DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Trump to Bibi: Last Warning”

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

On DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: mysterious bodies washing ashore in Trinidad prompt questions about U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean, Silicon Valley tech bros convince Trump to cancel a federal troop surge in San Francisco, and a U.S. official warns Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu that stunts like a bill to annex parts of the West Bank could cause the U.S. to cut off Israel entirely.Not So Fun in the Sun: Unidentified corpses with burn marks and missing limbs wash ashore in Trinidad, linked to U.S. military strikes targeting Venezuela’s supposed drug boats. Trinidad’s Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar supports the U.S. campaign, but locals question the lack of asking questions about the dead. The mystery deepens as two Trinidadians, Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, are reportedly killed in a recent strike, raising concerns about civilian casualties.Silicon Valley Tells Trump To Back Off SF: Tech bros Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff persuade President Trump to stop his planned federal troop invasion in San Francisco. Their influence, backed by millions in contributions, underscores a cozy relationship with the White House. Critics warn that unelected CEOs are shaping policies that impact millions, sidelining ordinary citizens.Israel-US Relations At Lowest Point Ever: Israel’s Knesset advances bills to annex parts of the West Bank, shocking U.S. Vice President JD Vance during his visit and angering Trump. A U.S. official warns that Netanyahu’s actions could end U.S. ties to Israel entirely.

It's Friday, October 24th, 2025. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and John Kirooku. It's Friday. Good to see you, John. Good to see you, Ted. Yeah, glad it's Friday. Thanks, everyone for joining. Please like, follow, and share the show.

A little housekeeping. The YouTube monetization platforms are all up and running, including the Super Chats. So if you're feeling the urge, please chime in and do that. Lots to talk about today, and we're just going to hop right into it. All problems with running the tech side of things are to be blamed squarely on me because Robbie is out. Probably, he'll probably come in and mid-show or so, but we'll see what happens there. And anyway, so, but all those mistakes are mine, and I take full responsibility.

Let's get into what we're going to be talking about, among others. And as always, if you're watching live on YouTube or Rumble, please go ahead and chime in with your questions and comments, and we will get to as many as we possibly can, as always. You know, one thing I'd love to do, John, at some point, is to figure out I know I've been researching tech. There's a way to take live calls, like video or audio calls. Geez, I didn't know that.

On a podcast, like in an old-fashioned radio show. And I would love to do that. The only thing is we wouldn't have a call screener. So unless Robbie did that. So you kind of need a screener. Otherwise, Yeah, otherwise you end up like the Howard Stern show.

Remember how people would call into other people's shows and and real Howard Stern's phone number? It's so very annoying for sure. So anyway, all right. So corpses are with burn marks and missing limbs are washing a shore now in Trinidad. So not exactly like the most fun vacation experience. you can have in the Southern Caribbean right now

if you're at the beach like, hey, what's my kid playing with in the surf? Huh? We'll get into what's going on there. You probably have a pretty good idea since you watch this show. And then Silicon Valley tech bros basically called Donald Trump

and convinced him to call off to cancel his intended National Guard ice surge of San Francisco, which was due to start tomorrow. We'll get into what that. That means, my head is, I'm still reeling from the destruction of the East Wing. The East Wing is no more. It was there and now it's not.

And, you know, it seems like very, like, symbolic of all things, Trump. And that we didn't really get to talk about that. We didn't. Not really. We didn't know. And the Washington Post reported today that it has become the most popular tourist attraction in the city. Now, of course, everything is closed because of the government shutdown. But there are more tourists now going to the east gate of the White House to take pictures of the rubble that until recently was the east wing of the White House than any other tourist attraction in Washington.

It makes sense, right? I mean, it's sort of like the weirdness after 9-11 for five years when it was just a big hole, construction hole. That's right. And all the tourists were going to gawk. is the situation in Israel, we called this, I think we called it more aggressively and we went out on a limb further than anyone else. And it looks like we were right. Donald Trump has had it up to here with Bibi Netanyahu. He's pretty much done. One more thing. And he's basically said, you're going to be dead to me. Israel's going to be dead to the U.S. It's kind of, can you imagine

two years ago if we had said that we'd ever be at this point? Also, So late-breaking story, I just sent this to you in the chat, and I don't know if you had a chance to see it, John. But anyway, many of the bodies that were returned to Gaza, you know, they had an exchange of dead hostages as well as dead Palestinian hostages returned to Gaza, show signs of torture. And so we'll be getting into the details there and whether any accountability is even possible to consider. And, you know, obviously for anybody who's got stuff to say, things to ask about, wants to, wants us to mention something, please pipe it in. I just saw a donation go by. Oh, my God, the feed is going by lightning fast. It's hard to keep up with sometimes.

I apologize. So, yes, EFSO, thanks for the donation. So you're telling me that Trump put BB on double secret probation. Basically, yeah, that's now an old reference, right? Animal House. Yeah, I wonder how many people get it. I love it. I would imagine, I mean, I mentioned it to my son, who's, you know, 21, and he was like, no, I never watched that. I'm going to have to, this is one of those, like, sons sit there. We're now going to watch this. Although I made him watch, my taste in classic comedies is a little in question because I forced him to watch Caddy Shack.

