DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Ukraine, Now 22% Off!”

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

Same gold chair, different tone—Zelensky is better dressed and gets a friendly reception at the White House and JD Vance remains silent. Zelensky and Trump express hope that today’s talks with Ukrainian and European leaders at the White House could lead to trilateral talks with Vladimir Putin to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. On the “DeProgram show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou,” we bring you up to date on the latest developments and what they really mean. • Russo-Ukrainian War: Trump tells Ukraine to give up on Crimea, but says Putin has agreed to NATO-like security guarantees from the US and Europe for Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Is Russia saving face? Trump says no to ceasefire—he wants a full deal. What would one look like? Meanwhile, Russian strikes Sumy, injuring 74. • Democrats Return to Texas: Rep. Yassamin Ansari and young Democrats push for a 2026 Texas flip. Republicans and Democrats are now fighting to redraw the maps mid-decade, either to help or block Trump's agenda. California, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Maryland are among the Democrat-led states prepared to launch countermeasures to the Texas plan. • Trump Targets Voting Systems: Trump threatens to ban voting machines and mail-in ballots, citing fraud, alarms election officials. Critics warn of suppressed turnout, especially among minorities. His push for paper ballots faces logistical and legal hurdles as 2026 nears. • Newsmax’s $67M Settlement: Newsmax settles a $67M defamation suit over 2020 election falsehoods, signaling media accountability. The payout follows Dominion’s legal wins, but Newsmax’s financial stability remains under scrutiny. • MSNBC’s Name Change: MSNBC rebrands to MS Now to counter declining viewership and compete with streaming platforms. Insiders suggest a shift toward centrism to appeal to younger audiences. The potential name change sparks debate over its progressive legacy. • Paris Braces for Extreme Heat: Paris prepares for 122-degree heatwaves, prompting water rationing and cooling centers. Climate models warn of worsening urban heat islands throughout Europe. Infrastructure upgrades lag, raising fears of widespread disruption. • Iran’s Mass Arrests: Iran detains over 20,000 for alleged espionage for Israel. Human rights groups slam the arrests as a pretext for political purges. • Israel Isolated: Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City draws global condemnation, with Netanyahu vowing to “finish Hamas” even after Hamas agrees to a 60-day ceasefire and hostage release. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has denied intervening to ensure the release of Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior Israeli cyber security official who was arrested earlier this month in Nevada as part of an undercover law enforcement operation targeting “child sex predators”.

Hi, thanks for joining as you're watching Deep Program. We're here Monday through Friday every day starting today. I'm Ted Raul, editorial cartoonist. John Kariaku, CIA Whistleblower, is here with me as well. We had a good fun weekend hanging out together. Thanks, everyone for joining. Please like, follow, and share the show. We are really appreciative of your support, and we still need more of it.

If you haven't done so already, please consider migrating over to Rumble, where we really do make a lot more money. A lot of people are watching us both. You know, just keep one screen open and watch the other one. And you'd be amazed at how much good that does us. We need those watch hours over on Rumble. It's going to make this viable for us. All right.

So what's on the agenda, among other things? We'll be answering your questions as always. We have the, of course, obviously the latest from Ukraine. A lot to talk about there. Democrats are back in Texas. Trump, I don't know, he's trying to eliminate all the ways that we know how to vote. He doesn't like Maryland ballots and he doesn't like voting machines. I guess pigeons are next.

Newsmax has to shell out $67 million to Dominion, meaning that if you get defamed, but you have deep corporate pockets, you can probably prevail in court. MSNBC is changing their name. Paris is getting ready for 50 degrees Celsius days in the near future because of climate change in Europe. We'll talk about what that means. has arrested or detained over 20,000 people suspected

of possibly spying for Israel. We'll get into that. That seems like a lot of spies, but John spying is your thing. Yeah. Israel is increasingly isolated. A parent, an accused pedophile. It has just been allowed to flee

to Israel. This is the second this has happened before and I guess it will happen again, but people are paying more attention than they usually do. And Israel's plan to take over Gaza City couldn't be worse timed because Hamasic's just agreed to a 60-day ceasefire just minutes ago and to release all of the hostages. So what should we do first? Oh, my God. Well, first I want to say, what a good time I had hanging out with Ted and those close to him over the weekend.

We had a nice lunch. I went to this hacker conference and gave a short talk there. But when I got back home, Ted, by Amtrak yesterday afternoon, as soon as I stepped outside of Washington's Union Station, I'm greeted by two enormous armored personnel carriers pointed at the train station along with an armored Humvee with a 50 caliber machine gun mounted on it. Why?

What is the purpose of having armored personnel carriers and mounted 50 caliber guns? The purpose is to kill people. Okay? I mean, otherwise, what do you need those kinds of things for? They're to kill people. To make matters even worse. And I actually couldn't hold my tongue. I had to shout some epithets. There were people, and I'm going to say pointedly, of all races, there were people taking pictures and posing with the National Guardsman. It enraged me. But it's not just at Union Station, Ted. It's all the way up and down 14th Street.

It's on the U Street corridor. It's in Georgetown, in the center of Georgetown, in front of the two-story Barnes & Noble. This is not where we have crime in Washington, D.C. No, it's in South East. We have crime in Southeast and in Upper Northwest Washington. And even Southeast, southeast east of the Anacostia River.

There are very specific areas that are of Washington. They're dangerous. And these National Guardsmen at all are not in those areas. John, the visual that you gave me just now of the people taking selfies with basically this fascist light kind of thing. You know, it reminds me of the clash lyric. If Hitler came to the airport, they still send it today, they still send a limousine anyway. I mean, you know, it's like people are just, you know, resistance doesn't come naturally, especially not to the American people. Ted, I was watching, I'm sorry to interrupt.

