DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Trump Snubs US Workers at Mar-a-Lago”

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou examine the late child predator Jeffrey Epstein's claims that President Trump "spent hours" at his house with victim Virginia Giuffre and "knew about the girls," Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s belated condemnation of "shocking" settler attacks, and the Trump Organization files for a record 184 H-2A/H-2B foreign workers in 2025—up from 121 in 2021—for Mar-a-Lago servers. Is it really that hard to find good help here at home?Epstein-Trump Emails: House Democrats release explosive emails from Epstein's estate, asserting Trump "spent hours" with victim Virginia Giuffre at Epstein's home and "knew about the girls," including underage victims, in exchanges with Ghislaine Maxwell and Michael Wolff dating back to 2011 and 2019. Republicans fire back by unveiling over 20,000 pages of documents, denouncing the selective Democratic picks as a "hoax" timed to overshadow the government shutdown's resolution. Bipartisan momentum builds for a full Epstein files vote next week, despite Trump's vehement denials and White House claims of a smear campaign. Also: what about the rest of the Epstein Files over at the DOJ?West Bank Settler Violence: Better decades late than never! Israeli President Herzog finally condemns "shocking and serious" attacks today, where masked settlers torch dairy trucks, farmland, and a mosque in Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf, clashing with soldiers and wounding four Palestinians during olive harvests. Army chief Eyal Zamir echoes the rebuke, pledging to halt the "minority of criminals" diverting forces from counterterrorism, as UN reports October's 260+ incidents—the highest since 2006. Police arrest four Israelis, releasing three while probing arson and assaults, amid accusations of far-right government complicity. Meanwhile, the big question is: why do Israelis live in the West Bank?Trump Hires Hundreds of Foreign Workers: The Trump Organization requests a record 184 H-2A/H-2B visas for this year, staffing Mar-a-Lago, golf clubs, and Virginia estates with foreign servers, farmhands, and housekeepers—up from 121 in 2021, totaling 566 approvals. Trump justifies "talent" imports on Fox News, countering wage concerns, yet faces backlash from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's X criticism of worker replacement. This follows his September H-1B fee hike to $100,000, highlighting tensions in his deportation push. If the nation’s most prominent critic of immigration can’t find Americans, what’s really happening?

Hello, and if you're in the same time zone as us, good morning. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and John Curiaku. It's Thursday, November 13, 2025. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning, John. Good morning. Ted. How are you? I'm okay. A little tired, but no good reason went to sleep at a reasonable time. Just a little sleepy. I don't know. It's the fact of getting old.

It's not like that was up. Go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt you. It's one of these small world stories. I'm in Oxford, Ohio, visiting my son. And he asked me, like a week ago, do you know Muhammad Farag? And I said, yeah.

He was the head of the Egyptian intelligence service, like 35 years ago. I met him in Cairo. And he said, well, his son is my marketing professor, and he wants to meet you. And I said, I remember him. And he was a little kid when I was there. He was like seven or eight years old. So we all went out to dinner last night.

It got late. That's why I'm so beef. Oh, well, at least you have a good reason. You know, partying in Oxford, Ohio can go way past eight o'clock at night. So it's pretty crazy there. Hunter Biden even couldn't handle it. At least I wasn't up all night reading the Epstein documents, which I suspect our president may have spent part of the evening doing. although he's probably already seen them all.

Yeah, he probably has. I just figured there were all kinds of people who were already going to do that, so I wasn't going to bother. Yeah, no, that's the way I look at it too. Although sometimes, you know, what amazes me is when there's a huge data dump, you know, it's almost like it's worth going through it yourself

because stuff that I find interesting is often left on the cutting room floor when it ends up in the New York Times or the New York Post or wherever. that's exactly right all right so obviously we'll talk about epstein uh that congress is uh in full-fledged chaos over this uh who's to blame who are the who are the real verbs etc over in israel worth talking about is the violence in the west bank um the president herzok condemned it i guess better decades late than never um and definitely the lead topic that we've

put in the thumbnail. It's just because I don't miss any chance to use a sombrero in graphics. The Trump organization has hired almost 600 foreign workers at Maralago, golf clubs, Virginia States. And so we've got to talk about that. Is this a reflection of the fact that it's actually really hard to find American workers? And even someone like Donald Trump, whose politics go run counter to this or like this or does he just do do is this just another case of the rich and powerful doing what they want and they what they say to us is not necessarily how they live their lives um john what do you want to talk what do you want to start with you know i think we probably should talk about the situation with the Epstein files because it's becoming unwieldy

it's it's spinning out of control so we know thanks to these new revelations that that that Epstein and Galane Maxwell were emailing each other back and forth, saying that Trump knew that these girls were underage. He never did anything with any of them, but he knew that this abuse was going on and didn't speak out against it. That's very unfortunate, but it's not a crime. As awful as it is it's not a crime they called trump a scumbag which is no big deal either my bottom line here is this didn't make me love donald trump anymore i've never loved don't trump but this didn't change my mind but it wasn't it didn't make things worse for trump there's no they don't allege any crime even in their private you know email communications

So here's the way things stand in the House. The House does have the 218 votes for the discharge petition. It's out of Mike Johnson's hands. He has to allow it to come to the floor because they went over his head with the 218. But that's not necessarily going to change anything, Ted, because then the Senate would have to vote to release the Epstein files. And then Donald Trump would have to sign it. And he's not going to sign anything that's going to. going to embarrass him or tarnish his his image or his reputation. So this is all another

Washington Tempest in a teapot that nothing is going to come up. So basically what's come to be known, correct me if I'm wrong about this, but what's come to be known is the Epstein files, there's really two batches, right? So what has just come to light as a result of the discharge petition is what was under the control of the House Oversight Committee. But that's not the same, it's not a duplicate set of the documents currently being held by the Department of Justice, right? Those documents, that's correct. This is a different set.

So potentially, there's a different set. So potentially there's other knowledge, either exculpatory or incriminating or neither that are there. And obviously Donald Trump's not like even the primary target here. I think everyone sort of, you know, you, you, end up with a witch hunt in a situation like this. Ethically, yeah, I mean, you know, it is really interesting to put yourself in that position. And I kind of feel like we all at some point, I mean, everybody learns about lawbreaking at some

point on the part of other people around us, whether it's coworkers or friends or whatever. And there's the question of whether you should step forward. And then whether you could step forward. I mean, let's just say for the sake of argument that Trump decided. that he did know about what Epstein was up to, and he wanted to do something about it, what would he do, really? Yeah, what would he do? I mean, who would I call?

I'm not sure where this is taking. We're not, we don't live in East Germany. I mean, you know, it's not like you can call the Stasi, and they drag off the pervert into the middle of the night. You know, nothing happens, right? I mean, you know, you just yesterday, you mentioned a couple of cases where someone called the cops and no one gave a shit. And that's sort of normally what happens, right? I mean, the cops, it's like, well, I'm aware of a crime. Okay, what happens do you have? Well,

someone told me, that's hearsay. We can't, we can't build a case on hearsay. Oh, well, I have it on good authority. Okay, we can't build a case on that either. I don't blame the prosecutors. I don't blame the cops. There's nothing really that you can do in a situation like that. I mean, I drove a taxi in the 80s and one of my fellow taxi drivers, know, bragged about raping a drunk woman in the backseat of his cab. Okay, we all thought he was a turd, and we all hated him. But what could we do? And he could have been making the whole thing up.

And what do we do? Call the NYPD and say, this guy raped a, you know, says that he raped. Okay, well, saying that you raped someone isn't a crime. It just makes you a weird-ass liar. So there's just sort of, I mean, it's that whole, I think people, there's an assumption there that if you see something say something will result in something and i don't think that's a valid assumption at all yeah i i have to agree i have to agree it's this it's the society that we live in now you know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so anyway i i think nothing

i think nothing serious is going to come of this uh jeffre epstein thing now the washington post today has a piece in which they say that this is the only issue that that seriously and solidly divides Donald Trump from his base it's it remember it was it was the MAGA base that was the first political faction that we have in the country to to shout for release of all the documents it was a campaign issue and it's one of these issues that where it was the street that dragged Trump to the to the policy position.

That's the only reason why he ran on a platform of releasing all of the Epstein files. And then he changed his mind. And people don't trust the reason for changing his mind. No, I mean, I guess, I mean, look, it's entirely possible that his assessment

is simply like, you know, not I personally didn't do anything, but I was around bad things that happened. it smears me, it tarnishes me, it smears and tarnishes people who I have a vested interest in or who I used to be or am still associated with. I mean, there's a lot. I mean, I think people have been speculating about this in a very simplistic way when it's anything but simplistic. I mean, I can come up with a myriad of possible motivations for Trump just preferring to put this behind him, not least of which is politically, you're the president of the United States,

you have an ambitious political agenda, clearly, whether you agree with that agenda or not, and you don't want to spend the next three, six months or whatever, just talking about this old shit that you didn't have much to do with, but your old party buddy was involved in. Yeah, that's right. I want to thank Double D for the $4.99. Double D says, I hope people realize that there will be foreign names on the Epstein list. I think some Arab higher-ups. There are foreign names on the Epstein list,

and I think there are probably going to be lots more foreign names on the Epstein list as they continue to leak out. But we've known for a very long time that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was a regular visitor to Epstein Island. We know from the release yesterday that Barack's chief of staff was another one who was a regular at the island. And there was some evidence yesterday of money being exchanged, too. So, yeah, I agree with you. There are foreign names on there. I spoke with, okay, I'm going to break a little news right now.

So I spoke yesterday with a woman who used to be. the chief of business development for Giuliani partners. She's suing Rudy Giuliani for sexual assault. And she told me that she has thousands of pages of documents that were emails between Giuliani and Epstein. And she's just waiting. She's offered them up to different news organizations. She offered them up to the investigating committees on Capitol Hill.

nobody cares. And so she still has them. But she said that there is another British prince besides Prince Andrew who is implicated, who was also at the island. And there are other former heads of state whose names have not been made public. This is a tough question. And John, I won't be at all offended if you don't answer it. But did you find her credible? that's a good that's a good question um you don't have to find her yeah yeah no no i i find her credible in that i believe at least i believe that she believes the information is is correct right she's very difficult to get along with um and i think it's because she's been traumatized yeah

she has just crippling PTSD it's sometimes yeah she's she's very tough to carry on a conversation with yeah there's a funny conversation in the chat about whether or not we are gay I had a

you know I used to be I used to have a a radio show in LA and we had an open mic day and one of the questions that would always come up, my voice was higher then. It's not exactly low and baritone, but it was always like, are you gay? And I never answered the question because to deny it is to be like the apostle

who denies Christ, you know, like before the cock crows three times. You know, it's sort of like saying that there's something wrong with that, to quote Seinfeld. Right, not that there's anything wrong with that. No, no, not at all. No, I'm not gay.

I think my two wives and five children would likely confirm that. But I don't care if anybody's gay. I give no shits where people put their junk. Mr. B. Malarkeen, 9219, says that drop site news is publishing all of it. I suspect they're referring to all of the Trump, being all of the, all of the Trump, I mean, all of the obscene files. I don't know what we're talking about here. Maybe I should start reading Dead Drop.

I've boycotted them because they all came from. Most of them came. Or Drop site, right. Drop site. I boycotted them because most of them had come from the intercept, and I just freaking hate, I hated everybody at the intercept with what I think is very good reason.

Skehiel is not bad, I guess. Grimm is good. Yeah, Schahill is, however, the most boring writer in the English language. I tried to read his drone book, which, you know, I was obsessed with drones. Oh, yeah. And it was just like, oh, my God, like, dude,

like it would have been less boring. I mean, this was years and years ago, but if Chad GPT wrote the book, it would be a major improvement. yeah but they do have some important you know breaking news every oh for sure yeah yeah i mean it's i mean their origin story is just very you know flawed the piero mediar influence is toxic and i don't understand oh by the way john i i have to thank you for sending me this email that you got from the l.a times oh my god how fucking funny

I knew you'd like it. Oh, my God. So, John, do you want to describe it? Because you got the email or I could do it, whatever. Yeah. I got this automated email from the LA Times yesterday saying, hey, we're going to go public. Do you want to get in early on on some insider shares? Minimum investment is only $5,000.

And it entitles you to a 25% price discount when we release our IPO. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not interested in buying. shares in a failing newspaper, but I sent it to dead. I thought he'd get a kick out of it. Well, not to mention it's so ghetto, right? I mean, it's like, I mean, so I thought the whole point of a billionaire buying a newspaper is that it doesn't have to worry about money. And so I guess if it's a fake billionaire, then they do have to worry about money even more.

But Dr. Pat Sun-Shang is out like, you know, with his tin cup, you know, begging for money from the likes of us and while we're begging money for money from the likes of you by the way please like follow and share the show and help us uh support and help us like make a living here um we do have some ads so i probably should go go hit one uh well let's see what should we do what should we do do we want to do we do we want to do what do we do what do we do we want to do perplexity that one seems to pay well oh ivermectin oh that was i'm loving the perplexing people these days. Let's do that one. All right, let's do it. Here we go. Oh, come on, perplexity. Where are you? Okay. Okay, looking for smarter ways to browse and enjoy your favorite

content without ads. Get the Perplexity Pro bundle with Rumble Premium for just 1999 a month. When you sign up before December 31st, normally a 2999 value with Rumble Premium, you'll get an ad-free viewing experience across all your devices and access to exclusive premium content. content, no interruptions, just the video and streams you love anytime, anywhere, plus perplexity pro, who boosts your productivity with unlimited research, unlimited uploads, exclusive member perks, and access to the latest and most advanced AI models for faster, smarter answers every day. Save over 30% on this powerful bundle, head to rumble.com slash premium before December 31st to sign up and unlock your premium experience. So speaking of premium content, John and I are going to be recording a couple of Rumble Premium episodes. If you are not yet a subscriber, you will be able to unlock the life stories of John in five

parts, of me in four parts, and of Robbie in one part. And also, we'll be talking, we're going to be doing episodes about movies, books, music, all sorts of stuff like that. So stuff that's a little bit off the beaten path here for the regular show, a little bit less serious, a little more relaxed, letting your hair down. So, you know, you might want to check that out. So, oh, my God, but the L.A. Times thing's just cracking up. And by the way, if you really want to burn through five grand,

better to give it to a homeless person, you know? I mean, seriously, because you're never going to see that five grand again. I mean, L.A. Times is doomed, you know. You know, five, five, six years ago, seven years ago, I got one of those same automated emails from Mercedes-Benz. It said that they were, I drive a 14-year-old Mercedes-Benz, but they said that they were offering bonds to all Mercedes-Benz owners and they were going to use the money for XYZ development of their new electronic car or electric car system. and there was a guaranteed return of like five and a quarter percent or something like that. So it was like very slightly better than what you could get at the bank at the time. That I would have done if I had had an extra five grand that I didn't care about.

But the LA Times, like you said, the whole point of the billionaire buying the Times is so that he can save it. So what? Now we're supposed to replace his money with our own? so the woman finally does go down the drain, the billionaire gets to keep his money and the little guy loses his money. That's precisely it. Thank you, F. H. H. H. U.S.O. for the buck.

What's our favorite Thanksgiving food, his or hers, is stuffing, John? Yeah, you know what? I've got to go with stuffing, but it has to have gravy on it. Yeah, so. I go hot and cold on the turkey. I despise Thanksgiving food. everything cranberry sauce turkey hate it all i'm an old thanksgiving guy like give me a ham a steak pasta

anything else but for traditional stuff i got to go with uh pumpkin pie i do like pumpkin pie ted i was in college before i realized that not everybody had like a table covered in greek food with the turkey in the middle i would have much preferred that I said, that makes sense. We're the ones that eat that have Thanksgiving with all Greek food. Like, it's funny. When you're a little kid, it's the normal thing in all my life. I grew up thinking that everybody just has all Greek food with a turkey.

