DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “US Cancels Abbas UN Visa”

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Today’s episode of the “DeProgram show” with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou confronts everything from the Trump administration's visa denials targeting Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) members planning to attend the UN General Assembly, where numerous countries will recognize Palestine, to the catastrophic event that probably brought life to earth. Visa Denials for PA and PLO Officials: The Trump administration is denying and revoking visas for Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) members ahead of the September UN General Assembly. The State Department cites the PA's failure to repudiate October 7, end incitement in education, and cease ICC/ICJ appeals over Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. France, the UK, Canada, and Australia prepare state recognition.Trump Rescinds Foreign Aid: The White House is invoking a pocket rescission to cancel $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, targeting State Department and USAID programs like $445 million in UN peacekeeping and $132 million from the Democracy Fund. This untested maneuver, last used in 1977, withholds funds until fiscal year-end on September 30, bypassing a 45-day review to ensure lapse, amid USAID's dismantling and prior $9 billion cuts. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins condemns it as illegal under the Impoundment Control Act, while Democrats like Patty Murray and Chuck Schumer decry the power grab, warning it jeopardizes bipartisan shutdown avoidance and global soft power.No More Kamala Secret Service Protection: Trump is revoking Kamala Harris's extended Secret Service detail effective September 1, ending Biden's undisclosed 18-month extension beyond the standard six months that expired July 21. This decision, amid Harris's heightened threats as the first woman and Black VP during her 2024 campaign, precedes her "107 Days" book tour, following similar revocations for Bolton, Pompeo, and Biden's children. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass denounce it as retaliatory endangerment, pledging local safeguards.Theia Impact Delivered Life to Earth: A University of Bern study is revealing that proto-Earth formed as a dry, rocky wasteland incapable of supporting life until a Mars-sized protoplanet Theia collided over 4 billion years ago, delivering essential volatiles like hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur from outer solar system regions. Analyzing meteorite isotopes and manganese-to-chromium decay timelines from the first 15 million years of Earth's formation, researchers confirm Theia's volatile-rich origin beyond the inner planets' high temperatures, enabling habitability. Co-author Klaus Mezger emphasizes this chance event's role, suggesting life-friendliness in the universe is rare, with implications for exoplanets and ongoing mantle water puzzles.

hey everybody thanks for joining us i don't know why ted's silent all of a sudden oh there we go i was on the delay go ahead john no i was just saying hi to everyone you know we we get ready for these these podcasts in the same way every day god bless ted because he does most of the work and i just show up at five and and we have a nice conversation but there was so much news again today just like last Friday, I thought, well, you know, I'm going to try to get on top of it. I was actually busy today, did a couple of other podcasts, and I haven't been able to catch up on the news the last couple of hours until Ted sent me the text of what he wanted to talk about. It's like, oh, my God, how did I miss all this news in the last two hours? It's never a dull moment, ever, ever.

Outrageous, ridiculous. Where should we be? Where should we start? I mean, I'm kind of thinking a lot about the visa denials for Mahmoud Abbas and so on. Yeah. I think Donald Trump was very angry today. And I think that the afternoon's news is showing that not only did the White House slash State Department order that visas be denied to the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations, not despite the fact that Palestine is going to. to be recognized by a host of Western countries, but probably because Palestine is going to be recognized by a host of Western countries. Now, historically, the United States has approved

everybody's visas, right? I mean, every year the president of Iran comes, or at least the foreign minister of Iran, Muammar Gaddafi used to come every year for the General Assembly. Fidel Castro used to come for the General Assembly. The leaders of the Soviet Union used to come every year. Yes, they did. But now all of a sudden, we don't want Palestinians in our country, especially Palestinian leaders, to whom we donate millions of dollars to keep them going administratively.

I mean, it must be a little confusing, right? I mean, these aren't Hamas officials. This is the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. They're, as you said, John, we support them, we finance them, we prop them up, and we get along with them. These are the people who we call them and they call us. And the Palestinian Authority kind of is like a Vichy organization as far as the Palestinians are concerned. They cooperate with the IDF and with the Israelis on everything. They tell the Israelis, hey, there's some radicals here.

Come and get them. Yes, exactly. Listen, whether we think the Palestinian authority is corrupt or not, it's corrupt. For sure. But they're the guys that we deal with. They're the guys that our diplomats in Jerusalem deal with every single day. But now all of a sudden, they're not permitted to come to the United Nations. It makes zero sense to me other than to be just provocative, provocatively anti-Palestinian.

Well, it sounds like to me like this was just a sop to the Israelis. The Israelis said, like, you know, they're plotting and scheming here. They knew that the U.N. General Assembly, obviously, it's been scheduled for many, well, every year. Every year. And so they knew it was coming. And they decided, okay, we're just going to, we're just going to be dicks, right? I mean, basically.

And, Ted, you know, when the United Nations was created in the 1940s, the deal was, the deal that the United States made with the rest of the world is that every. is that everybody was free to come to the United Nations. Right. There are North Korean diplomats in New York who are assigned to the United Nations. Right. Right. Everybody's welcome because everybody's represented. It's the world body.

It's where we're supposed to go to make peace. John, to go even further than that, like even non-recognized states that were enemy adversaries of the United States, just because the UN was here in New York, they could hang out. So, you know, there was a Taliban representative during back in 1999, 2000. He lived in Queens, and that's how I got my first Taliban visa to visit Afghanistan is I went and basically haunted in his apartment and waited for him to come around because he wouldn't respond to my faxes. And but the point is he was officially a Taliban guy.