I was watching a documentary yesterday on Albert Anastasia, former crime boss who was nicknamed the Lord High Executioner for all the people that he killed. And he was finally put away by then district attorney Dewey, who then became the governor of New York, Thomas Dewey, and then he ran for president against both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, nearly beating Harry Truman. You remember Truman holding up. up the Chicago Tribune saying Dewey beats Truman, Dewey defeats Truman. Well, the conclusion that they came that they came to about that 1948 election was only because, was only that Dewey lost because

he had a short, cropped mustache. And it reminded people of Adolf Hitler because people, Americans were so anti-fascist, so anti-fascist that they wouldn't even vote for a guy who had a mustache. That's so, yeah, well, changed. We changed. We, we had. We, we had. have changed. And poor Thomas Dewey, well, I mean, he does have the New York State Thruway named after him today. He does. It's not the worst thing in the world. And you know what? He was asked by Richard Nixon. I didn't know this until yesterday. He was asked by Richard Nixon in 1969 if he would become the chief justice of the Supreme Court. And he turned it down. How come? He said that he just wasn't really interested. He was 67 at the time.

And he had had a good life. And he was calling it a career. you imagine in this day and age he's a child um yeah that's uh that that is that is super cool just want to thank uh over on rumble thank you for two toa for becoming a monthly supporter and watching us both on rumble and youtube so we we appreciate you thank you for that and yeah i mean obviously like the 50 cal is uh as david wagner says is not much of a crime deterrent right that's not what this is about yeah this is about normalizing the military of American city streets. I mean, I've said it before.

I'm going to say it again, but that's what this is. It's about making the abnormal, normal, something that people are used to in other countries, but not here. That's exactly right. All right, so what should we talk about first? Should we get into Ukraine? Yeah, let's talk about Ukraine. All of Washington's on edge today.

Even the bridges into and out of town were closed today. just because so many important leaders are in town for this meeting that's taking place right now as we speak, a meeting between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, the head of NATO, the head of the EU, the Chancellor of Germany, the Prime Minister of the UK, Prime Minister of Italy, the President of France, and the President of Finland. They're all here in Washington. They all seem to be very politely pushing back on Donald Trump. Trump has shifted his position, of course, which we would all expect him to do.

He's shifted his position on whether or not a ceasefire is a prerequisite for actually coming to an agreement. It was until it wasn't, and now it's not. But he still maintains that he believes we're going to have at least the outline of a deal by Friday, whether the Ukrainians like it or not. But here's the key. And this is where it's especially confusing. Whitkoff said today, Whitkoff, the Special Envoy, said today, said this afternoon that the Russians had agreed to allow Ukraine to become what we call for other countries a major non-NATO ally. So it would have the same status as Japan, as South Korea, as Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, and Kuwait.

They're not members of NATO, but they get the same benefits as if they were members. members of NATO. The Russian foreign ministry came out immediately and said, that is absolutely untrue. We never agreed to major non-NATO status for Ukraine. But then the Kremlin came out and said, now, wait a minute, we haven't taken a position yet on major non-NATO status for Ukraine. So even the Russians appear to be a little bit uncertain as to what exactly their position happens to be. Which reminds us that Russia is not as much of an autocracy as the American media might like to tell us. Ted, I had to shut off. Oh, my God. I had to shut off MSNBC. I just couldn't do it anymore. It's as it's like it's like a neo-fascist network. It's incredible. They want war so

badly and they want a coup so badly in Russia that they just can't contain themselves. Then I switched it to CNN. They're almost as bad, but I think they hide it a little bit better. So then I had to switch to Fox, which much to my surprise is like, well, you know, let's wait and see how things play out. A little more reasonable. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Wacky world for sure. You know, but John, the New York Times reported today that the Kremlin had offered to allow, you know, Article 5 like protections. to Ukraine under U.S. and European protection a year ago. I'm like, John, did I miss that?

Did I sleep late one morning and just not kick the Times that morning? Or did that happen? Or you know what I mean? Like, what's going on? Did that happen? I don't remember it. I don't remember it either, to tell you the truth. I'm not sure what the heck is going on.

I mean, you know, at the New York Times, they have a lot of 28-year-olds writing for that these days. That's true. That's true. And, you know, we're in this weird period where it's as though you can't take anybody seriously. You don't know who's taking what position or they take a position and they deny having taken it or their position changes. I don't know. You look at the Washington Post today.

You remember what a big deal it was, Ted, when when Jeff Bezos said that we're not going to write opeds or editorials anymore on ABC and D. issues because everybody has a position so we don't care anymore. Well, now the editorial page is completely right wing. All of it. Yeah. Completely totally right wing. It's like looking at the New York Post. And, well, and insanely corporatist. A day or two ago, the Washington Post editorial board weighed in on driverless cars in Boston. What? And said, yeah, and said that it's, and basically made fun of Bostonians who said, who were against it, saying that, there are a bunch of Luddites and it's time to get with it and dismissing the concerns that they basically had the gall in the editorial to say, well, they've already proven themselves

in Tucson, so Boston shouldn't be a problem. I don't know if Jeff Bezos has ever been to Boston, but I would say those two cities don't look anything alike. Nothing at all. I mean, Boston is an organic, old city with twisty, tiny little narrow streets and lots of double parking and extremely aggressive driving. you know that the term masshole comes from there you know it's like i always tell people like in new york people are bluffing and they're pretending like they're going to hit you in boston they're

going to hit you um but yeah so it was just funny like why is the washington post editorial board interested in this and i was like i even commented on their comment section jeff is that you oh my god i mean it's got to be like some you know investment of his it's got to be you know, there's got to be a corporate interest there. So let's talk about that Article 5 thing, right? Yeah. Okay, so I understand why Japan would have that status without being in NATO because Japan's not in the North Atlantic.

It's in the North Pacific. But why would, A, why would Ukraine want, why would it receive sort of NATO-like privileges without being in NATO, and why would Russia agree to it? it. I'm kind of leaning toward believing that they are agreeing to do it. Is this just a way for Russia to save face? Yes. I think that's exactly what it is. I think that's exactly what it is. And if the Russians want the, if the Russians want the territory that everybody says they want, they're going to have to give up some major concession. And that major concession has to be this non-NATO ally status. So,

Of all of Russia's demands, I mean, besides the territory, obviously, which ain't nothing, you know, we are talking about taking over a fifth of a country. Yeah, it is a 20% of a big country. It's not like taking a fifth of Liechtenstein. Right. But it's like still, you know, you're talking about a lot. I mean, to me, of all of Putin's demands, the NATO thing seemed to the most obviously reasonable. If I were the president of the Russian Federation, I wouldn't want a NATO. power, a hair trigger, World War I 1914-style alliances away on my very sensitive border

where people came across less than a century ago and killed 30 million of my people. That's right. I couldn't agree more. See, and then that just leads me to believe what you just alluded to, that the two countries aren't exactly as far as part as most people think, that a lot of this is posturing. Mm-hmm. Uh, so. In episode in 2324 on YouTube is asking us, why is our foreign policy so trash? And by the way, thanks for the donation. And where and when did our foreign policy go out the window? It's a little vague, but John, I think it's not at that.

You remember the old saying that foreign policy differences end at the shore. And they don't end at the shore anymore. And I'll tell you who changed that was Newt Gingrich in 1990. 1995 when he came out and just eviscerated the Clinton administration on on everything it was on on everything that they stood for he fought them over and so I'm I'm wondering if if that's the norm now I mean we've gone the 30 years with these major changes in foreign policy and and these major differences in foreign policy and we just have to accept it So I mean, it is a realignment, right?

I mean, there's also a dramatic political realignment that followed. I mean, there's a lot of different things going on, right? I think it's a perfect storm. There's also the Democratic Party has moved to the right on foreign policies in order to fill the gap sort of. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has become what they used to call it more isolationist. Yeah. God bless them. I'm all for it.

Yeah, I am too. And, you know, but I think that you, I mean, if you go back to, I guess I would argue that you foreign policy has been basically aggressive for well over 100 years ever since Theodore Roosevelt. And it's gotten more so all the time. And basically Congress keeps abdicating their war powers, responsibility. I mean, just the fact that like, you know, and one of the back of one of my lists, books, the anti-American manifesto, I published one of those lists of every U.S. military intervention. I actually couldn't do them all because there were too many to like even in tiny type to put them all in there.

But I put in a lot of them. And, you know, we've only declared war five times. That tells you that we're not, that the separation of powers isn't working and that we have an imperial presidency. Absolutely true. And they get in there. I think, you know, I think what happens with presidents also

is that they love to do foreign policy and start wars and stuff. It makes them feel important. It's the one thing that they can really control. Like a president can say, John Kyriaku, you go out. out to, you know, Syria and you do this and you can have this resource and you get it and you don't have, he doesn't have to ask permission from anyone. But like nothing domestic is like

that. Yeah, nothing domestic is like that. You're exactly right. There were a couple of other things too, Ted, that I heard today. And it's funny, I heard them like not as major announcement, but just as a sides. The one was the major non-NATO ally status. But the other one was what the Russians really, really want is a land bridge through Crimea, right? Okay, that's, that's actually a big ask. And, uh, and it's an important ask. So why are we not talking about it? Why are none of the networks talking about it? That this may be the linchpin to an agreement is a land bridge. I don't think the networks, aside from being biased, I'm not sure they really even understand. Understand. And you know what? It's funny. They have like the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.

They have Ron McCall, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia. They had John Bolton, who's been on every network today. Well, he hasn't been on Fox because they hate him, but he's been on all the other networks. And nobody is making the analogy with the land bridge that connected West Germany with West Berlin. It's been done before. It's doable. And they're not talking about it. And there's lots of precedents in history, right?

Germany wanted to have a bridge to the city of Donzig that was a separate. by from from poland um you know i mean when uh pakistan became independent east pakistan was separated by hundreds of miles from pakistan proper yep that didn't work out now when we theorize about a Palestinian state you know we have to have a land bridge between gaza and um and and the west bank i mean you're gonna have to it doesn't make any sense um you're gonna have to it's as simple as that it's as simple as that see again Now, forgive me. I'm in a little bit of a bad mood today. I'm not feeling very well. I'm sorry.

No, thank you. I got my last blood transfusion, and I'm supposed to be feeling great, and I feel terrible. But anyway, if this were any other time, if this were any other administration, we would go on to whatever our preferred news network happened to be, and we would see charts and graphs. This is what they want. This is what the counteroffer is. right this is what's being discussed today uh this is why each side wants what they want exactly we're getting none of it all we're getting no analysis no there's no analysis at all we're getting these biased talking heads going everywhere and saying this is a terrible deal like for example when i when i turned on msnbc midday today all they wanted to talk about was how just the act of meeting Putin

and when Trump put his hand on top of Putin's hand that weakened America, they said. I felt America get a little weaker that second. Like my cat shuddered at that exact moment. The clouds covered the sun. They shook hands and then Trump went like this with his hand on top of Putin's. It weakened America.

Voldemort got a little stronger at that moment. oh my god i don't even know what to say it's so stupid it's it's literally akin to the to the logic that a that a gay marriage weakened traditional marriage like exactly two dudes down the street being married that that messes up your marriage right no divorce weakens marriage divorces weren't not not gays no oh my god yeah yeah so so there's no analysis there's there's nobody that's you know giving a considered position, any insight into what this may mean a week from now or a month from now, I'll say my own analysis is, and I'm not saying this for selfish reasons, I'm saying it because I believe it. I'm impressed by Donald Trump's flexibility. I really am. Well,

I'm impressed that he's willing to talk, that he's been willing to come back to it even after being disappointed and maybe perhaps disgusted by what he thought was intransigence on both sides. You know, and of course, I think we should take note of the fact that we had this, this was a do-over, this meeting with Zelensky. Same room, same gold chair. Same camera angles. Same dude, right? But this time, Zelensky comes proper, much better dressed, you know, brought his,

We wore a suit-like thing. It was a Regis Philbin suit is what it was. Right. Or like a navy jacket, black shirt, black tie. Yeah, I kind of like that look, personally. Yeah, it's a little bit aughts, but I actually like it too. Although for a small man like him, it doesn't make a lot of sense. It's better for a tall guy like me because it slims me down.

Yeah. But whatever, it worked. He looked great. He looked a lot better than usual. there was even a comment about it and a joke about it. There were laughs all around, smiles all around. J.D., who clearly can't stand Zelensky, or the Ukrainian cause, he zipped it. He had nothing to say.

And so his silence was super loud. So it was all love and kisses. The Euros were supposedly providing backup, but that doesn't make any sense. And anyway, but even their preference. presence, you know, kind of like helps bring, get it done. I mean, I'm really optimistic. I think there's going to be a, you know, I'm going to go out on a limb and say, I think there's going to be a trilateral meeting between Trump, Zelensky, and Putin later this week. Just the way Trump wants. There's going to have to be. That's right. And I think they're going to bang it out. Yep. Yep,

without a doubt. All right. So here, let's let's get to brass text, John. So Russia's going to sort of say we won. because, you know, the Ukraine didn't join NATO. They didn't join NATO. They just got all the benefits of being in NATO. Yes, which is good enough for them. If that's good enough for them, that's good enough for me. Then they keep Crimea. It's recognized as annexed.

Now, here's the question, the Donbos, which I've always argued they shouldn't have wanted in the first place because it only gave them trouble. Right. But like they had it. Okay, I understand no one wants, personally, if I were Lincoln, I would have let the Confederacy go. That's my mentality. But it's going to be, is that going to be a dotted line where Ukraine formerly believes that their formal status is that's part of Ukraine?

We never admit that it's gone. It's like Kurdistan. Or is it a frozen conflict, like a line of control between Indian Pakistan? Or is it truly recognized as an international border by the West as part of Russia? I think it's one of these situations, Ted, where it all remains to be seen. I'm not even sure the administration knows exactly what it wants to do here. It's waiting to see how much success it might have by the end of the week because, as you said, it looks like we're coming up on a trilateral meeting, U.S., Russia, Ukraine, that could be held as soon as Friday. Trump made a major concession to the Russians this morning when he said that.

that peace docs do not have to come after a ceasefire. He doesn't want a ceasefire. He views it as a waste of time. And he said that the Russians and Ukrainians can beat the hell out of each other while we talk about a settlement. That's a new position. He never said that before. You know, it's funny.

I don't disagree with President Trump on this. You know, you and I have seen millions of ceasefires in our lives. And they're very problematic. I mean, basically, it's always like someone always breaks it and it's always it you end up with a ton of squabbling he broke it no they broke it and it's like it's like dealing with unruly kids in the backseat of the station wagon and in the end and while you're hashing out that crap you're not getting down to brass tax and and actually trying to solve as Putin would say the root causes of the conflict that's right I think that's exactly

it I think that's exactly so what concessions does Ukraine get well obviously they're getting they're going to get that NATO protection, which is what they wanted all along. Yes, it is. And nobody has said anything yet, but I think they also get fast-track membership into the European Union, which is going to change everything. Remember, Ukraine has probably more wheat than any country on earth but the United States and Russia. And so much of that wheat goes to Europe and Africa, Western Europe and Africa.

They can sell their wheat unencumbered. They can sell their natural gas unencumbered. They have trillions of dollars worth of rare earth metals. They can sell it to the United States. And economically, this is going to be a very big deal for Ukraine. I don't think the Russians care if Ukraine is in the European Union. Since we are returning to 20th century type Yalta-style negotiations, could there be reparations? You know, for example, might Russia be asked to, you know, pay Ukraine for damage to property?

might Russia ask the United States for compensation for Nordstrom 2, Nord Stream 2? You know, I wouldn't be surprised, but I wouldn't be surprised also if the Russians just told them there won't be any reparations. Yeah. Yeah. Just like the Germans told the Greeks, yeah, no reparations. We're broke. The Allies bombed us into dust.

No reparations. And here we are 70, is it 70? It's 80 years now after the war. and the Greeks are like, where are reparations? You Germans still haven't paid us. We want our money. I like the Greek style. I like that museum they built for the Elgin Marbles, too.

Yes. It's a very nice museum. World-class museum. Beautiful museum. The Brits really can't argue that the Greeks are too unruly to take care of their stuff anymore. World-class. Oh, that's what they used to argue. Yes.

And it's like the uncivilized Greeks. That's a hilarious oxymoron. But, okay, so let's, we don't work, let's see, we're, let's talk about, oh, well, you mentioned MSNBC. This might be a good time to talk about that. Yeah. Do a little media stuff. So MSNBC is split off from NBC proper. So as part of that deal, the corporate, the corporate entity that now is going to be running MSNBC or NBC has asked that MS not take its NBC with it.

So it's just going to be MS now. Right. So for people who are young, this was a partnership between Microsoft and NBC years and years ago. It stopped being that. Microsoft dropped out years and years ago. It's a legacy thing. It's just like Microsoft's like whatever. It's sort of like the city bike bike rental system here in New York.

City bike hasn't had anything to do with it in years. It's run by Lyft now, inexplicably. Yes. But it's just a legacy thing. So, all right. Well, did you happen to see the- They're also talking about pivoting to the right, right? They want to become a more centrist network.

Maybe, maybe. That's what they say, maybe. You and I both know the history of this. Oh, yeah, yeah, it doesn't work. The Daily Beast has the most interesting take on this. And the Daily Beast, they were kind of dicks about it, the way they wrote about it. They said that NBC sent around, an email, like to every journalist in the world who covers media and said that MSNBC is going

to change the name, it's going to drop the NBC to split it off, and it's going to be MS now. But you are not allowed to call it MS now in the articles that you write until you first call it the My Source News Opinion World Network. And then you can say that my source news opinion world stands for MS now. And it says they may say this only if they include a space in the middle of the acronym, MS, space, now. It is unclear if the name is supposed to be written in bold typeface, as well as Trump style all caps. But the CEO of the new parent company, Versant, Mark Lazarus, used the same bold and all caps formulation in a memo that he sent to staff, which was then sent to the Daily Beast.