That's funny. I mean, I would have, God, I would have just ignored the turkey and just been like, oh, yeah, give me that Greek salad, you know, get me everything else. That's right. God, that's pretty funny. All right. Well, so, all right. So where does the Epstein thing go from here before we move on? I feel like right now, it's sort of like, you know, it's sound and fury signifying very little. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. Everybody was looking for a smoking gun. They were waiting for a smoking gun. This is not the smoking gun. one of the one of the commenters said in the chat two scumbags call another guy a scumbag

okay big deal it's it's not it's not news and the bottom line is even they are not accusing trump of having done anything with these girls yes he should have said something's going on at this island all these girls are underage of course he should have said something but he didn't do anything to them but also it's not new right I mean, because there's the pretty well-known quote where Trump said, like, oh, you know, we have a lot in common. We both really love beautiful women. But, you know, differences that, you know, Jeffrey likes them really, really young. I mean, come on, we know that he knew.

Yeah, of course. When you hang out with a guy as much as he did, you know, you gossip, you know, I mean, Bill and Hillary Clinton knew. Everybody knew. They had to have known. And I guess the question is, to what extent is it anybody's business? I mean, hell, he'd already been prosecuted and let off the hook by the authorities. And that's something that we ignore here. I mean, I don't want to sound like an apologist for the president. But I've got to say, if I were him, if anybody really put him on the spot, he could say, listen, the authorities had their chance. And they decided not to give a shit. What did you want me as an individual private citizen to do about it. Exactly right. Exactly right. Hey, if you don't mind, before we move on to the next, there are a couple of things I wanted to raise from the papers today.

So Reverend Jesse Jackson, everybody, of course, remembers Jesse Jackson. I never particularly cared for him. But he was diagnosed back in 2015 with Parkinson's disease. And he said at the time that this was a disease that, had felled his father as well. It runs in families. My dad had it. Lots of my relatives had it.

And so he was diagnosed with it in 2015. Two years ago, he was diagnosed with something more severe, something called supranuclear palsy, which is like Parkinson's on steroids. And he was hospitalized in Chicago yesterday. He's 84 years old. His prognosis is not good. There's no cure for this.

And you end up, if you don't fall and hit your head, which is how my dad died, you end up choking to death because you lose the ability to swallow or from pneumonia just because your saliva collects in your lungs and you can't get relief from it. So I fear Jesse Jackson is not going to be around very much longer. That was one thing. The other thing, and it's less important. By the way, it is important before we let Jesse go. You know, it's important to comment on, you know, that the extent of his political achievement when he ran for president in 84 and 1988, that's right. He carried a bunch of states in the primary primary as an insurgent, black, left-wing,

progressive candidate. I would argue to the left of Bernie Sanders. I would agree. And, and like, and, you know, an unapologetic black politician, preacher, you know, activist. And, you know, like you, I kind of am a little bit reserved about him. But I think there's no, and by the way, full disclosure, I did vote for him in the primary in 1988. So I do, you know, I mean, you got us. I mean, and also he was there.

Like, he's in that famous photo of MLK dying on the balcony. he's one of the guys. I mean, he was right there when he was murdered. Coretta Scott King always kept him at arm's distance because that day that MLK was assassinated, the famous picture where everybody's pointing at the room, as soon as he was shot, Jesse Jackson was about 15 feet away from him when he was shot. When he was shot and he went down, Jackson went over to him,

put his hands in in Martin Luther King's blood and then smeared the blood on his shirt to make it look like he had been like right there when it happened the next day he went on Good Morning America and he was still wearing the shirt oh so he was trying to be Jackie Kennedy except she came about her gristle honestly yeah and Coretta king never forgave him for that if that's true That's one of the most disgusting things, or and bizarre. Prasmataz is asking if Jesse Jackson was the FBI informant. Of course, you know, obviously King was spied upon ruthlessly by the FBI for many years.

Is that, I don't know the answer to that question. I read that it was not Jackson. It was the older guy from the southern, what was it called, the Southern Baptist, the Southern Christian leadership, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah. Huh.

Anyway, all right. By the way, this is so funny. I'm going to put you on the spot. This is mean, and we can take him off if this is a problem. But Elon Musk did arguably more for humanity than even you. If you don't like him, can you at least make your best case for it? For Elon Musk? No, I'm not going to make it.

No, for not, I guess for not being, for not for disliking Elon Musk? Yeah, I think he's been bad for the country. Nobody's worth a trillion dollars. Nobody. You can't possibly do anything that is worth a trillion dollars. I mean, he's a super interesting dude, and, you know, I can make the case for or against him. But I would say anybody who designs a car that doesn't have exterior door handles that allows the firefighters to break you out in case your car catches on fire is kind of like

missing a screw. I know, right? That's true. All right, well, you had something else. Oh, oh, Al Sharpton, according to U.S. Triple X, A-Rod was an informant, maybe not the informant. I believe that. Oh, yeah, yeah. Lisa Mojica says, Snick, yeah, the Southern What is it? The Southern Something. Oh, God. Anyways. Leadership Conference. Southern Party. Is that right? Mm-hmm.

Oh, my. B.L. Ake. Thank you. Thank you for $50. Here's some cash for tolerating my annoying commentary. Obviously, you guys aren't gay. I was a conscientious objective from the Army infantry in 2009, and John is my personal favorite American hero. Thank you so much. You were a conscientious subjector.

I read an absolutely wonderful book long out of print, a conscientious objector with whom I was friendly. He since passed away. He sent me a book that was published in like 1972, maybe, 1973 from his personal collection. And it was just a series of interviews with conscientious objectors. Some of them had gone to Canada. Others had been arrested and imprisoned. And the stories they told were harrowing.

I think it was even, in many cases, more dangerous, more physically, personally dangerous for them to have been a conscientious objector and then be sent to an American prison and not some club fed, like a real honest to God prison and then have to deal with. Like, I remember one of the interviews was a guy talking about fending off what they called in prison the sisters. It was the guys who were situationally gay. They would just rape the new guys. Whatever new guy happened to be in, they were either going to beat you to a pulp or they were going to rape you, one or the other.

Good times. So every day, it was another fight for this poor guy. So being a conscientious objector is a very brave thing to do. I had a roommate. not a roommate, a classmate at Columbia. It was 1981 and Carter had just started draft registration and Reagan had just become president. And like me, he refused to sign to enlist, to sign up for draft registration. But unlike me, they came and found him. And unlike me, when they came and found him, he refused. So they sent him to federal prison for five years. And that's the penalty.

And they take away your financial aid if you're in college, too. So, I mean, it's, and I was like, and I was just like, I was impressed because there was no publicity, nobody cared. It was never in the newspaper. And he didn't care. It was just like, I'm just not signing. I'm just not doing it. I just, I won't. You can't make me?

And I'm not going to. I think he also faced a $10,000 fine, too. Wow. Which was a lot of money at the time for an 18-year-old. kid. Yeah, that's a lot of money. And in those days. Psychonaut 25, thank you for the dollar as an autistic guy.

I see the flaws in myself and Elon magnified into billionaire level. If you so, dollar, thank you for the dollar. Did you discuss politics with the mob in prison, John? Yeah. What were their views? What were their political views? I had dinner with two of them in, in Philadelphia over the weekend.

They love, love, love Donald Trump. They love him. You know, and I think it's because being a real estate developer in New York, of all places, you're going to have daily contact with the mob. They control everything. They control the, you know, the concrete union, the union that makes windows, the steelworkers union. They control everything.

And you've got to deal with these people if you want to build buildings on your building sets. That's why Trump had those connections. He had to. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, they love Trump. There's no two ways about it. Marble 455.

Thanks for the $4.99. Guys, I didn't know this. The president of Israel can pardon the prime minister at Yahoo, but only if the request letter came from the victim or their family. That's a little bit reminiscent of Sharia. a law where the victim or the close relative of the victim can either mitigate or forgive your sin, your crime. Yes. Yes, exactly. And Trump, at first Trump just asked the President of Israel. Now he's actually written a formal letter asking again the President of Israel to pardon Netanyahu. I think this is something that he promised Netanyahu he would do

during uh during uh he doesn't have standing Trump doesn't have standing right no zero standing nothing nothing standing it would have to be a victim of Netanyahu's corruption and the Israeli people are the victims of Netanyahu's corruption right so any Israeli taxpayer could probably have standing I don't remember who I was talking to earlier this week it may have been on my other podcast we were talking about you know in in the five or six weeks before the October 7th attacks, Netanyahu's government was on the verge of collapsing. And there were people in the streets. Remember, they even had to shut Ben-Gurian airport because there were such massive demonstrations.

You know, people couldn't get to and from the airport. They just shut it down. And then October 7th happened and it unified the whole country, at least briefly. And Netanyahu's still around. I have been saying in podcasts that Netanyahu, has never, ever received more than 27% of the vote in any of his campaigns for prime minister. He's the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history. And somebody challenged that the other day and said, that's ridiculous.

Israel loves Netanyahu. I went back and looked at it. And I was wrong. It was not 27%. It was 24.3% was the most Netanyahu has ever received. That's crazy. Yeah. So to be anti-Semitic, if you criticize Netanyahu is a red herring that is being foisted at us. Well, then, yeah, at that rate, the people of Israel are all anti-Semites.

$2 contribution from Real, real, thank you. Gentlemen, please share thoughts on Epstein helping to sell Israeli mass surveillance software to the Ivory Coast in 2014. He was much more than just an investment banker, yeah? yeah i i would say he was a financial fixer would be the best way to describe i would i would agree i like that um and i would say i would reiterate my earlier position that net yahoo was an access agent for the mosa i mean that's what it everything points to that everything that he worked for mosaid you know i saw what's that idiot's name um andrew bustamante the other day on some interview.

And he's looking right in the camera and he's saying definitively, Jeffrey Epstein was working for the FBI. He's clearly an FBI informant FBI agents. Like, you don't even know what you're talking about, FBI. The FBI is not going to run a pedophile against former presidents and world leaders. The Israelis certainly will. The Israelis certainly will, because then you can get them in compromising positions. You can use blackmail, which we don't use, but the Israelis use,

and get them to give you information on, you know, how the policy sausage is made. They're all connected. FBI. John, while we're talking about Israel, and I don't think this is worth a lengthy discussion, but is it worth noting that the president of Israel, who could, as we noted, forgive Netanyahu, Pardon Netanyahu. He's coming out, you know, the president of Israel is supposed to be like the moral center of the nation. Right.

And he's not really powerful. He's more of a figurehead. He's like, you know, like kind of like the king of Thailand, right? Yes. Has a role like that. And anyway, so Herzog stepped forward and condemned the settler colonists in the West Bank for, you know, running rampant, you know, where they've been. attacking Palestinians in their own land and stealing their land and trashing and vandalizing and committing arson and and rape and murder too and robbery.

You know, basically they've been completely operating with impunity. The IDF just sort of stands or stands by and smirks. It watches the whole thing either directly with their arms crossed or from drones, right? Like watching the whole thing. They have drones everywhere on the West Bank. I guess the question here is, and finally there were a few arrests that's like almost never happens. How important is this? I mean, it seems like the war in Gaza, the world's attention is off that in light of the sort of tentative ceasefire.

And now people are starting to pay more attention to the West Bank. But the West Bank has been a hot zone for years that no one was paying a. attention to. I'm just like trying to figure out the symbolism of this. Does it resonate? It doesn't really resonate internationally, but does it resonate domestically? Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. I would agree with that. Hey, a couple of other things, too, in the news. I meant to text this to you last night. Did you happen to see this announcement out of the State Department that we're not going to allow fat people to apply for immigrant visas anymore? Yes, or tourist visas, I think. Or tourist visas. So fat people can't come to the United

States, period. No fatty's allowed. No fatty's allowed into the fattest country in the world. And today, there was a report that, no, it's beyond that. So yes, no fatties are allowed to apply for visas, but you're not allowed to apply for an immigrant visa now if you have cancer or diabetes. Well, we did have a long, no-aids policy for tourist visas, right? John, I was meaning to ask you this question. So visas are bilateral, aren't they? Oh, yeah, they're bilateral. So doesn't that mean that, like now, other countries have to ban fat Americans?

Yeah, they are, yeah, they could absolutely do that. But normally what that means, the agreement that we have with virtually every other country in the world, it's called the reciprocity agreement, the visa reciprocity agreement. So normally what it means is we'll let the other country set the price of the visa. If the visa is free for Americans, then our visas are going to be free for you guys. The Indians charge us 100 bucks, so we charge the Indians 100. The Chileans charge us 100. We charge the Chileans 100, which made me so mad when I landed in Chile.

Although sometimes they deny that. Sometimes like other country, like when I went to Russia once, the visa was $400. And the Russians said, no, no, no, that's not us. That's the Americans doing that to us because the Americans were trying to keep Russian mobsters from coming to the U.S. in the 90s. $400 is going to deter them. Great. Very poor mobsters. But in this case, certainly any country can decide if the Americans aren't going to,

if the Americans are going to make you get on a scale when you go to the U.S. Embassy to apply for a visa, then we're going to make you get on scale. Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, that's going to, seriously, that's going to put a major crimp on tourism. And, like, nobody even knows what the standards are. I think even if, like, even if you're skinny, I mean, come on. I mean, I'm not the thinnest guy in the world. I've lost some weight lately.

I'm happy about it. But like, you know, but seriously, you know, why wouldn't everybody just say, fuck you, fuck the United States, go fuck yourselves and your cheese curd in Wisconsin and your fat fucking president who obviously doesn't own a mirror. And like, fuck you guys, fuck you all.

I mean, isn't that kind of like, that's what this is asking for? It's coming. It's coming. Already Spain and France are coming right up to the United States. and a number of tourists every year. And, you know, every year we're number one, always. We're always number one.

And we're not going to be number one anymore. Hey, I wanted to add one of the little micro news piece. I saw this yesterday in one of the local papers here in southern Ohio. I didn't realize yesterday the U.S. Mint made the last penny. the penny is no more it is no more yep as a former as a as a collector of not just political buttons but also coinage um i understand this um you know coins i mean like for example i remember when france went through this um when they got rid of this when they still had francs and the santime was you know one one hundredth of a frank a frank was roughly a one-fifth of a dollar and the one

centime coin was literally, so it was worth one-fifth of a U.S. cent. And it was a cute little tin coin. And I was kind of like, why do they still have these? And of course, this was in the, I believe in the late 70s or early 80s, France abolished the centime coin. And the five centeem coin became effectively the penny, the smallest. And I don't know if five centeem coins, or five cent coins still even exist in France, they might be down to the 10. 10s euro cent coin. But it is, it does seem, it's a sign of inflation, right? I mean, it costs four cents to make a penny.

They're, they're a pain. I understand the case against them. But, you know, we've had coinage that we've abolished over the years. There used to be three cent coins in the 19th century. Yes. The $2 bill comes and goes. Yes. you know, there was fractional currency.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, how resonant is the symbolism for you? Yeah, you know, actually the symbolism is more important to me today than I imagine it would be. I kind of feel bad about the penny. It's been around forever. And now we, I mean, listen. And also eliminates Abe Lincoln from our coinage. Yeah, it does.

That it does. And this new Trump coin that the, that the, just, that the, that the, uh, just, that the, uh, that the, uh, the Treasury Department approved. Did you see this? It's the first coin ever by the U.S. meant to have the person's face on both sides. And to be of a living person. Yeah, and to be of a living person. I mean, it's a commemorative coin. It's not like a mass circulation coin, but still. Soden 2324. Sorry, we missed your initial question, and we have two questions in the feed. Thank you so much for the 1999. What are our thoughts on Candace Owens?

And would you appear on her show? And why am I warming up to Marjorie Taylor Green? She might get an invite to Thanksgiving. Well, I'm definitely warming up to Marjorie Taylor Green as well. I am too. I said that this week on another podcast, I can't believe I'm finding myself in agreement with Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, more often than not.

Would you go on Candace Owens' show? I would. Six months ago, I would have set out. Absolutely not. And today I say absolutely yes. How come? Why the difference? I don't know.

It's like she became sane all of a sudden, like overnight and stopped talking about the lizard people and the, you know, aliens and all this stuff. I don't know. I'll pretty much go on with anyone, especially if they have a decent sized audience, unless they prove themselves to be, like, untrustworthy or they're going to sandbag me or want to talk about something that they said that they didn't want to. talk about or that I didn't want to talk about I mean generally I just show up and I'm willing to talk about anything but like for example I won't go on with Hannity because I was invited to go talk

about a controversial Gary Trudeau cartoon and and I was like okay so this is about Gary Trudeau not about me yes you're sure 100 percent and of course immediately when I got there he turned it against me I was ready because I know what a lying sock of dung he is but I'm not you know I'm not But, I mean, I'll never go back because it's just like, you know, that kind of behavior can't be rewarded. That's exactly right. Awesome. So, Suden 23, 24, thank you. Additionally, for 999, John, will RFK be invited to the Schlossbergs for Thanksgiving?

I wonder what that dinner conversation will be about, will it be cordial or will the knives be out? Sorry again for missing your first question in the scroll here. It's a little easier to not miss these once Robbie's back on Monday. The knives are already out. Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, announced his candidacy for Congress yesterday in the Upper East Side and Upper West Side District, currently represented by Jerry Nadler. Jerry Nadler said, I'm too old.

I'm in my 70s. It's time for a younger generation, and he decided to retire. So kudos to him. Schlossberg jumped in. There are two or three other people running like a city council member and some state representative. Schlossberg's going to win that seat. But he has come out very strongly against his, depending on how you look at it,

first cousin once removed or second cousin, RFK Jr., strongly against him. And I read yesterday it was actually. the family member that that wrote the press release saying we condemn our fk junior so uh yeah i think i think there's going to be another candidate in congress next year i read that that since nineteen forty six we've gone only two years without a kennedy in an elected or appointed office since that's crazy yeah yeah um phil sat 78 wants to do what we do and we're not deprogramming, dead-dropping, or writing. I guess asking about hobbies, like collecting.

Well, I'll tell you, speaking of collecting, my son and I, day after tomorrow, are going to go to his favorite antique gallery in Indianapolis. Indianapolis isn't far two, three hours from here. So we went last year, and we bought every bit of Lincoln memorabilia we could find. There was one that I left behind. and it was a hunk of wood

from the gallows where the conspirators were hanged. No way, that's so cool. That's like a Jesus relic. It's like a true cross. And it had the provenance with it and it had a, what do you call it, an authentication.

But it was $600. I didn't want to spend $600. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping it's still there. Sometimes I will leave a note. with someone and just say like, hey, no offense, I can't really afford $600, but if you, you know, ever see your way clear to maybe letting it go for less, please give me a call. By the way, there's great, there's a two really great antique barn kind of places on Interstate 70 near Springfield,

Ohio, not far at all from where you are. No. Fantastic. And also, there's some, like, there's a little, I forget the name of the town. It's not Cedarville, which is a great town, but there's a town near you that has a lot of antique stores. Oh, I'll check it out. On 76, right outside of Akron, there are a couple of really terrific antique malls, right on 76. Yeah, I've done that. That's on my way to my college. Drop off and pick up also, totally.

I know that drive very, very well. It's a bleak part of the state. It's a bleak state. Except for Cincinnati, which I love. You got to love corn. Yeah, you do. So what do we do? I mean, well, I mean, I like to bike.

And reading is my number one thing. You know, I read a lot of nonfiction. I do. Movies. Yeah, I love movies. I watch a lot of movies. Yeah, movies and movies. and TV and stuff like that.

Hey, and now, did I tell you about the letter I got from the Screen Actors Guild? Yeah, but go ahead. Say that, yeah, I don't know if we talked about it here or not. So they sent me a letter saying that they wanted to confirm my mailing address because they want to ship me the box of all the DVDs of all the Screen Actors Guild award nominees so that I can vote for the Screen Actors Guild.

Very exciting. I've never been able to do something like that before. Soden is claiming that we didn't really answer his questions about Candace Owens and stuff. I don't know. Oh, yeah, I would definitely go on Candace Owens. Definitely. She's got a wide reach. She's not as crazy as she used to be.

I still disagree with a lot of what she has to say. But yeah, I would definitely go on Candicelland. And, oh, in terms of the Schlossbergs, I think, you know, I don't know. that can't answer a question I don't know the answer to Patrick Crabtree What gallery is it I live only an hour from Indy

I don't know and I'm going to find out I'll ask him the name Yeah I'm having I'm having recall It's driving me crazy about the antique town In Southwest Ohio But it's like it's a town where basically There's nothing but antique stores

If you just Oh I would definitely do that Rock it you'll find it You kind of have to choose The right day of the week Like Saturday is probably the day to go but okay so let's talk about these foreign workers so i have to say if we had robbie here we'd pop him on he'd go on a mad tear about this yeah the trump organization uh is asked requested

184 h2a and h2b visas for maralago the golf the golf clubs and the virginia estates and so on for farmhands housekeepers servers that's up for from 121 in 2021, total of 566 so far. He went on Fox and the president went on Fox and just basically said he can't find anyone, any good, anyone good to work. MTG, Marjorie Taylor Green says this is bullshit and it's wrong.

And I agree with her on that. I mean, look, if you pay people enough money, you know, you can get them to do any job. And anybody who doubts that, I will point out the fact, that you could hire Americans to do asbestos removal. You can find Americans to mine coal. You can find Americans to process, to work in nuclear power plants.

Okay, so Americans will do people, Americans will work collecting, suck up carbon monoxide, collecting tolls on highways. Americans will do all sorts of shit that is very unpleasant, but you have to pay them. And I don't know. I mean, it's like, is it really? possible. When employers say, you know, it's like with someone, you have someone, a friend who says, oh, I can't sell my house. I'm like, well, you can't sell your house for what you want for it. I bet if you sold it for 10 bucks, you could sell your house, right? So similarly, when an employer

says, I can't hire anyone. Well, you mean you can't hire anyone for what you want to pay. But that means you're not really in the market. You have, you're off the market. You need to hit the market. And if you can't afford to pay people, it means you can't really afford to be in business or you can't afford to hire these employees. I mean, that's my take, but is, but, you know, is, I want to be fair, is it possible that really truly, there's just, there's really no Americans to do these jobs and you have to find foreigners? When you go on a cruise or you go, a state of resort in Florida or anything like that,

everybody's always from some foreign country, right? They're always on one of these, like, H-2A visas. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, but I've been, I mean, but the hypocrisy here is really, right. rank considering that this is the most, you know, anti-immigration president we've ever had. Yeah. But this is not new. This was an issue in the 2016 presidential election that he does this every year, not hiring Americans, looking for cheaper foreign workers.

Every year, the Trump organization would bring these people. You know, when I was married, we used to go to the Outer Banks of America. North Carolina every summer. We love it there. It's clean. It's green. Beautiful. We never encountered an American lifeguard. We encountered almost no American store clerks, shop clerks, waiters and waitresses. They were all from Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, all over Eastern Europe. And it's because they work on the cheap. And the state department has this. And the working, And the working conditions blow, right? Like on a cruise ship, they work ridiculous hours.

Yeah. And they're all living in group houses. So you put eight or ten, twelve people to a house, pay them the minimum wage, and then send them back at the end of the season. They're disposable. I'm so against this. I mean, as long as there's one underemployed or unemployed American, this should just not be permitted. Agreed. Agreed. You know, I mean, I don't, it just makes no sense to me. Like, you know, we have people who are literally, I mean, we have, we have people who graduated from, you know, from Harvard law who can't find a job. We have people who went, you know, who went to MIT, who are like, oh, you're, you're, you're coding, you're 40, you're a coding dinosaur. And they can't get a job. I mean, it's outrageous. And I mean, I guess, I mean, but I guess, Trump's base isn't going to hold him account.

for this, right? I don't know, man. They let him get away with so much as it is. I'm not sure that they will let him get away with it. Phil says, can we agree that anti-immigration is actually progressive? Importing unlimited foreigners destroys culture, which I think is more of a, that's more of a right-wing concern, not that it shouldn't be a left-wing concern, but I think just it is, destroys supply and increases demand all while reducing access to needs.

Look, I agree with that. I've been against this kind of unfettered importing foreign workers is something I've been opposed to. I mean, I'm on the record for favoring a border wall back in the 1990s. So, yeah, I agree. Yeah. If you so, thanks for the buck. Richard Marines officers are American while the crew are all Southeast Asians.

That's a good point, too. yeah that's a good point too i mean although i do think we should have as many fat tourists as want to come to the united states as possible i it's very fucked up i mean and seriously do you think trump doesn't know that he's overweight i think that he probably deep down believes that he is overweight but thinks that nobody can notice nobody has has picked up on it yet you never really you never really realize how fat you are i really i mean i think so i totally think i'm fat as shit i look at the mirror i'm like oh my god what's with this waddle this this is new just in the last like 12 months i don't know where the hell this came from really i don't even

see anything at least you have a chin i'm like i have like well i have several to choose from yeah yeah before we before we leave I'm very proud to say that my cemetery book is coming out on March the 24th. It's called Remains of the Day, a definitive guide to Washington, D.C.'s historic cemeteries. If you go to rarebirdlit.com, it's there for pre-order, but for signed pre-orders. Rarebirdlit.com. And I'm sitting in this hotel working on book number nine,

the whispers from the grave, the mafia graves of New York City. So that'll be done soon, too. Awesome. Well, I think that's a good place to end it. I'll do my pitch for my most recent book, What's Left? Never mind the Democrats. Go to roll.com and check that out. And I'll sign it for you if you buy it through roll.com.

Anyway, please like, follow and share the show. We'll be back tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. We're here every Monday through Friday. Please stay tuned. We will be, I'll still be on the air with Manila Chan for the TMI show coming up right at the top of the hour at 10 o'clock Eastern. And you'll just, if you're in the rumble room, you'll just be magically whisked away there. And then I have three hours of straight talk this morning. It's Thursday, which means it's time for the DMZ America podcast.

With Scott Stantis, we'll be interviewing Salt Lake City Tribune cartoonist Pat Bagley, who actually fled the United States for Portugal because of Donald Trump becoming president of the United States. So John, see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow.