DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Deprogram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “The War for the Democratic Party”

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou tell you what the Democrats’ elections sweep means and what comes next for the future of their party and the country.Zohran Mamdani's Triumph: Once again, “DeProgram” called the election results on the nose, within 0.5 percent. Over two million New Yorkers cast votes, doubling 2021 turnout and electing 34-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as New York's 111th mayor, toppling Andrew Cuomo's dynasty-backed machine. Mamdani forges a bold coalition, rallying young gentrifiers in Bushwick alongside working-class South Asian immigrants in Queens, while flipping Bronx and Brooklyn's Black and Latino strongholds by double-digit margins despite $40 million in superPAC smears laced with Islamophobia. This upset signals a generational revolt, with Mamdani poised to tax the ultra-rich for affordability reforms amid Trump's shadow. Is progressivism the future of the Democratic Party?Exxon's Covert Climate-Denial Campaign in Latin America: Newly unearthed documents expose that Exxon funneled cash to the Atlas Network in the late 1990s and 2000s, bankrolling Spanish translations of denialist tracts like Fred Singer's anti-Kyoto Treaty screeds and flying U.S. skeptics to Buenos Aires seminars on COP4's eve to sway ministers and media. The strategy sowed doubt about global warming in the Global South, aiming to torpedo UN treaties by stoking economic fears, with $50,000 checks (equivalent to $100,000 today) fueling events that echo today's Amazon tipping points and irreversible coral die-offs. As Brazil gears up for COP30, this revelation underscores fossil fuel giants' enduring sabotage of planetary survival.Airspace Chaos Next Week?: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatens to shut down swaths of U.S. airspace next week if the 35-day shutdown persists, citing 3,000-controller shortages fueling "mass chaos" at hubs like JFK and Newark, where lines stretch hours amid fatigue-driven delays. Essential workers are still working without pay, with 393 FAA facilities hitting triggers—four times last year's rate—forcing reduced flight volumes and risking a Thanksgiving meltdown. This brinkmanship pressures Democrats, highlighting Trump's fiscal warfare's human toll on travel and safety.The War for the Democratic Party: Center-left Abigail Spanberger storms to Virginia's first female governorship with 57% against Winsome Earle-Sears, while center-left Mikie Sherrill secures New Jersey's helm by double digits, both hammering affordability and Trump cuts amid economic angst. California voters approve Prop 50, redrawing maps for five Democratic House seats, countering GOP gerrymanders as turnout surges in anti-Trump backlash. These wins—from Mamdani's populist fire to moderate surges—expose party fractures over ideology, fueling 2026 midterm battles and a progressive-centrist showdown.

Lots to talk about today. Yeah, a few things. It's Wednesday, November 5th, 2025, Zeranamandani. By the way, I just want to say that here on the show, we nailed his victory in the numbers. We said 52. Yeah, we did. 51.5 is the current count. So we, you know, I mean, I think we don't like the show.

You should probably refer to us if you're an online better. Seriously. We called it. Yeah. We called it. Yeah. We called it everywhere. And, you know, this was not just kind of an interesting off-year election.

This was a landslide nationwide. If you look, for example, at Virginia, the Democrats picked up 10 state house seats. They already controlled the state house. They picked up 10 more. Three are still too close to close to. call all held by Republicans. They could pick up as many as 13. In Pennsylvania, there were three elections for state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania are elected to 10-year terms. Democrats won every seat. So the Democrats now controlled the Supreme Court

of Pennsylvania, one of the important battleground states. Last year, we saw a Democrat win the deciding Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. So this is happening. In California, where Republicans spent $100 million to try to defeat this referendum calling for redistricting so that the Democrats could try to offset some of the Republican redistricting efforts in Florida, Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri. 8% supported redistricting. That was a monumental landslide. I'll tell you, if I were the Republicans,

I would be gravely worried today. But with that said, you cannot run with your sole campaign slogan being, vote for me because I'm not the other guy. The Democrats have to come up with ideas. And so far, they have no ideas. I will say, I've taken a couple of swipes at Abby Spanberger. And I mentioned yesterday, Abby and I worked together in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.

She ran as a moderate, a right of center Democrat, a conservative Democrat. But then in her post-election victory speech last night, she said, all the right things. And man, I hope for the sake of having a viable Democratic Party that they listened to what she said. She said she is going to immediately sponsor constitutional amendments to guarantee a woman's right to an abortion. She's going to, there was another constitutional amendment that it was like going to the very, oh, to recognize in perpetuity same-sex marriage. And her first bill that she's going to propose to the legislature is to guarantee a $15 minimum wage plus paid leave for women who have just had children, parental leave, whatever it's called, none of which has ever been done in Virginia before. And there's going to be something about, I forget what, handgun registration or something like that, which will probably fail.

But anyway, real ideas for a change instead of, oh, vote for me because I'm not Donald Trump. Now, much to the Republican chagrin today in Virginia, state Senator Jay Jones defeated the heavily favored Republican Attorney General Jason Miaris. Jay Jones, on October the 22nd, which was, what, less than two weeks ago, somebody leaked text messages that he had sent to a friend in 2022 talking about shooting Republicans in the head. Now, of course, this is something Republicans have done time and time again, but this time, of course, they completely lose their shit because a Democrat did it. And nobody cared.

everybody said oh there's going to be a lot of ticket splitting people are going to vote for abbey and then they're going to vote for miyaris the republican attorney general that didn't happen miaris has been a terrific attorney general and it's it's hard for me to say that about a conservative republican but he has been an excellent attorney general and he was just unceremoniously thrown out last night for uh for jones Now, we'll see what Jay Jones does in this position. I mean, John, have you ever seen a one-party sweep in not even an off-year election, but an off-off-year election like this? I can't remember one.

I mean, you can't really read a lot of tea leaves out of a election like this. There was even a Republican, a Republican in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is, you know, it's an old South kind of, you know, civil war. a pre-Civil War era town, very, very Republican. Their state representative was elected in 1988. And he lost last night to a 20-something-year-old Democrat. So, 1988, Ted. But if I'm, look, I agree with you 100 million percent, John, about this. Democrats have to have an idea besides Trump sucks.

What we're seeing, I think this is just something Democrats should not take a lot of of comfort in. What we're seeing is every election now is a change election because Americans are pissed across the board for different people. They're all pissed. And so two-party system, they're just going to keep flailing and voting against the incumbents over. That's it. And that's bad for the country. We need real ideas. People are going to stand up for something, not just pandering so that they can get elected next time. That's exactly what's wrong with this country. Totally.

John, got to read an ad. Did you know the biggest threat to your retirement is not something that's talked about often? Our increased longevity in America means default retirement accounts like IRAs, 401Ks, and TSPs may not suffice. If you have over $100,000 in your retirement account, get instant access to a free two-day report, two-minute report, sorry, from Augusta Precious Metals that reveals the one step you can take to. secure your financial future, text safe to 35052, today, 35052. Good. Little housekeeping, too, about, you know, just want to encourage people. Just a reminder, we're trying to get our producer back, Robbie West, who got doxed and

is leaving his job to come work for us full time. We need your support to help do that. John and I are each going to be digging, shaking out the sofa cushions to pay. out of our own pockets but it's not going to be enough so if we want this show to work and you want Robbie to help us make it succeed so he you know he behind the scenes he creates clips he promotes it he does metadata he he he works with rumble when there's a problem you know with our pay or whatever he's the guy who handles all the tech stuff behind we're calling it robbie aid please reach out directly and send the money to him. We're asking for $1,000 a month total from across the big

world. So we feel like that's not asking too much. But we'll see. The URL is give, send, go.com slash West Glacier Gaming. I'll leave the URL up there. This is a, you know, we got it, first of all, I just want to say, you know, we kept saying, you know, about billionaires, like the Gristides Grocery guy with the long name. John Katzimatidis. That's easy for you to say. So long, John. Yeah, you're all afraid of New York.

Like this morning on my Facebook feed, a lot of my Zionist friends are saying, you know, oh, you're like New York, we hardly knew ye. My right wing friends on X are posting images of a plane hitting the World Trade Center and saying, how could you have voted for a Muslim after what happened? Yeah, because he did it. He did 9-11. If you guys are genuinely this scared, then you need to leave.

Yeah. Or you need to be quiet because you're full of shit. Yeah. Because if you're really that scared, you shouldn't stick around. New Jersey will be happy to have you. Oh, wait. They went Democratic. Oh, Pennsylvania will be happy to have you.

Oh, wait. They went Democratic. Keep going, go to Ohio, hang out with J.D. Vance when he's not making out with the widow. Yes, exactly. Hey, do you mind if I answer a couple of questions? Please, let's do it. One is, what's my reaction to John Brennan's interaction with Thomas Bessiel at George Mason University on the 30th? I'm not exaggerating when I tell you, at least a dozen friends of mine sent me the video.

And I watched it at least a half a dozen times with Brennan physically poking him in the chest, which, by the way, is assault. But that's beside the point. I've known John Brennan for 35 years. That's the first time I've ever seen him scared. I think he's genuinely scared of what's going to happen to him. you know the the drain is open and i think the water is starting to uh to circle so uh yeah i'm glad i'm not john brennan today somebody also asked me if i had seen the mass shooting in crete the greek island of crete and i'm smiling because being greek being greek knows about crete everybody's

armed and everybody's pissed off at somebody else it's just the nature of being cretan it's like they're like sicilians very much like sicilians uh in fact it was the ancient that's how corsicans are in france that's right that's how corsicans are it's the same thing if you look at me cross-eyed or you insulted my sister or you cut my dad off in traffic and didn't say you're sorry blood feud and it'll go for generations. So what happened was one of these feuds bubbled over and a guy started shooting and killed a whole bunch of people from the other family. So it's not a terrorist attack. It's just Cretans being Cretans. And even the prime minister, who is Cretan, by the way, he's like, look, we have to stop this silliness. Every time you get mad, you just go get your 100-year-old

Ottoman rifle and start shooting people you don't like. You can't do that. One other question from Nicholas Franco's, John, why is it that we cannot pronounce the name of the red-headed devil, although her name is out there? You know, I got burned thanks to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. So I don't pronounce her name because I don't say her name. I don't say her name because I don't think she deserves the media attention. She who must not be named. She's a war criminal.

She's a genocidal, you know, example of everything that is wrong with the CIA. Her name is out there. Yeah, I know who is. I just don't want to say it. No need. No need at all. But sorry, I didn't mean to pull us off of politics, Ted. No, no, that's quite all right.

Listen, I suspect chicanery, not in the Mamdani win. But do you really believe that Andrew Cuomo, did as well as they claim? No. And that Curtis Slewa did as poorly? No, I do not. I do not. And listen, I don't care how conservative Staten Island is.

I don't think he won Staten Island as big as everybody says he did. That's Curtis Slewa territory. Yeah, it's Curtis Slewa territory. There are Republicans on Staten Island. Why in the world would they vote for Cuomo? And did you see what Mammani said in his victory speech about Cuomo? I wish Mr. Cuomo the best of luck in private life, but I hope to never utter his name again. That's great.

Ouch. Well, yeah, I mean, Andrew Cuomo did not really conduct an honorable campaign. No, he didn't. It was an Islamophobic campaign. Beneath him and his family name, it was sad and tragic to watch. I mean, so, I mean, if, I mean, obviously, if the system, like, manipulated the vote at all, obviously they couldn't take it away from Nandani. The wind was too big. It's a landslide for people.

I just want to keep reminding people, this was a three or four person race. This was, this was, so when you get over 50% of the vote, you know, three, four person race, it's a landslide. You've kicked ass. You know, the day before the vote, Cuomo's at 24%. percent. And now suddenly he's at 42. Really? Come on. Come on. That's after Trump endorsed him, by the way. And that only could have heard him in New York City, you know, in something that Cuomo knew because he said, no, no, I'm good. I don't need it. And then even Trump was like, no, I'm not really. It's okay. It was just speaking out of turn. And then

Slee, I mean, the only thing that would explain it to me would be if Slee was supporters saw that it he was going to be you know washed out they're like I'm not going to bother to wait in these long lines this was record turnout two million in a city of just shy of eight million people you know in off-year election I mean and one of the ballot initiatives John was I don't know how by the way I have to look up how this did one of the ballot there were eight initiatives yesterday and one of them was in New York City should we move that the the mayoral race to a presidential election year

because nobody votes in the off-year mayoral election. They set a record yesterday. They said a record. It was a record turnout. It was double, double the number of votes that turned out for Eric Adams' election four years ago. That's correct. Yeah.

Double. And this was like, yeah. You have to go back to Mayor John Lindsay of the 1960s. Wow, yeah. You find similar numbers. Now the popular, you might say, the population of the city is bigger now. Actually, the population of the city is a little smaller.

So that's not really true. So I wanted to ask you, too, if you don't mind. Mamdani's biggest vote tallies were, of course, in Queens, parts of Queens and Manhattan. So what was up with the Bronx? I mean, I guess I get Brooklyn, I guess. but Brooklyn is actually more ethnically mixed and racially mixed than Manhattan is. So why were his numbers so strong in Manhattan and in far western Queens than they were in areas that I would just have assumed that he would run up the numbers? Well, I haven't had chance to study the precinct by precinct results, which the New York Times just published right before we went on the air.

And I'm going to look at that because I always find those fascinating. But certainly the Bronx overall, first of all, a big section of the Northwest Bronx is Riverdale. Right, that's right. That's white and Jewish. And then there's also a lot of Latinos, right? And Latinos often are small sea conservative, right? Or sea conservative. So I'm suspecting. But, you know, AOC does okay there, but that's because she's a.

She went mainstream. And also she's, she's Latina. I mean, there's a former Bronx borough president, Jose Ferrer, runs a political machine up there in the Bronx. And I suspect that his thumb is on this, on this. And I think, and I do think some things change. I mean, I just don't, I think the system decided to give Cuomo a more dignified loss on the record just because, I mean, I know this is conspiratorial. thinking and it's speculation and I have no evidence for it but you know it's just it doesn't seem right like you know you hit them I'm got all the polling hits mom donnie right on the nose but like

not you know Cuomo suddenly kicks major ass I mean you know he he'd lost by a lot less than we expected um so have you had a chance I I looked and I couldn't find it easily so I just moved on to something else. Have you had a chance to look at the lower level races in New Jersey? I have no idea what happened to New Jersey in the in the legislature look there. But it does look like a democratic suite. It's a it's a repudiation I think of Trump's style. And you know, I think if I were meeting if I had if I had 10 minutes with President Trump, I would say, listen, you know, I care about the country so I want you to succeed. If you succeed, we succeed. And I believe that. I do too.

And I would say you've fallen for a typical second-term presidential mistake, which is you're finding satisfaction in foreign policy, and you took your eye off the ball of why you're president. You ran on domestic issues. You ran on the economy, and you've basically, aside from the tariffs, haven't really done anything about the economy, and the tariffs are a mixed bag to say, right? And people are still, the things that you identified,

directly about high prices and low wages are still, if anything, getting worse. And people see you, you know, sending money to fucking Argentina and not here. So, I mean, I think this is partly that repudiation. People don't like the ice shit. Even people who are anti-illegal immigration, they don't like the way this is being handled, the goons on the streets of the city, the National Guard. I went downtown yesterday afternoon to have coffee with a friend. and there were two National Guardsmen in the Fargate West Metro Station.

Farragut West, probably the single safest metro station in the entire metro network. And as soon as I saw them at a distance, I was like, don't say anything, don't say anything, don't say anything. Don't say anything. And I walked up to them and I said, you guys should be ashamed of yourselves. And I walked away. They didn't say anything. That's all I said. Yeah, they didn't respond at all.

Hey, and I wanted to say this is apropos of nothing, but I thought people would get a kick out of it. When I was on Rogan a couple of weeks ago, we somehow got on to the topic of AI. And I said, I didn't like chat GPT because it lied about me. And it just made up that I went to the University of Maryland and to some grad school in Belgium that I've never heard of. And I told Chat GPT, you're wrong. and it says, no, you're wrong, right? And so I told this story to Rogan. And Rogan says, we use perplexity here.

They are advertisers on the show, but for our own use here at the studio, we use perplexity. And I said, I'm going to start using perplexity. Last night, around like 10 o'clock, the CEO of perplexity sent me an email with a lifetime subscription to perplexity. He said, thank you for the conversation you had about perplexity.

Here's a link for it's for perplexity employees. It's a free lifetime subscription to perplexity. That's great. I love that. So now I'm going to be all about perplexity. I'll have to check out perplexity. I'm like, you know, as you know, I'm banned on chat GPT. Yes.

A personal account is banned. I'm not allowed to access. If you type in my name, it's literally like a 1960s Star Trek episode with a robot. So does not compute. It does not compute. Ridiculous. Literally. You don't believe me.

And it all started because same thing. They made up lies about me. Like, oh, this contra. You know, they took away my Pulitzer Prize. I never won a Pulitzer Prize. Don't have it to give up. This crazy literary feud I supposedly had with Skuller. Scott Stantis.

We're best friends. We've never had an argument in our lives. You know, it's just... Oh, my God. It just makes shit up. It's, you know, they call it hallucinating. It's not hallucinating. It's just lying.

It's just lying. It's like... Yeah. Ridiculous. Well, now it's going to be perplexity. Yeah, Vickie and Greece is asking, Vic and Greece is asking, why am I banned? So I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal about it.

And I just, and the type of... And the title, which I didn't write, was chat GPT libeled me, should I sue? And after that, I got banned. So, you know, that's my back. Jerks. Oh, my God. So let's see. Bob Channel says he uses co-pilot. It makes a lot of mistakes.

I don't know that one. I have one in my dock that's called Comet. I don't know. Is that perplexity? I think perplexity is perplexity. Anyway, I'm going to download it today. I'll let you know how it goes. What Cole Laubach wants to know?

What do we think about Giuliani saying New Yorkers have forgotten in about 9-11? Giuliani's so drunk by 12 o'clock noon, he's already forgotten what he did yesterday. So honestly, whatever Giuliani has to say, I dismiss it as the rantings of a crazy person. Sorry, I'm a little bit bitter about Giuliani. well he he's a dick um i mean anybody who doesn't believe he seriously watch borat too i mean yeah exactly he's a creeper he's got his hand down his pants because he thinks he's getting he's so gross a year old um phil 20282 has been uh kind of like semi-trolling the feed but i figure we can address this um he said do we honestly believe the leftist garbage memdani is pushing will somehow magically not

results in millions murdered earlier in the feed. He was arguing that communism inherently will result in millions of people being killed. Yeah, but Mandani's not a communist. That's true. This is what I, so many of my friends, really. Not really. He's just a liberal. He's a democratic socialist, which is really just a traditional liberal, a six-year-comfrey. It's John Lindsay. I mean, what's happened here, right? So what's kind of interesting, and, and this, This might explain what happened to Sliwa is that the two parties have shifted so far over to the right over the last 60, 70 years that now in at least the New York mayoral election, what you really have is Mamdani, who is basically John Lindsay in the 1960s, running against Andrew Cuomo, who's basically a Republican from the 1960s, like a silk-stocking Upper East Side Republican politically. And then Slewa is somewhere where, I don't know, the John Birch Society, like, would not have been elected, right? Well, is he that conservative?

Well, he's, I mean, he's affiliated kind of with Maga World now. Okay. What is mainstream republicanism now would have been off the charts, like Barry Goldwater would have been like, what the fuck? Oh, yeah, I believe it. I believe it. Even near the end of his own lifetime, Goldwater was coming around. Goldwater, I had very deep respect for Barry Goldwater. When his granddaughter came out to him,

he became one of the greatest champions of gay rights on Capitol Hill. Incredible. And it's not early. I mean, you know, as Scott Stantis, by the way, who's going to be filling in for you tomorrow to co-host here, just for one day, is he always likes to quote Goldwater saying, like, I don't care if the guy in the fox. in the foxhole next to me is straight.

I care if he can shoot straight. Shoot straight. I remember that. And he was a, what, a major general? Barry Goldwater in the reserves? He was either a brigadier general or a major general in the Army Reserves. No idea. I didn't know that.

So was Jimmy Stewart, the actor. He was a brigadier general. Real, real, says Chat GPT angers me. I wish I could find AI that isn't so mainstream. I know, right? Exactly. I use it all the time. I haven't used it yet.

But I've read other people, you know, commenting about using it. By the way, I want to stand up for communism here. I don't think that like calling for equal income and wealth inherently results in having to kill millions of people. Right. Yeah, agreed. That certainly has happened. And I don't think that, and I think that had very little to do with, with, wealth redistribution and a lot more to do with the authoritarian form of government that was

sort of using communism as a cover like mal and you know Stalin i mean Stalin didn't kill didn't kill all those people to redistribute wealth some of them but not most this was about control yeah it was about control yes in that sense it's not about it's not the i don't think the economic system inherently results but i think every system results in you know control the need control your fellow human beings necessitates leaders thinking that they have to kill some of their fellow citizens yes um agreed let's see oh phil 282 said yesterday we talked both talked about getting EMDR therapy for PTSD the current VA wait time for veterans for that is 12 months are you kidding me i can't get it after three wars phil

says oh my god i'll tell you what my um insurance wouldn't cover it at the time so i paid for it out of pocket and it was 700 bucks yeah my my recommendation i don't obviously we don't know your financial situation but here's the thing you don't need a lot of sessions no to get to get some big fucking results no i i had like four sessions and i was i was good to go three see yeah and like One's like a prep session. So you might just need four or five. I actually fell asleep in the first one. I got so relaxed.

Yeah. Man, I cried so much. I mean, and I don't really cry, you know. I'm one of those people like, I can't cry even when I want to.

And then it's like, I just like disintegrated. You know, it was great. See, my problem is murderous rage. If I can back off from the murderous rage, then I'm okay.

Oh, Frasmataz wants to know what it, I mean, I guess we should like not use jargon, you know. Oh, sorry. So EMDR basically is based, you might have heard of tapping, but basically it's based on this theory that it's just sort of like we don't really know why it works, but we know that it works. And basically it's kind of like a form of gentle hypnosis. That's why I fell asleep. Basically, you're with a therapist, you sit across from them. And they waves, like usually they wave a stick around and you stare at it.

And you're asked to go back to the thing that traumatized you and how you felt and what happened and the person will prompt you with some cues. And we'll just sort of walk you through, try to take you back to that. And it's very weird, it's like a primitive response thing. It's sort of like when you pet the, you know, you pet the back,

of a cat right before a tail it can't help but arch up they just do yeah sort of like your your brain just sort of responds to it that way it's i recommend looking it up it's you know too i agree i agree and i mentioned i did that transcranial magnetic therapy where you just put this uh it's this band or magnets around your head and uh you have to wet these two gauzy contact points right here and it's attached to a battery and you turn it on you have to have it on for 20 minutes for the first like minute it makes your eyes go completely blurry you know like like you're shaking a TV and watching the TV as it's shaking that kind of thing and then it it stops and then you just take it off after 20 minutes um and I did that for a few weeks worked like a charm

There's also these wristbands that you can buy that they pulse on your wrist. And they're like, you know, like a hundred bucks. Frazmataz just wants to, and this is important. I don't understand how you can do EMDR if you're not a combat or otherwise physical PTSD patient. How do you get EMDR about your divorce? Anyway, that's personal. Don't need to know. I think it's important.

Look, you can get trauma. The short answer is you can get trauma over all sorts of things that are not physical. You know, and, you know, for example, you know, in my case, I did have PTSD over not my own personal combat, but having been in, you know, in a war in Afghanistan as a journalist and seeing a colleague of mine die. And it was, and I was diagnosed with that, right? Abusive childhood, which can involve physical abuse. But anyway, basically psychologists are very clear. there's a really kind of not much difference in the effect between physical and emotional and psychological abuse.

I mean, the effect is kind of the same. I mean, forget the kind of. It is the same. There's no difference. It's the same. That's right. You know, whether if your, if your parent yelled at you, screamed at you all throughout your childhood, and they never laid a hand on you, it's no different than if they had.

That's right. That's right. I want to thank Solon, too, for his. generosity and he had a question here that I just saw oh I see am I ever going to be on on the Rogan show with Mike Baker um probably not probably not the truth is I have a manager now who is she also represents well I won't say who she represents she represents some really high high level people And she told me that I'm more highly sought after than Mike Baker is.

So why legitimize Mike Baker? You know? And speaking about Bustamante, too, Bustamante is included in the question. Rogan will not have Bustamante on the show, period. It will never happen. he and his people were crystal clear about that there will be no boostamante on that show he's not a person that is who is taken seriously well we're on the topic of covert shit should we talk about exon yeah let's talk about exon bastards so this is a crazy story um it it reminds me a little

bit of the story of the attorney who ended up being sent to prison and subject to house arrest for winning a huge $1.5 billion damage award in favor of indigenous people down in Bolivia against ExxonMobil, Stephen Donziger, my neighbor in Manhattan. Anyway, in fact, I was thinking maybe I'm going to reach out to him and see if he can come on the shows that would be great talk about this um but anyway so it turns out there's um basically exon throughout the late 90s and throughout the the aughts was a bankrolling uh the atlas network which is a think tank down in latin america uh basically doing spanish translations of climate denial propaganda, like stuff by Fred Singer, who's against the Kyoto Accord. And basically, it was meant to

undermine the scientific consensus that the planet is going through rapid, human-caused, climate change, average global warming, which is really the simplest science in the world. Like if you own a ever seen how a terrarium works, it's like third-grade science. There's not that much to it. And it used to be mainstream until Ronald Reagan decided to politicize climate change and the environment overall. So long story short, you know, this is kind of like how big tobacco used to operate, you know, paying scientists to say that cigarettes weren't dangerous or not that dangerous or whatever. So this all just came out. The Guardian broke the story.

it's I mean it's really gross and it's like very revealing that like a lot of the bullshit that's out there kind of like you know people felt it was legitimate because they read stuff that sounded and felt real as if it was from real intelligent qualified intellectuals and scientists but it was all bullshit yeah how do we I mean is there is there anything we can do as a society to hold companies accountable for this kind of propaganda? No, not one the Supreme Court repeatedly sides with the companies. I mean, look at the precedence. There are no good cases to point to. The little guy always loses. It's like a Stephen King novel, that the good guy always loses. Terrible, just terrible.

Stephen Donziger is the clearest example of this. The guy is a freedom fighter. Talk about, talk about, you know, the savior of the little guy, the indigenous people of, what was it? Ecuador. Bolivia. Bolivia. And an administrative judge sentenced him to prison.

Ended up being house arrest. But still, you know, the big, polluting, filthy killing corporations always get away with it. And they're going to keep getting away with it. until somebody finally stands up. Somebody in a position of authority finally stands up and says enough of this. Well, they have billions of dollars

and billions of dollars can always buy congressmen and presidents and... Yes. That's the thing when people say take the money out of politics. That's ridiculous. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know what did it was Citizens United. I mean, I'm sure we all agree. I'm actually very sure. We all agree on Citizens United. Corporations are not. people and corporations should not be able to to donate unlimited literally unlimited amounts of

money to political candidates it it just completely corrupts the system yeah no for sure and you know other countries definitely know how to handle that um yeah i like don ziger you know he was on the show that michelle and i had several times um he would be great on this show we should have soon. By the way, do we have any thoughts about, this is a curveball, so I apologize if you didn't look at it. Any thoughts about that UPS plane crash in Kentucky? You know, I think it was just one of those things. They're saying now seven dead and like 11.

Oh, is it nine now? Yeah, I think it was just one of those things. Awful. We'll have to dig into it. Yeah, people don't really spend, you know, we don't really think about. How many of those, you know, jets are, you know, have no windows. They're UPS, they're FedEx. All cargo.

A lot of cargo in the skies, right? And not to mention, the passenger planes are also carrying mail. You know, I think I mentioned to you one time. I had to fly, I had to fly from Seattle to Noam, Alaska with Gary Johnson. and it was a big like a 767. I was like, what? They have that many people flying to Nome, Alaska, from Seattle to warrant a 767.

I mean, you take those to Europe and back. Well, it turned out there were only like 20 seats on the plane, all in the back, and all of the rest of the plane was cargo. Everything was cargo. Yeah, it's crazy. We should talk in, I do want to, I do want to like not let, about, I do want to, a little thing about the mayoral election and all the elections yesterday, I mean, we're now about to see, and this was the thumbnail today, right, a war in the Democratic Party,

right? Absolutely, yes. I mean, wouldn't the right thing to do, the smart thing for the DNC, be to say, listen, we have multiple approaches. You know, during Occupy Wall Street, we used to say, like different tactics for different situations, you know, Democratic socialism, Look, is that a model that can be replicated everywhere? No, but can it be replicated for the mayor of Los Angeles and San Francisco? Sure. You bet. And like, or Chicago or Boston?

Sure. Miami, maybe. And it's like similarly, you know, but the corporate, so we're being told like, well, we're already seeing efforts to marginalize Mamdani and say he's a quantum singularity. New York City is different. It's not like the rest of the country. I remember always thinking, people would say, like,

that must be very strange to live in New York City. It's so different. And I would say, you know, more people live in New York City than anywhere else. So actually, it's not that strange, if you think about it. You know, like far fewer people live in small towns. And so I was, so I'm just thinking, you know, I'm just, that's going to be their talking point.

New York is weird. You know, that's them. but you know clearly what the democrats nationally are doing hasn't been working right so i don't know it'll just be interesting we know the war is afoot and and you and i both know that the democrats don't have the foggiest idea what they're doing right so are is this is this going to be the party of abigail spanberger or is it going to be the party of zoran mandani or is it going to be something in the middle or are the democrats just going to throw up their hands again and say, oh, we don't know what to do. But you should vote for us because we're not

the other guy. Yeah. I don't trust them. I don't trust any of them. And even if even if the right thing to do is to make the party more in line with Zron Mamdani and his positions, I'm just saying if what's to keep the DNC leadership from just stealing the next presidential nomination from somebody who is more in line with Zara and Mamdani than with Abigail Spanberger. I don't trust them. We need multiple parties in this country, just like we used to have. As recently as 100 years ago, there were legitimate, viable parties. In the 1968 election, George Wallace won, what, six, seven, eight states?

Yeah. Yeah, we need third parties, several of them. I like this. Yeah, we do. Freud 6624 is asking over on YouTube, if we're seeing a growing presence of more radical positions in younger people, particularly Gen Z, both right and left. It's a good question. It's a great question. I think we're certainly seeing greater radicalization across the board.

Young people always tend to have more extreme opinions anyway. But, I mean, the right has been really true. Young right wingers have been really radicalized by the Internet. in recent, in the last 10 years. Yes. And I think the same thing's been true. I mean, yeah, I think the short answer is, yeah. Wow.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's also because we're in a pre-revolutionary moment, you know. Yeah. I wonder what Robbie would say about that. Because he's young and he's very right wing. He's not as young as you think, though. He looks. How old do you think he is?

I just assumed he was about 30. He's 48, yo. What? I know. Robbie, kudos to you, man. Clean living. Wow. That's that pure air up there in Montana.

Yeah, it's crazy, crazy. Oh, my God. Frazmatan says, Mbani promised not to appoint a new police commissioner. Max Blumenthal made a good point. Yeah. But the NYPD is a state within a state. And usually as a usually tight relationship with Israel.

That is true. That is true. and and max blumenthal he hit that nail right on the head yeah yeah well i i agree with fire sig using the term radical is ridiculous how about the gen z is seeing things

for what the environment represents yeah they're fatalistic man they know they've been handled a shitty fucking you know my son and i my third son and i have had this conversation a hundred times i'm going to go see him in a few days we're going to have this conversation even more.

How does somebody in this generation afford a first home, for example, unless you want to... Yeah, it's not possible. Unless you want to live out in the sticks somewhere, you can't. Like, he knows that he will never again live in Arlington, Virginia. It's not possible. I remember when I got back from Pakistan, I had so much money from over. overtime and danger pay and language differential and per diem i bought a house i bought a house and a little one um it it was 1,200 square feet on three floors that's how small it was and i paid i still

remember i paid uh 347 for it 347000 i sold it two years later for 721 and now it's a million bucks, a 1,200 square foot house, a million dollars. And I remember my ex and I at the time marveled over this Washington Post article that, and this was like I say 20 years ago, that Arlington had sold its first million dollar house. And I said, can you imagine that? One million dollars for a house. It's just insane. Okay. Not. too long ago, 20 years. Well, now the average home price in Arlington is 2 million. And that's every house, the average. And in my neighborhood, which is no nicer than any other neighbor, it's just a normal, you know, middle class, middle middle neighborhood. The average is

3.2 million. I can't afford to live. I have two housemates and we live in a townhouse. Otherwise, I could never hope to live here. What about my kids? My kids grew up here, and they'll never, ever be able to live in a place like this. Something's got to be done. Otherwise, we're headed for an economic catastrophe where an entire generation is cut out. Yeah, I think we're already there. By the way, Village Idiot has a really good point here regarding third parties.

Regional parties, successful health and regional parties. like the old Democratic Farmer Labor Party in the Upper Midwest and conservative versions, too. And there were others historically. There was like the city party in Philadelphia and stuff like that. Yes. That could. That's a good point. It's a really good point.

It's more viable, right? I mean, you can start locally and then try to expand regionally, but you get a foot in the door. Yeah. Village Idiot says a house, who cares? What's your local school look like? No one cares. Privateize. Your hospital, no one cares. Privateize. Transport, private. Wake up. It's different in Arlington. The schools are absolutely magnificent, which is why we moved here in the first place. It was before we had children. But we wanted our children to have access to Arlington County schools. The hospital, they've saved my life more than once. I mean that quite literally. although it is like the private transport is not only public in arlington it it was free for five years from covid onward and now they just implemented a flat one dollar fee you can go anywhere in arlington county one buck so it's unusual here and this is a place that's very very um where people are very successful financially but they voted 77 percent for baroque

Obama. So. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. What are you seeing? I'm looking at, well, sorry, what am I? I'm looking at the chat. Phil 282 says whether underground is 40 plus years ago.

It's all Antifa now. And it's just the name for everyone pushing out more terrorism. I think that's, you know, that's bullshit propaganda to be. honest. I mean, there's just, Antifa hardly exists. Yeah. It's, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I have to agree. I, I'm not a believer that Antifa even is a thing. I mean, people can put a mask on and call themselves Antifa, but it's not, you can't like join Antifa. It's, it just doesn't, it just doesn't exist. No. As an organization. That would be totally right. All right. So let's talk a bit about, Sean Duffy. He's the Secretary of Transportation. He says that if the government shutdown continues next week, starting roughly Tuesday, he's anticipating having to shut down swathes of airspace over the United States due to a lack of air traffic controllers. He says there's 3,000 controllers short and they have already mass chaos.

he describes it at big airports like JFK and Newark and right across the river from New York City, where already the lines are getting really long. TSA is not, is short staff. People are quitting or just sort of doing sickouts. And he's saying that like there's going to be a meltdown well before Thanksgiving, major travel weekend. That's a major. problem. Is he bullshitting or is this just the Trump administration trying to pressure Democrats? No, I think he's I think he's being serious. I flew in from Spain a couple of days ago, what, Sunday.

And the lines getting through security were ridiculous. I passed them as I was leaving. But I mean, there just weren't enough TSA people. processing travelers through security, number one. But when I was coming in through immigration, I filled out the, it's called MPC, the mobile, whatever, whatever. Yeah, yeah, I have that thing too. I don't know why everybody doesn't do that because there's great.

There's never a line. You just blow right through. So anyway, the immigration guy is just sitting like this. And he goes, look at the camera. Welcome home. just walk past and I'm in. That's it. It's like, wow.

It's because he's not getting paid. So he doesn't give a shit. What a country. I think this is bad. We're headed for something bad. Last night at midnight. It's not even like we're broke. It's not even like we're like Molly and our national resources rocks.

Right. There's plenty of money. We're just choosing not to use it. Like the snap stuff. Yeah. We just don't. We just, we got. the money. We just don't want to use it. We don't want to use it. Last night at midnight, this became

the longest shutdown in American history. Yes. And there's no end in sight. None. No. And I do think it's really important. I talked a little bit about this on TMI yesterday. But I think it's really important to understand for the Democrats, this is existential. Republicans don't understand it, right? Like if Democrats signed the continuing resolution now, then the then you know their republicans are totally lying when they say oh we'll talk about subsidies for obamacare no they won't no they won't sign it no and then next year not on obamacare collapses because you know that's propping up the entire system by the way it'll drag down private insurance too because obamacare subsidizes the private insurance sector too for people who have like quote unquote

normal jobs at big corporations and stuff so the whole health care system tumbles off a cliff right which probably would benefit democrats but to their credit they don't want that but it would be denying them their only major legislative achievement in 30 years right so literally they would have nothing to say what's the last thing you guys did nafta oh don't want to be bragging about that welfare reform don't want to be bragging about that the crime bill under Biden and you know and Clinton and the night don't want to be bragging about that you have to go back to like Jimmy Carter, he has no major legislative achievement. You have to go back to, like, the war on poverty to find a major Democratic legislative achievement.

So, you know, they can't let this go. It's literally like you're not even a party anymore. No, it's all they have. It's literally the legacy of the modern Democratic Party. Yeah. And if they lose it, they have nothing. You're right. And I'm not a fan of the ACA.

I think it sucks. No, nor am I. I'm telling you, because I live it, it sucks. It sucks. Yes. It's like, but the thing is, you know, it's one of those things that, like, as shitty as it is, it's going to be, it's only going to get worse. Craig D. Vance is asking, where does funding for ICE come from?

It just comes from the federal budget. Yep. Yep. Phil is insisting about Antifa. They have cells and international cooperation. The people just putting on masks also. call themselves of this. All right, well, you know, if that's true, can we see some evidence, please? Yeah, please lay it out. I'm perfectly happy to change my position. Me too. If I see the

evidence. Me too. Nicholas Franco is asking, what is the conservative party of New York? That's a good question. Is it a legit party still? Not really. Sort of like, I mean, If you look at the, so New York City, New York State actually has, there's the old, there's Working Families Party, which is a left-leaning party, and there's the Conservative Party, which is self-evident. And basically, when you go to vote, the line for the working families is almost identical to the line for the Democrats. They just take cut and paste the name of the Democrat over to working families.

Yeah, yeah. If I vote for a Democrat, I will vote for the working families. line just so that it supports them. But the truth is it's a shell. It's a husk. And then over on the same thing on the conservative side, the conservative party tends not

to have its own candidates. Oh, really? So they just take whatever the Republicans do and Yeah, it's a shame. It is a shame. Yeah. It's not really real. I remember the 1980 Senate race in New York

when Jacob Javits was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease but decided to run for re-election in a crazy Republican year. He was a liberal Republican. He lost the Republican nomination to Aldamato. But he still stayed on the ballot as the liberal party candidate.

So he split the vote with the Democrat and New York was cursed with Al-Damato for like three terms. Yeah. I have a, yeah, Aldamato. God, I remember him very well. But he was the potholes. He was the pothole senator.

Oh, yeah. Yes, he was. That's how they kept getting reelected. He believed in that shit, which, you know, not wrong. Right. I'm trying to think if there's any last minute, any last minute stuff we have to talk about. We're going to have a lot more data on the election tomorrow. You know, so it'll be, yeah, here we go.

Jonathan Morris says the working families is basically the Warren wing of the New York City. Democratic Party, except that they hardly don't, they hardly have any of their own candidates. That's a shame. That's a shame because they know they're going to make it onto the ballot. And so that's 80% of the battle right there. Take yourself seriously. I think, you know, the vibe I get is that basically they are, they're planning to,

they're planning to just do, um, they, there's, It's like a placeholder. We're going to become a real party soon, but we're not really ready right now. We're like, you know, like next time, but we'll just keep the ballot access. We'll just use the Democratic thing. And then they, you know, they're off to brunch.

And that's how it is every single time. Yeah. What a waste. It is. What a waste. Well, John, you're going to be out tomorrow. Yes, I'm going to be out. And I'll be back today.

Day after. We'll see you again on Friday. Thanks everybody for joining us. We are here Monday through Friday. That is 9 a.m. Eastern Time. Please, please, please go over to this apparently only works in the United States. GiveSendgo.com slash West Glacier Gaming. That's how you're going to help us keep Robbie on the show. We'll keep you up to date and sort of provide a thermometer about how much money we have so far. and how close we are to our $1,000 per month goal here. It's still the beginning of the month, but we'd like to get this out of the way so we can stop talking about it and just do the show. Robbie's due to be back with us a week from Monday, so we're looking forward to that. He's doing his two-week final notice.

John, good luck tomorrow. Thanks, buddy. And looking forward to seeing you again on Friday. Scott Stantis will be joining and sitting in the John's seat trying to fill his big shoes. And please stay tuned for the TMI show with Jed Rolla Manila-chan coming up right after this. Thanks, everybody, and take care. Bye, John.

Thank you. Thank you.