And as spokesman declined to comment on whether you could call it MS now, but M period, S period, capital N, little O, little W. So people are having a little bit of fun. Or Ms. Now. Ms. Now. It's a stupid name. The MS doesn't make any sense. No. Nobody cares really what it stands for. You can just keep it MSNBC and nobody still is going to care um the the brass say it's going to try to move to the center um rachel maddo said oh no it's not they're not they're apparently not changing any of the talent it's all the same

unwatchable shows that it is now so i i don't know what the what the point is yeah thank you nanzi's right you see that and says tusk it could be multiple sclerosis now It could be more shit now. Yes, I like that. Multiple sclerosis. I feel like that's cruel to multiple sclerosis. What did multiple sclerosis do to deserve that? That's right.

We shouldn't, yes, you're right. But I mean, so, okay, so first of all, just, yeah, let's just, first of all, it is a centrist, corporatist network as it is. It is. But there's no, but I know what they mean. And, you know, look, MSNBC has, they've been down this. road before. They started out as a centrist, as a center-right network. Then they went center. Then they became what they are today, a Democrat, well, slightly more to the left of the Democratic Party back when Phil Donahue was on. Yeah. Then they got rid of people like him and Ed Schultz and people like

that. And then they moved. And Brian Becker and Jesse Ventura. Correct. And then they ended up as a basically what we know between now and then. It's just basically been NSDNC ever since. And I mean, look, they're not doing great in the ratings now, but they were doing worse before when they were going for the high corporatist approach. So they've got to look back and just know that's not going to work. I mean, CNN is dying over in that same space. That's a lane you don't want to be swimming in.

Dying. And I'll tell you, Ted, when I woke up this morning and I read this in the New York Times, and then I went around and looked at it at different accounts of it. I thought there's literally nothing in this announcement that is going to make me want to watch MSNBC. Nothing. No. Talk about corporatist.

You might as well call it MSDNC, which is what a lot of people do to call it. It is so fucking boring. I mean, whatever you think of Fox and, like, I don't share their politics, it's entertaining, you know, and like they get that. And that's why, you know, you're running content for 24 hours a day. You want people to stick around. You better be entertaining.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with being entertaining at all. I'm not against that. I'm not like, you know, here's your oatmeal, take your medicine, whatever, eat your spinach. It's just, it's, I don't know. I think, I don't know, is it too early to say it's the beginning of the end for MS now? Or is it just that they're going in a bad way? Well, NBC won't even allow them to use the people. logo anymore. And I think that's actually kind of a big deal. They said that they wanted to keep the peacock. And NBC said, well, no, because the peacock has been associated with NBC for the last 100 years. So you guys are going to have to come up with your own, your own logo. And it's funny. Another thing is that that MS now is becoming a part of this new company being spun off called Versant, V-E-R-S-A-N.

that's going to include CNBC, which all right, makes sense, but it's going to include the golf channel, some network I never heard of called Sports Engine, and own the Oprah Winfrey Network. Oh, man, it's a, what's that? It's a box of misfit toys. That's exactly what it. And that makes me think that they're preparing the public

for these networks just to go away eventually. The Oprah Winfrey Network. Oh, my God. Yeah. You know, let me add something about Phil Donahue. Rebellious Rainbow Unicorn says, I was too young to realize how progressive Phil Donahue was. I'll tell you something about Phil Donahue. I always knew he was kind of a good, you know, a good lefty.

But I never paid much attention. And then when I got out of prison, I got a call from Mark Ash at the real, what was it called? reader-supported news, reader-supported news network. And he said, hey, do you want to write a column for reader-supported news? I said, yeah, I really need the money. He said, what's the Washington Post pay you? And I said, well, I've only written two for the post, but they give me $400. And he said, okay, I'll give you $400, which is a lot of money, was a lot of money for an op-ed in 2015.

And he paid me $400 per op-ed per week, right, for the next, for the next nine years. And he told me, finally, after seven of those years, that he actually wasn't paying me. Phil Donahue was paying me. Oh, wow. That Phil Donahue felt bad that I was broke and I'd been imprisoned and my wife ran off. And it was just this big, you know, shit storm that fell on my head. And so Phil Donahue put up $1,600 a month to make sure that I didn't end up sleeping in my car. That's what a good guy he was.

I have a personal Phil Donahue story. So Phil Donahue started his career in Dayton, where I grew up. In Dayton? He started in Dayton. I didn't know that. At W-H-I-O-TV. And so it was a local talk show. It's the first place I've ever been on TV.

I was 10 or 11 years old. I don't remember. I don't remember the context at all. But, you know, he was super interesting then. It was at the end of the Vietnam War. He was an unabashed liberal from day one in the old school. You know, not the way liberals are kind of rancid and at war mockery. And he, although obviously, you know, Tom Lera kind of understood about liberals.

But still, you know, he was great. Anyway, after that incident, one day my mom and I are sit at home and there's a knock on the back door. And who's at our back door but Phil Donahue? He's just had a car accident on Farhills Avenue in Kettering near our house. I know Kettering. And he needed to use the phone. There's no cell phones. He's like, you know, I need to call someone.

So my mom went out on a couple of dates with him. It did work out, and he ended up with Marlowe Thomas. And I was like, I was like mom. I mean, mom was hot. My mom was hot, and she was definitely hot enough to go out with Phil Donahue. But, you know, obviously, she wasn't that girl. And, you know, so it's just a funny, but he seemed like a very nice gentleman. Yeah, what a gentleman he was.

Yeah. And he stood up against the Iraq War, too. he could have moderated his public position and you know saved his show or whatever and he didn't he didn't he knew it was stupid bullshit from the very beginning and just called and just said it yes he just gave no shits that's right and probably he didn't think i mean that was really interesting right because that was a period when um up until i would say the 2000s if you had the ratings on american television or radio. You could say anything you wanted and be anything you wanted. You could have hammers and sickles or swastikas or anything you wanted. Didn't matter if you had the ratings.

Look at the Morton Downey Show. That changed, though. And, you know, what happened with Phil, I guess that was 03 or 04. Yes. He was, he was, you know, I mean, that was, he had the ratings. And that was, it kind of blew my mind. And then Bill Maher kind of got pushed out at ABC, but he didn't really have great ratings when he went. When I was on talk radio in L.A., I got fired in, I guess it was 02, and when my station was taken over by Clear Channel Communications, I had the ratings. I had the best ratings in the 26-year history of the station for that time slot and better than, like, better time slots.

So I thought I was really safe. My station manager said, you're fine, you've got the ratings, you're doing great. I was subbing in for, you know, morning drive all the time. And they, they, but then Clear Channel came along. They said, talk radio is inherently right wing. So all liberals go. And I just, I got the accident. My station manager, David G. Hall at the time, he said, don't worry.

You know, you're going to land on your feet. You're going to be, get so many job offers. But the industry was changing and radio was starting to get disrupted by the internet. And, you know, obviously the country was moving far further to the right. Not really the country, but the leadership class, the elites. And, yeah, it's really interesting. Wow, man, that is interesting. You know, that would explain then why Air America fell apart on Sirius XM Radio.

That's where Rachel Maddow got her start. And everybody that listened to Air America went because Bobby Kennedy Jr. was on Air America with his own show. and he was quite progressive at the time until he wasn't. Well, I did a lot of fill-in on Air America. And in fact, I used to co-host with Rachel in the morning whenever her co-host was out. So I knew all about it. Air America was very poorly run.

It was run by this kind of insane man who basically his whole idea was that it's all, that basically it was about comedians, not about serious analysis. So that's what he hired, right? He had Jeanine Garofalo. Garofalo, she was on, yeah. Who was adorable before she put on too many tattoos.

And, you know, there was, it's like, and she, Al Franken was the flagship of the show. I love Al, but frankly, he was a terrible host. And there were, and then there were some of the lesser, but basically the most talented ones were not being promoted the most. And then, you know, Rachel was the one who, you could tell she was, she could see what's going on and she was looking for something better. She was far, much, much more to the left back then, unabashedly progressive. I mean, you know, when my, when my son asked me, what is a sellout one time when he heard me use the word, I literally told him the story of Rachel Maddow.

I was like, that's what a, that's what a sellout is. Yeah. Yeah. what a shame and she is a sellout she could have had class she could have been a contender as a certain movie he said all right so you wanted to talk about oh we should also before we move while we're in the media space john what do you think about this uh newsmax settlement newsmax agreed to pay three trenches totaling 67 million bucks uh over basically saying that dominions voting machines were uh fixed there was no evidence whatsoever that they were um basically newsmax

and right-wing media and Fox, Fox already had to pay out over this, has had to pay out for smearing Newsmax, sorry, smearing Dominion for saying that. And, you know, rightly so, I think. But it seems like a steep newsmax isn't that big that they can afford $67 million, are they? Ted, no, they're not.

Ted, have you been to the Newsmax studios here in Washington? No. They're in the Hall of States building at 444 North Capitol Street or 44, what is that? Yeah, North Capitol Street. So NBC and MSNBC are on the ground floor. Fox is on the fifth floor. PBS and Democracy Now are on the sixth floor.

Newsmax is in the basement. And it's literally a one-room studio. It's a nice studio. Artis was nicer, but it's small. There's a little green room. There's a little teeny weenie. makeup room was really nice

RT was first class they were in an A-list building it was really nice and it had the hottest ladies I've ever seen in my life I was like what the hell I just don't understand

where they're going to get this money unless they get it from Chris what's his name Christopher the owner the owner of Newsmax I forget his name Christopher Ruddy. Christopher Ruddy is a billionaire who lives in Palm Beach, very near Mar-a-Lago.

He's close friends with Donald Trump. He's got plenty of money in his own pockets. But the LLC, that is, newsbacks, I don't know where they're going to get this money. They're going to need an angel, right? Because, I mean, otherwise, this is going to be a gocker-level extinction event. All right, let me read an ad while we talk about that. Set your clocks, mark your calendars, and buckle up for the best NFL primetime football action, starting to September 4th on Westwood 1.

you can catch all the bone-crushing hits last second heroics an edge of your seat action that nfl thursday sunday and monday nights have to offer whether you're tailgating driving or chilling at home don't miss a single snap listen on the nfl app the westwood one sports app or westwood one sports or just say alexa open westwood one sports if it's the nflb it's on westwood one okay so yeah i'll do i'll do that all right i'm not a football guy but i those who are should do that um west so So, yeah, so, I mean, Newsmax might be toast, right? Newsmax is going to have some problems.

Yeah, they're going to have some problems. Listen, they're very nice down there. I've been on Newsmax three or four times. They're always lovely people, very nice. I enjoy their company. Their politics are nutty. They're told what to say. And they are far to the right of Fox News, far to the right.

They're not as far as OAN, the One America Network. They're just nuts. there. But they also have fewer viewers than Al Jazeera America had when they went kaput. So OAN's not a factor or a player.

John, we've got a question from the Rumble feed, from a deprogram show feed, a fan, sorry. Whatever the outcome of Russia, Ukraine, there's going to be ethnic cleansing in the disputed territories, right? I would

think so, yeah. The Russians say that those disputed territories are Russian. People there are ethnically Russian. They speak Russian at home. The schools teach in Russian. So they're Russians. That's not entirely true. Not all.

No. No, my best friend from college, his wife is from the Dunbass. She's ethnically Russian. She speaks Russian, but by God, she considers herself to be 100% Ukrainian. And so what? They're just going to throw everybody out, which, of course, is ethnic cleansing. My guess is, yes, that's what they intend to do. So it'll probably be like maybe not like murders or like Gaza style at all.

No, no, no, no, no, like what we saw in the Gorno-Karabakh. I don't think so, yeah. Like an expulsion. Like, you know, it was just for you to leave. Yes. I think that's what we're going to see. Yeah. So, all right, well, I mean, that, and of course, obviously violence usually comes a lot.

with stuff like that for because there's always stubborn people who don't want to leave understandably it's that's right their house uh no neck no neck nick says hey i'm the man with multiple chins uh says john and ted should have a show on fox two regular lefties on a right wing network helps the right view issues from another point of view i couldn't agree more i'm loving that idea i would go on i would go work for fox in a second i can go i can go put on a suit right now me too that's what I yeah seriously although I'm a little fat I better get it like a new suit I've lost it years I've lost another seven pounds in the last two weeks but that's not you yeah but I don't recommend your diet plan no you saw what I ate this weekend yeah I definitely

did I hope I mean you just got another few weeks it's gonna be rough but all right so john you're muted FYI I hope you know that you're muted oh there you go um okay Yeah, whatever. Okay, we're back. All right. So let's see. Okay, so Trump doesn't want us to vote by mail and he doesn't want us to vote by machines. John, how does he want us to vote at all? If it's for him. And I'll tell you, I'm worried about that. You and I discussed this over the weekend. He's like seriously telling people he's considering a third term. Steve Bannon, said last week, Trump will run for a third term. He can't run for a third term. Now, today I heard on, I can't remember whether it was MSNBC or CNN, that Republicans are talking about repealing the, what was it, Ted,

the 22nd Amendment, the 24th Amendment, 22nd Amendment. Yeah, I think it's, I want to say 20. I think 24, I think, I'm not sure. 24th, that limits presidents to two elected terms. That's not going to be possible. They only said that because most Americans don't know how constitutional amendments are passed, right? You have to have two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, then the president signs it, then it goes to the states. And then you have to get three-quarters of all the states to pass it in their legislatures by two-thirds and two-thirds.

Correct. In five years. Right, which is why the EO is not. Not going to happen. Yeah. It's not going to happen. Not to mention anyway, elections, I think we can dispose of this with the following statement. The elections are managed by the states, not by the federal government, period, full stop.

So I don't think there's any, Trump can say whatever he wants. He doesn't get to do anything about this. All right. So this is, I thought, a weird story. You know, following the brief 12-day war between Israel and Iran, Iran clearly had a major espionage problem, as you and I have talked about. A lot of people were recruited online for really small amounts of money to sabotage, you know, on behalf of the Israelis. Now the Iranians appear to be in a full-fledged purge mode where they've rounded up 20,000 people as possible spies for Israel. 20,000 people. It's not possible that they're all guilty, right? No.

No. So what's just a basically like a ice-style roundup? You just grab everyone you can and let God sort them out later? Yeah, the Iranian press reported today that most of these people are ethnic Afghans. They're Afghan refugees. What the Iranians are accusing the Israelis of having done was to target undocumented Afghan refugees in Iran only because over the last two years, the Iranians have been expelling them back to Afghanistan. And so the Israelis are saying, what loyalty should you

have to the Iranians? They don't want you. They don't like you. They're trying to give you back to the Taliban. You should work for us. We'll give you $100 a month if you work for us. And all we want you to do is tell us where you're seeing Iranian troop movements, where the Iranian nuclear scientists live, you know, what are the addresses of the electrical company and the water company headquarters? And so, I mean, that's cheap intelligence. I mean, you know, and you can sort of see, like you and I know Afghans. I mean, you know, Afghans aren't for sale, but they're definitely for rent. For rent. And you can always, you know, and that's how that's kind of like cultural.

And they're kind of used to it because of all the occupiers that have been passing through to and fro forever. Yes. And but they, but I mean, I will say to my Afghan listeners that we're considering to do this, like, come on, this is, the Iranians provided you hospitality. You know that that's everything. I mean, they provided generous hospitality for you guys. Not everyone wants you. You know, it's not, it's no way to repay them. Ted, RT is reporting right now several things that I think are important.

Cool. Trump interrupted his meeting with European leaders just, just now, to call Putin. We don't know what the call was about. Trump said in a week or two, we'll know whether this can be solved. and then he said I'm sorry then the Financial Times reported that Ukraine just announced

11 minutes ago that it will buy $100 billion of U.S. weapons it will buy them the purchase will be financed by the European Union and in exchange the United States

will promise to defend Ukraine against Russia. I'm not even sure I understand what that means. Well, this is a typical Trump-type deal, right? I mean, where basically he's saying, we will defend you, but you have to pay us for the privilege. Yeah, you have to pay us. Yeah. But the thing is, is how do we defend Ukraine in a way that is not a violation of the NATO charter

and invite Russian response. What do you mean by that? Well, the United States is a member of NATO. If the United States goes to protect Ukraine, there's a Russian attack. The United States attacks Russia. Russia retaliates. It has to retaliate by attacking the United States. But the NATO Charter says an attack on one and it is an attack on all.

And then all of a sudden NATO's at war with Russia. Yeah, I mean, we come full circle, right? I mean, this is, you know, what I was saying before. Putin was right to demand that Ukraine not join NATO. Yeah. And like calling it, you know, dressing it up and calling it something else, you know, Article 5 like protections is just sophistry and it's not going to work. Hey, Star Lion is reminding us to talk about this Israeli,

the head of Israeli cyber defense in the United States was arrested in Las Vegas Saturday and charged with multiple counts of child pornography, he was immediately allowed to leave and he got on a plane and flew back to Israel. Why? Because Israel does not extradite Jews. His name is Tom Artiam Alexandrovich. He's a senior cybersecurity official

who was basically ensnared in an undercover sting operation by the local cops targeting child sex predators. So he sounds like he's accused of being a lovely fellow. Yeah. Yeah. And what about the victims? I mean, presumably these victims are American children. By the way, thank you so much to Pedro Louise Taff on the Rumble Feed for

gifting a membership. Thank you. To NPC3PO. Thank you for that. And to Tusk PC, is it possible that the CIA Mathematics Department created Bitcoin? Yeah, it's possible. I've heard that a couple of times. You don't think it's the mysterious Japanese professor?

I actually do think it's the mysterious Japanese professor. And I think that's why the American government has scrambled since the creation of Bitcoin to make sure that they force Americans to admit whether they have bought or sold Bitcoin at tax time, because they really are panicking that they can't track at all. but I could see the CIA being in some way involved with Bitcoin sure yeah like the CIA often has to create I mean I thought it was fascinating it's not Theriah right what's the satellite phone company yeah the CIA bought because it was in trouble the gutteries made Theriah phone the CIA bought Intel sat yeah there's a different it's a different name oh you sure yeah I'm sure

And it's like, yeah, and it was going to go out of business. It was an unprofitable company, but the CIA needed those. Yeah, it's going to come to me. I know because I had to rent those phones when I went to Afghanistan. They were big and old. I had a Theriah phone when I went to Afghanistan. Well, those are good phones. They're better.

I liked it. Yeah, smaller. Well, while we're figuring that out, it'll come. It'll come. Jonathan Pollard There's a name we haven't heard for a while So maybe we'll wrap it up with him So yeah

We'll get into the Israel news right So basically The Israelis are never been less popular And this isn't going to help Jonathan Pollard Maybe you should explain who Jonathan Pollard was Jonathan Pollard was a traitor Jonathan Pollard was a U.S. Navy intelligence officer

who in 1985 was arrested and charged with espionage for giving top secret NSA and DOD documents to Israel, as if that wasn't bad enough. These documents were all about Soviet military movements and the Israelis gave them to the Soviet Union in exchange for the Soviets releasing a handful of Russian Jews to Israel. Pollard was caught. He was convicted, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was the maximum for what he had been charged for. Literally every single time an Israeli

leader came to the United States, he would ask the president from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden to release Pollard to Israel. Bill Clinton almost did it. And George Tenet said, if you do it, I'm going to resign and the entire leadership of the CIA is going to resign. And we're going to go public and say why we're resigned. And so Clinton changed his mind.

Finally, when Pollard did the entire 30 years, he was released. The Israeli government sent a plane to the United States. The plane picked him up and carried. him back to Israel where there was a parade for him. They named the street after him. He was a big hero.

Big hero. Well, now he's running for parliament. Will he be elected? Will he make it to the Knesset? He doesn't even know what party is going to be in. Because he's not a member of a party, I'm going to say no. He's not going to make it because there are very, very few

independents that are able to win. You have to win a certain percentage. It's like 3% or I think it's 3% of the national vote, and it's going to be tougher. But if he's picked up by one of the Zionist parties or one of the Russian parties, yeah, he could, he'll probably end up in the Knesset. It makes me stick to my stomach. I'm just going to ask you how this makes you feel.

And I guess we could just talk. We have two quick, quick things. Democrats are back in Texas. And it looks like basically a bunch of states, both Republican and Democratic are just going to do play redistricting games. Yes. And basically they're going to try to see how far ahead they can get. Is this going to become like the new normal?

Like year after year, we're constantly going to be redistricting. And this is how we're going to play out our elections with the voters. It's such a sideshow. I suspect it is. I think this is the state of our politics now where it's all about politics. It's not at all about policy. Thank you, President. Mattas, yes, iridium. That's the phone company. Eridium, I remember them. So I think that Texas is going to, is going to wipe out five Democratic house seats. California is going to wipe out five Republican house seats. I think Ohio is going to wipe out one or two Dems and New York's going to wipe out a Republican. Probably, I'm sorry, Illinois is going to wipe out two or three Republicans. Maybe in the

Nebraska's going to try to wipe out that one Democratic seat in Omaha. So, yeah, I think this is the new normal. And may I answer one question? I know we're totally out of time. Sure, sure. Did we hear about the Putin poop suitcase to bring his poop back to Russia from the Alaska meeting? That is actually not uncommon. What?

That is not at all uncommon. Many leaders who come to the United States collect their own feces to take back and dispose of in their own toilets. because there are entities within the U.S. government that will gladly, happily collect that poop. For the DNA? For the DNA and the health information. Wow. So some poor slob at the hotel has to scoop it out of the toilet, I assume?

Yeah, but the poor slob at the hotel is really a CIA officer undercover as a hotel employee. it's like the good news is you've got a job at the CIA the bad news is this is your job at the CIA would you have taken that job John or would you have resigned no I'd say no you got to draw the line somewhere yeah that's some self-respect listen I there are a lot of things that I did for my country and that's that's not one of them uh thank you last not least quickly Paris is preparing for degrees Celsius, 120 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. I mean, you know, when it was Lutest, when it was a Roman city, Paris was an assignment that was a low prestige assignment because the weather kind of sucks in Paris. People don't really realize that or they don't think about it a lot. But it never

sucked like this. Europe is really going to be suffering major climate change issues in the very near future. And it seems like they're, I mean, I guess they're, at least they're preparing for it in a way that we're not. I don't know. Any thoughts? No, I think this is, I think you're exactly right. You know, it's funny to me, too, that Tulsi Gabbard came out and said that we're facing a climate disaster. And I wonder if she was the one who was chosen by the administration to begin bringing conservatives around. A lot of people are going to die. Well, that's true, right? Like, bringing conservatives around there's a lot that's something that i mean i'm really glad you put it that way rfk when did when on earth did conservatives care about eating well and a good diet when did that

happen suddenly like oh and let's make america healthy again we were always like the hell no you weren't that's like a crunchy lefty thing yeah yeah right a crunchy lefty thing it shouldn't be bored you know you know when i went to alaska with gary johnson back in 2016 we went to see this glacier and you go to the visitor center and then they give you the little briefing and the glacier's like a quarter of a mile away well the glacier used to go right up to the visitor center that's why they put the visitor center there you could reach out and touch the glacier from the from the observation deck and somebody said why would they put the visitor center so far away from the glacier ha ha ha well no that's not that's not funny that's not funny at all this is exactly

what we should be talking about always all right so um i guess that's where i think that's going to do it guys it's very exciting we're here tomorrow tuesday and wednesday and thursday that's right we're five days a week as promised starting now so please show the love like follow and share the show um really love doing this every day i'm looking forward to hanging out with you every day john so me too ted like follow and share Those are the words of the day. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow.