or may not be prosecuted on this minor contempt of Congress charge. I don't so much care. I want him to be prosecuted on a conspiracy charge because he conspired to deny the American people the right to elect a president. Yeah, that's true. That's a major crime. It was an attempted coup d'etat.

I said that in a podcast. That's exactly what it was, Ted. That was an attempted coup d'etat. Yeah, it's really truly disgusting. And incredibly dangerous. Yeah, and I'm sorry. I don't think you should be. be able to defend yourself with the lawyerly weasel words, like, well, we said it was our

considered opinion and, you know, that kind of crap. I mean, they knew what they were doing and what they were saying. They, you know, they buried all of that. It was like one of those 62-page Apple iOS renewal agreements that nobody reads when they, like, yes, when they do their software update. You know, and, you know, they knew exactly what they were saying and what they were suggesting, And we know from the internal communications of that group, right, the 51, they were all talking to each other like, hey, you know, Trump, we got to stop Trump no matter what happened we do that. Hey, will you sign on to this letter? I'll sign on to it. I mean, that's what happened.

We all know that's what happened. Yes. Yes. Hey, Ted, we should also say that in the Israeli parliament today, the Knesset voted by a vote of 25 to 25. to annex the West Bank. They did this just as Marco Rubio was leaving the country. They did this while J.D. Vance was still in the country. It's an incredibly provocative and dangerous thing to do.

Even if they're just playing games, it could change the face of the conflict. So correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the Israeli parliamentary system is that it's a unicameral system, right? So if a law passes, is this a resolution or a law? It's a law, but it was passed by committee. So now it goes to the entire 120 member body.

So if that's passed, let's say, and who knows. Then if the president were to sign up, then that's it. It becomes law. That's it. And it's one more step in the direction of Benjamin Netanyahu's greater Israel. You know, which includes the southern third of Lebanon, the western quarter of Syria, the third of Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank, and even a giant chunk of Saudi Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula. And a bit of the Sinai, right?

All of the Sinai. Yeah. So, I mean, part of me, maybe I'm just overly optimistic. I've been guilty of that many times. part of me thinks I kind of want them to do that because that will finally once and for all make Israel dead to everyone and no it will ever look back

we'll cut them off and that'll be and we'll wash our hands of these fucking maniacs and we'll support the Palestinians. I would look forward to that day. Yeah. Do you think I'm being overly optimistic? No. No. I don't. I don't. This is the thing about the Israel

really, and especially about Netanyahu is they just don't know when to stop. Yeah, it's their way. Yeah. They just go and go and go and go. They're like little energizer bunnies. It's almost impressive, but it's also stupid. It is stupid. You've got no one to hold them, no one to fold them.

That's it. That's it. We're rules to live by. What do you want to talk about next? The ballroom, San Francisco. Yeah, let's get the ballroom out of the way. I don't know why I'm so angry. about this. But you and I were talking about it yesterday. This thing is bigger than the White House. So there are a couple of reasons why I'm angry about this. Number one, he literally tore down the east wing of the White House. Yeah. Literally tore it down. It's in ruins. With no discussion nationally, right? This was never, I mean, this isn't something he talked about during the campaign. No. Or something that even like a month ago, he didn't, he didn't like, you know, have his people go out.

and go on CNN and Fox and say, hey, by the way, these are our plans for the White House. He just did it. No, he just did it. It's supposed to go through this historical preservation committee and all these different steps. Just tore it down. Tore it down two days after saying,

we're not going to tear it down. He said, we're not going to touch it is what he said. And it's literally in rubble on the ground now. Yeah, it literally looks like a fucking, a dystopian movie where the White House is destroyed. It's been destroyed. It's bizarre. It is.

And also for this purpose, right? Like, if you need to massively increase, you know, the square footage on the White House grounds for this, for a ballroom. I mean. And what he did is he got all these rich campaign donors to pay for it. So there's no, there's no taxpayer money that's going to. It's completely privately funded. But it's still, it's still national property, right?

That's the thing. It's national property. Congress never voted to do this. He just did it. Now, I think about like, you know, previous controversies, right? I mean, like we've talked about, presidents have added pools, swimming pools and bowling alleys and movie theaters to the White House. And very controversial, the Truman balcony, you know,

we take that completely for granted, but it wasn't there until Harry Truman. But, you know, I still have the button that says, that was a pro-dooie button that says, that says, Harry was screwy to build a balcony for Dewey because they thought that Dewey was going to win in 1948. And it's a very collectible button. And the thing is, but it's like sort of why? But even when you consider that, I know from having read this

that Harry Truman went to the American people, had reporters briefed on exactly what the plans were why they wanted to do it, why, you know, he and Best Truman thought it was important. You know, there was kind of like an effort at gaining consensus or at least explaining themselves. Or, of course, there's the very famous film of Jackie Kennedy, giving the White House tour and, you know, very beautifully showing her favorite parts, her favorite paintings and explaining how they were planning to. renovate the White House and like apparently vice president Nixon had oh sorry it was Ike right

who had like worn his golf cleats on the on the floor and like had fucked up all the floors so she was like a lot of these floors have to be replaced and here's where we're going to do it I mean that's it's it's kind of an opportunity for the president to communicate and sort of and personalize him himself his relationship with the American people like This is my house. I want to do a reno. Listen, I entertain a lot of guests, as you can imagine, from all over the world. I need a big place to do it.

Why didn't he do that? You know, it really is an imperial presidency. All the things that Richard Nixon used to fantasize about doing, Trump's actually doing them. Yeah. It really is an imperial presidency. You know, what he tore down, we said was the East Wing. the office of the first lady and it's the white house visitors center so if you want to take a

white house tour you go across the street to the department of commerce and you get your little ticket and then you cross the street you go into the east wing and that's where it starts it's like a little museum upstairs as the first lady's office and the chief of staff's office and the the protocol director's office and then you enter into the white house itself by just going up this grand staircase. None of that exists anymore. It's laying in chunks of concrete on the ground. My mother and I did that when I was 15,

and my mom was a very, very chatty person. And she talked to one of the doormen, I guess it was, at the White House. And he told her a personal story about Jimmy Carter that apparently some woman had wandered away from the White House tour and had wandered into the Oval office. Wow. And Jimmy Carter was there and he was like, you know, come with me and he like,

I believe that. And he brought her back to the tour and like showed her a few things. And then people were like, oh, my God, you were just with the president. I believe that. She didn't even know who he was. Oh, my God. He was, and it's so funny. But do you think they're going to get rid of the White House tour?

I mean, you know, if there's no White House tour office, it's the reason that they might, this might be part of it. And that's part one of my question. But part two is, we haven't seen Melania in ages. I was thinking about that yesterday. Like, you know, he's now got it, you know, drawn a beat on wife number four. Stranger things have happened. Yeah.

Stranger things have happened. You know. Don't remember in the wife's office, you know? Yeah. At the beginning of Trump's first tour, he said that the White House was a shithole. Remember? Yeah. He said it was a shithole and it needed to be just revamped from the ground up.

Now, Harry Truman did that. You remember, through most of the Truman presidency, he and Best Truman lived across the street at Blair House. Yeah. And the White House was stripped down to the studs and just completely rebuilt. Got Renaud. Got Renaud. I went through the White House, I'm going to say, almost a year ago with my sister and her family. And it was a little on the rundown side.

so sure it could use new drapes some new flooring a good dusting but you know it needs to be adapted for um you know cyber stuff like you know hardwired ethernet connections and all that sure sure and i understand it has a very long-standing mouse and rat problem long standing that's amazing well then they could take a page This is where he really should have that meeting in Romania with Putin because Putin could explain about the official mousers at the hermitage in St. Petersburg, where there's a whole, going back to the imperial era, right? There's a giant cadre of cats that wander the hermitage. I told you. Exactly that problem.

I told you the Greeks don't have this problem because there are cats everywhere, everywhere. And the Greeks are happy to have them. Trump a lot better, despite all his despotic tendencies, if he had some cats in the way. Yeah. I think that's probably right. All right. Well, I mean, so here's the thing, right? People are, is this going to, does this have any political implications? You know, I mean, are people, I mean, the Truman balcony and the renovation,

it really was very controversial. A lot of people were very against. it, and not just because they didn't like Harry Truman. Is this the kind of thing that, you know, does it have political import, or is it just one of those ha stories that only affects people who actually go visit the White House or walk by in Washington? You know, we've heard nothing from the Democrats on this. Weird.

Nothing. And, you know, we should. I should add too. As part of this ballroom construction, they're paving over Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden. Oh, no, really? So it was torn out day before yesterday. So that, so the famous Rose Garden, what? No longer exists. Well, well, there's that famous, you know, I never promised you a Rose Garden. Yeah, well, Trump made sure that was true. Wow, that's, that's crazy. Crazy. Isn't that awful? Yeah, no, I mean, it's just, it's just weird that like such a wholesale, you know, giant change could just occur with no discussion just like, you know, it's easier to, you know, it reminds me of something that happened. You probably remember this. In the 1980s, there was a, I think it was maybe MacLow, but it was some major real estate developer in New York City who basically planned to build a couple of hotels on the site of his site.

historic Broadway theaters, but the city had landmarked the theaters and said, you know, you can't tear these down. And so he's just like at one or two o'clock in the morning, came in with the wrecking crew and knocked him down anyway without a permit. Oh, my God. He was in such a hurry that the crew didn't even turn off the gas in the basement could have blown up part of Times Square. And, you know, this was a time when Times Square was packed with people at 2 o'clock in the morning. I mean, yeah, sure. I mean, you know, people are there now, but it's not the same. So it was just sort of, yeah, I mean, it reminds me of that kind of, or hell when they

were building Trump Tower, when they did it with illegal immigrants, with, you know, without filing for all the appropriate paperwork. They tore down a building there that was on the site, didn't get the city permits, no demolition permit. It's just sort of like, we do whatever the fuck we want. And then just like people live with the results afterwards. Pay it fine. yeah it's like that's it easier to yeah that's how it is like in my old stomping grounds in the hamptons

like all the rich people they take it they just demolish like uh you know dunes even though you're not allowed to do that because they're like nesting for the plover and stuff like that and they just pay a fine it's like it's better to to do it that way they should go to prison yeah this is where i kind of like really i do see the advantages of like the taliban like the taliban had a problem with deforestation, you know, between 96 and 2001 when they were in charge. And they were like, if they caught you cutting down a tree in town, they killed you. And that really, it put a dent in the problem. Oh, my God.

So, all right, well, so what I do have to say, we do have to talk about the San Francisco situation, which I think is kind of just amazing. So the DA, so basically the Trump administration, is about to surge ice into San Francisco. By the way, they've now been making the busting moves in New York City. They showed up on Canal Street, which is sort of a low discount shopping area in lower Manhattan. And there's always a lot of people selling counterfeit like Prada bags and stuff like that. Or fake Gucci stuff.

Anyway, that's always been the case. These days, it's like recent arrivals from Africa seem to have cornered that particular niche. Yes, yes. And so they, you know, they get supplied by the same usual people who supplied their predecessors. Nothing new here at all. Anyway, so the ice showed up. They just basically arrested and detained everyone with very dark skin, including some U.S. citizens and green card holders, and then eventually let them go.

also arrested people. New Yorkers started throwing things at them and yelling at them and warning the when they saw them pull up saying, yo, ICE is here. You got to run away. Go home. And the people were arrested for doing that for impeding, you know, an investigation or an operation. I guess those charges won't stick because ultimately they let those people go. But now they're on their way to San Francisco. It's a very liberal city, very liberal. And, you know, to a fault. And the DA there says, you know, we will arrest ICE officers if they show up here and they don't follow California law, which includes having to show their face and presenting ID upon request. Obviously, ICE isn't going to do that, right? So what could this showdown look

like, John? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, in the end, I think the feds are going to do whatever it is they please. I think it's absolutely wonderful that New York is standing up. I hope that Chicago and San Francisco and Portland also stand up. I will say, though, that it was probably a good thing for immigration to start on the Lower East side. that way because, you know, a lot of research has been done into who these, they're mostly Nigerian, I think, bootleg sellers, what they're doing. And a lot of them don't even realize that they're working for groups that support terrorism. I remember even 60 minutes doing a story at least a decade ago where if you buy from one of these Nigerians down on Canal Street,

You buy a purse, you buy a DVD or a CD. It goes to them, from them to their bosses, from their bosses to the big guy, from the big guy to, you know, ISIS or Al-Qaeda or whatever it was, Hezbollah. And so some of that money does really end up going to support terrorism. So it's probably the logical place to start. Scooping up Americans is unacceptable. So I'm glad that New York stood up, but in terms of the planning of the operation, I think immigration did it right by starting there. Interesting. I would have started in prisons and gotten rid of those people first.

Ah, see, but that wouldn't state our desire for revenge. So true. So, D.A. Jenkins. does not actually think that, you know, say that, you know, she wants San Francisco PD to arrest ICE, which obviously would involve armed conflict in the streets of San Francisco. She said instead they would review footage of any beatings if they occur. Can you imagine? This is the world we live in, John.

They're like, this is the New York Times. Local law enforcement could review camera footage of beatings if they occur and try to identify the agent involved. Then she said she would ask a judge. to sign a warrant for the agent's arrest and seek to prosecute the agent in court. She said that she has not talked about this with other DAs around the country, but basically they could be sued for battery or excessive force, and basically that's the idea.

I can't even. I mean, it's so dystopian and bizarre. That's crazy. It's crazy. You're right. I don't know, man. It is bizarre. And one of the things that's distressing to me is that we're getting silence from Congress.

I mean, obviously, Congress isn't even in session. Yeah. Mike Johnson was sued day before yesterday by Representative Elect Grahalva from Arizona. He was sued by the Attorney General of Arizona because, he refuses to seat her in Congress. Yeah. The Congress isn't in session. The Democrats don't need another member of Congress. Just to be clear here, many congressmen have been sworn in when Congress was not in session. Of course they have. It's not required or necessary. Yep. Of course they have. Just to reiterate, I think the Republicans are going to blink here. What do you think? I think the

Republicans are going to blink. We're already the second longest shutdown in American history. We're coming right up on the longest shutdown in American history, which may be like today or tomorrow. It's soon, whatever it is. It is soon. People are starting to be increasingly pissed off. And November 1st is when the open enrollment period for most people who are in the Ford of the correct. You got your letter. You showed it yesterday on the air.

Washington Post talked about a lady in West Virginia. who was told that her premiums were going to go from 300 bucks to 2,400 bucks. Those are not going to be reliable Republican voters, I would say. And there's a question for you, Ted, from Frasmataz. Would you ever vote for Curtis Lewa? Would I ever is a big question? I like Curtis Lewa. I've met him.

I've talked to him. I think he's a good person, and, you know, it's hard for... He likes cats. And we're on Team Cat together. I mean, he's more Team Cat than I am, 11 of them in a one-bedroom apartment. No, I think he's a great person. I think New York City would do well. But unfortunately, his politics are to the right of mine, and he's running as a real Republican,

not as a, you know, sort of a Mike Bloomberg or Rudy Giuliani in 1993 Republican. So that, to me, is a huge problem. Not to mention, this is a vote that early voting begins on Saturday, and I'm going to be first in line to vote for Mamdani. I'm very excited. It's very rare for me to be able to be actually excited to vote for someone. Do I think he's going to drape the city in, you know, is hammer and sickle bunting? Sadly, no.

But it's like, but still, you know, it's going to be a really, You know, it's an opportunity to send a big message to the system. That's great. The problem with Slewa is if he somehow were elected mayor, it would send a message that New York City has gone to the right. New York City has gone conservative. That's the wrong message. Let me ask you, what do you make of his announcement yesterday that if elected he's going to keep the current police commissioner? Well, they're all saying that, right?

I mean, Andrew Cuomo, and before him, Eric Adams, of course, obviously would have. And Lamdani also said that, but I mean, also Sliwa. Everybody basically, that chick has the most secure job in the United States. She's not going anywhere. Everyone's like, she's doing a great job. You know, you know who, like, begs to differ? Like the citizens of New York City. I mean, it's like where there's no cops, John.

I mean, there's no cops directing traffic. There's no cops, you know, writing tickets. Don't get me wrong. I drive. I'm very happy to be able to double park in front of my house and not have to worry. But the point is it's bad. It's causing gridlock. There's places where people really do need to be rained in.

You know, there's no, there's no cops on the subway. Well, you know what? That surprises me that there's not an independent. subway police there were. There was. There was the New York City Transit police who if you ever like you know if you're young and you're like well what was that like

you know watch the old original version of taking a column one two three. You'll see those guys they look great in their leather jackets and stuff and they were trained to deal with like chasing suspects into tunnels how to turn off the power you know to the third rail and rescue people who find and on the tracks and all that stuff.

It was absolutely, I mean, it's a city underground. I mean, for people who haven't been to New York City, there's over 400 stations, thousands of miles of track, you know, thousands of cars of rolling stock. It's a 24-hour system. It is a system with its own, it's a city within itself, and it carries over a million riders a day. This is a big fucking system. This isn't like the Boston Tea, which is very, very.

cute but it's not like a big fucking system yeah and so the the transit police was folded in to the NYPD by Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor he was trying to consolidate power because the city of new york has basically three loci of political power wall street uh real estate and the cops and he was he came from the cops and he wanted all the cops to be loyal to him he didn't want this like thing to be a little Schmutzy with a sort of semi-independent transit police. Now they're called the NYPD Transit Bureau. Right. But it's not the same thing. And the difference, for example, in the 1980s, at night, there were two police officers on every train. So if something happened, someone yanks the emergency break or whatever, bear in mind we did have, and we still have no comm system on most of the cars,

right so there's no panic button like on bart in san francisco or on the metro in dc you can you can hit a speaker and say you know there's a problem there's a fire there's a crazy person whatever there's no way to communicate with the outside world and the self your cell phones do not work between stations so like that this all came up in the danny penny situation right right you're stuck in there so the having the having the transit office was very very important important and makes perfect sense. I want them to come back. Yeah. I would say that I would say the same thing. We have the transit, the transit police here in Washington. And I mean, they do their jobs. We have a couple of metro stations. For example, a gallery place, which is in Chinatown. Lots and lots of kids congregate at gallery place every once in a while. Somebody gets stabbed. Somebody gets shoved. There's a fight or whatever. And the cops are right there on it. And that's what I want. I want to be able to take the subway safely.

I take the subway everywhere. I love the transit cops. I mean, they used to walk through the cars, twirling their nightsticks. That's funny. I have a funny story. Yes.

One time I get on the sea train on Central Park West. I'm alone in the car because it's the 80s and it's like, it was like after 9 o'clock at night. This naked man gets on and sits right next to me. There's like 65 seats, right? But he sits right next to me. New Yorker is, you know, you know that, like, it's going to spook him. It's like dealing with a rabid dog.

So you don't move. You don't say anything. You pretend like everything's normal. Because otherwise, if you got up and left, the guy would be, what? What's wrong? Yeah. I'm just sitting there. Aside from being naked, he's normal.

He's like, he has his arm, like, leaning up against his knee. He's just like a bored. commuter going somewhere. Transit cop enters the car from the side, twirling his nightstick, almost walks past us, and then stops, backs up, and he's like, hey, and the guy ignores him, and he pokes him with his nightstick, and he's like, forget something? And the guy goes, what? He goes, your clothes. And the guy's like, your clothes. And the guy's like, So then the cop tries a different tack, and he goes, where are you going? He goes, home.

The cop goes, what's home? And the guy goes, my clothes. Oh, my God. And of course, he's like, stand up. You put your hands behind your back, you know? Of course. I miss the transit jobs. I mean, like now if that happened, there would be no transit cop to make that guy.

go away. Yeah. Well, just was it day before yesterday, somebody like had a baby and abandoned it in the subway and it had the umbilical cord still attached and everything. Like, what the fuck is that? I know that corridor. That is a very well-traveled corridor between the Westside IRT and Penn Station proper, which goes to, you know, Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, L-I-D-R. it's metro north it's crazy and that like yeah no it's like what the fuck is going on unbelievable so do we you know Robbie had our producer had suggest he said he had some questions for us about immigration so should we sure we've got a couple minutes yeah let's do it let's sure then we'll we do stuff to make some time for

these boat attacks but there's not much to talk about there but here we go this will be spicy hi y'all so hey what's up Robbie so I want to you want y'all to change my mind about this y'all are you all are both very smarter than i am you're both very educated y'all travel the world me i'm a dumb hick whose family tree goes straight up and has very few limbs so i just want just i'm going to get y'all's thought process on this all right i don't understand and ted i'm going to use your word you talk about the the liberals in san francisco being a very liberal city i don't understand why the population there wants to go out of its way to defend people who have no legal

right to be there. And here's the preface for my argument. First, as a citizen of the country, the citizens should have the right to decide who gets to come to your country and who doesn't. We never had a referendum about how many people do we want to just allow to come to the country. The government just kind of threw open the gate, let them come in. Immigration has the effect of driving down wages. That's why Republicans like immigration. They want lower wages. Democrats won't put the same thing. It's good for the donors. Screws over the workers. So being that I am of the populist right, people's wages to me matter. The value of work matters. It has to mean something. So I don't understand. John, you talked about the problem that Greece is

having where they've kind of hollowed out in the middle of the country. People are leaving the country because they can't get work. The same thing is happening here. So with that being the situation, why is it that people want to allow a portion of the population to come here that actively hurts the workers of the country? Why don't you want them deported? Why do you want these people here who are actively undermining your ability to, I don't know, have a good paying job or have a house? Explain this to me. Unpack it for me. Because I don't get it. Well, at that, at that, first of all, many of us believe that the law is just simply wrong. It's just wrong.

But sure, sure, it's the law, immigration law, just in general, needs to be rewritten, has needed to be rewritten for decades. It's just wrong. Secondly, it's a proven fact that Americans just simply will not accept some of these jobs. They just won't do it no matter what the pay is. They're not going to go in the field for 16 hours a day and pick fruits and vegetables. vegetables. I did. Well, then you're the guy. You're the one guy because other Americans won't do it. Well, they would if you pay them, right? I mean, if you're going to pay someone, for example, whenever I worked on the, when I worked on the Diamond Dairy Ranch down in Florida, you're, we were paid, this is in, I don't know, 2010. We were paid a buck 75 per pound. You can't live off of that. You can't. And so if you want to get married like I did and have kids, You've got to actually have wages that can support that.

You've got to at least pay someone at a minimum at least $18 an hour to even be able to even think about renting a house. Let me add something to that point then. My sister is in the process right now of opening a laundromat, right? She and her husband have both retired. They decided they're going to open a laundromat. It's a nice laundromat. It's got a gourmet coffee bar and a play area for kids and TVs all over the place. she has advertised on LinkedIn, Indeed, and Facebook for employees.

And she's paying $16 an hour. So she had 16 people scheduled for interviews, right? Twelve of them never showed up and never called. And of the four who did, three of them showed up. two were drunk one was practically naked she said and then there was one retired navy guy who was so bored in retirement that he just wanted to get out of the house and do something she hired him on the spot but people just are not willing to take these jobs even with good pay they're just not willing to do it are you sure about the good pay part john i mean i don't know

if i was a good pay i mean i don't think i mean i don't think if someone offered like like, say, $40 an hour to pick vegetables that they would have trouble getting people. Yeah, but there would be riots in the streets if we had to pay people $40 to pick vegetables because the end cost would be prohibitive. And then you'd have a whole other – look at this show America's Worst Jobs, right? You know, the show, it's on like the National Geographic Channel or whatever. I watched one episode one time, and this guy, his job was to drive this little tiny mini bulldozer underneath chicken cages

to clear the shit out and chickens are shitting on him constantly eight hours a day he's just being shat on well the guy was clearly like he didn't speak a single word of English I leapt to the conclusion that he was undocumented

probably because who regardless of what your pay is you're going to be shat on day in and day out I don't know what the wages are like now but you know like in the 80s asbestos removal was a very well-paid job and you could die right well also one of the things that I always like to kind of point out to people who are left of me and for those of you I mean I obviously like y'all I'm working for you for free so I obviously like you and you're willing to work for very low wages yeah and that's true I mean I'm a I'm a terrible capitalist I'm not getting paid a dime by these by these two guys

a lot of these jobs you're talking about AI is going to be replacing they're being automated away so the question is what do you do with let's just say that the number of illegal migrants here is between 40 to 60 million no one really knows that's just cut the difference to say 50

what do you do when those jobs no longer exist what do with those people are going to have that that's going to be a problem and then more to the point our biggest problem let me say this because I've got to get ready to get to the TMI show here in just a second. And I've got to close us out. Why is it that the American people, why is it that we don't get to say about who gets to come here and who doesn't?

For me, that's the single biggest issue. That is a sovereignty issue. I honestly think that we should say. We should get to stay on all sorts of things that we don't, like whether the White House has a ballroom that's twice the size of the White House or whatever. I agree with you on that. White House renovations that don't impact your wages. By the way, that's a foundational problem with the current American system. is that there's no attempt to get buy-in from the American people

on a whole host of issues. Robbie, thanks so much. I know you have to go to TMI. This obviously, immigration isn't going anyway. I apologize to everybody that we didn't get to get to the boat attack in the East Pacific, probably against Colombia, most likely. But we can do that tomorrow for sure.

So please like, follow, and share the show. Thank you so much for being here. We're here back Friday tomorrow, 9 a.m. as we are, Monday through Friday, every day. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with me, Ted Raul, and Manila Chan. We will be coming up right after this. Take care. And bye-bye, bye, bye, Robby. Bye, guys.

Thank you.