DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “When Vlad Met Donnie”

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Is the Russo-Ukrainian War about to come to an end? The “DeProgram” show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou handicaps the odds of tomorrow’s Alaska summit between Trump and Putin and the other major issues of the day. Join Ted and John as they explore: • Putin-Trump Summit: As the leaders of the US and Russia prepare to meet in person, Vladimir Putin is reportedly offering financial incentives and 2 million tons of aluminum/mineral rights from the occupied Donbas region of Ukraine to Donald Trump. This move aims to counter a previous U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal. Who will win the mineral bidding war for Trump? • Ethnic Cleansing Plan: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician, has been a vocal advocate for the E1 settlement project in the West Bank. Smotrich announced plans for 3,401 housing units, stating, “Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state.” About Gaza: Israel is negotiating with Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, UAE, and Qatar to relocate Gazans for ethnic cleansing and genocide. Meanwhile, airdrop-related deaths mount. • CIA and Sue Mi Terry: Former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry faces charges for acting as a South Korean agent, raising alarms about intelligence oversight and CIA transparency. What really happened and what are the security implications? • More Troops to DC?: Speculation grows about Trump deploying more troops to Washington, DC, supposedly to fight crime. Is this really an attempt to control crime and, if so, can it work? Or is it a way to get us accustomed to the militarization of civilian life?• Q&A with Ted Rall: John had a train to catch! So Ted answered your questions about the Los Angeles Times, Ayn Rand, the effect of the media overseas, and how to break into politics when you’re 16.

everyone you're watching the deep program show on ted ral over there is cia whistleblower john kariaku we are talking to you on thursday august 14th 2025 thanks so much for joining us we have a very short show today because john's got a train to catch sorry and i guess with the new regime in washington dc which we'll be talking about the trains might be running more on time than in the past we'll explain that we're here we've this week we are here monday wednesday friday five p.m. except we weren't here yesterday, but we will be back tomorrow at 5 p.m. Please like, follow, and share the show. We will be next week inaugurating our daily schedule Monday through Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday for people who are not

familiar with the days of the week at 5 p.m. Eastern Time. Thank you so much for supporting the show. You guys are awesome. Since we do have such a short time, John, let's just get into it. Why don't you talk to a little bit about what you encountered in or, What's going on in Washington, D.C., where the National Guard has been federalized, and the Washington Metropolitan Police, which is the local police force, has also been federalized by Donald Trump, ostensibly to crack down on street crime. Yeah, the thing is, though, there is no street crime, not in the parts of Washington that Donald Trump is talking about. Yes, there are bad neighborhoods in Washington, just like there

are anywhere in any city, regardless of size. But this is a publicity stunt. What makes me so upset today, and I'm smiling because there's one funny component to it, too. The cops, plus the National Guard, plus the FBI and ATF and DEA have set up roadblocks on major thoroughfares, like 14th Street, which is one of the most important streets in all of Washington. They set up roadblocks, and what are they doing at the roadblocks? They are writing tickets for people who are not wearing their seatbelts. Seriously. Is that all they're doing? That is it. And they wrote a couple tickets for brake lights being out.

The Washington Post is reporting. There was an incident on U Street at 14th and U last night. I was telling Ted before the show started that U.S. Street is kind of famous because it was the center of the Washington jazz scene 100 years ago. It's where Duke Ellington lived and performed and the Duke Ellington School is there now. Anyway, it's a real hipster area,

great restaurants and bars and a little bit seedy, but in a cool way. Anyway, a 38-year-old white man was coming out of a subway sandwich shop. He saw a bunch of National Guards people, and he called them fascist pigs, and words were exchanged, and he threw his sandwich at one of them.

And the sandwich hit the National Guardsman in the shoulder, and he was promptly tackled and arrested. And Gene Piro, of course, being the new U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, called a late-night press conference last night to announce that this deranged criminal had been arrested. He was being charged with a felony count of assaulting a police officer and that her office would be asking for 10 years in prison. Well, you know, it's created, it's led to all these memes being created today. and I told Ted, there's no jury anywhere in Washington

that is going to convict this guy of assault on a police officer for throwing a sandwich. But we're in the silly period. And I have to go to the train station. It's, well, right at 530 or 525 or something like that. And I'm going to have to figure away around these roadblocks because my train leaves at 605, and I don't have time to fool around with these people.

but you better not be you're not bringing a pack sandwich lunch are you with you on the train because you could be you could be shocked it's a weapon yeah it's gotten just nuts already i do feel badly for them for the innocent sandwich that i had too and i said to you earlier i hope it was either tuna or meatball at least that it would be worth it i hope it's not like you know salami that's not going to leave a mark no i well not to mention i love salami i do so Well, so, yeah, I like Janine Piro's statement. She said, oh, he thought it was funny, but we charged him with 10 years in prison. Now he doesn't think it's so funny.

Oh, Gene, you just made it funnier. Yeah. It was always going to be funny. It's not going to ever not be funny. This is up there. I made a mistake last week, Ted, when I... This is like when that guy, the Iraqi journalist, threw the shoe at Bush. Jew, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Two shoes. You were saying. I trust. I made a mistake last week when I said that the National Guard could only be called out for three days before Congress had to approve it. It turns out there's a proviso in the law that says that if Congress is not in session, the three days becomes 30 days. So by the time the 30 days is up, Congress will be back in session and then Trump can make his case for renewing for another 30 days.

The bottom line here on this deployment, I guess we have to call it a deployment, is Donald Trump hates looking out the window and staying homeless people. right he hates it and he wants them all cleared out and he doesn't care where they go you can put him in the woods or send him to maryland or send him to new york but he does not want homeless people in the parts of washington where tourists go which is sick but you know rather than to try to fix the homeless problem you just throw them out and make him somebody else's problem that's what we're headed toward yeah i mean that's a very different attitude than look he wasn't my favorite president, but George H.W. Bush wrote quite eloquently about looking out the window of the White House and seeing a homeless guy sleeping on a grate in the ellipse or near the

ellipse between the White House and I don't know what street that is, you would know. And he and he's just said, this is just not right. This is, this is beneath the dignity of the United States of America. And of course, obviously he was right. But there's been no, I don't think who's ever been a serious attempt to grapple with homelessness at the federal level. There's a couple of cities who do a good job. They call it housing first, like in Dallas and Denver. And basically, it's conditioned-free housing. Just come in.

If you have a substance or an alcohol abuse problem, no worries. You can keep using. Come in. And, of course, obviously, we're going to have counselors help you and social workers help you. Just having a home, just having a roof over your head often goes a long way to making people stop self-medicating. That's right. That's exactly right.

And I want to point out real quickly, too, that Robbie is informing me that sandwich man has also been fired from his job. Oh, yeah. He was a DOJ employee. Yeah. A DOJ employee. Oh, my God. The world's gone crazy.

Or we've got crazy anyway. Yeah. I mean, what does it mean, right? I mean, so the fact that, first of all, a heavily armed guy with Kevlar is so pissed that he gets a sandwich thrown at him, that he has to go after him. Okay, and then what does it mean? What message, you know, politically

is the administration trying to send with such a radical overcharge? I mean, you know, obviously they know that people like us are going to make fun of them and everyone else is going to make fun of them and the overcharge is only going to draw attention to it. Yes. Are they basically just like,

is this simply like a don't fuck with us move? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. And like I said, if these guys were going to go to, you know, deep southeast Washington, which is the highest crime or deep northeast Washington as well, but the two highest crime areas in the city and try to straighten the place out and, you know, maybe raid the crack houses or, you know, disrupt shootings or whatever. Okay, great, good on them. But that's not what they're doing. No, not at all. It's all about. I think this is

all about normalizing the militarization of American city streets. You know, the L.A. and the D.C., they're basically standing around. They're not really doing anything, like you say. So what's this? This is about making us used to seeing heavily armed soldiers on the street. The way that if you live in Israel, you're always used to seeing soldiers with, you know, Uzi's out on the street. If you live in, if you're in any number of countries in the developing world, you're used to seeing heavily armed troops or paramilitaries out on the streets. And, you know, I think that's about, that's what this is about. I think that's exactly right. Yeah. Let's talk about, we got to talk about the big story of the day because we time is short. I don't want to miss out on it. Putin and Trump meeting today in

Anchorage, Alaska, Nicholas Christoph at the New York Times had, I thought, and he's not, he's normally one of the more sober Democrats. I thought he had a complete case of Russian derangement syndrome today. He said that the choice of Anchorage, Alaska, was a sap to Putin because it used to belong to Russia, and it confirms the idea that borders are fungible. Now, I could interpret it the opposite and say, well, it's actually a diss to Putin because we're forcing him to come to us. And also, he doesn't get like a 16, you know, a 21 gun salute at the White House. And he doesn't get, you know, and also we're rubbing his nose in the fact that we now own former Russian property, I mean, which I don't think that's true either. But I mean, it's just basically

looking for stuff to criticize. I think they chose Anchorage because it's sort of halfway in between. Right. Right. It's going to take Trump probably, what, seven hours, seven and a half hours to get there. It's going to take Putin, maybe 10 hours to get there. Less than that. I think the doubt of Vladivostok. Right. I think you're right. I think, yeah. that's right it's either that or vladovastik um vladivostik uh i think you're right i think it's kind of sort of the halfway point yeah that i'm sure that's what i'm sure that's what i'm sure and i will say today i was look at the russian media today the russians are bringing a who's who of their top diplomats and negotiators so at least from the russian side they're

taking this very seriously ah sanctions temporary lifted could r t and sputnik be back on the menu. That is the subject of hours and hours of text messages I have been exchanging all day with my former Sputnik and RT colleagues. There are a lot of hopeful people who were not hopeful yesterday. So that's... I'm sure. That's what we're pulling for. I mean, obviously there's not going to be any deal without that happening, I would think. It's one of the things like I don't think it's a priority. I don't think it's the a priority, but I think it doesn't, nothing gets done without that happening. If that makes sense. Yes, indeed.

So basically, it looks like this is all going to boil down to mineral rights, right? So Zelenskyy promised rare earth minerals to Trump if he kept supporting Ukraine. Now Putin's like, I'll see your rare earths and I'll raise you two million tons of aluminum that you really need. And so basically, is it going to boil down to an eBay auction for whoever is willing to cough up the most minerals to trump i think so ted uh but at the same time they're going to have to throw something at zelensky you know you got it you got to get zelensky to a place where he's willing to concede territory that's the bottom line yeah he's going to have to concede territory right i mean he's saying yeah i mean well he is going to have to right i mean so i think i mean what this looks like

to me if it works, John, and tell me what, if you think I'm wrong, is basically Trump and Putin hash out a deal. Crimea obviously stays with Russia. Donbos pretty much stays with Russia. The probably no NATO membership for Ukraine, which makes sense because they have a disputed border anyway. Selensky can stay because his own people will get rid of him and send him off to without question to Lake Como. So they can join the EU, no must, no fuss. And then basically that's, and then they go to, they go to, then Trump calls Zelensky and says, this is it, take it or leave it. I'll offer you security guarantees if you agree to it, but not if you don't agree to it. And then I'll just cut off all funding in arms. That's it. You know, it's funny

basically looks like i think so and and so many people have been saying for so long that zelanski's week he's in a box he's in a corner he can't call the shots he's he actually has a couple of cards in this hand so he's going to well he can just say no and he can bring the germans and the and the rest of the of the european countries whether they're nato or the u along with him and try to isolate uh trump and without Without a formal agreement ceding this territory, there is no peace. And then Trump fails. No doubt, no doubt.

Can I ask, can I add something? Eric Hussaud is saying, what about the Ukraine Nazis? Colonel Doug, oh my God, what's the matter of me? You know who I'm talking about. Doug, now I have to look at my phone. McGregor. Colonel Doug McGregor was on Judge Napolitano today, and Napolitano asked him, what about the Ukrainian Nazis or these Nazi units? He said they were decimated early in the fighting. They've been moved far away from the front. And Mario Paul, they got captured.

That's right. And they're just not, they're not of import. So the Ukrainians have essentially already been denotified is what he said. And he's kind of pro-Russian. So, I mean, look, I always said that denazification, you and I both said that denatification was always a throwaway demand. Yeah, it was. We have said that. And it kind of had to be because it's impossible to enforce. I mean, yeah, you know, you want to see all those bandera signs ripped off the wall. But that's for the Ukrainians to deal with. That's it. That's right. So, all right. So I guess, We need a, oh, this is really funny, after this meeting, we need an emergency D-programmed live stream this weekend.

Perhaps so. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. John and I are going to be in the same city this weekend. Yes. We'll both be here in whatever is left in New York after it all boils away in the current heat wave. So let's see. Did you get a chance to go to Russia when we all were implied with Sputnik?

No, I never went. And I kind of always fished around for an invitation. But I always fished for, I went, I went on my own dime in 2023, and it was great. I mean, yeah, I mean, I'd been before, but it was obviously really interesting to go in the current situation after the beginning of the war. The biggest, there were some serious practical concerns, which is, even though things were a lot cheaper for tourists than they had been. you had to bring all of your money in cash because your credit cards and your debit cards don't work at all. So, although I found a workaround, but I'm not going to say what that was because it might screw things up for other tourists who go there. But there is a workaround.

I hope, I don't know if it still might not work anymore, but who knows. Azov had never had more than 2,500 people. Cameron Drogh says, it's weird, but it's been blown way out of proportion, in my opinion. I think that's probably right. Perhaps, but I mean, you know, how many American military units have swastikas on their uniforms? I mean, not that many, none. You know, like you can be drummed out of the military for being a neo-Nazi. You know, there you might get promoted. So, yeah, no, I'm very hopeful.

We'll see what happens. Although, frankly, I'm hopeful for this show, too. I mean, you know, it's... I am too. I am too. And, you know, we're getting to the point thanks to our fantastic and dedicated listeners and viewers that

we're getting to the point where we may not need a helping hand from RT or from that's true especially if you all go to over to Rumble rumble.com there's the terrible URL we didn't invent it the slash C thing

just go to Rumble if you're not already doing that we get paid like 80 times more if you literally if you go watch us on Rumble and also there's going to be exclusive content over there. You can either see all Rumble content exclusively for five bucks, for 10 bucks a month. But if you don't care about Rumble in general, you just want to see us. It's five bucks a month. Or if you just watch us over there. It's helpful too. So that's our little

sales pitch here. Okay. So let's move on here. So what do you, what do you expect from this initial meeting? Some people are recording this is a getting to know you. summit and the real thing will be later. Yeah, they're trying to tamp down expectations. But you know how Trump is? Trump is going to probably throw out this gigantic grand plan to end all conflicts. I like it. Yeah, I do too. Just to see what the Russians response will be. There's never any downside to diplomacy. I've said this for decades. It's never a bad thing to talk to our enemies. Never. Better to Jaja than to war war, Churchill said. Yeah, that's right. We shouldn't expect any giant breakthroughs, but this is the opening of a door. And I hope something good

happened. So is Putin the reticent madman that's being portrayed in the American media? No. A lot of these bringing Lavrov and a stable of seasoned diplomats, no. And his own self. Seriously. And his own self. That's right. This is a summit, an actual summit. Yeah. No, this is too serious. This is a serious thing. Yeah. I mean, who knows? I mean, I think it's, in a way, I don't think this is complicated. You know, it's like the details of land swaps will, drawing that border will look like Versailles in 1919. Yes. And definitely it's going to be an ugly look for the Ukrainians as their fate is decided. whether they get to stay in their hometown or not based on the whims of cartographers.

So it is going to feel a little bit like British imperialism. But, okay, Israel, lots going on there. So basically, Israel is now talking to five countries about accepting Ghazin refugees, expulsion victims, ethnic cleansing victims. Is this going to go anywhere, John? I mean, I don't. No, I talk to Miko. pellet about this today for my other podcast. This is, this is literally the definition of ethnic cleansing, which is a form of genocide and is illegal under international law. So, no, they

tried with the Albanians. They tried with the Indonesians. They tried with the Egyptians and the Saudis. Now they're talking about sending two million people to South Sudan, the worst place on earth. Ridiculous. You can't do it. It's illegal. I strongly recommend that people read the latest Ezra Klein transcript that's in the New York Times, where he interviewed a guy who's an expert on the definition of genocide. It's just called, is it genocide? And basically, it just explains the history of how genocide came to be defined as a term during, actually before World War II. And then how it got popularized. Do you know where it came from? Isn't it from the Armenian genocide? No. It was a word coined by the

father of Robert Morgenthau, in 1921, he happened to be on an American ship in the port of Izmir as the Turks were slaughtering Greeks and Armenians, literally slaughtering them. And Genos is peoples, right? Genocidi, genocide, is the killing of a people. And so he coined the term in a letter that he was. was writing to the president. Yeah, in fact, Robert Morgenthau, he was almost like a hundred years old. He came to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when I was working there.

And he had to take my arm in the hall and I walked him to the hearing room. And I said that I had just finished a book called Smyrna 1921. I said, I didn't realize that your father had coined the term genocide. And he said, yes. And on his deathbed, he said that that was the thing that he was the most proud of. That's cool. Isn't that cool? So, and yeah, the definition of genocide is not just, you know, death camps like Auschwitz.

It's, you know, it can include that, of course. But it's also about making it impossible for people to live in a certain place. You might not, you could have a genocide that might not kill anyone. That's right. Like forcing them to move to South Sudan. And Eric has a question here, too. Odds that Israel attacks Iran again. Eric, I have moved dramatically over the past week.

especially after reading Trita Parsy's piece on Substack a couple of days ago, I think the chances are very good that Israel is going to attack Iran in the next three weeks. It'll be before the end of the month. For distraction purposes to scuttle any peace talks, to force Trump to come to heal? Exactly. Uh-huh. Will it work? I mean, if you're Trump, you've got to be like, you've got to see right through that.

I mean, that's the kind of thing that Trump would do. Therefore, I would think that Trump would recognize it. I think I think you probably would. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, don't bullshit a bullshitter. That's right. I hope that's the case. I'm worried.

So, okay, so these five countries would all be viewed as complicit in genocide. So there's just, why are they talking to the Israelis at all? A lot of them haven't actually been asked. Like the Indonesians are like, whoa, whoa, we never say. we've heard of it? Yeah, we're not giving up an island for two million Palestinians to come. No. And the Albanians are like, are you kidding us? We're the poorest country in Europe and you want to send two million more people here. That's insane. Well, I'm sure they would love to divvy them up, kind of like, you know, the U.S. divvied up the Guantanamo victims. But, you know, there were only a few hundred of those. Yeah. And some got lucky and some got unlucky. Some went to Switzerland. Some went to Albania. right yes i went to bermuda went to tahiti yeah a couple more went to you know bangladesh so it's the luck of the draw uh i uh let's okay well we got to talk about this uh sue me terry story uh this is your wheelhouse this is your bailwick john take it away oh okay and i have one minute because i got to go

sue me terry who i'd forgotten until robbie reminded us is the wife of max boot and she's now formerly of the Wall Street Journal. That's right. So I'm going to get the exact. He was my editor at the Wall Street Journal for a time. She's a big deal. So she's being charged with spying, spying for South Korea.

This is going to be a real stretch, it seems to me, Ted, because she's widely respected, providing analysis. The Justice Department is saying that, actually I'm going to pull it up. She was, she's been charged with multiple offenses, not under the espionage act, but under the Farah Act, foreign agents registration act, which means that, oh my God, she forgot to fill out a form on the internet. That makes it a felony. Now, that calls for a sentence of zero to six months, first offense.

On Farah, the Justice Department doesn't care what it is. Maria, what's her face from Russia, thank you, was convicted of failing to file. And even though it was zero to six months recommendation, she got 18 months in solitary confinement. So I don't know why the CIA is demanding that these charges be pursued. I think it's kind of nuts. And I'm no friend of Max Boots. Do you think she's guilty? She may be guilty of laziness.

And like I say, the crime literally is failing to fill out a form on the internet, literally. That's sort of like, yeah, like we talked about RT and Sputnik. That's something that like under the, what is that thing called? The Farah, like they had to fill out a form every single day, yeah. And I'm going to apologize to our viewers. I've got to run. I have to dodge these roadblocks and get to the train station. John, go with God.

I'll see you this weekend. Thank you. And I'll see tomorrow. at the you know where and uh yeah at the you know where i'll be there all right cool thanks and we'll be back uh tomorrow at 5 p.m right you're still good for tomorrow at 5 okay cool i'm gonna thanks john john go john's gonna take off um i'm gonna stick around there's a request uh from inside the inside the chat here on both the rumble and on uh the on youtube to uh do a q and a with me once john leaves so if anybody's interested uh in doing that i

I'll stick around as long as people are interested in doing that. Okay, all right. Okay, first, Clovis overrules us all. Clovis is my cat. So if he blesses us with his presence, I'm looking around, I don't see him. Okay, so I'm being requested here for the LA Times story debacle. All right, I will tell that story as short and as sweet as I possibly can because it is a very long and complicated ordeal. But the long story short is in 2009, I was hired as the staff cartoonist at the L.A. Times.

It was honestly, you know, just like one of the biggest breaks you could ever get, especially at a time when the industry was falling apart. 2009, you know, was during the global recession and newspapers were hit super hard. So I was really lucky to get the gig. I was very excited about it. And anyway, I worked there without incident between 2009 and 2015. Now, what that entailed was every two, three days, I drew a cartoon for the LA Times.

And then about, this is important, about 2012 or so, they called me and said, oh, would you be willing to write a blog that would go with the cartoon that would sort of explain sort of how you came up with your cartoon, maybe the background of the topic or whatnot? And I said, sure, you know, they were like, we'll pay you a little more money. And I was like, fine.

So anyway, my routine was like every single week, I would send my editor a couple of ideas. She would choose one. And then I would draw it and I would write up a blog and they would publish it. And that was it. And I went to visit a few times. I also went to Afghanistan for the LA Times and did comics journalism from there in 2000. Part of that ended up in my book After We Kill You, We Will Welcome U.S. honored guests.

But it was a great relationship. I want to be very clear here. There was never any tension or friction whatsoever. I got along great with all of my editors. I basically dealt with three editors except when one editor would, Nick Goldberg, who was the Uber editor, would call, you know, every now and then just when all the other three were out and he would take care of it.

So anyway, And unbeknownst to me, in 2014, the LAPD pension fund purchased controlling interest in a company called Trunk, which was also known as Tribune Publishing, which was the parent company of the LA Times and 14 other newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, I forget all the whole long list. But I didn't know about any of this. But the LAPD told the L.A. Times, we're really pissed at Ted Rawl because every now and then, he draws cartoons that make fun of the police chief, Charlie Beck, and make fun of the LAPD. But nobody ever told me, cut it out, leave the LAPD alone. If they had, I could be honest, I'm not like, John. I probably would have said, like, okay, there's lots of other stuff to draw about. I mean, there's always limits in journalism. You know, I'm sure you don't, you know, you wouldn't be smart to criticize Jeff Bezos if you were at the Washington Post. So I, you know, but I just, out of ignorance, just kept doing my thing.

And every now and then I did cartoons against the LAPD, which is the nation's, you know, most militarized police force and, you know, guilty of a lot of violence, obviously. So anyway, the summer of 2015 rolls around. I'm at a, I'm with my kid at a county fair riding a ferris wheel. It's 8 o'clock at night. I get a call East Coast Time. I get a call from Nick Goldberg from the L.A. Times. And he says, Ted, what's going on? And I'm like, Nick, I don't know what you're talking about.

And he's like, well, you know, the LAPD is questioning, you know, an account of an incident that occurred in 2000. What he was talking about was a cartoon that had run many months before that was basically about how the LAPD was going against jaywalking. And I said, I wrote a blog that went with it. And I said, you know, this time it's personal. Back in 2001, I was on Bill Maher's show, politically incorrect. I was walking in West Hollywood from ABC television, CBS Television City, up to Melrose Boulevard to have dinner with some friends. I was crossing the street, by the way, in the crosswalk, with the green light, with the little walking guy, and a motorcycle cop arrested me, handcuffed me, roughed me up, wrote me a misdemeanor citation for jaywalking. Obviously, the guy had a, you know, he had a, a quota to fill.

I was furious about this because I hadn't done anything wrong. There was an angry crowd, you know, yelling at the cop. And there was quite a scene going on. And finally, ultimately, a, you know, his partner showed up on a motorcycle and told him, you know, what the fuck are you doing? Let's get out of here. And so then he uncuffed me and gave me the ticket, threw my driver's license into the gutter and drove off. So I filed a formal complaint with internal affairs. Nothing ever came of it.

Never heard from them. And I forgot all about it. But I did write about this when I read about. the jaywalking crackdown to just say how stupid you know as a new yorker you know jaywalking is not enforced here and it was just one of these things about like how do i um you know how can they do this and this is what happened to me if it can happen to me it can happen to you blah blah blah anyway the lapd went into their old files dug up my old complaint and with internal affairs and they called the lapd and they said we secretly audio taped back into that

2001, Ted Rawls' interaction with the police officer who arrested him and handcuffed him. But he was never handcuffed. The cop was always polite. He was never roughed up. There was never a crowd of angry people. Ted Raul made the whole thing up. So under basically what they were accusing me of and what the LA Times agreed that I had done was that I had lied in print. So this wasn't true. Of course, I remembered it very vivid. and I knew what had happened, but there's no way to prove a negative, right? So the investigative reporter for the L.A. Times, a guy named Paul Pringle, who has since characterized himself as a voice of reason in the in Southern California journalism

and even wrote a book pretty well received a few years ago about it, calls me up and he's like, listen, I'm going to send you the recording, the recording of this interaction. And it proves that what you said happened didn't happen. So he sends it to me. It's about six and a half minutes long. You can find it on the internet. I posted it on the internet. And all you can hear is static.

It's literally like, and you can hear that there might be some voices in the background, but you can't recognize them. I couldn't even recognize my own voice. You really can't hear anything. And Paul Pringle goes, see, there's no sound of handcuffs going on. There's no sound of an angry crowd. There's no indication that the cop ever was rude to you.

And I'm like, this thing doesn't show anything. It could have space aliens on it. But he didn't, you know, the guy, the fix was clearly in. Long story short, Nick Goldberg fires me. They print an article in the LA Times calling me a liar and a fabulous to explain my firing. And clearly the goal here was to not only get rid of me, but also to make sure I would never work in journalism again. A few days later, I start getting, I get a fan who writes to me and says, you know, I've been reading about this. This is a big national story. It's on Fox News. It's on the

AP. It's all over the place. And, you know, Ted Rawl fired for making up story about poor innocent LAPD. So I'm completely desperate. I think my life and my career is completely destroyed. And anyway, this fan writes and says, if you ever heard of audio and enhancement technology. And audio enhancement is basically where you can strip away noise and maybe reveal what's underneath the noise. So can you please send? So this guy was like, I know a guy who knows a guy. Long story short, three different people did enhancements. And they all ended up getting the same results, which was once you cleared away the noise, it was still pretty crappy. But you could hear among other things, people screaming at the police officer, let him go, why

Are you hurting him? Take off his handcuffs and so on. It all vindicated my side of the story. Nothing vindicated the LAPD side of the story. I sent this audio recording to the L.A. Times figuring it's going to be fine. They're going to see reason. Obviously, there's no reason for them to go on. But what I didn't realize was that there was this power dynamic where LAPD chief, Charlie Beck,

had secretly met with Austin Butner, who was a former mayor. moral candidate. He was a hedge fund billionaire, the publisher of the LA Times who had been installed by the LAPD pension fund as publisher in 2014. They even gave him as soon as he, in the same way that Obama won the Nobel in for Peace Prize, six months after being president, just basically for being a Democrat and for being black. Austin Putner won the LAPD badge and eagle award for service to the LAPD. just for being the publisher of the LA Times. Paranthetically, you're not supposed to, as an employee of the LA Times,

except any kind of awards whatsoever from any agency other than, you know, something like the Pulitzer's, a journalistic organization, which obviously the LAPD is not. You're certainly not supposed to accept favors from the government. Anyway, long story short, I post all this to my blog. I write about it in my syndicated column. A news website called A New Domain goes after it, six, their investigative team all over it. It ultimately winds its way through The Guardian.

The New York Observer, owned by Jared Kushner at the time, decides to do their own enhancement. Everyone ends up basically on my side and against the LA Times. The LA Times three weeks later decides to double down with yet another smearpiece saying, well, okay, this time we hired our own enhancement people. and they say that Ted Rawls stuff isn't there. Well, first of all, there's no Ted Rawls stuff. This is other people, professionals who found this information. And then they, so my friend who set a new domain,

she's like, you know, I went to school with this guy, this audio enhancement expert that the LA Times is citing. It doesn't sound like he would say something like this, that he would make things up. She calls him up. She calls me back two hours later. She said, Ted, you better be sitting down. I just got off the phone with Paul Grigris, I think was his name.

And he says, you know, the L.A. Times never hired me. They lied about me. They made up a quote to say that I had said there was nothing there. I never wrote and he said anything of the kind. The L.A. Times basically just made this up and used my name. And now my reputation is smeared because everyone thinks that I'm the stooge of the L.A. Times and the LAPD. L.A. Times, it's embroiled in this massive scandal in August of September of 2015. After a while, they had to shut down all of the comment sections to the L.A. Times website.

Because even in the sports section, people were posting comments like, yeah, you say the Packers won, but what does the LAPD say happened at the game? So anyway, this went on for years. I sued in the LA trial court. The fix was in every single step of the way. And I kind of feel bad because there's questions piling up here. And I can go on and talk about the court procedure. But basically, this story involves everyone from Governor Gavin Newsom to Tom Girardi, the disgraced lawyer who was married to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,

Erica Jane, to my judge who was having an affair with Tom Gerardy, who was also friends with Charlie Beck. It's an incestuous snake bit politically over there. Anyway, that's the short version of what happened. Needless to say, ultimately, Gavin Newsom overruled the California Supreme Court, had my case thrown out. and that's kind of like where that went down five years later. I currently have a judgment for $1.2 million in legal fees against me in the state of California

because basically the court decided, you know, they decided to award the L.A. Times their legal fees because they're the poor innocent victims of Ted Rall who was trying to censor them. Okay, what was my beef? Reed wants to know. What was my beef with Ann Coulter? Ann Coulter jokingly, ha-ha, said, hey, you know, Ted Rawl entered the anti-Semitic Iranian cartoon contest. Okay, I didn't. So I was really furious about this, and I did threaten to sue her. I put it out, I asked people, if I sue her, would you help back me up financially?

I collected a lot of pledges, but then when I talked to lawyers, they said, I'd never win. She's protected by First Amendment and satire, just as I am. And I guess, unless I'm going after the LAPD. And so therefore, I decided not to pursue it, as I said in public. And I think it was really reckless. She basically accused me of consorting with terrorists and being an anti-Semite. So I was really, really furious here. Okay. Starline wants to know, how do I feel about Ian Rand? Two-part question. First is an author.

Second is a lecherous old woman who prayed on young male college libertarians. I'm not a fan of her writing. I definitely understand the appeal to the people who she appeals to. I think she's talented, but she's not my cup of tea at all. As someone who's always kind of had a fondness for older women, I don't think that those young male couples, college libertarians were victimized in any way, shape, or form. When I was, you know, they were over 18 years old. They're consenting adults, and she probably taught them a lot and, you know, good for them. But if they're under 18, then I feel very differently about it. I mean, when I was 20, I had a over 60 girlfriend for a time. So I'm biased there.

Okay, let me, we've got a few more questions here. Okay, over on the Rumble feed, Nadia, Margaret wants to know, do I draw my hand, or do I use a graphic tablet, draw by hand. Here's a cartoon that I'm working on right now. This is how I draw them like a pen and ink. It's just on Bristol board. Here's the pen. I draw it black and white like this.

And then when it's done, I scan it into Photoshop and to add the colors and make any mistakes fixed in Photoshop. Okay. How do I get in Rex 0527 on Rumble? wants to know how do I get into politics. I'm 16 in Arkansas, and I really want to be more involved in anything. Helps also to love your content. I've been watching you since you guys started. Thank you so much, Rex. Much appreciate it. So how do you want to be more involved? Well, I mean, it depends on, you know, if you want to be involved in one of the two major parties, the best thing

to do is to go to the local party headquarters or the party headquarters of one of the candidates and, you know, volunteer for a campaign and work for it. If you're more interested, in activist politics outside of electoral politics, find an organization that speaks to you, and just reach out and say, hey, what are you guys doing? Do you have any meetings? Can I, do you have any literature I can read? That's what I did when I was a kid. I went to work, I was 10 years old and I worked for the McGovern campaign with my mom. Oh, I didn't reach out. She did that. But I did phone bank for Jimmy Carter. And then I moved to the left after Michael Dukakis. I was a New York youth coordinator for Dukakis when I was 25 in 1988. And I decided

that I really just couldn't stand electoral democratic politics internally anymore and that I was to the left of that. And I migrated. But you know, you do you and just basically keep an eye out for people who appeal to you that way. So many questions. Okay. Hardine 66 wants to know. do you have any concerns about how the media is currently used within the U.S.? As from the outside, it looks like it's all propaganda for political gain as opposed to informing the public? Well, yeah. Do we have 10 hours? We're not going to be able to get to all that. But yes, obviously so much of the media is propaganda. And it's very dangerous. It literally leads to people dying in wars. I mean, think about the, you know, currently what's

going on in Israel. U.S. support for Israel is without any filter at all. There's no restraint whatsoever. And as a result, hundreds of thousands, and it is hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lost their lives. Many more have been severely traumatized. They're going to ethnically cleanse the entire strip if they get away with it. And they're doing that because of the media, not only in Israel, which is strictly controlled and self-controlled, but also here in the United States because we're paying the bill, and we're only paying the bill because the political support is generated by American propaganda. So, yeah, no doubt about it. It's a terrible, terrible thing. All right. So let's talk about what's my opinion on Georgism and taxing the

unimproved value of land. I need more details on that, Tom. I have to admit no opinion at all. Was the 2001 jaywalking before or after 9-11? Good question, Starland. It was. It was, It was actually after 9-11. It was in, when was this? This was, it was literally, I think, three weeks after 9-11. I think it was something like October 4th or so, 2001. And in fact, one of the things that the people in the crowd yelled at the cop was, you know, what's wrong with you? Don't you have anything better to do with everything that's going on?

and that was a reference to 9-11. You know, this, this, it was the corruption in what was called the West Traffic Bureau was thick and thin. In fact, a group of dissident LAPD officers were furious at being told that they had to write tickets, even to people who had not done anything wrong because they were just trying to generate revenue for the city. And they had sued at the same time. Now, in the same, so those people, the dissident cops, they were being. passed over for promotion and denied raises all the time. Meanwhile, my cop, Will Durr was constantly being promoted and told that and being given great reviews because he was a corrupt

police officer. Okay, let's talk about another wonderful secret wants to know. Trump's been out on bail since August 2023. 200 grand in his active Georgia criminal case. Looks like he'll be held accountable after his term. That case isn't going to just magically disappear. Very true. Very true. Very, very true. In my experience, which side has more grifters and hypocrites, Reed wants to know? Liberal or conservative media? Well, I'm biased because I come from the left, so I pay more attention to the liberals than to the conservatives. You know, you always police your own side more than you police the other side.

But I pay more attention to the liberals and the Democrats. And, you know, I would have to say there's more true believers. I think on the right than there are in mainstream left media. You're not really getting the whole story. Like most of the New York Times editorial page, they're like me. They're socialists, but they can't admit it. They're just trying to cash a paycheck, and they'll tell you, like, overdrinks, the real deal. But, you know, they just don't want to do that.

Here we go. Starling and lying in print next to plagiarism, the fastest way to destroy a career in publishing. Yes? Yes. What's my prediction about the Gaza genocide war going to end? Ka Punkt wants to know Netanyahu in jail. Will the UN finally interfere, or is the ethnic cleansing going to continue? It's really, really hard to say.

But clearly, Israel is completely a cornered animal increasingly. So, you know, this is going to go one or two ways. Either of them is going to be extreme. Netanyahu could end up in jail on those domestic political charges. I would love to see him arrested and brought up to the Hague where he belongs to be held accountable for what he's doing and what Israel is doing in general, not just him, but all of the top Israeli commanders and government and the war ministry, the war cabinet members should all be brought up, brought up. Will the UN finally interfere? I think that's extremely doubtful just because the UN doesn't have a great history of bringing in white helmets to put an end to genocide. They weren't there for Rwanda in any meaningful way.

I don't think they're going to be there in any meaningful way. The ethnic cleansing is going to continue. I don't think any other country is going to take them, the Palestinians, and I don't think they should because that would be enabling genocide. So I think that's going to, you know, I don't have an easy prediction there. I'm really, really, really sorry. As someone who has heard recently about feds in journalism, Do you know or how feds operate in journalism when they infiltrate?

Well, it's hard to say, right? I mean, the thing is that to be the danger isn't really secret agents in journalism. To me, the danger is the chummy relationships that take place in Washington and around the world where basically, you know, a journalist makes friends with politicians and federal government federal and state and local politicians and hangs with them and likes them. And this is why the embedding program and the military is so incredibly toxic. It shouldn't be permitted at all because it crosses that line. Journalists should be completely independent.

You shouldn't be able to have any personal relationship whatsoever with the people that you're covering. I mean, I think that's a big da. I think most people would agree with it. And yet it happens all the time. Star Lion is saying there's a guy. He used to work in L.A.B.D. Intelligence. Roth Miller did a good interview on Gates, the history of the Red Squad of the Intelligence Division. All right.

I'll have to check that out. Yeah. Let's see. What's the thing that? Oh, what's the thing I have with Newsom that makes him look bad? Star-Leylon wants to know. Okay, I'll fast. So my case works its way up to the California Supreme Court.

This is right during the at the very beginning of the pandemic in 2020, and they say, we are going to rule unanimously in Ted Rawls' favor. The money, quote, is from the initial ruling. This appears to be one of the most egregious examples of corruption in the history of the state of California. My lawyers and I are completely ecstatic and thrilled. And they say, but the courts are about to shut down for months, maybe six months, maybe a year. The whole country is going on lockdown. We're all going away. We'll get back to you.

So to issue the final ruling. On April 1st, and I think this is an interesting choice of date, suddenly, without comment, after issuing this detailed, fulsome declamation of the LAPD and the L.A. Times and corruption in Southern California, the court reverses itself from 5 to 0 to 5 against me. No comment in an uncertified decision like Bush v. Gore. That means it's a decision that can never be used as a precedent in a California court because they know it's bad law and because it's political. And anyway, the very next day I learned that two things, number one, all of the cases against the LA Times have magically vanished at the California Supreme Court ruling level.

Number two, Gavin Newsom holds a press conference. with Dr. Pat Sun-Shiong, the new owner of the L.A. Times in L.A., announcing that he will reopen the hospitals that he closed in order to treat California COVID patients. So, obviously, there was a quid pro quo here. I'll reopen my hospitals if you get rid of these meddlesome plaintiffs in the various age discrimination, libel, and other lawsuits against the LA Times from the previous regime. You know, Dr. Pat, you could have called and we could have just worked it out. I would have settled for an apology. I didn't need money. I needed a retraction. But, you know, when you're a, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

And that's what Dr. Pat did. So Gavin Newsom put his thumb on the scale. There's no question in my mind at all. And I think anybody who looks at it would see the same thing that I saw. And I swear to God, if he runs for president, I'm going to make it my business. to make sure that California journalists go after him and get all the duty, everything there. All right. So what's the line between satire and defamation? Well, that's for the courts to decide. But, you know, I think defamation is when you say something that could credibly be construed as true and is construed as damaging.

I mean, so if I lie about what you wear, that's not really, you know, it might not be true. but it doesn't make it defamatory. But a good example of defamation would be, let's say context matters. So let's say you accuse me of not washing my hands after I go to the bathroom. It's probably, it's not true or it might be true, but it's not really defamatory because who cares if a cartoonist or a podcaster washes their hands after they go to the bathroom. But let's say I'm a butcher that would completely destroy my line of work. So in that incident, instance, that could be defamatory if you falsely allege that I don't wash my hands after I go to the bathroom.

Now, if I, let's say I do something that implies that satirically that a butcher doesn't wash his hands, but it's clearly a joke, that's satire. If it's not clearly a joke like Anne Coulter, that's defamation. All right. Let's see. What else we got here? and you do have to, so there's two kinds, you have to, defamation has to be untrue, correct, and you have to prove damages probably, that's correct too. There's two kinds of defamation, there's defamation, regular defamation, which you do have

to prove actual damages, like what jobs did you lose, what jobs did you not get? That's very hard to do. Then there's defamation per se, which is a higher standard, but you don't have to, all you have to prove is that it was said, you don't have to prove that it would, that it cost you money. That would be something like, for example, you accuse someone of being a pedophile and they are a scoutmaster. You don't need to prove actual damages. It's so outrageous if it's not true that that would be defamation per se in most courts. I don't know about, I don't know if George R.R. Martin will ever finish his books, but I'm going to guess probably not. He's been

really slow. All right. Let's see what else. Do I think, Zach, Ackery Beard on Rumble, think the U.S. will ever ratify the Rome statute and subject itself to the ICC. No, the U.S. is a criminal organization, and therefore, it will never do that, I think. How can I send you a copy of my graphic novel? Do I have a P.O. box? I do have a P.O. box. It is on my website. Go to roll.com slash contact, and it's right there. So go check that out. about. Let's see, on which issues do John and I disagree the most? You know, John and I tend to agree about a lot of things. You know, he's probably, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to think about that one. I don't really, you know, we definitely aren't the same person

and we have different backgrounds. I'm betting that he might have a little more affection for, you know, for, you know, the government than I do, but they betrayed him. I don't know. I'm just, I'm spitting here. It's like, I'd like to say we disagree about a lot of things, but I don't think that's really true. So I'm not going to just make that up here. All right.

So thank you very much, Marble 455, for that generous donation. Let's see. Can you take your case to the U.S. Supreme Court? Yes, but. So we did appeal to the U.S. U.S. Supreme Court. And it's a complicated thing. Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that he was very interested in my case. And I'll take, like John, I'll take my friends wherever I can find them. The irony is that when we counted the votes on the Supreme Court, the liberals were going to

go against me because they're in favor of the anti-SLAPP statute that the O.A. Times abused to go after me if you watch everybody in the establishment loves the anti-slap law this is the same thing that the new york times used to screw over sarah palin um anyway thomas was interested in taking the case but we realized that if we if we got before the u.s supreme court and believe me i would love to be talking to nina totenberg on npr about my case uh it would we would have lost probably by six to three and then my what the shitty thing that happened to me would be codified in federal law and would apply to everyone in the country so it could happen over and over again. And so one of the things you don't want to do is make, you know, if you make bad, they say bad

cases make bad law. They don't mean that the case involves a bad person. They mean that a case like mine where it's novel and strange can lead to a really bad judicial verdict that can end up being abused by the powers that be. No, I've never watched The Expans. Don't know about it. Who are the good Democrats in the party right now? No, there aren't any. Okay, I'll check out, Continuum.

And, okay, I'm trying to think. I think we are probably, okay, Star Lion saying it's the most Occupy Wall Street show I've ever seen, other than Mr. Robot, another great thinking man's show. That's high praise. I will have to check that out. Lately, I've been wanting to watch Alien Earth, but I don't have the channel that it's on. I've been watching old episodes of, God, what was that show called, Banshee?

It's trashy, but kind of fun, for sure. And Mr. Robot, too. Yeah, for sure. All right, guys, we are, we'll do okay, we'll do one more here. What do I think of Obama contacting Mamdani a few days ago? So, you know, I'm so happy, Cameron, that you brought this up because it really made my blood boil. So one of the things that happened, you know, when I was a kid, I got bullied a lot in elementary school and, sorry, in junior high school, not in elementary school as much. And I was walking home with a guy who lived in my neighborhood and we were friends and we played together.

And like one time he were walking back and he had something to tell me. And he's like, Ted, would you do me a favor and just not acknowledge that we're friends. at school because, you know, you're unpopular and no one likes you. I don't want to be seen as your friend. So I had enough pride at that point to say, you know what? No, I don't want to be your friend anymore. You can't be my friend in public. I don't want to be your friend at all. Obama calling Mamdani the other day on the DL really reminded me of that. Barry, where the hell is your endorsement? You know, Zoran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee. for the mayor of New York.

And he's almost certainly going to win in the general election. But he's the Democratic candidate. You should endorse him no matter what. And he didn't do that. So, yeah, so he's trying to have it both ways. Like, oh, I'm going to be the Eminence Grease. I'm going to call Mamdani behind the scenes. And it's going to be in blah, blah, blah.

And it got, you know, leaked out to the New York Times and other places. And he gave him some general advice. You know what? Mamdani doesn't need your advice. I mean, he really doesn't need anything from Obama. But what he really needs, if he needs anything, is his endorsement, something that he hasn't gotten from Hakeem Jeffries or from Governor Hokel. All the top Democrats are freezing him out.

So screw him. I think it's disgusting. Screw Obama. I hate that. Oh, I love this story. Okay, read a great question. What was Barry like at Columbia? Let me tell my Columbia story.

Okay, I don't know if you've heard this before. But it's a good story, so it's worth repeating. So when I was a sophomore at Columbia, I lived at a dorm called B.H.R. Brooks, Brooks, hmm, something read, B.H.R. Anyway, Hewitt, Brooks Hewitt, and so I lived on the first floor, room 146 Hewitt, and kind of like down the hall, but also on the first floor, was the black student's organization. And, you know, there weren't that many black students at Columbia, and they kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a very, very white school at the time. And I noticed this one kid who was at a very unusual look and had a fro hanging out a lot.

And one time I walked by and I noticed him being dressed down by the president of the BSO. And I overheard him say, and I'll never forget it. He said, Barry, you can't come around here anymore. You're always coming around here, scamming on girls. But when it comes to putting up and throwing down and participating in the struggle, we can never count on you. You're going to have to decide who you are. And this was at the time when there was the South Africa divestment struggle at Columbia and other schools around the country. And basically, the left on campus was focused on that. And the BSO, as you can imagine, was front and center there.

And so basically, you know, when he emerged, you know, I forgot all about Barry Obama until I read in, I guess, the early 2000s in Time or Newsweek that there was this up-and-coming state legislator in Illinois. And I'll forget your name, but I'll remember your face forever. And I was like, oh, my God, that's the guy I went to school with back then. I was in the convention hall in 2004 when he gave his big speech. And, you know, he's a man who's always been full of shit when he emerged in 2007 as like, you know, running against the stupid war in Iraq for the smart war in Afghanistan. I, you know, I was, I decided to look into his voting record. Now, Obama voted six out of six times to fund the war, six out of six times. That's when I realized he was full of shit.

full disclosure, I voted for John Edwards in the primaries, even though John Edwards had already dropped out of the race here by the time the New York primary happened in 2008. So, yeah, I saw Obama. I wouldn't say, I mean, you know, define a lot. He's one of those people that, you know, you just see sometimes. And he was a very striking dude. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know how many times I saw him. I guess that's a lot if you can't really count it. So, yeah, that, yeah, Barry, Barry never changed, Mania. That's, that's really right. Who have I voted for in the last elections?

Last few elections. I voted for Green Party, Dr. Jill Stein, in the last election. I voted for Howie Hawkins in the 2020 race. I voted for Dr. Stein in 2016 as well. And I think it was, if Ralph Nader was running in 2012, I think he was. I think I voted for him. I think that's exactly right. Okay.

So there we go. Okay, all right, there's more. Yellow Banana wants to know if you can go back to 2008. Would you change any presidential results between the two candidates? All right. So this was John McCain versus Barack Obama. Well, I mean, yeah, well, between the two candidates. Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean, I hated John McCain. He was a warmonger, a representable figure. I was really truly terrified of what would have. happen if Sarah Palin became president, you know, I thought John McCain was like five seconds away from dropping dead. So, you know, I guess I'm agnostic about that. I think in the end it wouldn't have made any real difference if McCain had won. You know, Obama turned out to be a massive warmonger, too. He ended up not delivering on his key promise for a public option in the Affordable Care Act. And he betrayed us all. I mean, I wrote a

book called about his betrayals called The Book of Obama. And, you know, he was a remarkably right-wing man who's passed off, but he plays a liberal on TV. Disgusting. Thanks, Reed. Thanks, Starr. Appreciate it. Voting for a third party. Cameron wants to know, what's the thought process if you know they'll never win or change much? Well, it's, first of all, I don't want them to change. I want them to win. The way I look at it is voting is really a very simple act. you vote for the candidate or party that you'd like to see win. And if you don't want to see them, if you wake up on election day and your person wins and you're not excited, you shouldn't have voted for them.

And so, you know, people talk about we need a third party. Everyone agrees we need a third party or a fourth or a fifth or six. Well, okay, so if you believe that, then support them, give them money, you know, volunteer for them and vote for them. And if you don't believe that, then like, don't say you believe in a third party. I mean, voting strategically is also inane and stupid because literally there is zero chance that your one vote, which is all you can control, is going to change the outcome in any state at all, much less a key swing state. But there's no way. People will say, well, if everybody thinks that way, okay, but the point is we're not, you can only control yourself.

We can't, you know, we do work as a group, but we work as a group individually. so I just don't think that it's like that yes indeed don't forget to like and subscribe much appreciated okay and I think now I'm going to call it because this is a full show thanks so much everybody for watching and following the show John Kiriaku and I will both be back for a full show tomorrow 5 p.m. Eastern time we'll be back next week Monday through Friday but don't miss tomorrow I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about after Trump and Putin have their meeting. I have a feeling we'll probably have a statement from them before the show comes out, what with the time difference and everything.

Thank you all for tuning in. Please consider buying my latest book, What's Left? It's called Nevermind the Democrats. What's Left is basically what would and what should a real left demand? In other words, they're not. And really appreciate you. Like, follow and share the show. out.