And when I found out kind of like where he lived, I was asking around and the Chinese fruit vendors. We're like, oh, yeah, you'll know him. He's the one with a giant beard. Alba is asking, or not Alba, I'm sorry, Magister Militum is asking if this is the first time this has happened. The answer is no. It happened during Reagan. Reagan was very angry in this way as well. And Reagan banned the Palestinians from coming. But, I mean, just to give you an idea of how absurd this is not only did Gaddafi come every year but he would ask permission to sleep in a tent in central park right he's a man of the people he's a bedouin he's going to sleep in the tent he's not comfortable sleeping in the ritz car a luxury tent right a luxury tent without a doubt

and then he was he was he was the og glamper yeah he was the invention of glamping and we would say, no, you can't stay in a tent in Central Park because it's going to be impossible to protect. And we would insist that he stay in a hotel. And of course, he would. That's as far as we would go. With this short exception in like 1989, 1981, 1982, where Reagan wouldn't allow the Palestinians, everybody is welcome. And I'll tell you, just as an aside, when I was assigned to the UN back in whenever it was, 2003, 2004. The North Koreans don't have any money. And so most everybody lives in the five boroughs.

A handful of foreign diplomats live in New Jersey. But for most Western diplomats, the rule was no bridges, no tunnels. You had to live in Manhattan. The North Koreans have so little money. They live on Roosevelt Island. And one day I went over there thinking, I wonder if I can find a North Korean. and maybe I'll, you know, say hello

and just kind of accidentally bump into them. Sure enough, here are all the North Korean diplomats and what are they doing? They're fishing in the East River for dinner. For dinner. In the East River. Probably cleaner than any body of water in North Korea. It probably was.

That's terrifying. None of them spoke English, so it didn't do me any good anyway. But, yeah, I learned things were... Were they dressed funny? Pardon? Were they dressed funny? Like weird? Yeah, they were clearly not Americans and not new immigrants to the United States.

They were clearly North Korean. That's very, very strange. I love that story. So apparently from a practical point of view, a lot of this is purely symbolic. Because if you're a member of the delegation, because the Palestinian Authority is an observer, non-voting member of the UN, they can get a, an exception, an automatic exception to this visa denial. And obviously Marco Rubio knows that. So the only person who might be practically affected here is Mahmoud Abbas, and he might not be able to come. This is obviously one of the posters here wanted to ask, and I'm sorry that I can't

find their name. Wanted to know, do we think that any of the countries like France will renege their promise to recognize Palestine. I would say no. There's no reason to believe that. I agree, except for Germany. But they haven't said they would. They haven't said they would. They said they were considering it.

But yeah, I think the answer is no, which then puts more pressure on Donald Trump than it does on anybody else. You know, either way, I think. I agree. I think this is a bad, I think it's a bad move. I think Trump's, we're going to talk about other stuff today that I think Trump is handling poorly. From his own PR point of view, you know, when you behave, when you, when you, when you lash out in anger, you tend to make mistakes. Yeah.

Yeah. And this, this looks to me to be kind of a clear mistake. So basically, September is next week. Trump is obviously knows he's about to, do you think he basically finally focused on the general assembly and started to think, oh, my God, I'm going to look like shit. And it's starting to piss him off? I think something's pissed him off. Because it's right in his own, it's right here in America. I mean, Vladimir Putin just came to the United States.

Yes. Yes. And look at it this way. And there's an arrest warrant out for him. An international arrest warrant. And look at it this way. What better opportunity could there possibly be if you are, if you are, Nobel Peace Prize candidate Donald Trump to force the Israelis and the Palestinians

to shake hands at the United Nations General Assembly. You know? Yeah. Well, I mean... I'm just not that in it, Ted. I don't understand what the end game is supposed to be

when you just ban them from coming to an international event. Well, and you know, by the way, so the State Department official statement says that, you know, the Palestinian Authority failed to repudiate the October 7th Hamas raid. I like to call it a raid because it's really a raid. You know, is that true? I'm not sure they have. I thought they did say something about it at

the time. I think they did. So, you know, the Hamas attack set back the Palestinian cause in the United States by years, right? And has resulted in the deaths of, I think, well over 100,000 people. Easily, easily. And I honestly, I just don't understand. I don't see what it is that the United States is trying to accomplish by this move

or that Israel thinks it's accomplishing by encouraging the United States to take this move. It doesn't make sense to me. Well, not to mention if there's any future, I mean, look, if there's going to be a Palestinian partner, it's going to be the Palestinian authority. I mean, I don't think it ought to be, but that's from their point of view. That's who they're going to choose. So I agree with you. Firmware, thank you very much for the donation, is wondering what will happen with Israeli Israel defenders when Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish state.

Seems to me karma will make this inevitable. Yeah. I kind of agree with that. And I think we're going to probably live to see it, John. I mean, that's a big statement. But I think they're closing in so quickly on pariah status. You know, yesterday morning, there was a really blink and you miss it piece on NPR talking about the difference in the way that Israeli media covers Gaza or doesn't cover Gaza

and the way that all other international media does and how the Israelis are completely isolated. They have no idea really what's going, what their people are doing in Gaza, because it's not covered. And a lot of them don't speak other languages. So even if they decided to tune in to Al Jazeera or they wanted to tune into, you know, CNN International or BBC, they wouldn't be able to. They wouldn't. So all they hear about is, you know, we're sending in tons of food. The Hamas is stealing it. we do everything we can to avoid civilian casualties you know the rest of the world is lying about

us but they're getting so much spin that they don't really have any ability to like suddenly they think the whole world is turning on them just because they're a bunch of like asshole anti-Semites and that's not what's going on I think that's exactly right I have to agree with with reid that I'm not sure that that is going to happen I'm not saying I'm not sure either. But I do agree that Israel is in many ways already a pariah state. I think it will worsen its own situation. And it's going to be tougher and tougher and tougher for Israel to carry on international

diplomacy because they're going to be countries, formerly friendly countries or neutral countries that are not going to want to have anything to do with it. Yeah. And no one's going to want to do business with them either. No way. And, yeah, that's just going to get worse and worse. Their economy is going to be in real trouble. And, yeah, I don't see them coming back from this.

At some point, look, we need a one-state solution. We need a republic, a Democratic Republic of Palestine from the river to the sea. Where no expulsions, but everybody gets one person, one vote. That's what needs to happen. And, you know, ethno-states are a 20th century construct. they don't have any place in the modern era. Yeah, I have to agree. I have to agree.

Yep. Yeah, so I guess the thing is, this is going to have no real practical effect. And, you know, I got to say the other thing is, when you're playing to international public opinion as Israel and everybody is trying to do, you have to come off as you're reasonable. Yes. And like, the Israelis don't come off that way. You know who said that the Israeli.

weren't reasonable. Jimmy Carter said that when they were negotiating the Camp David Accords. He said the thing about the Israelis, he said it in the first memoir after his presidency ended. He said the Israelis will come into negotiations with their bottom line. They lead with their bottom line and then they won't budge from it. So what's the point of a negotiation? Yeah.

You're not going to budge. There's nothing right. No, exactly. There's nothing to say. And you come in, take it or leave it. That's it. Yeah, they can't live with it. They just can't live with it.

Yeah. Thanks, Tariq, for the donation. Apre moi, the deluge, reference to Louis XIV. Yeah, I don't know. I think, honestly, he's already got la deluge right now. You know,

Bidi Netanyahu has led, he is the Zelensky of Israel. He has led, he's the Hitler of Israel, in that he has led his country to disaster. he has he is I mean this is a country that could have survived this and you know just think if he had if they had parlayed you know they rightly called October 7th their 9-11 and it was and imagine if after 9-11 the world the U.S. had you know considered it a police action yes and said you know and said we want to we want to try the we want to capture these guys put them on trial at the Hague

because it wasn't just a crime against New York or Washington or Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It's a crime against the world. These are terrorists. Al-Qaeda has attacked East Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania, and other countries. We want to drag them, put them on trial the same way we did with Milosevic. Put them there. And then, you know, basically then came out to the world and said, look, if we did something wrong in our foreign policy, we want to hear about it, we would have come off as really

reasonable. That's what Israel should have, they should have learned from us. They should have said after October 7th, like, this is a, you know, this is a police situation. Everybody committed crimes we want to put on trial, fair trial, and treat it that way. They would have, they would have had sympathy. But the Israelis have never operated that way. No. I mean, look at, look at Munich in 72. It took them 20 years, 30 years, 30 years to send teams of assassins all around the world to shoot and kill every single one of the Palestinians that participated in the attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Germany. They killed innocent people, right? By accident, by accident, they killed innocent people.

I guess it wasn't an accident. But it wasn't about justice. It was about vengeance. It's the same mistake that the CIA made after 9-11, where it wasn't about bringing people to justice. It was about getting revenge on the people who had embarrassed the CIA because 9-11 was such a great intelligence failure. I also think it's a Reichstag fire thing, right? Like, you know, people always think the Reichstag fire was staged by the Nazis. It wasn't.

It was organically a Dutch anarchist. But it was an opportunity by, you know, factions within the government. hey, we can use this for a crackdown. Yeah. I mean, but the Israelis knew October 7th was going to happen in exquisite detail. Yeah. I mean, they let it happen because they wanted to use this as an excuse to get to grab Gaza and maybe the West Bank too. I'm convinced of it.

I mean, I don't see any other way around it. I mean, I know it's really, it's extreme, but what they've done is extreme, and it fits the narrative. I mean, I'll revisit it. if something changes and there's a better model fits. But right now, I'm going with that. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think this was a bad day for U.S. foreign policy, a bad day for diplomacy. Every time there's an opportunity for us to throw a wrench into this notion that we're the honest brokers in international diplomacy, we throw the wrench. And we did it again today? I mean, how can we, with a straight face, how can we look at any other country and

say, no, we're not in bed with the Israelis. We're independent. Well, not, we're not only in bed. We're on the bottom. Yeah, yeah, we're bottoms. That's right. That's right. Got to say it. All right. So, I don't know, if we have more to say about that, but we have other stuff to talk about. So, but we can come back to this. Oh, oh, So why wasn't the Iron Dome working that day is a question from Seabree 47? Well, I mean, it's not an Iron Dome issue. It's a smart fence issue, right? I mean, the fence was as soon as that fence was breached, we all saw the video with the bulldozer.

You know, alarms went off in IDF HQ in Tel Aviv and everywhere else. And they knew instantaneously, right? Now, this blows my mind, right? But you could look it up in the New York Times. The fastest response to any kibbutz was eight hours. Yes. The fastest. That's the quick one.

That's like, we're on it. We're right there. And don't forget. It was 20. 20 hours. Don't forget that Israeli settlers all up and down the border with Gaza, Israeli settlers who are supposed to be that first line of defense had been warning the Israeli government for two weeks that something was going on, that there was a lot

of chatter on the radios that they hadn't heard before. And the night before the attack, the Palestinians had sent kites over the fence. And Idemar Ben-Gavir, who has no business being in government, he ought to be in prison, like probably for the rest of his life for hate crimes, said no, there won't be a Gaza attack. The attack is coming in the West Bank. Call me cynical, but I think that's what the plan was. The plan was to pretend that the Israelis didn't know or didn't believe that the attack was coming from Gaza, that it was coming from the West Bank. And so they made themselves look like they were unprepared. But how could the attack have come from the West Bank? That's the Palestinian Authority.

Exactly. Fatah that's on your payroll. Right. Those are your butt boys. They're not coming for you. Somebody mentioned in the comments a minute ago that they just finished watching Fowda. Fowda is a TV series and it's a joint Israeli-Palestinian TV series that I recommend at every opportunity. I've talked about it on a dozen different podcasts. I even mentioned it on Fox News one night. Watch Fowda on Netflix, F-A-U-D-A. Watch it and it will explain so much. much about the relationship between the Israelis and the PA and the Israelis and Hamas. Oh, yeah, and this is a good point. Houdini points out that the Egyptians told them it was

going to happen. Yeah. And the Egyptians told them it was going to happen. That's right. Yes. In detail. And don't forget it was posted on social media. This wasn't the vague, you know, pre-9-11. Even, you know, I'm not the nicest person to George W. Bush. But I always thought it was unfair that he got criticized for that August memo. You know, Al-Qaeda posed to attack on U.S. soil. That's great. It's like, so, John, look out. Look out for what, Ted?

Just look out. What are you supposed to do with that? Yeah, what do you do with that? There's no details, right? But there were plenty of details here. Thanks for a firmware for the $5 donation. Don't forget the plurality, if not majority of Israeli civilians killed. were by the IDF using the Hannibal doctrine.

Yeah, with drones. And I wanted to add something. Certainly a significant number. Firmware's comment that, what is Firmware's comment? Oh, yeah. So when I was in Greece in March, I was talking to a Greek journalist friend of mine, and he went to Gaza on the 8th of October. Of course, he had an Israeli military handler.

But he said they drove into Gaza, of course, and he said there was this line of cars. He said there were at least 50 cars, maybe more than 50 cars. And every one of the cars had dead bodies in them. And all of the dead were Israelis. But all of the cars had large caliber holes in the roofs of the car. They had been shot from helicopters. Right. And so my friend said,

to this Israeli handler, wait a minute, wait a minute, what's with all these dead bodies in the cars? They were attacked clearly by error, and the guy just said, don't worry about those dead bodies. And that was it. That was all he would say, because every single one of them had been killed by the IDF. And they were all Israelis that were killed, all of them. Right. Now, in some cases, maybe, I mean, I guess you could argue, you know, if the Israelis saw a car driven by a Hamas fighter and they have a hostage and then they blow up the car

and everybody inside dies. That must have happened to some extent. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It must have. It must have. It's heinous. All right, well, let's talk about, since we're talking about foreign policy, Trump has, maybe you know more about this than I do. I thought this was pretty obscure. But the White House is invoking something called a pocket rescission. They're canceling nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid.

They're going after the State Department and USAID, although USAID effectively doesn't exist anymore. So I guess that's sort of redundant. Anyway, the last time this was done is in 1977. They're taking advantage of the fact that the fiscal year ends in just over 30 days, but there's a 45-day review period. So basically, Congress doesn't have enough time to exercise their prerogatives to, you know, to, basically, so this money's already been appropriated. Trump's de-appropriating it, basically, under the noses of Congress. Congress is jealous of their prerogatives when it comes to the matters of the purse.

Senate Appropriations chairperson Susan Collins is pissed, although, you know, since when has she ever done anything about being pissed? Yeah. But anyway, she might as well be a Democrat in that respect. Yeah. Anyway, she says it's illegal under something called the impoundment control act. Democrats say it's another Trump power grab. Yeah, it was my impression that this was illegal.

This was something that was done in 1977. it was tried again in 1993, Republicans sued. It went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. So Trump's doing it again anyway. Now, the reason he may get away with it this time is that...

He's running out the clock, yeah? Exactly. Yeah. He's running out the clock. Do we care? Should we care? I mean, a lot of people look at foreign aid and think, that's money that we need here at home i'm glad you said that i'm glad you said that i

interviewed for my other podcast i interviewed john perkins today he he's he wrote a book called the confessions of an economic hitman oh yeah i read that one and i asked him about this and um and he said that this is of all of the the trump short-sighted policies this one is the most short-sighted because Because foreign aid is not just handing bags of cash to foreign leaders. Foreign aid is sending teams or paying to send teams to dig water wells or build a school or teach new farming techniques or building an electrical grid or whatever. A lot of it lately has been associated with the development of green energy, installing windmill

for example or solar panels and now we're not going to do that at all anywhere this is what this is what wonks call soft power soft power but the chinese are going to do it and the chinese are doing it a massive amounts i mean it's always seemed like u.s foreign u.s soft power as i've seen it has always seemed small and lame right like i remember walking around in uh in central asia seeing like cans of rapeseed oil that the U.S. had donated. And I was like, in the same exact place where the Chinese

were building a highway. And the highway says has a giant Chinese flag. Gifts from your brothers in the People's Republic of China. And then meanwhile, we're giving them the rapeseed oil. I'm like, you know, it's pretty

lame. You're not going to you're not going to be able to buy any hearts and mines. You can't even rent hearts and minds with rapeseed oil. No, you can't. I'm sorry to change the subject real question, but Lobaz is saying that Dimitri Lascades is being held for questioning today by the Cypri police on the request of Israel. So who's, who's Dimitri Lascaris? What the fuck? Dmitri is a, he's a journalist, a blogger, a thinker on these, on these issues. Let me see if he has an actual title. I've met him a couple times.

here he is a lawyer he does all different kinds of things he's he's frequently on um on twitter or whatever we're calling twitter now ex yeah ex uh journalist he just calls himself journalist and lawyer uh very serious guy activist um Canadian citizen I think uh yeah University Toronto Faculty of Law, detaining him would be extraordinarily provocative. And at the request of the Israelis, see, this is a problem that the Cypriots and the Greeks have with the Israelis. The Greeks have completely gotten into bed with the Israelis and so have the Cypriots because they share that giant gas field and they don't want the Turks to take it. And because the Israelis are involved, that's the only reason the Turks haven't taken it. And so in exchange, the Israelis want the Greeks

and the Cypriots to do their bidding. And they are. So now the Israelis say, oh, grab this Greek Canadian guy. We don't like what's coming out of his mouth. The Cypriots actually do it. Sickening. I'm sorry to hear that. That is really bad. Really bad. So, all right. We'll follow up. That's obviously a breaking news thing that I'm very unfamiliar with. Yeah, I don't understand exactly why why the Israelis still have. are still getting their calls returned at all. Nadia Margaret is over on the rumble chat, is saying that he brought lawsuits against Israeli lobbies in Canada.