And, you know, objectively, that movie sucks now. Yeah, you know what? The 80s, the 80s movies like Caddyshack and what was the one where they were all in the military? Oh, Stripes? Stripes. Yeah, they're just not funny to me anymore. But you go back another decade to the 70s and those movies are hilarious. Although early 80s, like 82 trading places.

Oh, that's a fantastic movie. Fantastic movie maintained all of its humor. And before I forget, Michael Gardner, Thank you very much for the donation. It was Bubabooey. Bubba Bowie on the Howard Stern show. He used to call, call like serious news shows, news call-in shows, and say things like, I was in the military, and my military ID number was 800, you know, 555, whatever,

which was always the call-a-number for the Howard Stern show. And they would get like a dozen people to do it on a single show and just wreck the show. It was very clever. Frazmataz, I'm so glad you brought up Porky's. Porkies and the Police Academy movies. But Porkies is like, Porkies, can you imagine the pitch meeting for Porkies? We have this idea where a bunch of high school kids want to get laid and they can't. So they go to Strip Club and they get ripped off and they end up just raping the girls that they're interested in.

Oh, like, oh, that's hilarious. Let's go with that movie. It's unbelievable. Oh, my God. I mean, I know some, I mean, people. who are young now will be like, well, that was 45 years ago. And, you know, that does break my brain because I think, like, when I was 23, 45 years ago was World War II. But still, I was there in the 80s, you know, and really the 80s weren't as bad, weren't as retrograde as their

movies. The movies were really retrograde. The movies really were. And John Hughes movies are retrograde, too, right? Think about that pitch meeting. So, like, you're a poor, girl from the wrong side of the tracks but you know and and you fall in love and you're being courted by a rich kid who's kind of like boring and stupid and a really cool but poor kid and the message is you're going to work hard to look really pretty so that you can get the rich kid and you're going to score the rich kid and the poor kid's just going to have to take it yeah awesome oh that sounds like a great idea for a movie and then Craig d vance is saying bad news bears did not age well. You know what? I just rewatched the original Bad News Bears movie with Walter

Mathel the other day. It did not age well. No. And I remember that being hilarious when it was in the theaters. Well, a lot, but you're right. Seventies movies tend to age better too. I mean, like I recently rewatched both taking a Pelham one, two, three. Oh, fantastic. And the French connection. Still fucking great. Excellent. If you so mentions the Warriors, uh, That's, see, I would say that movie, it hasn't really aged well. It's a period, but it's a classic period piece, right? Yes. So that's the difference.

I don't know what makes the difference. You know, what makes something a period piece like, like, God, speaking of a movie that, like, like risky business. Think about that. I'm going to go into the, I'm going to become a pimp. Yeah. And that's going to be cool. But somehow that's a period piece. Yeah.

still works. Oh, my God. My son's bought me a coffee table book for Christmas a couple years ago called called The Stewardess is Flying the Plain, Movies of the 1970s. And that was one of the themes of one of those movies. The pilot and the co-pilot both are rendered unconscious somehow, and there's nobody to fly the plane. So the stewardess flies the plane.

And, of course, she lands it safely and everybody's fine. But, yeah, there was no decade like the 70s for movies, both camp and really great movies. I told you the other day, a couple of few weeks ago, we were talking about 70s movies. And I rewatched Soilent Green, and I've seen it a hundred times. But the one thing that always, well, what cracks me up is like everything's futuristic, right? It took place. It was supposed to take place in like 2015, the far future of 2015. And so the police cars don't have wheels.

They sort of float and they fly around and everybody's futuristic. But then every time Charlton Heston wants to make a call, he has to pull over to a phone booth. Well, speaking of Charlton Heston, Omega Man. Omega Man. Another classic. Loved it. So the first time I saw it. But I thought, like, wait, I don't do drugs.

Did I just hallucinate something? You can see, it's filmed like in Australia. I believe it's like filmed in Sydney. I could be wrong about that. But anyway, at one point, you know, it's a world where everybody's gone. The cities are at the streets. That's why he's the Omega Man, the last man. And you can see a car drive by in the distance.

I'm like, wait, did that happen? It's like in Cleopatra. Elizabeth Taylor's out in the desert with Mark Antony And there's this like 747 crossing over the sky The Romans were far more advanced Coming into Cairo, ancient Cairo airport I love stuff like that We could do, by the way, we should totally do

Okay, that's an idea We're going to do a Rumble premium about movies let's do that that sounds like an awesome idea yeah yeah cool done all right so what do we want to talk about first trinidadian corpses yeah let's talk about these corpses because this is indicative of a bigger problem it's corpses don't just like suddenly accidentally and for no reason we'll start washing up on tropical beaches um this is it's got to be one of two things it's either it's either the remnants of Donald Trump's drugboats that he's been attacking. And there are reports of innocent civilians being killed in these drug boat attacks. We don't know if they're drug boats. That's just what

the Pentagon is telling us. Or it's, you know, the results of a cartel, right? A cartel is killing people and just dumping them over. We don't know yet. What do you think they are, Ted? I do think these are people who are being, these are victims of the Trump bombings, right? That's where I mean. And I mean, so the fact, I mean, the thing is the drug dealers wouldn't have blown them up into little pieces. The bodies have burn marks and missing limbs. So to me, that says drone strike. And look, here's the part that like really I find very disturbing.

The prime minister of Trinidad, Bersad, Bissat, I hope I'm Bissaud. I don't know how you pronounce that. She's totally, you know, on Team USA. And she says, oh, we're not going to even bother to investigate this. We're not even going to have the coroner look into like what killed these people. Whatever. Outrageous. What kind of fucking government is this that they have down there?

It's, you know, if I were Trinidadian, that's worth throttes. throwing out the prime minister. If either you're working for the Trinidadian people or you're working for Donald Trump, one or the other, and they're mutually exclusive. Yeah, and she's basically like on, you know, well, I don't care if you're blowing up, you know, drug dealers. Okay, let's just say for the sake of argument that there's a drug dealers, drug runners, and you don't care about them.

Okay. That still doesn't explain why you're not having the coroner, you know, find out exactly what killed them and why. I mean, that's the job. And if you have a problem and you think that there are drug runners in your territorial waters, arrest them and put them on trial. Right, correct. That's what civilized countries do. And look, it's true that the Caribbean nations, a lot of them have serious drug problems.

So I don't blame them for taking the problem seriously or even for being kind of happy when drug runners get alleged drug runners get blown up. I don't even know if we can say they're alleged drug runners because they've never been charged with anything in a court of law, right? I mean, they're not alleged of anything. There's just, as far as we're concerned, they're just people. This reminds me very much of when the CIA used to blow up weddings in Afghanistan. Yes. If a drone saw a tall man wearing white, that was Osama bin Laden and the drones would strike. And we wiped out dozens, maybe hundreds of people that way.

It happened so often, John, that I made it a recurring joke in my cartoons about, like, Afghan wedding planning and stuff like that. I mean, it was everybody talked about it. It wasn't even like a little thing. Nicholas Francis has a, Francoz has a question for you, John, about your thoughts about the recent elections in the occupied north of Cyprus. Turkey occupies the northern third of Cyprus. Just as an aside, five elderly Cypriot men and women crossed over to the Turkish side 10 days ago to look at their old properties which were confiscated by the Turkish government. And they've been arrested. These are all people in their 70s and 80s.

They were all arrested and they've been held now for 10 days. The Greek Orthodox Church asked Marco Rubio to weigh. in and to call the Turks to ask for their release. Anyway, the only country in the world that recognizes this Turkish, this rump Turkish entity in northern Cyprus is Turkey. Of course. That's it. It's the only country in the world that recognizes it.

Nobody in the international community recognizes it. Thus, these elections were moot. They mean nothing. They were fixed. And of course, the person who won is pro-Turkish, has to be, supports Turkish. emigration, settlement, the settlement of Turks in northern Cyprus to further Turkify it, and opposes any talks with the Cypriot government. And the Turks can put whatever stooge they want up in northern Cyprus.

It's not going to make any difference one way or the other. Another question. Rob Steiner is asking, Ted, John, greetings from the UK. Seeing his D-Program is doing so well, have you both thought of taking the show abroad? It would be great to have a Q&A on stage in front of a live audience. Oh, my gosh. What a fun idea. Hey, Rob, if you or anyone else knows or this is not just an offer for the UK.

I think I speak for both of us in saying we would totally do that. Obviously, you know, we would have to have our expenses covered and stuff like that. But yeah, we would do that. Yeah, I would. I would. Why not? We like to travel, you know. I mean, also, I would do a live audience here in the United States.

too. Live audience is fun. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I like that. Ray C-2020 says, yeah, he watched your 9-11 Tucker Carlson episode. He kept from pronouncing your last name wrong. Yeah, like Kiri-ku. Kiri-Koo. Tucker and I have been friends for, I don't know, eight or nine years, and he's never, ever said my name correctly.

And I correct him all the time, and he just can't, like, process it, which is funny to me because it sounds just the way it's spelled. It's spelled just the way it sounds. I would totally take this on the road state side. No question there, Houdini. And F Usoe, thanks for the donation, John should write a semi-fictional movie about a spy who was framed and has to survive prison. Cool Hand, Kyriaku. Well, I don't think I'm speaking too much out of school and saying that John and I have been in the very earliest stages of thinking about writing a book together, which would be a spy novel. I think it'd be fun.

Yeah, we've got a plot. We've got beginnings of an outline, but we're both crazy busy, so we're trying to find the time to work on it. When things calm down a little bit later in the year, I think we're going to get to that. Well, you and I were talking about this, about things calming down. I'm almost at the point where I can start quitting things. I can start quitting things that aren't as important or aren't working. No.

And I've got a business manager now who tells me quite literally every single day, stop doing podcasts, not our podcast, other people's podcasts. Because I have a hard time saying no to anybody. And I mean, I've talked to podcasts where there were 10 people on or 12. people oh and he's like you got you got to stop so i'm like you have a hard time saying no to that too yeah i do you know part of the reason ted is people have been so kind to me over the years that i want to pay back the kindness or paid forward or whatever the saying is and so i just i just say yes and i do it and they told me the other day my my business manager and my attorney

told me just as a policy you should not do any podcast that has fewer than a million subscribers. Oh, wow. And I said, okay, maybe I'll do that. Well, that's, that's a, I mean, that's sort of like this rule I have about entering journalism contests. I always argue with Scott Stantis about this. And I said, you should never apply for a prize that is less famous than you are. Yes. Yes. I mean, the whole point of the prize is to elevate yourself, not to elevate them. You're absolutely right. You know, but. You know, I've been on the board of organizations where they'll just make up some award or some prize and then seek to give it to somebody rich or famous or important, hoping that they'll then, you know, bring a bunch of people and buy a table and raise money that way. I don't like it at all.

Some people are saying, please keep doing the podcasts, but I'm with your business manager. time is limited people energy is limited you know i mean and like part of creativity and what we do is involves creativity you know a lot of the stories that you that people like us to talk about they come from us living our lives and we have to draw on on that in order to do commentary and people have they need downtime i think americans really undervalue downtime and other time and just random weird shit time Yeah. Uniquely so. You're absolutely right. No one else. I've never meant to any other country. That's quite as extreme in that respect. So, all right. So, I mean, we'll continue to. I mean, I guess Congress is, oh, by the way, another thing related to Trinidad before we move on.

Yesterday, Trump confirmed that he has no intention whatsoever of consulting with Congress or anyone from Congress concerning these boat attacks against Colombian nationals, Venezuelan nationals, apparently perhaps Trinidadian nationals, and who knows was probably a Colombian who was blown up in the eastern Pacific. I mean, and I guess Congress is just going to, they're okay with that. Yeah, they're okay. Never in my 61 years have I ever seen a Congress so willing to proactively seed their authority. Me neither. I've never seen it.

And I mean, and people might think, well, it's a Republican Congress. It's a Republican president. That's normal. That's not really true. You know, even within the same party, Congress has tends to, or historically, jealously protected its prerogatives. Yes. Yes.

And that's just not the case anymore. And it's increasingly not the case among the judiciary. Yes. That's also very, very surprising. Yeah, yeah. All right. Rob Stater, I want to say real quickly, thank you for your kind comments. He saw me earlier in the year, he said, and until Meta screwed up my speaking tour.

We are reconstituting that speaking tour. We're going to start in Las Vegas in December. Oh, good. Yeah, I'm excited about it because we're looking at doing maybe two weeks in Las Vegas. And then we'll take a break through Christmas and New Year. in January, go up to Seattle and start the new year from there. So, thanks for that. Thanks for that.

I like visiting Seattle a lot. I like Seattle very much. It's really a general. I'm due for book tour, Northwest Book Tour. It's been a while since I did one of those. They're always very well attended, and the people who show up always have, you know, good questions. It's fun to do it to go up there.

Okay. Hey, shall we talk about Israel? Yeah, let's talk about Israel. Boy, they're in deep shit. Disconnect, big time right now between Israel and the United States. This Knesset vote, this was a slap in the face, not just because it took place at all, but especially because it took place while both Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance were in the country.

It was done deliberately. So, I don't know, 25 to 24 is way closer than I thought it would. be, but literally nobody on earth is going to respect or recognize an Israeli absorption of the East Bank, the annexation of the East Bank, the West Bank, the West Bank. Yeah. No, there, I mean, no, nobody's going to. I mean, look, here's the thing. Everybody kind of knows that probably the main, the big Knesset, the actual Knesset,

wouldn't pass that. But it's, it's fucking insulting to, you know, America as during a. state visit, and, you know, by the vice presidents of the United States and the Secretary of State after, you know, really, let's face it, the U.S. really went to the mat for Israel for years and years, but especially over the last two years, especially this administration. And basically it's just like a big, it's so fucking rude. It's such a fuck you. That's the word. And so rude. It's fucking rude. And so there's this, the Israeli press is full. of this quote, which I'm not going to get quite right, but it's not that far off from a top-ranking

White House official who said on the record, albeit anonymously, if Netanyahu fucks Trump one more time, Trump will fuck him. And asked what he meant by that, he said, you know, Israel is in danger of losing its relationship with the U.S. entirely. One more, basically, They're on double secret probation. That's got to be it. We said yesterday that the Arabs always said that George H.W. Bush was the last president to give them a fair shake. Donald Trump has risked his legacy, his presidential legacy, by working on behalf of the Israelis. For example, by bombing Iran.

When every other predecessor refused to do it, Donald Trump went and did it. and then still they screw him. Okay, well, John, we have to handicap the next question. Okay, so I do believe this report. Everything that, you know, it feels right, it passes the smell test. You know, it just, it seems right. It fits in with everything we know about Donald Trump and his personality. And frankly, I mean, it's what anybody would do, right?

Okay. Will the Israelis press the issue? you will they keep will they do something else will they call will they back off and calm the fuck down and and and not break this relationship or like a nagging shrew of an evil wife will they just have to go for one more fucking push if it was up to net njahoo alone i would say his inclination would be to push but he's smart enough to back off. Agreed.

But it's not up to Netanyahu alone. He's got to worry about Idemar bin Gavir or Bezalos Motritch. I mean, the pressure from the extreme right in Israel, the pressure against Netanyahu is sometimes unbearable. And he has to do what they say. And he's been anticipating that maybe there's going to be a rupture with the U.S., which is why about a month ago he gave that ridiculous speech that tanked the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange

saying that Israel should be prepared to go it alone with an autarky economic system because of all the vast natural resources that Israel has. Right, exactly, exactly. And don't worry, they can run their entire economy in perpetuity on the handful of software companies that they have. For sure. Yeah, you know, it's going to be a ways-based economy.

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Or that Seltzer company that they have, Soda Stream. You know, this kind of surprises me, too, Ted, because Nanyahu has always had the reputation of being a survivor, right? Everybody says his worldview was set in stone when his brother was killed during the Antebi operation against Idi Amin in Uganda. and, you know, he's been a fighter ever since. He joined the Likud Party early on.

He was ambassador to the U.S. He was ambassador to the United Nations. He returned to Israel and has had every cabinet position. He's the longest serving prime minister in history because he gets it. And he knows when to back off. But I'm just not sure that's true anymore. I don't think that's true anymore. I think he's gotten too old.

And I think maybe his play is that, you know, really his biggest threat is from the right and also from the elite, the Israeli courts. Yeah. And I think he realizes that he's now in a position where he's going to have to blow it up. I think he is going to blow it up or they're going to blow it up more accurately. And then Trump is going to be in this position where he has to decide whether he wants to make good on his threat.

You know how Trump is. He bloviates. He threatens. But then sometimes he changes his mind over and over and over. I think they're going to push it. I think you probably agree with me. And then will Trump follow through A and will it last be? I think he'll follow through, yeah, but I don't think it'll last.

No, it won't last. It won't last because the Democrats are completely in the pocket of APEC. And so politics are cyclical here just like they are everywhere else. A Democrat's eventually going to be president again, maybe in three years. And APEC is going to celebrate. and then the U.S. Israel relationship goes right back to where it was. Despite the torture, a quick comment from Angela Falal-l-l-L-la. Damn, I had delusions.

You guys would come speak in Vermont at a bookstore someday. I guess you guys are kind of too big for that. No, you know what? I would do it. I would do it. My sister lives in Bedford, New Hampshire, and we always drive over to Vermont, just because I love doing stuff in Vermont. It's a nice state.

I would do that. Sure. I love Vermont. I've been up there. and I like it, and I would, I would totally drive up there. No problem. I think I've mentioned to you, my brother insulted me several years ago when he said that he never knew anybody who would work as hard for $20 as I would.

And this is one of those examples. If a bookstore called me and said, hey, would you and Ted come over and, you know, do a two-hour thing, we can buy a cup of coffee. I'd say, yeah, sure, I'll take a cup of coffee. Yeah. No. And then everybody around me would yell at me, but sure, why not? I'd take the couple of them.

I'm kind of like that too. And, you know, I really, and look, why do we do this, right? It's to talk to people. So talking to people in person is great. Like, why not, right? Yeah. Totally here. Goddna says the Israelis are behind that

Yahoo at least 50% still, right? I'm not sure that's true. Well, I don't know. But it changes quickly. It changes quickly is the thing. You know, it changes quickly. But the bottom line is that the point of equilibrium is that the U.S. is on the side of Israel. So it's, I don't know.

I don't want to get my hopes up too high. I should say, too, Houdini says, would you guys be interested in doing a Middle East tour? My speaking bureau guys looked very closely at a Middle East tour, and they decided that I could do it. it in uh i could do it and make money in bahrain abudabi and doha and that was probably it well that wouldn't be bad no it wouldn't be bad i would i would totally i would totally do that yeah you know asia was even tougher they calculated that the only place i could make money places i could make money were singapore and hong kong i think that was it

You're only allowed to make money in very, very small countries. Maybe we can do Liechtenstein and Monaco. I've done Luxembourg. There you go. I spoke at the Luxembourg Film Festival. And even that, that was one of those situations where I did it only because I had never been to Luxembourg and they were paying all my expenses. But wait, when you say that, like, you can make money in those places, you know, in other

words, you'd get enough of an audience or... Yeah, the minimum that they would sign me up for is a selling. out of a 600-seat venue. Yeah, that's the bottom line. It has to be that or better. I mean, yeah, I wanted to tour my most recent book, so, you know, this would be an opportunity. Hey, guys, seriously, get in touch.

The email address is deprogrammed podcast at gmail.com. That's also our PayPal, if you want to donate through that. And, you know, if you have a serious proposal, I mean, obviously. the ideal for us is you cover our flights hotels you know and honorarium is kind of like hate to ask but kind of got to have that it sort of depends where it is too right like if something's in the Washington or the New York metro areas that's pretty easy to do but you know if something's in like rural you know northern you know Nevada or something we got to have a little you know a little a little compensation here.

Like, I still can't believe you were in the land of the tarantula's not getting paid like five figures a day. No, but you know what, though? I got paid during the night in the middle of the night. I was like, oh, thank God I got paid. Now I can afford to go to the dentist.

Good times. Yeah, along with people who are into BDSM, the dentist, the place where you pay to get pain and you're happy about it. Although I love my dentist, and I know he watches the show in all seriousness, so I apologize. He's fantastic.

He's from Alberta. Anyway, so I apologize, Dr. Moncrief. Anyway, so let's move on here. Well, so, yeah, so, so it's really, but I do think, do you think we're ever going to get to a point where Israel and the U.S. simply just go their separate ways, or is it just a toxic, relationship that's just going to keep going for it yeah it's the latter it's the latter and for the most part it's because we have so many pro-Israel voters in the united states and apak is so well funded they will primary anybody if you even think of not towing the israeli line so i i don't

I don't think anything is going to change. Not unless the Arabs or Arab Americans or more broadly, Muslim Americans somehow find themselves with equal funding. No. There's another thing, too. There was a debate in Michigan, not before the most recent election, but before the one before that, where imams were debating whether or not the Quran allows Muslims to be politically active. Most Muslims believe that it does, but there's a pretty sizable contingent,

like a quarter that say that the Quran says that they should not be politically active, that they should not vote, they should just stay home. Okay, well, that's how you get screwed by not exerting influence in the electoral system. So I don't think there's any chance of the Arab lobby or the Muslim lobby catching up. to what APEC's able to do. Plus, APEC's been around for 70 years. Despite even what is just I'm about to tell you. So over the past 11 days, this is from BBC,

195 bodies have been returned to Gaza by Israeli authorities under the terms of the ceasefire deal. Two other bodies, those of Tanzanian and Thai Nash hostages, have also been returned. So photographs released by the medical authorities in Gaza show the bodies badly decomposed and arriving in civilian clothes or naked except for underwear because we know that many of them were arrested and stripped down to their underwear and then hauled off, which to me indicates that probably they were killed shortly afterwards, right? Some with multiple signs of injury. Many have their wrists tied behind their backs. The bodies.

The Israelis didn't even bother to cut the ties off before they returned the bodies. And doctors say some bodies arrived blindfolded or with cloth roped around their necks. The forensic team at Nasser Hospital are working with almost no resources to try to answer these questions about torture, misidentification, and identity. The bodies arrive in Gaza thoroughly frozen and can take several days to thaw out, ruling out even basic ID methods like, dental history. And the problem is the Israelis have given false information about the identifications of the corpses. Dr. Allah al-Aastal said that some of the bodies arrived showing signs of torture, such as bruises and marks from binding on wrists and ankles. These were extremely horrific cases where the restraint was so tight that blood circulation to the hands was cut off, leading to tissue

damage and clear signs of pressure around the wrists and ankles. Even around the eyes where the blindfolds were removed, you could see deep grooves. Imagine how much force that took. The pressure left actual marks where the blindfold had been tied. He also mentioned the Luke's claws tied around the necks of some bodies as requiring investigation. In one case, there was a groove around the neck to determine whether the death was due to hanging or strangulation. We needed to perform a post-mortem, but because the body was frozen, it couldn't be dissected. So a lot of the bodies show deep indentation marks, bruising, abrasions. The abrasions would confirm that the ties were used while the person was still alive.

So the Israelis were asked about this. They said, no, no, no, we're awesome. We don't do that kind of thing ever. I mean, the body's arriving to me in underwear is maybe the most chilling detail because also the men being swept off the streets of Gaza early on in the war and carried off in trucks in their underwear. So to me it means they were immediately taken and killed. I tell people all the time to, to why.

watch the show Fowda on Netflix. It is the most true-to-life show about Israel that I've ever seen. It's written by two former members of the IDF along with a Palestinian guy, and it really, truly shows both sides of the story. you know just as you start feeling sympathy for the Israelis they'll do something in this show that makes you jump to the side of the Palestinians then the Palestinians will do something and you're like ah that's not that's not right and you jump to the side of the Israelis at the end you both love and hate both sides that's how perfectly written it is wonderful show

that's cool I mean that well that's sort of like how I mean that's good writing like like in HBO shows like the Sopranos or like in weeds or any of those classic shows, you know, you start to you know feel, you put a character into the good or the bad box and then something flips to like make you put them into a different box and you keep

doing that. To expose the complexity of the human experience, it's so cool. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm still sort of reeling about the torture thing. This is bad. This is bad. And like, nothing will come of it.

No. No, I was going to say also, if, you know, of course, I think it's highly notable that the Israelis now have their 20 hostages back, right? We have heard absolutely nothing about how poorly they were treated, right? Now, granted, they've had a horrible experience. No one should be kidnapped. No one should be taken hostage. It's illegal. It's a crime.

It's a war crime. They shouldn't have done that. Except I make exception for the fact that a lot of these. were IDF troops too, right? I mean, like the New York Times of all places reported, like he was kidnapped out of his tank. I'm like, okay, he was a soldier. Okay, he wasn't kidnapped.

He was captured as a prisoner of war, okay? But, okay, but that's different. But, you know, the point is that these, in many cases, these released hostages came out. They looked pretty well fed, certainly compared to the Gossons. By most accounts, they were treated, better in terms of being able to be fed, they received hospitality, you know, with whatever was

available given the circumstances. I have to think that the Israelis would have played it up big time if it was anything different. That's right. Absolutely right. I told you once before, too, that a Greek journalist friend of mine went to Gaza with an Israeli handler, of course, on the 8th of October two years ago. And he said the first thing he saw was this line of cars on the road going to Gaza. And they all had holes in the roofs of the cars made by 50 caliber automatic weapon, fired from a helicopter, clearly. And all of the cars had dead Israeli bodies in them. Well, the Palestinians don't have 50 caliber weapons, nor do they have helicopters.

True. A lot of those Israelis, that first day, were killed by Israel. Yeah, they were. Yeah, and the Israelis don't want to talk about that. Well, speaking of things that we don't like to talk about is the very close, nearly incestuous relationship between Silicon Valley and the federal government. We like to think, I don't know why the press is reporting this. like it's a, you know, a one-party problem or issue. It isn't at all.

I mean, basically, tech bros, tech billionaires, they will suck up to any regime that's in power, whether it's communist, fascist, or anything in between. And so basically, Trump was planning to go in heavy into San Francisco with federal troops. That was going to, the surge, as they called it, was going to happen on Saturday. And basically, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Benioff and all these other dudes got on the phone, called the White House and said, please don't do this. You know, we've got everything under control. I can't imagine what else they really said. They must have said, you know, look, it'll be bad for business if people think that.

San Francisco is under siege. It'll reflect poorly on Silicon Valley and we're the fastest growing sector of the economy and you don't want anything to happen to us. I imagine that's the argument that they made. And the president said, okay, all right, it seems like they'll take care of it. They'll, they're going to take care of the problems, you know, whatever those problems allegedly are, you know, ramp into legal immigration. I mean, San Francisco, parts of it really are Yeah, they're horrible, horrible. But I don't think these guys were going to go there to take care of that. No.

No, I have to agree. Well, of course, you're going to need those troops for the hellscape that is Portland, Oregon. Not John's word. Donald Trump's word. Portland is a hellscape. Now, listen, the problem in San Francisco is one of petty crime and homelessness. It's the same as any other big city. Donald Trump just hates California and hates San Francisco and wants to inflict some pain.

That's the bottom line here. But it's no different than any other big city. I mean, yeah, he's not going into any Republican cities, right? I mean, I've never seen such a brazenly partisan president in my life. I mean, they're all partisan. But I've never seen someone who's like, yeah, we're going to raise real estate taxes for people who live in states that are Democrat, that are Democratic. Yeah, we're going to invade cities that are Democrat. Yeah, during a shutdown, we're going to target agencies and that Democrats seem

to care about more than we do. You know, fuck the EPA, fuck USAID, fuck NPR. I know they're not a government agency, but fuck their funding. You know, we're going to go after those guys. Somehow the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a Democratic front operation. I don't know. how that works. And they came out with numbers today, too. Did you see that? They did. And yeah, we should talk about the state of the economy. So inflation is a little bit below three percent adjusted annually, which was lower than what was anticipated. So I think we're going to see a little bit of a market bump. However, the market might also have baked that in because what that means is, well, maybe, I mean, it might mean another Fed cut, rate cut is in the world.

works, like an eighth of a point drop, like, in the next few months, right? Agreed. So that means the economy is cooling off. I mean, everyone's always hoping for the soft landing. And Trump might be lucky enough to have the devil's luck and be able to achieve it. Well, part of the reason, I think, that inflation is down is because there are two million government employees that aren't getting paid and they can't spend any money. There was a piece in the post a couple of days ago just saying,

Washington's restaurants are on the brink of bankruptcy right now. The only restaurants that are making any money at all are fast food. Yeah, peripheral, right, people don't talk about the peripheral economic effects in a situation like this, right? So, you know, but government workers who either live in the district or in Virginia or Maryland, come into Washington, D.C., and, you know, what do they do? They get a, they get a, they get a latte on their way to work. Exactly. They might stop and they might drop their laundry, their dry cleaning off. And, you know, with a view of territory, picking it up later, they eat lunch out.

They might go for drinks after. They might be like, oh, you know, hey, that's a cool store. I'm going to pop in and buy a sweater here. All that stuff. Child care. They drop off their, they drop off their kid. Now they're like home with their kid all day. They don't need child care.

I went to see a friend of mine last night for dinner. He was my boss in Bahrain 30 plus years ago, and he just moved into an assisted living facility, and I went to have dinner with him. I flew there. It's in a town called Burke, Virginia, which is a suburb, and traffic is usually a frigging lot. And I just flew right down the highway. No problem. I was there in 30 minutes.

It was ridiculous. But it's because the shutdown. There's no traffic because nobody's going to work. And with nobody at work, there's nobody going home from work. So it's noticeable. And gas, gas prices here have fallen. Just the place closest to my house, 277 a gallon. I honestly cannot recall the last time it was 277 a gallon here.

And if it's 277 here, 20 miles south of Washington on Interstate 95, it's 250. And do you think that's a reason, I mean, do you think that gas change, gas price change, is a regional variation because of local, reduced local demand? I mean, does it work that way? Usually no, but in a place like Washington with this many people not being paid for this long a period of time, I think so. People just don't need to fill up. Houdini, always with the funny remarks, the fat National Guardsman should be keeping the restaurants in. business. That's right. They are some chubby folks. I never get over, John, watching, like, you know, yesterday I was driving out in the hinterlands outside of New York City. And, you know,

there was some cop had stopped, pulled someone over for local traffic stop. I don't know what they did. And they're all covered with Kevlar and, like, you know, bulletproof vests. Yeah, like G.I. Joe. They look like G.I. Joe, these guys. First of all, I mean, it's got to be uncomfortable. And it's got to make, I know myself, if I were a police officer and I have to wear the, I mean, I run hot. If it's over 60 degrees, I'm sweating and uncomfortable, I would be grouchy, right? It would put me in like a, I would just be miserable all fucking day. It would remind me of like when I worked at Friendlies as a dishwasher when I was 15 years old. Yeah.

And to wear a polyester shirt that didn't breathe and it was like sweating like a pig. And I just hated my life the entire time I was there. I mean, it can't be. good for the state of mind of the cops. But it's also sort of like, why do they need, I mean, really? Are they going to be pulled over in like Westchester County? Are they going to be blown away like some, they pull over some white guy for like speed for like driving, you know, eight over the speed limit?

Is he going to pop them? I don't think so. Right. I don't think so. I agree with you. I don't get it. I really don't get this whole like militarized local police thing. No.

I've written about this a couple of times. And to me, the most egregious example is Ohio State University's campus police. Does Ohio State University really need a tank? Because they take on Michigan football sometimes. Exactly. Exactly. That's probably the only thing they could use it for. But they actually took delivery of a tank.

And then there was such an uproar led by the student newspaper that they gave it back. to the Pentagon. That's, by the way, a very good student newspaper, right? Because OSU has something like 70,000 students. Yes, sir. And so it's the size of a city. Yes. And I mean, a good size city. And it's got like, you know, and I remember, I thought about going to Ohio State when I applied for college. I mean, I was from Dayton. So the idea of going to the exciting metropolis of Columbus wasn't that thrilling to me. But the newspaper was tempting. I was thinking, thinking, you know, I could be on staff as a cartoonist there, maybe, unless they hired someone else instead. And that thought did, it did occur to me. The tank thing is hilarious. You know,

you know who else had a tank? The city, sorry, the town of South Hampton, New York, the delivery of a tank. I mean, I think they were deeply concerned that Alec Baldwin might show up and get spicy with Hilaria and the brood of 75 adopted children or whatever the fuck. they have. Oh, my God. Southampton. Like, what's the threat from? Seagulls? I mean, it's like, it's a beach community for the rich and famous.

What? Wow. We've got a good question from Tabby J44, and thank you for the donation. John, if you could take a guess what type of tech is DARPA developing now? It's my understanding. And I'm not going any farther. further than that. It's my understanding that they are actively working on a long life

battery that can be used to power robots that would replace soldiers on the battlefield. They already have those black mirror robot dogs that scare the hell out of me. Yeah, the Boston robotics or whatever that company is. Now they're working on, you know, full-sized robots that can carry guns and throw grenades. and all that stuff. And they're balanced by geoscopes. It's really cool. But they have to control them using toggles

that are physically connected to the robot. And they haven't yet developed a long-life battery. So that's what they're working on. You know, another, this is actually old news, right? But like Bright-Patterson Air Force Base north of Dayton has something called the aviary, right, for micro-drone technology. Oh, the little dragonfly drones?

And mosquitoes. So, like, literally, the victim is walking down the street. They feel a little pinpoint prick like a bug. And then that's it. They're gone. I think this shit should all be illegal. I think by international treaty. I think that the U.S., which has a big, because we have the leading edge on this technology,

we're in the best position to call a treaty and negotiate its terms and say, listen, we can all do this and we can get into this big arms race, but it's going to be a dystopian future. We're all going to be trying to outspend each other. We're going to be spending money on this crap instead of on people's needs. Let's all get together and do like what most of the world did with landmines and just get rid of them or chemical and biological weapons. I mean, I know rules of work.

war are kind of a silly idea in a way because it's war, war is a breakdown of all civilized behavior. But there should be some rules. Yeah, there really should be. Rules that that we respect, unlike, you know, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court that we just pretend doesn't exist and then threaten sanctions against them when they do things we don't like. And thank you, thank you, Joshua, for your kind donation. Casmetaz says, yes, this is all, this is correct, although battery and capacitor is not the right idea. Maybe bioreactors that feed on plant mass or animal flesh, biochemical reaction, yes, worse than Black Mirror. Probably is.

Yeah, probably is. Scary, man. Totally, totally. Well, let's see. We have just a few minutes left here. Oh, Robbie says that he has a, they have a tank out there in Calispell, Montana. Having just been to the mean streets of Calispell, I mean, it's true that there were times, if you close my eyes, it could have been like being in Afghanistan in 2001, almost exactly the same. But, no, that's where Glacier National Park is.

It's really beautiful. Probably your biggest danger is being eaten by a bear or a wolf. That's a problem. Might need the tank for that. Anyway, any last second questions here? Yeah, Vicky and Gris says, Vic and Gris says we need those rules. I like that question. How could they not destroy landmines with satellite and laser technology?

That's a good question. Yeah, that's a good question. Instead of sniffing dogs and stuff. You are welcome, Gregory. Thank you for the awesome stream. We are happy to do that. And, guys, we are here Monday through Friday. Yeah, and we are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time for D-Program with Ted Roll and John

Kiriaki. We'll be back Monday at 9 a.m. Just a heads up for people who like to plan their entire week around our little show. We are going to take Wednesday off, Wednesday, October 29th, but just Wednesday. So next week is a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Friday. Friday kind of week. Producer Robbie maybe can put together a rerun reel for people to want to check some of the older shows that you may have missed or just to watch them again. I'm a big rerun person. I watch a lot of stuff again. I do too. So anyway, please like, follow and share

the show. As always, we really appreciate your donations. Please stay tuned to the TMI show with me, Ted Raul and Manila Chan. We are coming right up after this. That's going to be, the Rumblers will be transferred automatically over there. For YouTubers, you can just go over there on your own. John, always a pleasure. Have a fantastic weekend. You too, Ted.

Enjoy the weekend. And thanks, everybody. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.