DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Will Democrats Finally Resist?”

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

On “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou, where political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou bring you behind the scenes of today’s most pressing news with razor-sharp insight, we cover the dismissal of terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, U.S. military officials observing Russia-Belarus war games for the first time in years, the loss of Robert Redford, Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, the looming government shutdown threat, and Russia’s alleged program re-educating Ukrainian children.Luigi Gets a Win: A New York judge throws out terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione for killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, rejecting claims the act aimed to “evoke terror.” The second-degree murder charge remains, carrying 15 years to life, while Mangione faces a federal death penalty case. To Russia with Half-Hearted Love: U.S. military officials observe joint Russia-Belarus “Zapad-2025” drills, the first such visit since the Ukraine invasion. Belarus, a key Russian ally, hosted the exercises. The Pentagon confirms the observation, signaling heightened U.S. attention to regional dynamics. What’s going on?Robert Redford: The Hollywood legend dies at 89, leaving a legacy of iconic films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. His Sundance Festival revolutionized independent cinema, launching directors like Quentin Tarantino. Redford’s minimalist acting and activism reshaped the industry.Trump’s Lawsuit Against NYT: The President sues The New York Times and four reporters for $15 billion, claiming defamatory articles and a book timed to damage his 2024 campaign. The lawsuit alleges “actual malice” in reports questioning his business success and military remarks. Will Democrats Finally Resist?: House Republicans unveil a stopgap bill to fund the government through November 21. Democrats demand bipartisan talks, citing expiring healthcare subsidies, as a shutdown looms by September 30. Schumer warns of a “Trump shutdown.” Is the Democratic “resistance” about to make its first appearance?Is Russia Indoctrinating Ukrainian Kids?: Yale investigators accuse Russia of a re-education program for Ukrainian children is twice as large as estimated, with 210 sites training them for Russian military service. The program, likened to Nazi-era kidnappings, would violate Geneva Conventions. But evidence is thin.

Hey, it's Tuesday. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and John Kiriaku. Thanks so much for joining us. John, great to see you again. Good to see you, Ted. Let's get to it. Let's talk about Luigi Mangione got a win in court, something I didn't think I would ever say. There's more Russia is getting some love and some hate. They're being accused. They're getting a visit. Well, the Belarusans are getting a visit from the U.S. of all people. talk about that. But at the same time, Russia is being accused of creating re-education camps for Ukrainian orphaned kids. We'll get into that. We'll talk about, I'm glad you wanted to talk about Robert Red for John. Yeah, I did. I really wanted to. I'm a big fan. Me too. And Donald Trump is suing the New York Times for $15 billion. You know, you're a self-described litigious dude. my and I love me my libel law so you know this will be fun to talk about and finally um the democrats actually have an opportunity to maybe start to resist trumpism um through the budget

and forcing a government shutdown dangerous will they do it so what's oh we should before we get to it um we do have an ad rodby go ahead and put up the ad and i'll get to that in the meantime the gricemeister has a one thank you very much for your donation thank you John a fellow fan of Find a Grave yeah I was just on Find a Grave a moment ago Amy Knother's memorial she was the greatest physicist to ever live

she's often overlooked because her work is not easily explained so I'm sending this link again so there you go here's the ad while you ruminate on that if you haven't already make sure you download the Rumble app. It's free, simple to use and the best way to stay connected to the content you want. Once you've got it, search for my channel and hit follow, well, our channel. That way, you'll get a notification every way we go live, no missed shows, no extra steps. You can grab

it right now using the link in the description or the Pins live chat, download it to your phone and you're ready to go. And if you prefer watching on the big screen, Rumble is available on all major streaming devices and smart TVs. Just search for Rumble, follow the channel, and be part of the action. And as producer Robbie always says, they pay us a lot better over on Rumble. So that kind of counts for a lot. All right. Any comments about the physicist before we get to the news, John? Yeah, you know what? I am a connoisseur of the local cemeteries. And I did not know that Bryn Mare had cloisters. That's only 20, 30 minutes from my house. I think I'm going to check it out. Yeah. Cool stuff.

What are cloisters specifically? Cloisters are church-related buildings where they've got, you know, nuns. Nuns are there praying, running it. And sometimes they have associated cemeteries. I didn't realize that there was one up there. Yeah. Cool. All right.

What do we want to talk about? What are we going to talk about first? Well, let's talk about Luigi Mangione. Great. This was a big deal. He's been charged at the state level in New York with second-degree murder, not first-degree murder, which I don't fully understand. Maybe you can explain it to me, Ted, and two counts of terrorism. His attorneys argued successfully, as it turned out today, that the crime that he's accused of having committed does not meet the definition of terrorism.

Terrorism is the act of committing violence for the purpose of instilling terror in the general population, usually for a political reason. he didn't he isn't even alleged to have done this to frighten new yorkers he's alleged to have done this because we don't know but not to terrorize new york and so much to our surprise both of the terrorism charges are dropped he still faces life on on the state murder charge second degree murder and donald trump has said that he will also insist or order the justice department to charge him with a federal crime, it's usually deprivation of civil liberties, but that can carry a death penalty. The thing is, though, this thing's going to drag on so long. Donald Trump's not going to be president by the time federal charges would be filed.

So I think this was a major, major win for Luigi Manjeone. Agreed. And just to sort of explain the difference between first and second degree murder here, in New York. So a lot of people sort of think of first-degree murder as like it was planned. And second-degree murder is it's like more like you come home and you find your wife, you know, fucking your friend and you kill him. That's not how it is in first in New York.

Second-degree murder definitely planned. In New York, first-degree murder has an aggravating factor. Oh, okay. the intentional killing of a cop or killing a witness to a crime or a murder for hire or torturing the person. Terrorism is included, so I mean, you know, like 9-11, but, you know, the terrorism charge went away. It's interesting that the prosecutors originally charged him with second-degree murder and terrorism because it's like, well, if you thought it was terrorism, why didn't you charge him with first-degree murder? So they must have known that was a larded up, you know, overcharge. And it was a throwaway, right?

Like they, they like to do that. Yeah. By the way, this overcharging creates a lot of contempt for the system. For anybody who's been through it, you just know, it's like, God, you guys. I mean, really, it's kind of like I was talking about this to my morning co-host, Manila. And, you know, it's kind of like, someone goes on a high-speed chase in L.A. And like, do you really have to charge them with 236 run red lights? Can we just...

Exactly. Like 45 minutes of wild craziness. Let's just do that. You know, and they'll do that. You see it on cop shows all the time where they'll say speed is currently 45, just blew through a stop sign at the intersection of Maple and Elm. And they do that so they can charge stack and hit them with 45 different misdemeanors when it's all said and done.

Big question from Thief, how do you personally feel about Luigi's murder? Would you consider it blood spilled for the tree of liberty? Wow, dude, you really put me on the spot here. You know, go ahead, please. Look, I'm against murder across the board because I'm a civilized person, and you have to be. But if anybody deserves to be murdered, it's the CEO of United Health Care. You know, I mean, this is a guy who he was a ghoul. For profit, he presided over the denial of medical care to hundreds of thousands of people

who died every year through his company. His company was literally, is the most notorious of all of America's benighted health care companies. You know, United Health Care is universally reviled by its country. customers. After Brian Thompson was gunned down, there was one person after another said, my husband died of cancer, couldn't get proper

treatment due to United. My wife died of this and that. United. I mean, they're murderers. They're mass murderers. I mean, so it's like, you know, it's like if you shoot, technically speaking, you shoot the

commandant of a death camp and he falls off the the wall of the prison you know i mean is it murder sure is it murder would it have been better to put them on trial and then send them to prison yeah but i mean am i really mad at you not really so you know what i'm glad that you said it like that because that's how i feel murder's wrong period it's just wrong but i do understand the frustration like you ted uh after after the shooting I went on to, then I think it was still Twitter then just to see what people are saying. And wow, people were vicious.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, vicious. And you know, what's interesting to me too. Much more than with Charlie Kirk, by the way. Oh, yeah, much more vicious. And deservedly so. Sure. And so many people were saying that Luigi Jean was this lefty activist, he was Antifa, he was this, he was that.

No, he was from a very wealthy Republican. like pillar Republican family from suburban Baltimore this family had given thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to conservative causes there was really nothing lefty about him that we know of yet anyway

we're not sure why he did it if he did it I think he did do it I'd have said if he was a big lefty I would have heard back I wrote to him in prison I would have heard back from him he would have known who I was and he would have wanted to talk to me That's right. That's right.

You know, I offered to do a book about him like my Bernie and Snowden books. I mean, you know, he could use the positive PR. Yes, good. You know, tell his life story. That's right. He doesn't have to. All I even said, you don't have to talk about the case at all. I just want to know who you are and where you came from.

And he didn't respond. No response. I told you, I've written to a bunch of serial killers thinking that I would, like to put a book together. It was a bust in the end because all they wanted to talk about was how Jesus came to them and they saw the light

and they're walking with the Lord and all this nonsense. But it was the, it was, Son of Sam wrote back to me. David Berkowitz. Tex Watson from the Manson from the Manson family wrote back to me.

And Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer. He wrote to me. I did not hear, from the co-ed killer, the tall, the six-foot-eight guy that killed his mother and then killed his grandparents in L.A. I didn't hear from him, and I didn't hear from BTK. But everybody wrote back, just wanted to talk to Jesus. I got, talk about Jesus. I got this thick envelope from Gary Allen Ridgeway. And I was like, wow, what did Gary Ridgeway send me? He killed

49 prostitutes. And I opened it up, and it was just all Seventh-day Adventist leaflets and he wanted me to go door to door and hand him out. Wow. All right. Well, there's a, but Christian has a question. Why does law enforcement try to throw the book at people and try to stack as many charges as possible? Because honestly, I don't want to sound, I don't want to sound cynical, but that's how they get

promoted. They don't get promoted by not prosecuting you. They don't get promoted by not throwing the book at you. Or going through the book and saying, oh, let's find the perfect. the perfect crime to charge this person with, they just charge it with 20 felonies and just hope something sticks. Want to hear a dumb story?

I'll tell you a dumb story of overcharging. I'm 20 years old. My roommate and I go on a road trip in college. We're in Boxford, Massachusetts. And no, sorry, I'm lying. Lemonster, Massachusetts. You get pulled over 3 o'clock in the morning. My dumb roommate is smoking weed in the car.

The cop, we roll down the window. The cop smells the weed. He orders us out of the car, searches the car, finds the weed, finds our fireworks that we bought, and some booze, which is totally legal because the drinking age was 18 at the time. And so, anyway, they take us down to the clink for overnight. And steal my money, by the way. I had about 200 bucks in cash, which he took. And then the, but the thing is, what were the charges, right? possession of narcotics class D well I was in the car with the person who had it so that's fair

failure to drive with a valid Massachusetts driver's license I had a valid New York license the guy the cop himself says oh we just charge everyone with that if they're from out of state the judge will throw that out so I said why do you put it on there because we just do that and illegal illegal fireworks the fireworks were legal he goes yeah they'll throw that out and the booze he goes yeah they'll throw that out So in the end, of course, I hired a lawyer and they actually threw the whole thing out because they cuffed me so tight. I had a scar on my wrist. But the point is, it's, I came out of it, 20-year-old guy.

I'm like, I have total contempt for the system. I'm like, this is stupid. Like, they're stupid. I mean, if they had just charged me with the weed thing, that's barely okay because I'm in the same car. It's not even mine. The other guy said it was his. It was his. It was found on him.

You know what I mean? Like, but I would have lived with that. But the others. This is why I hate cops. They raided my house twice, right? Once in 2012, another time in 2019, took all my shit, never charged me with a crime. And then when I said, the second time, the police department called, said, you can come and pick up all your stuff. I said, no, you guys took it.

You bring it back. Yeah, you come and get it or we're going to throw it away. Oh, yeah, that's their attitude. Yeah. That night in Massachusetts, we were pulled over in some shitbag part of Lemonster. And so I said, oh, you know, our car is still over there. Can you give me a ride back? They said, it's not a taxi service.

We provide service one way to the station. And, you know, there have been people who've literally been, like women in L.A. have had that situation. It had to walk back to their car. They've been kidnapped, raped, and murdered because they had to walk on the side of the freeway in fucking southern California, which is lousy with murderers, and they

were stopped and they were abducted. Unbelievable. Well, I went and got my stuff and I'm looking at the seizure list. I said, where's my iPhone? I had just bought this iPhone two weeks earlier. I hadn't even made the first payment on it. Where's my iPhone? We didn't confiscate an iPhone. I said, yeah, you did. It's right here on the seizure

list. And the guy goes, well, I don't have it. I said, well, you have to give it to me. It's my iPhone. He goes like this. So sue me. And I said, oh, those are the magic words. And I did ask and you shall receive. I did. We filed the suit.

And the morning that we filed the suit, they miraculously found it in his desk. And worse than that, you know, you have to turn over the passcode to get in it. He had played all the games. And he had downloaded country Western songs onto it. So he was using my fucking phone, this dirty cop. Did he leave you any good Buck Owen stuff? Because I love him. No, it's all modern crap. Question for John, but I think I'd answer it, too, if you want my answer. Do we think this will be a jury nullification? You know, no lawyer is allowed to say that that's a strategy, but I think in a case like this, it's absolutely the strategy.

And that's why there are jury consultants, right? Because you want the most friendly jury you can get, The prosecution wants the jury that's out to, you know, chop heads. And that's 50% of the fight right there. So, yeah, I think jury nullification is something to be thinking about. And also, you know, when I was working on the Julian Assange case, I was working with WikiLeaks. I would fly to Iceland, excuse me, to Iceland. And we would talk for days about jury nullification and how to get it. So, yeah, definitely a strategy.

I got to tell you, full transparency, right? Because I'll never be on a jury at all because every time, because as soon as it comes up what my job is, they kick me off. Right. But for real, if that were not true, and I wouldn't say this, I would try to get on that jury if I was in the voir dire, and I would try to nullify that verdict. I would do.

My mother, my mother nullified a jury. Really? What happened? Well, you'd like this. My mother was quite the radical. And so this was in Dayton. And there was a case where a skinny little black kid like dripping wet weighed like 150 pounds was arrested for selling drugs to undercover cops. The cops charged him with the drugs. Fair enough. But they also charged him with like resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. She said there were four of the cops. She said all told they probably weighed 1,200 pounds total. they were giant, beefy, steroided, former vet guys. And she was like, this is ridiculous. Like, there's no way he could have resisted them. They didn't claim he had a weapon or anything. I mean, basically, they just larded up the over.

So she took offense, not at the drug conviction, at the drug charge, which she was convinced he was guilty, but at the overcharging. She said if they had just charged him with the drugs, she would have voted guilty. But she hated the fact. that they had gone so far. So she basically hung the jury. And the rest of the jury hated her, but it was 11 to 1.

She was, you know, 12, it was one angry French woman and 11 boring Ohioans. And so anyway, there's a fun coda to it. So afterwards, she called his attorney, and she arranged to meet with the kid. And she said, listen, you found the one communist French woman in Dayton, Ohio. you will never ever be this lucky the rest of your life you know shape up cut the shit you know

otherwise you're going to you know your whole life will be ruined and i care about you smart lady man wow yeah that was very brave it's hard to stand up when you're all alone having 11 people against you yeah they were all pissed off they were like we just want to go home yeah and like yeah we want to go home for you know and my and my mom was like you know we all I want to go home too yeah it's a real life 12 angry men yeah yeah yeah for sure I mean I do I actually do think the jury system is pretty cool in some respects but yeah very nullification yeah I would go for that um yeah so I think I mean question for you John um they brought him in wearing his prison jumpsuit yes now I know that normally when there's a jury, they have to allow him to dress in civilian clothes so as not

to prejudice the jury. But doesn't it prejudice the judge too? Sure it does. And how many judges weren't prosecutors before they became judges? It's almost like a prerequisite. I saw a number one time. It was 92% is the number I saw. 92% of judges had been prosecutors. I don't even think they should be allowed to be judges. I agree. I agree. Or it's got to be 50-50. Right. You know? I mean, it's it's ridiculous. I mean, in my case in the LA, against the LA Times, which was effectively against the LAPD, I have like my several of my judges were former prosecutors who worked with the LAPD. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to get a really fair shake here. I'm seeing Frazmataz asking question for John, what is the upcoming event in Los Angeles and isn't open to the public? I don't know what that is.

I'm going to Los Angeles on Saturday to record five episodes of a new podcast, not a news podcast like this, but like a CIA podcast that we're going to release on Spotify. But I don't think I'm doing any events in Los Angeles. You have a couple of sort of organizational questions, total classic John Keiracu questions. Okay. One's from Roger.

Why don't the CIA and the, FBI get along. And the other one is what's the relationship between the CIA and MI6? Is there a rivalry? What's up? You know, that's a great. The second one, they're both good questions. I'll answer them both. So MI6 and CIA on the surface of things, they can't, they couldn't be closer, right? And my own personal experience with MI6 was 100% positive. I really, really enjoyed those guys. There's a little bit of jealousy on the part of the CIA people because while our budget is 50 times, 60 times what the MI6 budget is, MI6 has almost no bureaucracy. I remember a boss telling me one time, what he envied

about MI6 was if you have an idea for an op against, let's say, Hezbollah, You just go do it. And if you're a CIA officer and you have an idea for an op against Hezbollah, it takes six months to work its way through the chain of command before you finally get permission. And by then, it's too late. So that's MI6 and CIA. But when I was speaking in the UK earlier this year, there was one show where I debated an MI6 guy. and he said that they genuinely did not like the CIA genuinely deeply he said he said they would

never show it but they resented the fact that we had the budgets that we had that we had the toys that we had and that we felt we could push them around which i also saw um every once in a while so i get it now the relationship with the FBI and the CIA that goes back to to to 1947 in creation of the CIA. It started because Jay Edgar Hoover just hated the whole idea of the CIA. He wanted to be the head of both the FBI and the CIA at the same time. That wasn't to be, of course. And he just ordered his people not to cooperate with the CIA.

So institutionally, they never got together until well after 9-11. It wasn't until 2009 that the CIA and FBI computer systems were even compatible. John, how, what, I mean, we learned that the OSS is the predecessor agency to the CIA. Is that really true or did they really close the OSS and start something completely different? They closed the OSS in 1945 and then in 1946 asked MI6 if they would help us to create a new organization. And so the MI6 station chief in New York, And the MI6 deputy director from London came to Washington with the sort of the outline,

the schematics of what a central intelligence agency would look like. And really, it's the British that created the CIA. Then when Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, creating the CIA and the NSC, then it was formalized. Right. Okay. Yeah. And that's right.

And the division isn't also the division of labor kind of like, you know, I mean, do these agencies fight over turf, over jurisdiction, over, you know, not jurisdiction, but over? Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. Oh, thank you, Thief. I would look forward to that. Thank you. Yeah, sometimes, especially in these periods that we had not really experienced very much before, like post-9-11, where 9-11 is still an open criminal investigation in 2002, but all the action is overseas. So because it's an open criminal investigation, that means the FBI is supposed to head it. Because it's overseas, that means the CIA is supposed to head it. And so we were constantly fighting with those guys, constantly. Got a couple of questions.

Well, we've got more questions. Okay, so SELO man, thank you very much for the $20 donation. Much appreciated. This is a great question. If they offered your job back at the agency at your previous position or a promotion, would you take it? And what changes will you make and would you still have frenemies? I would not take it because my next promotion would be, well, it would be to the Senior Intelligence Service, but to level one. So I'd be the head of a big station, which would be fine for my own little fiefdom.

but if I were going to be in the CIA, I would want to be director or deputy director so I could make real change. Institutional changes. Yeah. And there's a question from Adam Fider. How much did my mom being on the left contribute to my ideology a lot, a lot? You know, I don't think I just cut and pasted. But, you know, most people end up, you know, sort of having similar ideology to their parents.

And I'm no exception to that. And she was very persuasive, and, you know, I came from a long line of lefties on my mom's side. My dad's a right-wing conservative, but, you know, he didn't raise me. My mom did. And, you know, by the way, we get into that in the episode that's where we just started recording John's interview of yours truly today. And that's going to be in the Rumble premium. Yeah. And it was fun.

You got to check it out. We had fun. It was fun. I didn't know 95% of that. stuff about Ted. And a question for both of us, Frasmataz. Do we see any connection between Roswell and the creation of the CIA

and the National Security Act, both 1947? I don't. I don't. I know a lot of people say they do. I think it's the aftermath of World War II in the beginning of the Cold War, right? That's what I think.

That's what I think. Yeah. And, you know, at the CIA, too, at the time, I mean, for most of the 1950s, the CIA director was Alan Dulles. And he had literally no one telling him no, right? He didn't report to anyone. He was reporting directly to the president. Or, I mean, there's kind of a dotted line to the National Security Advisor,

but there were no congressional oversight committees. So the CIA was doing just anything at damn well pleased, whether it was overthrowing governments. And there's a list of them on Wikipedia. You couldn't look at the list. It's long, too. And it's long. or killing people or you know like i say there was no one to tell them no john there's um

the democrats are in a unique position to finally impose some leverage against the trump administration so there's a stopgap spending bill uh sitting in front of the house and the senate obviously the republicans have the votes to get it through the house but not through the senate um they They need Democratic votes to get to 60 to the filibuster-proof majority, super-majority. Chuck, I don't understand this at all, John. I mean, for me, if I were the Democrats at this point, what Democratic voters, liberal voters, even independent voters are looking for is just someone to say no to Trump. Just no, just no.

I mean, obviously, the Republicans have gotten burned in the past for shutting down. on the government, but I think it's a whole different world now. I'm going to disagree. Democrats have got to do something, man, something. I don't know what, something. I'm going to disagree with you. Americans hate it when the government shuts down. Yeah, that's true.

They hate it because then nothing happens. And, you know, overseas, I've been overseas during two government shutdowns. And what happens is you get orders from the State Department to furlough all non-essential personnel. So just to screw Congress, what the standing policy is, is you furlough the medical unit at the embassy. And in our case, it was a part-time nurse, so it didn't matter. But you shut down the consular section. That's not a necessary function except for American citizen services. So if there's an American who loses his passport or who gets arrested or who is you know, victim of a crime, no problem.

We're going to take care of you. But nobody's getting a visa. Nobody. And so the phone calls began, and then ambassadors start going to Capitol Hill saying, hey, you know, get your act together because there are so many people that want to come to the United States for tourism and spend their millions of dollars. And because the consular sections are closed, they can't get visas. Now, both times that that happened that I was overseas, the Republicans were in charge on

Capitol Hill. And so they, both times it was, well, not both times it wasn't. One time it was Newt Gingrich and the other time was Dennis Haster. So public opinion was solidly, totally against the Republicans for doing this, inflicting unnecessary pain. Then that's true. But now the Democrats are in the position to be the spoiler to shut it down. What would they accomplish? Sure, they get to tell Trump no, but judges tell Trump no all the time. We all get these push notifications about, you know, this district court judge or that district court judge overturning some Trump policy. I think if the Democrats, I'm going to make a prediction.

I'm going to predict that we're going to get another series of continuing resolutions. Agreed. There won't be a shutdown because if there was, people would turn against the Democrats. and they're already in such dire straits now that they can't afford any more bad news. Totally, totally agree. No question about it. But I do think if I were the Democrats, I would be thinking when it's time to vote for the big annual budget, vote no. And vote no on the military spending.

Just vote no. No, exactly. But do they have the guts? Because, you know, it's my experience. Democrats are. Yeah, they're all talk. They don't have the guts to vote, no. They negotiate against themselves. I mean, Chuck Schumer is even now saying, like, well, you know, we just want some kind of, you know, we want the health care subsidies for Obamacare to be partly restored. Partly restored. Then you'll have our votes. Why would you, I mean, they're not even prostitutes because, you know, they're sluts. They put it, they put out for free. I mean, you know, they're, they put out for free. I mean, you know, they're, they're. They don't trade, they don't horse trade.

They don't do anything for their constituents. And then, you know, my mom was an avid, you know, besides being a lefty, she always contributed to the Democratic Party. And she, you know, a lot of people were trapped in the two-party trap. And I get all her mail still. And so I know she was on these Democratic mailing lists. I get all these letters from the DNC, like, contributed so we can fight back. I'm like, when?

When are you going to fight? fight back. We haven't seen, I've never, I'm 62. I've never seen you guys fight. Never. Never. No. Ridiculous. Clowns is exactly the right word. I don't fight at all. No, totally absurd. Our opinions on Nome Chomsky. I feel like he's been vocal about the CIA's. This is from Thief. Skeletons for a long time and his latest book, The Myth of American Idealism. Well, Noam Chomsky is still alive, right? He was reported dead. he's still alive not dead yet he stopped he stopped responding to my emails about four years ago

and i just i just assumed he's so old he just can't do it and then a friend of mine was in touch with him too and i said have you heard from chomsky i said he he blew me off like four years ago and and my buddy said that that chomsky is like 97 now and he's yeah he's not answering he's really in bad shape yeah my um so i i was rivals with this cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. His real name is Dan. Oh, yeah. I know Tom Tomorrow. Sure. And Tom Tomorrow got a quote from Tomsky for one of his books. After he denied me, he, Noam Tomsky, I'd asked him for a quote. And because my books came, my first book came out before Tom Tomorrow's. And he said, oh, he wrote back to me and he said, I don't know anything about this topic.

But then he gave a quote to Tom Tomorrow. So in revenge, I gave, I, I, I put a quote from the letter that Chomsky wrote me on the back phrase, a blurb on my next book. I don't know anything about this topic. I will admit to you, I will admit to you that for my first book, Random House said, do you think George Tenet would give you a blurb for the cover? I said, absolutely not. They said, well, let's ask him anyway. Okay.

And so I emailed him. No, I didn't email him. The editor emailed him. And the response was, I wouldn't do anything to help that asshole. And I said, that's the blurb. That's the blurb. And it went all the way to legal. And legal is like, no, let's not play games.

Well, let's play games. Yeah, yeah. I was begging them to do it. That's the blurb. No, no. I did play that game. It was so fun. And in fairness, Nome did ultimately give me, he was a very open, very responsive guy.

and he did ultimately give me a nice blurb later on. I think probably when he knew who I was, when he didn't know who I was before. But what do I think? I mean, I've always thought Noam Chomsky was far more conservative than I am politically. That's okay. But I felt that he believed in the American system more than I did and in its ideals more than I did.

I think that's true. And he was, you know, he was anti-war famously in the Vietnam era. But he wasn't, I don't think he advocated. the overthrow of the state or, you know, the, or a revolution or, you know, the dictatorship of the proletariat or any of that crap that I'm into. I think he's, you know, I think, and that's okay, but, you know, what do I think of him? I think he's a really thoughtful, public intellectual and, uh, and a brilliant linguist. And, um, and that we've, you know, we miss him already. Yes. Yeah, I agree. Hey, how about this? What are the top five, uh, podcasts that we, uh,

watch. I actually listened to them. Um, and I've got them right here on my phone. Hollywood crime scene I like very much. And family ghosts I listen to on car trips scares the crap out of me. And there's another one called haunted panoply that I like a lot. Those are the three. And then I'll, I'll watch Tucker. And, um, you know what, to tell you the truth, I get, I get news out by the end of the day where it's just too much news. I feel bombarded by news. And I need something. Like, I listen to Sopranos, what's it called, with Bobby Bacala and Chris Maltesanti. I listen to the Sopranos podcast.

I'm actually going to go to, they're going to do one on stage here at Sopranos Con in January. My son and I are going to go. But yeah, those are the ones I like, stuff that has nothing to do with the news. How about you? You know, this is a confession. I really don't, I really don't listen to podcasts. I listen to podcasts of like, you know, old NPR, like on the media or whatever, but that's not really a podcast.

That's just a, it's a format of a podcast. So sometimes if someone, like, okay, if something's in the news in a big way, like Tucker, Rogan, I'll go and check it out. So, you know, that I'll definitely do. But, you know, when I was watching Tucker Carlson play with Ted Cruz the way Clovis plays with a vole, that was delightful. Awesome. Absolutely amazing. Hey, we've got a, we've got a.

We've got an ad. Okay. Let me do the ad. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Do the ad. There's a time out. Oh, okay, okay.

Okay. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're building a real art alternative to be. big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech. And now there's Rumble premium, an easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the platform, no pre-rolls, no interruptions, just the content you came for, plus premium members unlock exclusive content, like bonus videos behind-the-scenes drops, and more from your favorite creators.

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Just wait for Bustamante to show up on those three podcasts. Man, that made me laugh. That made me laugh. Bustamante, Andrew Bustamante, the everyday spy, which is how he makes his living, was on the Julian Dory podcast the other day. It was four hours long. And I'm not complaining because oftentimes mine are four hours long, too. but four hours long podcast in the last like 15 minutes he made an admission that just knocked

my socks off that he was not a case officer which i knew and you can say and i've been saying but that he washed out of the farm he his words he flunked out of the farm and they forced him to be a special operations officer rather than an operations officer because he just couldn't cut it. And it's the first time he ever said that. You know, oftentimes I'll give you an example. I saw a guy on Fox News the other night and this woman says

the anchor says he was special forces and blah, blah, blah. And the first words out of his mouth were, I was not special forces. I have deep respect for special forces. I worked alongside them but I was never a member of special forces.

And then he went to answer the question. And I thought, you know what? Kudos to you. buddy, for being honest right up front about that. Andrew Wistamante has been promoting this image as the everyday spy for the last seven years. He wasn't a spy. He was never a spy. And now he's out with a new book about how he and his wife rooted out this CIA mole. Well, that all sounds very exciting.

But I didn't see any piece in the Times or the Post or the journal about a mole inside the CIA that was single-handedly rooted out by Andrew Bustamante and his wife. You know, I just don't understand why people can't just tell the truth. The truth always gets out. I used to say this all the time when people ask me about the torture program back in the day. The truth always gets out. Sometimes it takes years, but it always comes to the surface. And you can't live a lie and just pretend that everything's fine and nobody's going to find out about it later.

And there's one other, one other, I'm sorry, Ted. another word about Bustamante. Please. A lot of people have Bustamante fatigue because he's on every podcast. I'm making a concerted effort to not go on podcasts anymore because I don't want anybody to ever say, oh, I have Kariaku fatigue. Like, oh, not that guy again. So I'm zeroing out.

Sorry, go ahead. We have a question about Robbie. Pamela Drew wants to know. Robbie's interview was phenomenal. That's true. It really was. What a heroic saga. but you forgot to tell us how you two met.

So that's a good, it's a simple, simple answer. So when I had the show with, so basically, when Manila was on the air, Robbie was a fan, he wrote to Manila, Manila Chan, and they got to be friends. And then at a certain, and then by the time that Manila and I were doing a show together, Robbie came on as a producer. and in the final days of Sputnik, he was formally on staff

for a whole month before Joe Biden put us all out of work. So it was totally happenstance, but it's cool that, you know, he wrote to, he wrote to Manila. I mean, you know, it's kind of like how when I was a young man, I connected with Jello Biafra

of the Dead Kennedys, totally happenstance. He was, I was working at a bank, not doing what I liked at all. and it was in my 20s, before my career started, really. And I read a review in the Village Voice of a Dead Kennedy's album that clearly the reviewer not only had not given a fair shake, had not actually even looked at the album

because he referred to songs that were not on the album. And I was a ferocious Dead Kennedys fanatic. So I wrote an angry letter to the editor-in-chief and said that the reviewer should be fired because, you know, I mean, obviously it's one thing to, have a bias against punk rock, but it's another thing to not even pretend to listen to the music during your bias. And anyway, the editor basically forced the critic to call Jello Biafra and apologize. Jellio Biafra got my number and called to thank me. We got to be friends,

and I got to do album art for him and stuff. That's fantastic. So it was really fun. It's like, a lot of people, as you know, a lot of people who are in the public eye are a lot more accessible than you think. It's like, you know, it's not like we don't have people, you know, who are like filtering our email or whatever. You can call most, you can email most people, you know. You can. I'll tell you, I only rarely am I starstruck, rarely. But I've got a friend in L.A. who, um, who was thinking of thinking, well, we're, we were developing a thing together, a film. And, um, she ran into Jake Gyllenhaal at a dinner party the other night. And she said, oh, what do you, what are you working on? Jake? I haven't seen you out and about very often.

He said, no, I'm much pickier now. I'm doing more independent, uh, films. But he said, I'd like to do something in the in the spy genre i haven't really done that yet cool and she said oh i've got a guy that you should talk to she said uh this guy john he blew the whistle on the torture program and jillenhold says i love that guy i watch his i watch his shorts on tic talk every night no way what oh my god i love jillin hall ever since he's amazing bubble boy i've liked him that's amazing well he's a great great actor he was against about Edward Snowden still guys still the guy still in Moscow

yes what are the chances of him getting pardon zero I would say how could we help him I would say very close to zero yeah I don't know right right to your congressman and your senator and your president over and over right that's about all we can do

yeah yeah yeah you know I keep hearing from people with access to to Donald Trump that he really does want to pardon Snowden and Assange. And I know that the Assange people are, you know, working on that. But I... So do it.

Yeah, I'm not sure that he's really got the guts. I'm not sure. If he does, maybe it's going to be, you know, at the very... What's mad at the deep state going to get you? What's maddie? Mommy won't let you. Come on. you know you want to come out and play oh night crawler was awesome wasn't it i just

night crawler is awesome right where he's the uh he's the degenerate uh you know newspaper photographer photographer yeah yeah so cool that's a great movie yeah i'll be yeah i can become president pardon john and ed and i'll name john you can be head of the cia no no i don't want to be head of the CIA because I don't think I would be I would be confirmed by the Senate but I want to be national security advisor because that's above the CIA okay yes done you heard you heard it here all right let's um let's talk about um well before we have we have another ad okay oh god but we just did an ad I know it's crazy right um okay oh yeah so here I'm gonna pop in Robbie he can do the rumble thing because we need to do that all right here we go Robbie three to one but on your

oh no bad yet at least i'm sure we'll get another one no just just a just a little quick call to action uh for those of y'all who over over there on youtube if y'all please just come over and follow us on rumble uh it's not a joke whenever i say that rumble pays john and ted a dollar for every quarter that youtube pays them which is huge uh plus you get premium content over there that you will not get anywhere else because well youtube will censor it and as uh I hate YouTube, but they like it, so I'm stuck with it. So if y'all want to do me a favor, come on over, help us out, follow us here on Rumble, and I would appreciate it, and pay some bills.

All right, Robbie, thank you very much. Okay, so, all right, no, we don't, yeah, we don't have another ad. Let's talk about this story in the New York Times. According to the Times, Yale investigators say that there is a vast re-educated, camp program for Ukrainian children who have been, depending on how you look at it, either rescued from Ukraine or abducted, I guess mostly orphans, who may or may not be orphans. This is very nebulous and very, I feel like the details and the evidence are very thin in this article. You know, I kept looking for good sourcing. It's a lot of description,

right? So basically, it says that there's a secretive program of reeducation. and military and police training for Ukrainian children from occupied territories and that it's a very big program. It says that children from Ukraine are in schools and cadet academies in Russia that are oriented toward the fight against their own homeland. And it's got a lot of verbiage like that. It's like basically the Yale City documented the movement of children through the Russian system. It doesn't describe, for example,

It says like it re-educates and trains Ukrainians for service in the Russian army. But there's no, John, there's no quotes that, like, explain, like, who exactly is saying this. Like, what does this re-education look like? What does this indoctrination actually entail? What is it forced? Is it voluntary? I found it really frustrating. I don't know what you thought.

You know, in my gut, I want to say, oh, my God. This is exactly what the Turks did in the 1800s. They were called Janissaries. They would kidnap Greek children, take them back to Turkey, raise them as Turks, give them specialized military training, and then send them back to Greece to kill Greeks. It reminds me of something during the Second World War and the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in Greece called the Pedal Mazoma, which means the movement of children, where children were either kidnapped or they were turned over to communists. There were Greek communists, of course, fighting in the civil war.

And those communists took them to places like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and they were raised as communist youth. And then the idea was they would be sent back to Greece if the communists had lost the civil war, which they did, to then try to overthrow the Greek government. So these things have historical precedence. But what troubled me about that article in the Times was the same thing, Ted, that troubled you. and that is that there were no specifics. Yeah.

None. I mean, there's got to be, you know, a Google Earth image of, you know, a facility of some sort. Yeah,

there was satellite imagery of the, the Chinese camp for the Uyghurs. Exactly right. And that's exactly what I was saying. And you can see some of those from the train and there are photos of those. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know. I hope it's not true. I really do. It could be true because there's, a historical precedent, but I would need to see more than what the Times offered up. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like, it's just sort of like, okay, so it says again, Russia moved thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, scattering them in a constellation of sites from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Tracking all the children is virtually impossible, the study

said, in part because the sites include cadet academies run by the military and the investigative Committee, a domestic law enforcement agency, and says it includes orphans and children whose parents sent them to the sites to protect them from violence near the front. And I presume these are, a lot of these are residents or citizens of the Lujansk and Donets People's Republics, which are basically Russian fiefdoms that have been annexed into Russia in recent years. who I mean so it just seemed it's really what's the word you know I got to say if I brought something like that to one of my editors they'd like they say Ted go do better go get its source 100% Ted you know 100% I as soon as I read it I was like how did this get published it doesn't

have any details at all I mean so again it may or may not be true it reminds me a lot about like the Russian hacking the elections stories that basically turned out to not be true. And so, you know, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Yeah, I'm glad you did. So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of like, I think, you know, I'll tell you the truth. When it comes to Russia, the New York Times and papers like it, they'll publish anything. They don't care. Yep.

You know, whether it's true or not. Washington Post is exactly the same way. I'm still pissed off at the post. for having a reviewer, listen to my show that I did with Brian Becker and say that I was weakening our democracy. Those were the words they used because I was talking about that crooked judge in Pennsylvania that was selling children into bondage. Oh, that's, yeah.

I was weakening our democracy. No, that fucking guy. Yeah. It's weaking our entire culture. Oh, yeah. Antoine is asking about the state of trade between Canada and the U.S., the trucking industry here in Canada, in eastern Canada, he says, or she's, oh, he says, is at a low and it's usually indicative of economic trouble.

I heard the same thing, that truck crossings are as low as they've been in memory. And this is not going to end up well for the United States. This is going to cause inflation to go higher. It's not just because of the economy's got some really bad numbers. I mean, these job creation numbers of 22,000 that just came out. That's right. That's shitty. you want two or 300,000 a month, not 22,000.

Otherwise, your economy is definitely. Houdini, are the numbers correct? Are there really 30,000 children missing, I guess, from Ukraine? Well, or from, it's kind of like, well, it's from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporosia, right? It's Russian-occupied Ukraine. I don't know. I mean, missing is an interesting word. If your parents sent you to Russia, are you?

are you missing? No, you're not missing. But I mean, you know, my mom sent me to go to college in New York. Am I missing from Ohio? Not really. I mean, but on the other, but if you, it's, I don't know, it's like, it's being characterized like a kidnapping program. Yeah, right. But it's also kind of like, but the Russians are saying,

it's like a kinder transport, you know, like a way to keep the kids safe. Adam Fighter wants to know, do we think Le Courneux will be able to successfully negotiate with the other parties and form a government in France. I do not. I think Le Corneux is cut and paste exactly the same as the last four douchebags that Macron has appointed. They're exactly the same. And the left, both the left and the right, who are the kingmakers here, are pissed as shit. The left are pissed because Macron, you know, roll the dice, called a snap election.

The left got its act together. Who could see that coming? And won. And then Macron's like, oh, my bad. I shouldn't have called the election. I'm going to ignore the results. And the right is pissed because they waged lawfare against Marine Le Pen and disqualified her from running for office. So all told, it's like the left, these are the people they need to form a government. Now, no, Leconi's fucked.

Wow. I know it was bad. I didn't know it was that bad. It's really bad. And it's only going to get worse. Oh, my God. So what fixes this? A bunch of you back from vacation, man.

Now it's on. You know how it is in the summer. Oh, yeah. You can't have a revolution in August. Everyone's drinking rosé. But, you know, that's right. Now it's time to get serious and go break some windows.

So for one party or another, is victory in improving turnout? Or is the country really this split that it just can't, they just can't run the country? They can't run the country because of the parliamentary system and the way that the party system has been destroyed, right? Like, you know, most of you and I's adult life, until like 20 years ago,

there was a pretty sort of understandable party system in France, right? That's not true anymore. I mean, Macron basically created a party, a politics without policies, basically. basically. You know, it's like he created his own personal political party and it swept parliament and the French basically turned over their entire country to this guy who basically couldn't do it. They kind of gave him a dictatorship almost and, you know, in control of all three branches of government. And it didn't work. And now, I mean, there could be a left-right alliance. And I could see

sort of a populist kind of left-right, you know, flag of convenience kind of thing. Sure. Sure. But I don't think the French are ready to get there yet. First, the whole thing has to come crumbling down. And I think some things are going to burn before that happens, literally. Wow. Wow. I remember in graduate school taking a class, I still remember the name of the class. It was parliamentary systems of the UK, France, and Germany. And, you know, they're all different, but they're all the same. And and they've moved in wildly different directions since the late 1980s. Yeah, no question. Let's see, trying to pull up the questions here.

Well, we already answered that. Have you ever had any contact with Brazil's CIA called Abin or A-B-I-N? No, never. Not even tangentially. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I never had any contact with any Latin American service ever. Almost no East Asian services. So I'm being asked if my cat is a rescue.

No, he's not. He is a, well, I'll tell the story. So I wanted to, I researched cats that are hypoallergenic. There's about 15 breeds. and I found that Russian blues have the character traits that I really like, you know, kind of like not super needy, but they like to be nearby, and they don't create a lot, they don't shed a lot, and they're hyperalogenic, and they're good-looking cats.

So, so anyway, I got, and also they're not super loud. You know, they don't, they're not like, wha, you know, they're not like screaming in the middle of the night. No, there's no yelling, right? They're like, if you saw that movie, the animated movie, Flo that won an Oscar, like my cat looks and behaves a lot like that cat. So anyway, long story short, I found him on a website. It was this lady who breeds Russian blues. And basically, she had an excess of them, but she of the kittens.

And she was like, but you have to promise, she was like, for $400. instead of the usual $2,500, you can have him, but you have to promise to get him neutered and never show him. And I'm like, I don't want to show him. I just want to show him my couch. He's like, I'm like, you know, I'm not invest in show. So anyway, long story short, that's how I got him. And I have, by the way, I have beef with the term rescue.

Okay, so to me, it's like a rescue dog or cat is one that's been like beaten and abused by crazy hoarders and assholes. it's like if you go to the pound and you just get a cat and there's nothing wrong with them, that's not a rescue. That is a pound cat. And it's only recently that people start to say like, oh, I'm a, you know, I have a rescue dog or a rescue cat. It's like, really? Where do you get it?

I went to the pound. That's not a rescue. It's like a rescue is one that like, you know, like was pit bull that was like used for fighting and stuff by degenerates. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could, uh, I'm not, I'm not a cat guy. I'm a dog guy. And even then I'm a little teeny tiny dog guy. Really? Yeah. That's funny. Oh, I like that. Not a robot said the cat rescued Ted through the cat distribution system. The cat chose Ted. That is true. I absolutely.

Yeah, by the way, um, he's a gray cat, not a black cat. But the thing that's funny is, um, Russian blues were not even before the war We're becoming unpopular, John, because of Instagram They don't, they're hard to photograph and people want to They gray cats are hard to take pictures of So people are like, I don't want a gray cat like, I can't put them on Insta Again, ask me how many shits I give So it's so dumb

Also, dog cat is good because their hair doesn't show up everywhere I had a white cat when I was a kid and man the hair the fur shows up everywhere it's like my mom used to call it catbestos so anyway

let's see if animals aren't adopted aren't they put to sleep um it depends but not in a no kill shelter yeah um yeah so all right let's talk about Trump's lawsuit Trump is suing the New York Times

and four of its reporters for $15 billion. Basically, this is a complicated lawsuit. He's, well, I should say it's wide-ranging. $15 billion is, of course, completely insane. No one's ever won that kind of damage award, unless outside of like a major tort, you know, like basically like the, what's her name?

The famous case in Southern California, PG&E. You know, the lady brought the case. there's a movie, Julia Roberts is a... Oh, yeah, it's... The Aaron Brockovich. Aaron Brockovich. Unless it's like that, you're not winning billions of dollars. But anyway, what's interesting is the allegation is that the articles that the Times ran

during the 2024 campaign and books published by the Times came out in a timing that was meant to fuck around with his campaign. Now, it's true that reading the New York Times, in 2024, it was clear that they had a hard on for Trump and they were out to destroy him. I mean, no question about it. If there was law fair against Trump and there was, there was definitely media fair too. And the Times was part of it. I just wonder if the Times is still able to count on Sullivan v. New York Times and anti-SLAPP laws

and all their usual arsenal of big media defendant tools. to resist this. I mean, I'm thinking about how they recent, they're about to lose to Sarah Palin. Yeah. Her case got revived, and rightly so. Yeah. I'm thinking about, like, CNN and all these other defendants,

that kid from Kentucky, who they libeled and smeared. You know, it just seems to me like the public is turning against some of these giant media outlets, and they're starting to see things, you know, in a new way. It's not like they can just do and write whatever the fuck they want all the time. I think you're right I'm surprised PG&E has gotten has gotten away with

as much as they've gotten away with over the years even with Aaron Brockovich they're still using lines that are 60 years old towers that are 100 years old it just doesn't make any sense to me yeah and that's what caused the paradise fire that's right that's right they burned the entire town to the ground because of old equipment that caught fire and burned

it's insane. It is. It's terrible. Okay, Robbie, go ahead and put that out there. Okay, Nick wants to know, not strong on French history, but how close did the Foreign Legion come to overthrowing De Gaul in, like, 61? So it wasn't really the Foreign Legion. It was an organization called the Alme Secret or the OAS, and basically a good fictionalized version of of this is the Day of the Jackal, highly recommended movie.

Excellent movie. Great book, too. Love Frederick Forsyth. That's his first book. Anyway, let me read this ad, and then I'll try to answer that. Hey, football fanatics, are you ready for some primetime NFL action? Tune into Westwood One for all the gridiron glory you crave, from jaw-dropping touchdowns to game-changing plays. Don't miss a moment of the excitement, catch every snap, every tackle, and on every victory on Westwood One.

You can listen to the NFL on the NFL app on the Westwood One Sports app on Westwood One Sports.com via Westwood One station streams or by asking Alexa to open Westwood One sports. It's the NFL. It's on Westwood One. So the OAS wasn't really trying to overthrow DeGal. They were trying to assassinate them. And they did it numerous times. And basically they were pissed off at DeGal because of his decision to withdraw from Algeria, which, by the way, is one of my favorite political stories of all of, from history ever. I mean, I would love to have leaders like this. I mean, de Gaulle was far to my right, but he was a big proponent of French Algeria.

Algeria was not just a French colony, right? It was a full-fledged province of France. Yeah. Like it was like the way that Hawaii is a full-fledged state. And like, so he's like, la France-Algealien, you know, Algerian-French forever. And then when the War of Independence got really cooking. And, you know, the Pinot, who were the French colonists, were getting blown up like they were going out of style every time they went to a cafe. He went on a fact-finding mission to Algiers. And what he saw shocked him. And he came back and went on national radio and television and told the French people, we have to get out of Algeria. They don't want us there. We are doing more harm than good, but we owe them. So we're going to withdraw. We're going to pour

in resources to help them transition to independence, and we're going to be their friend if and when they need us. So mature. The French people, so most people in France loved it. It was an end to the war. My uncle served in Algeria. It was their Vietnam. He told, Danielle, he told me that they would literally go. It was just like the Vietnam War. The commanding officer would say, look at those camels kill those guys and and all the all the french soldiers would just ignore the order and just sit and just like the guy hadn't their commanding officer hadn't said a thing it was open rebellion in the army and anyway but the oAS they were right-wing military officers and they they were so pissed that they considered de gaul a traitor you know the head of the free

friends during World War II. And they kept trying to shoot him and blow him up different ways, but obviously it never worked. He got closer to being overthrown actually in May 1968 when there was the student uprising at the University of Paris at the Sorbonne. That came a lot closer. He said that it came within 15 minutes of having to head for a helicopter and fly off to the warm to the warm clutches of Conrad Adnauer, I believe it was, in West Germany. So that was much, much. By the way, thank you to the Rumblers. We now have 600 followers on Rumble.

Awesome. Thank you. Much appreciated. Great. Yeah, Big boss, Bob Ross says, I thought Vietnam was France's Vietnam. Not really. No. So, yeah, the French got out of Vietnam soon enough.

It wasn't a grinding war the way Algeria was. But they told, by the way, the French told us, don't do it. You know, don't go to Vietnam. Robert Redford. Oh, oh, oh, John, I got to ask you this question. So this is a big news story. So U.S. military officials are in Belarus. Rus. They've been for the first time since the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. The U.S. military

officials have been invited and have accepted and are now in Belarus to observe joint Russian-Belarus military war games called Zapad 2025. This is so the Pentagon is confirming this. What's up with that, John? I don't know. And I'll tell you why I'm so perplexed by this is that, as we said just a couple of days ago, or maybe it was the end of last week, Belarus is a party to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's a belligerent. And so Ukraine has a legitimate case, if it wanted, against Belarus. I would have assumed that the U.S. would be prodding the Ukrainians, urging the Ukrainians to go after the Belarusians in the United Nations. Not only have they not done that, but now we're trying to make nice with

the Belarusians. Don't get me wrong. I think in the end, that's the way to go. Sure. Diplomacy is always best. Always. But I'm just surprised by it. And by the way, why would the U.S. traditionally be invited to these Russian maneuver, to these Russian Belarusan maneuvers? Is this a Putin overture? It sure feels like it. And then why would the U.S. be interested in observing them? There's a lot of wise here. I genuinely don't understand how this is playing out. Yeah.

I don't understand. You're being asked about part. I'm going to answer this for you. Any progress on getting a pardon? I'm forbidding John from talking about this. Yeah, I can't. I can't say. Just don't.

Let's just assume that it's going well. And John will update us when he can't. So far so good. You can imagine why it's not a good idea for him to talk about that here. Okay, and let's talk about Robert Redford. Robert Redford, I mean, you know, he was an amazing actor, founded the Sundance Film Festival, which basically revolutionized independent cinema,

launched Quentin Tarantino, and people like it. His movies were always a classy affair. And not just the movies he acted in. He was a brilliant director as well. True. Like ordinary people, ordinary people won best picture in 1980 or 81. And it has held up so well over the years. It was the first dramatic role for Mary Tyler Moore of all people.

And she aced that role, aced it. Timothy Hutton, Judd Hurd. Oh, my God. Donald Sutherland? Brilliant. All of them. Every one of them, perfectly cast, beautifully written, just perfectly directed. And then he was in the sting with Paul Newman.

He did, what was the other one, Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That's a monster. The natural. Yeah. That's a monster. The candidate. One of the great political movies. And followed by all the president's men.

Yes, another great political movie. Yeah. 89 years old, he had a long good life. He died surrounded by his family. We've got to talk about the three days of the Condor. Yeah. I just watched it again on a plane. Oh, it's just brilliant.

So, I mean, so three days of the Condor, correct me if I'm wrong about these details. He is the lowest level possible analyst. he's working out of a safe house in New York City in New York City It looks like a publishing house Yeah a publishing house, right It's a townhouse, a little brownstone

And basically it's very boring He reads newspaper articles from overseas Cuts them out It summarizes them And writes little reports He's just a guy And he goes out to lunch And when he comes back

everyone's been murdered everyone and so including the receptionist so he goes on the lamb and uh and basically it's it's kind of a tribute to like the training thing right like basically everyone's been trained even if they have even if they're at the lowest possible level that training is supposed to suit them and then his handler has to try to convince him that there isn't a mole waiting to kill him too and he has to they have to bring him in from the cold, right? And they have to, and he, so he picks up the phone, you know, and calls in for brief periods. But it's great. It's just so tasteful and classy.

Love it. It really holds up. It's a great, it's a great Cold War paranoia movie, too, from that period, like the parallax view, all those, like, you know, the Star Chamber. I agree. I agree. Those movies are fantastic. you know he was really oh and then of course we talked a little bit about i think maybe the

cheesiest well he did some cheesy movies right like havana was terrible um the uh indecent proposal is kind of silly i had just gotten married when that movie came out and it just pissed me off it's like how dare you would like what yeah basically the plot is um rich guy offers Woody Harrelson a million dollars to fuck his wife, who is Demi Moore, right? And then they need the money, so they take the money

and basically Demi Moore, and then basically he Woody Harrelson, instead of just smoking weed, loses his mind. And his marriage gets all fucked up. Yep. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing is ridiculous from start to finish. But it's basically like, on the other hand, sort of

it's a tribute to his star power. Every guy was supposed to go to the movie and be like, well, if your wife cheats on you with Robert Redford, you can't really blame her. You know, it's not really her fault. It's Robert Redford. And you do get a million dollars. Yeah, plus you get a million dollars. But I mean, even if she didn't, even if he didn't pay you, it's Robert Redford. You know, I mean, what are you going to do? You can't compete with that. But, yeah, it's such a classy, um, wow, we're going way over. We should, we should wrap it. But I could go on and on, obviously.

Yeah, I'm deprogrammed. I also have to meet our friend up in Bethesda in... Oh, right. Oh, yeah, you do. Yes, you do. Okay, well, so thank you very much for everyone for joining us. Please like, follow, and share the show. We're here Monday through Friday,

5 p.m. Eastern time. You know the drill. Thank you so much for all your donations and your questions. Please like, like follow and share. I said it before. I'll say it again. Like follow and share. Okay, then. Bye, everyone. And see. I think John's off.