There you go. That is it. That will do it. And they'll just make his life as uncomfortable as they can until he walks away. Wow. Wow. Boy, that makes me angry.

Well, so speaking of, let's get into, riffing off our first story, I thought this struck me as pettiness, but it's a little complicated. So, or I should say, not really complicated, but there's some nuance to it. So Trump cut off Kamala Harris's Secret Service protection. So mean-spirited.

Now, that was my first reaction. And I remember just thinking, like, if I were advising the president, I would say, you don't want something to happen to her after you do this. I mean, if something happens to her, that's going to be on you, and it's going to destroy you. I mean, you know, so. It's like when Biden wouldn't approve Secret Service protection to Bobby Kennedy, Jr., and then, you know, twice people got.

He's a Kennedy for carry's sake. Yeah. And then a guy, an armed guy, got into the same ballroom that he was in in Los Angeles, and then two weeks later, somebody went over the fence at his. at his house in Santa Monica. So, yeah, you don't want to take away secret service protection and then have something happen. It's a bad look. Now, on the other hand, the standard, so apparently it expired July 21st,

and there had been an undisclosed 18-month extension that Joe Biden had already provided. Yes. So this will, yes, so this will. So basically, she would have not had it anyway. It's like, so the question is, should it have been extended? Should the Biden extension have been allowed to remain in place? I mean, I feel like, honestly, I'm surprised it's so short. I mean, seems to me like, you should be, I mean, I think if you were a major candidate for president and you want it, you want it,

you should be able to have it for the rest of your life. I mean, does anybody really want to kill Dan Quayle? Probably not, and he probably doesn't want that level of security, right? I think I've told you when George McGovern announced his candidacy for president in 1984, I introduced him. It was the proudest day of my life as a college student to have the first. former Democratic nominee for President of the United States, call me as the head of the college Democrats at George Washington University and say, I want to announce my candidacy. Can you set it up for me? I was like, oh, my God. And then I started volunteering at the at the McGovern

campaign. Well, just after he announced, I remember on ABC News, they showed clips of him from 1972, speaking to crowds of, you know, 40,000, 50,000 people at a time in stadiums, being mobbed at airports, people wanting to take pictures with him and get his autograph. And then they showed him in 1984, walking through Reagan National Airport. It was national airport at the time. And not a single person recognized him. That's crazy. Not a single person.

So, no, I don't think, I don't think we should give it to them for life. But six months, short. Yeah, six months after a contentious election where she was the first black woman ever to be nominated for president. Right. Yeah, you might want to make it longer than six months. It just seems mean-spirited to me to. And again, because she already had it for 18 months, it's kind of like taking it away. It's like putting a target on her back.

Yeah, it is. is. And I want to thank Matthew Blair Raines. I'm sorry, before you go to an ad, thank you very much for the five pounds. Is Trump a true aberration in U.S. history? So far, I think yes. This is an aberration. But with that said, populism is attractive to a lot of people. In this case, right-wing populism. There's nobody out there right now as popular as Donald Trump is. That could change in the next couple of years. I think. it probably won't, which would mean then that he was an aberration, but I think the jury's still out. What do you think, Ted? Well, I mean, I think generally, you're right, certainly in the modern era, but I do, you know, you know who his favorite president is, Andrew Jackson. And you know, Andrew Jackson was a nut. He was a killer. He was in. Yeah, he was. He was a wild man. I mean, I don't even know where to start with that guy. But he liked to, he loved duel, which was was frowned upon at the time.

And he liked to fuck other guys' wives. And then mix it up with them, you know, while dueling. Remember his inauguration, he invited the people into the White House to party. And all of his supporters were a bunch of rapscallions. They trashed the place. They stole the plates. The place, you know, it had to be renovated after they were done. It's terrible.

It's embarrassing. Not to mention, oh, and he tanked the economy like crazy. In fact, there was a depression that he oversaw. It was so bad that literally the government couldn't afford to mint coins anymore. People had to create their own fake coins in order to circulate. They're called hard times tokens. They're highly collectible. They're very collectible and expensive.

And they're very cool and interesting. Let me read this ad. Okay. Set your clocks. mark your calendars and buckle up for the best NFL primetime football action starting September 4th on Westwood 1. You can catch all the bone crushing hits, last second heroics, and the 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 at westwood 1stports.com, or just say, Alexa, open Westwood 1 sports. If it's the NFL. It's on Westwood one. So, yeah, no, Andrew Jackson, oh, Florida. You know, I love that story. It's under the doctrine that it's easier to, it's easier to beg forgiveness than to get permission. He basically was like told by Congress didn't want to pick a war with Spain, which owned what was then called the Florida's. And, but Andrew Jackson as a general wanted it. So he's like, fuck it so he disobeyed congress went in overthrew the spaniards and took and and defeated them right congress is pissed they call him on the carpet get your ass to washington for a hearing his defense is listen they the spanish couldn't defend it and another foreign power like say the brits could have

come there toppled the spanish because they had a very poor force and then we would have been fucked. Well, and I can prove that because I defeated the Spanish. Therefore, if I could defeat the Spanish, anyone could defeat the Spanish. I proved my point, you're welcome. And now Florida's a state. It's so American. It's beautifully American. So, I mean, I don't know. Is that, I mean, is Trump worse than Andrew Jackson? I think he's kind of like in the same vein. Yeah, I think he's in the same vein he'll do something and then just say what are you going to do about it sue me yeah you and what army yeah exactly exactly um so by the way um she's about to Kamla's about to go on book tour uh and governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass who can't keep her own city safe uh but

she's pledging that local law enforcement will provide security at her events yeah I'm sure that that's true yeah I'm sure that and yeah this is the other thing too they were talking about it on the morning shows today she's just now coming out with a ghostwritten autobiography

and so she's just ready to start the book tour so she's going to be out there in public constantly over the next say four weeks he did this on purpose so this is just about It's just about fucking with her.

Yeah, yeah. He's a troll. Absolutely on purpose. Yes. It's a major troll. You're right. That's what he is. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. And that's what this, that's what this Palestinian thing is, too. It's basically like, oh, the Palestinians are going to have their parade. I'm going to rain on their parade. That's all it is. But you know what, Ted, I think this makes us weaker as a country. It makes us weak. There are a lot of Palestinians in the United States, especially in Michigan and New Jersey and New York.

As I said earlier, if we want to appear to be the honest broker, which we're not, but we like to appear that we are, this is exactly the opposite of what he should be doing. And it's like he just did it in a fit of peak without thinking it through. It doesn't make any sense to me. John, question for you from Two Toes on YouTube. Did you see Bustamante's recent interview on Diary of a CEO? It was detailing his new book that's about a mission he did to hunt out a mole within the CIA. I'm just not sure how much I buy of it, he says. No, I didn't see it.

Funny that he was on Diary of a CEO. They just invited me yesterday to come on Diary of a CEO. Listen, Bustamante is a nice enough guy. but Bustamante was what was called a sue, a special operations officer. He was not a case officer. He was certainly not a mole hunter, right? There's a unit at the CIA that's within the counterintelligence center. They are the mole hunters, and they work hand and glove with the FBI's National Security Division.

What a special operations officer does, quite literally, is when John is preparing to meet with a sensitive source, I'll say, hey, Andrew, put together a counter surveillance team for me and provide protection tonight when I go out from my meeting. Or when I come back from the meeting, hey, Andrew, I have a lot of stuff to write up. So do me a favor and do my paperwork for me for finance, because I'm too busy.

So here are my receipts. That's what a special operations officer does. He's not a mole hunter. He's not a case officer. officer. He's not recruiting spies to steal secrets. He's not a targeting officer trying to find Osama bin Laden. He's an assistant. Sorry I have to be so hard. He's a gofer. Oh, my God. Now I'm going to go, I'm going to have to go back and find that because I want to see it. That's too much. Oh, my God. No, and answering S347, I didn't hear anything about what Al Sharpton had to say

about the National Guard in Chicago, Memphis, and Minneapolis. But I'd like to hear it. I'd like to hear it. I have special disdain for Al Sharpton. Special disdain. Sorry, but I'm still mad about the whole Tijuana Brawley thing. Google it. If you don't know it.

One of the guys whose life he ruined was a Greek American... He was a state trooper, wasn't he? That's right. He was a state trooper of New York State Police. Tawanna Brawley, who so took it on the chin for her lives that she had to change her name and move to Washington. Sickening. Yeah, no, that was a, that was a very, very sordid affair. And sure was.

I mean, I guess in America, everyone can reinvent themselves. Tariq wants to know, is there stolen valor in the agency? You know, I, um, yes. There is. I've tried not to use that term because I'm trying not to call them out so directly. But yeah. Just yeah. Yeah. Just yeah.

Sometimes just yeah is enough. Oh, listen, let me add one thing. Please. I love Julian Dory, the podcaster. I've been on his podcast a couple of times. He is an absolutely outstanding interviewer. He and Bussbaumta are friends. And Julian texted me.

This is about two months ago. He said, hey, don't tell anybody, but I'm going to be waterboarded on camera so people can see what actual waterboarding is. I'm like, that's like what Christopher Hitchens did. Yes, it's exactly what Christopher Hitchens did. I said, cool. I said, it's awful. We waterboarded each other in training and it's terrible. So he sends me the video before he released it.

And it's Bustamante waterboarding him. but rather than you know laying on a board strapped to a board with cloth in your mouth and having the water poured on your face he's sitting on a bench with his head down like that and bustamante's pouring water on his head well that's that's like the service you get in the turkish baths exactly you pay good money for that i pay money for that and maybe you get a little massage on top of it sure shampoo. Yeah, but come on, man. This guy. Yeah, yeah, Abby Mari, he wants to be an influencer so bad. Isn't that the truth? Oh, my God. If I ever become president, I promise to ban the word influencer and all people who are influencers or purport to be influencers. I'll put it in the

Constitution. Hey, Pedro Luis Taff, I'm glad somebody raised this because frankly I forgot. What about the news about Tulsi Gabbard and the CIA name. Did we talk about this yesterday? No, we didn't. Oh, well, last week when Tulsi Gabbard fired 37 CIA Russia analysts, she went on Twitter and said, I fired these 37 people. Oh, right, right. We did talk about this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's her name. She burned. Yeah, she burned an agent. She burned a woman who's undercover. Well, that's a violation of the intelligence identity's protection act of 1982. And I was the second person in American history charged with violating the intelligence identity's protection act of 1982. So what do you do? I mean, Tulsi's not going to be charged with a crime, let alone a felony.

No, she won't mean to say. No, it's, no, it's got to drive you completely insane. It would me, no doubt about it. By the way, Lurley says Hitchens gets some credit. He changed his tune after going through it. Yeah, that's right. I watched the video. It's still on YouTube. You basically, you know, Hitch was a, you know, he pissed me off so bad because he seemed like a good lefty and then went crazy after 9-11 and basically went full spectrum. You know, Islamo-Fascism, he popularized the term and all that. You remember that term? And it didn't catch on. It's so nonsensical. But anyway, he, but then he was just like, you know, we have to, kind of like Bill Maher, all these people kind of like went crazy.

And he was like talking about, oh, you torture, smorture, what's the big deal about waterboarding? So just, so he agreed to undergo the procedure and just to see what it was like. Not only did he find it extremely upsetting, but he got PTSD as a result of it, the rest of his life. He required psychological treatment, and he never stopped evangelizing against it. He reminds me of a guy who, anyway, I know a guy who used to be far right, then he went, became far left, and then he became far right again. It's just like, dude, you've got to just relax. He claimed to have been actually either CIA or something, but I don't, you know, he claimed to be a wet ops guy going back to the Congo war. No, no, no. Nobody in the CIA would ever, ever speak those word wet ops or black ops. Those are straight out of the movies. That's one of the ways that I can, I can sort of nail people who are phonies.

I always, I always suspected, but you know. Wet ops, black ops, and the company. All from books. And bad Hollywood movies. Yes. Adam Fighter wants to know we're big leftists you guys are big leftists have you heard of Hassan Piker not me but you can tell us who that is

Pedro says there seems to be a lot of there seem to be ex-CIA people trying to be influencers now Tracy Walder is another famous one oh yeah that's absolutely true that's happened Hassan Piker is a Turkish-American online streamer,

YouTuber, influencer, and left-wing political commentator. That sounds interesting. I'll check him out. He's young. He's 34. He's 6'4, Ted. So he's even taller than you are. What?

It's not fair. No one should be. His streams typically consist of political and social commentary, gaming, and media consumption. We should have him on the show. Sure. Why not? Robbie, you're listening.

Please invite him or just remind me to invite him. or whatever. We'll take care of it. Oh, yeah, Tariq wants to know. This is, I'm glad that Tariq brought this up. You got to touch base about naval movements in Venezuela. Things are heating up down there. You know, we should talk about that, Ted. That slipped my mind.

That, there was some disagreement in the media yesterday and today about what exactly the point is. Is the point to frighten the Venezuelans? Is the point to invade Venezuela? or is this just a dumb way to waste money on naval resources? I don't know. It seems, I think it's Sabre. It's the usual Sabre, Ad, like, I don't think Trump has the appetite to invade Venezuela.

No, no, I don't either. We never have an exit strategy anyway. It's easy to invade a country. It is crazy difficult to occupy it. and pull out yeah yeah it's it's true um and you know and the venezuelans are very nationalistic uh they might hate each other but they would hate an invasion force more kind of like the afghans i think um do you think the two-party system is poisonous in today's america swirzi wants Zruzzi wants to know.

I'm responding real quickly to, apparently Hassan Piker doesn't like me. So I'll click into that. Well, then, we don't like Hassan Piker. Oh, you take Wigger's nephew. You know, his mother, I just looked at you too. Oh, marble, marble, thank you for the insanely amazingly generous. Amazing.

$200 donation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Minus a penny. But I won't, I won't quibble. about the penny. No, seriously. Thank you so, so, so, so much. I really appreciate that. So, so Hassan Piker's mother, mother's maiden name is Weeger. And I wondered if he was related to Chenk Weger, Michael Gardner's telling us that he's

Czech Weger's nephew. It's funny, Chank Weger has never really been a friend of mine either. Yeah. When I, when I, the first time I ever like, I ever did anything that got, The second thing I ever did that got wide press coverage after blowing the whistle, it was my open letter to my supporters from prison that became my first letter from Loretto. And people just went crazy over it. I mean, that's when, that's when, oh, my God, what's the matter with me came from CNN that we interviewed? Ted Who? Who did we interview from CNN?

Oh, Jake Tapper. Jake Tapper, thanks. That's when Jake Tapper came to the prison to interview me. The response was universally positive and interested except for Chank Wigger. Chank Wigger just for 30 minutes

just ripped me. And I never understood that because back then, you know, I probably agreed on 95% of the issues with Chank Wigger. Like, why is he attacking me like this? But it's just his name. I've never been able to draw a bead on Chank Wiger. I mean, I wanted to, I kind of felt like I should have been friends with him.

He's one of those guys, it's like an unrequited bromance where you're sort of like, you reach out, you're like, we should be buds, we agree about a lot of stuff, and then, you know, they never call, they never write. And then, like, they never, and, you know, I notice his deafening silence during, while everyone else was talking about the LA Times, I couldn't help but notice his deafening silence. So, yeah. Yes.

I don't know. I honestly don't even get him, like what he wants to, you know, what he's about. I don't get it either. I don't understand. I don't understand. And I'll tell you,

he doesn't have very many friends on the left. He's very good at pissing people off. Nadia, Margaret, thank you. Indeed. Yes. And also, let's see here, we've got like a, oh, Frazmataz wants to know. Did we hear that the U.S. is evacuating bases in Iraq? Yes.

And Russia has yanked its diplomats from Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv. That's true. I heard it first from Doug McGregor, and then I heard it today from an Iranian friend of mine. What's the Russia thing about? he was my friend was speculating that it was a coincidence and i was like i don't know man you know we're not privy to these classified communications and there may be something out there that just hasn't leaked to the press and it could be if if we're to believe treat a parcy and i

actually do believe treat a parcy that another israeli attack on iran is coming you know i heard something today that was very interesting i heard it this the second time i heard it so i I don't know if it's circular reporting, if there's something to it, that Trump actually did not want to attack Iran, but Netanyahu told him that the threat really was existential and that the Israelis were going to use a nuclear weapon, a tactical nuclear weapon. And then Trump stepped in and said, all right, we'll use the 30,000 pound bomb. You keep your nukes to yourself. And that's why we bombed. If true, that's absolutely insane. I thought so, too.

But this, people are arguing now, is kind of an extension of that, where the Israelis are saying the threat is still existential, it's still out there, we haven't overthrown the Iranian regime, we have to attack again. And so the Russians are saying, okay, we're out of here. And then the Americans are saying, we're going to shut down these bases. We don't really need them anyway, and we want to get our people out of the region. I don't know. I'm speculating.

I have no idea if that's true. one last topic and plus whatever people in the chat i mean it is Friday so uh you know we always answer all the questions um i love i wanted to throw this one at you because i thought it was cool university of burn um has a new study out where basically they found they have a theory for how life developed on earth um apparently up until four billion years ago uh the earth the proto Earth was just a dry rock incapable of supporting life. Then another

proto planet about the size of Mars now, they call it Thia, ran smashed into the earth and it delivered hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur from outside of the solar system. They're analyzing

meteorite isotopes and manganese to chromium decay timelines from the first 15 million years of Earth's formation, right? Like the universe is about 17.6 billion years old or something like that. So this is a drop in the bucket, right? But basically they find that there's a strong case that all of these stuff that the stuff that's in the earth would never have been here, if not for this sort of cataclysmic, you know, catastrophe at one point in our, in our, you know, astronomical history.

I don't know. I think it's really cool. I think astrophysics is really cool. You know, I missed this whole story until you sent it to me, and I thought it was absolutely fascinating. I mean, these guys know so much more than we do, and the way they lay out the argument, it's entirely plausible. It's so cool. Fascinating. And like, you know, I mean, so basically it's like, you know, it does sort of, to me, suggest the possibility of life in other parts of the universe, just because if certain things, smash into each other and you get water and you get heat, life might happen, right? It's like the lake, the bottom of Lake Baikal kind of effect. Exactly right. Yep. Yeah. Fascinating. Totally, totally

cool. Tom asks the right question. Do you guys believe in God? John? Yeah, I do. I do. I used to never miss a Sunday. Now I'm less reliable. But yeah, sure, I do. And I do not. I'd like to. I used to. I grew up Catholic. I served Mass. No priest's ever diddled me. I don't know.

Maybe I was ugly. It's like I had a friend who came from high school. We got to be friends again like 20 years later. He moves to New York, right? And we're hanging out drinking and he comes out to me. And he goes, by the way, you should just know, like, you know, I'm, buy. And he goes, but don't worry, I'm not attracted to you. Oh, thanks a lot. That's what I said. What am I, job liver? It's like, I'm like, you'll fuck anyone, but not me. My best friend,

my best friend from childhood, we've been friends since we were five and we're in each other's weddings and everything. So there were five of us that are all, you know, close and we're all in each other's weddings. We're all godfather to each other's kids. So, Another friend of ours said, oh, I saw so-and-so at the grocery store in Pittsburgh, one of my closest friends, and he's holding hands with a guy. And I was like, oh, okay. So I said to my best friend in the summer, this is the summer of 95. I was just back from Bahrain for R&R.

And I said, what do you think about our mutual friend? You think he's gay? Because if he is, I wish you would just say it. So we can say, dude, we don't care if you're gay. We still love you. there's no, it makes no difference. And my buddy says to me, I don't know if he's gay, but I sure know I am. Oh.

And I look at him like, and I said, I said, surprise. You had sex with half the girls in high school. Right. He said, I had sex with half the boys in high school. Oh, that's awesome. And I'm just looking at him. I got, and then I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. how many times have we shared a bed over the years?

What, I'm not good enough for you. Exactly. And he said, I was never attracted to you. I was like, what's wrong with me? I get the double whammy today. That's awesome. Oh, my God. And he and his husband now have been together for 30, yeah, 31 years.

I had a friend and a friend, a friend, high school friend, who stole my girlfriend, Megan, from me. And so, like, you know, and so years later, you know, I read about him. He was a very accomplished attorney in Cincinnati. He worked on the Maple Thor case. I read about him in the New York Times. And so I was like, I was really excited to get back in touch with him. I was like, congratulations. You're doing, you know, yeoman's work out there, fighting the right wingers.

And we're talking, talking. And I said, finally, I was like, you know, I got to call you out, you know. And I go, you're gay now. I read in the paper. He goes, yeah. And I go, but you stole Megan from me. You stole my girlfriend. You fucked my girlfriend.

And he goes, dude, I did you a favor. Why do you think I'm gay? If you stayed with Megan, you'd be gay. I fell on the grenade for you. Oh, my God. Hey, but I know we're over time and I apologize. But we have a question. And I want to say thank you to USC A-Rod 21.

Thanks for the $10. What do we think about the furor sending people to Chicago? He's a resident and worries for the local police. I'm going to say, based on our experience in Washington, they're just going to stand around in the tourist areas and do nothing except write tickets for people not wearing a seatbelt. Yeah, that's right. My friend Scott Stantis from the Chicago Tribune told me just this morning.

He said, they're going to stand around on the magnificent mile. Exactly. and have pictures taken. That's it. He said like, oh, they'd be very welcome in the south side of Chicago. The people would throw flowers at them, but they're not going to go there. Nope. Nope.

There is breaking news. Robbie is reminding us of, I just saw it. Robbie, is it about tariffs, an appeals court, not a district court, but a federal appellate court has just ruled Donald Trump's tariffs unconstitutional. I don't know how that can be. I'm not a lawyer, but make what you will of that. I thought so, too. All right, well, we'll see what happens there. Yeah.

Okay. So, by the way, I just want to point out in the chats here, Fuhr was misspelled, and we were talking F-U-R-O-R, not the former chancellor of Germany. Anyway, all right, guys. Thank you so much. We could do this all night long, but you guys have lives, but we might have lives, I guess. Thank you so much. Please like, follow, and share the show.

Thank you for your generous donations, especially that one. Thank you. Oh, my God. That was amazing. We will be back. Well, no, we're taking Monday is a holiday, right? Well, it's a holiday. Yeah, we take here on the D program show.

We take federal holidays off. So we will be back on Tuesday, which at 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of next week. We will see you then looking forward to it. John is always a pleasure. Take care, everyone. Thank you, everyone.