DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Will Eric Adams Get His Biggest Bribe Ever?”

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Tune in for hard-hitting analysis on the DeProgram show with political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou as they dig into today’s big stories.Department of War: Trump signs an executive order, renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, reverting to its pre-1947 title to emphasize military strength. Trump wants to project an even more aggressive image, citing U.S. victories in World Wars I and II. Pacifists have wanted this change for years—are they happy?Eric Adams Offered the Biggest Bribe of All: Advisers to President Trump, including Steve Witkoff, push to nominate NYC Mayor Eric Adams as ambassador to Saudi Arabia to derail his struggling re-election bid and clear the field for Andrew Cuomo. The plan remains fluid, with Adams weighing options amid a federal indictment and rock-bottom poll numbers (10.6%). Could this reshape the race, potentially boosting Andrew Cuomo’s third-party candidacy (23.2%) against Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani (38.2%)? Sliwa is at 16.6%.Sanctions on Palestinians for Opposing Genocide: The U.S. imposes sanctions against three Palestinian groups—Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights—for asking for an ICC probe into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The sanctions, led by Rubio, cite their ICC engagement without Israel’s “consent.” Trump Sides with Airlines Against Passengers: Trump administration withdraws a Biden-era plan that would have required airlines to pay $200-$775 for delays caused by carriers, screwing beleaguered travelers—who wanted this. Will he pay a political price for opposing the American people?

Happy Friday. You're watching D-Program with Ted Rall and John Kariaku. Obviously, I'm Ted Rall, and obviously that's John Piriakou. Hi, John. Good to see you. Hey, Ted. Good to see you, buddy. Glad it's Friday. Me too.

Me too. All right, guys. Let's get to it. Let's talk about, you know, Department of War. That's what it's going to be called now. We'll be getting into that. Eric Adams, they're trying to get him out of the race. They're trying to bribe him.

It's probably not a feeling he's unfamiliar with. We'll get into that. Sanctions on Palestinians, nothing new there. This time it's for having the temerity to oppose genocide. We'll get into the details there. And this part, I don't know if you care about this, but you fly a lot. I have a feeling you do. Trump's decided to screw airline passengers.

And I wonder if he's going to pay a price for that in terms of populism, siding with the airlines who are really, kind of one of the most hated industries in America against ordinary passengers. But let's just get to it. What do you want to talk about first, John? I'd like to talk about Eric Adams first, if we could. Absolutely. Because, you know, deep down, deep down, I still have a love of the, you know,

how the sausage is made at the State Department and in foreign policy. One thing about the Saudis, and this is why Saudi Arabia is being floated as a place for Eric Adams to end up. The Saudis have always insisted that they not have a career diplomat as the U.S. ambassador. They demand it, which is exactly the opposite of most other countries. The Saudis demand a political appointee. Why? Because they want to be able to pick up the phone, call the ambassador, and have the ambassador to call the president and the president takes the call. So if you're a career diplomat, the president's

never heard of you. You can't call the White House the middle of the night and say, you know, the king of Saudi Arabia wants to talk to you. So as crazy as this might sound, the Saudis would be very happy to have Eric Adams as the U.S. ambassador. That's not to say that 51 U.S. senators will agree to have Eric Adams as the U.S. ambassador, although if he were to drop out of the race, the Republicans endorse Cuomo. He'll still lose. But the Republicans endorse Cuomo. We need to break this down for people who are not watching the details of the New York City mayoral race, which is super important, even if you don't live in New York or care about New York, just because it's the epic showdown inside the Democratic Party between the progressive

left base of the party and the corporatist centrists who run the DNC. Right. You know, so in the primary, Mamdani, the Democratic socialist, basically a Bernie acolyte, managed to defeat a crowded field and is now in a general election. He's the Democratic nominee. Current polls, I just checked the clear politics averages as they currently stand. Zaron Mamdani is 38.2%. Bringing up number two, a distant number two,

is Andrew Cuomo, former New York ass-grabbing governor. He is running as a third party candidate. If I'm not mistaken, he's on the fight anti-Semitism line, subtle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that. Cygney Wilkinson, the editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, She has a delightful that she says in moments like that that you just reminded me of. And Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, and the Republican nominee,

perennial Republican nominee, is at 16.6%. Basically as popular as Lint is the sitting incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, who is currently at 10.6%. So the powers that be are looking at one outline. lying poll that seems to indicate that if you could get Adams and hopefully Sleewood a drop out, but certainly Adams, you might actually be able to beat Mamdani with Cuomo. So the billionaire class in the real estate interests and Wall Street, all those people, that's their plot here, right? So they're trying to clear the field for Cuomo.

Oddly, the New York Post, which is the Murdoch organ here in New York, is still trying to push for Adams. I mean, you know, honestly, Clovis, my cat has a far better chance of being mayor than Adams. Seriously. There's no way. I mean, he's at 10.6% in the race. Yeah. Is the incumbent? That's right. Mamdani is increasing in the polls. Adams has faced a lot of very credible corruption charges. You know, I can't say that he's corrupt. I mean, I think it's my opinion that he is corrupt and takes bribes. Okay. But, and I think it's the opinion of most New Yorkers, too. But anyway, so they're trying to get, so they're basically the idea is, hey, let's get rid of Adams.

Adam drops out and endorses Cuomo. Yeah. We'll work on Slewa. Slewa says there is absolutely nothing that he, that can convince him to drop out. He said they'd have to be run over by a car to drop out of the race. So, and I kind of believe Curtis. But it just seems very, it's all very desperate, right? And so Steve Whitkoff, the Trump envoy to various, you know, global hot spots, including

Russia, Ukraine, he's floating this. We don't know how far the food chain this has gone. We don't know if the Donald is on board with this or if he's just sort of, you know, Obviously, he's reading about it. I don't know. I mean, how likely is this? You know what? I think it actually is likely because Donald Trump's not stupid.

I mean, we like to criticize Donald Trump, sure. But he's not stupid. And he knows that- His political instincts are obvious. I mean, yeah, if this was a stupid man, He'd be in jail right now. Exactly right. If he was a stupid man, he wouldn't be the first person to be elected president without military or political experience.

That is exactly right. He's not stupid. Yep, he's not stupid. And so he knows that Eric Adams isn't going to win this race. He knows that there's not a prayer for Eric Adams to win this race. There's a better chance that Trump can have some serious input if he, he gets Adams out. And so what do you do? You offer him ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Why not? That's going to make him happy. And the Saudis won a political appointee anyway. And then, you know,

he at least throws a little bit of a wrench into the Mamdani campaign. Even if Trump has already come to the conclusion that Mamdani is going to win, getting Eric Adams out of the race, at least forces Mamdani to spend some money and would allow people to then coalesce around the candidate that Trump wants, which is either, well, or neither Curtis Sliwa nor Andrew Cuomo. It just makes it a little bit tougher for Mamdani. I mean, Mamdani, he's already got the maximum number of campaign contributions that he's allowed to accept. People are throwing so much money at him. So, I mean, it's hard. It's hard to see how he loses at this day. Yeah, seriously. And he's increasing in the polls. He's not going

down. The more that they pay attention to him, the more that people like him in New York, I think all of this establishment stuff is just, you know, not, it's just, it's counterproductive. Yes. And it's just blowback, right? I don't know. I think it's going to be, it's super interesting to me to see how this is all playing out. And so, But, I mean, I guess Eric Adams gets a soft landing. How is that post, though? I mean, we talked yesterday about, you know, the ambassadorial position in Athens, which I think all humans can agree is a nice job.

How is Riyadh? I mean, you know, you and I both, we have similar views on what it's like to live in Saudi Arabia. Yeah, my own personal view is that Saudi Arabia is the biggest open-air prison in the world. But that's just me. When I was serving in Saudi Arabia, I served under two ambassadors there. One was Chas Freeman, the legendary Chas Freeman, who, God bless him, he's still alive. He has some health problems, but he is one of the leading voices out there in support of the Palestinian people. He went on to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense, and then he was supposed to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council,

but the Obama people killed the nomination because he's pro-Palestinian. So the second one that I served under had been the governor of Mississippi and then was Bill Clinton's secretary of the Navy. Nice guy, sweet guy, completely out of his element. He just did what he was told to do. Whoever happened to be National Security Advisor, Sandy Burger for most of that period, just told him what to do and he did it. That's what the Saudis wanted. So if you are the ambassador, it's going to be good for you because you're meeting with the king, you're meeting with the crown prince, you're meeting with the minister of foreign affairs,

you have the biggest parties in the country, you have the biggest mansion in the diplomatic quarter, life's going to be good. As soon as you step out of that house, life's not going to be so good because Saudi Arabia is a terrible, terrible place to be. I would rather be almost anywhere else. than Saudi Arabia. Now, I imagine that the ambassador, just like everywhere, lives in a, you know, basically lives in a compound.

They can have alcohol. There's high walls. They can pretty much do whatever they want. They're living in their own private Idaho, right? Like a wild potato. Don't go on the patio. But is it. But so that's basically it.

You're like in your, you're in your Wally world. Yeah, that's all. It's awful. It's awful. And every once in a while. You get in the car and you go over to Dharan and you meet the people in the, in the consulate there. And then you take a quick flight over to Jeddah. The Saudi government, the entire government moves to Jeddah in May.

And they're in May, they're in Jeddah for May, June, July, and August. And then the whole government moves back to Riyadh because Riyadh is too hot, 120, 125 degrees. so they just go to jet up because it's on the water and you get a little bit of a breeze. It's still 120 degrees, but I don't know. It's all relative, I suppose. But then that's it. The reason why they want you in the first place is they want to have somebody who will have his phone calls taken by the president. That's it.

That's the bottom line. Adam wants to know, is it true that if you want to work in Saudi Arabia, you're appointed a handler by the government. your passport is taken away from you and you can only leave with this permission. Yes. That is true. That is true. That's a serious human rights problem. Yeah, yeah, I should agree with that.

But yeah, you have to be sponsored. So you have to say on your visa application who your sponsor is. A Saudi has to be the majority shareholder of whatever company you're working for. So you can't just go to Saudi Arabia and say, oh, I'm going to open an LLC and we're going to make widgets. Uh-uh. You're going to open an LLC. that you own 49% of, some random Saudi's going to own 51%. The Saudi's going to hold your passport.

And if he doesn't like your face or you have a fight or falling out over money, then you're essentially under house arrest because you can't go anywhere. And that's how they keep especially South Asian women as sex slaves. They hire them as domestics, nannies, English teachers. and then they arrive, the sponsor takes the passport and says, yeah, now take your clothes off and you're going to be living in the cupboard underneath the steps. Lovely. Yeah, it's a great place.

Best system. I hated it there so much. Good thing we're so close to them. Marble wants to know, and thanks for the generous donation. Thanks also Houdini and everyone else. Thank you. Marble wants to know thoughts on Nigel Farage. Farrange.

Trolling Congress. While you answered that, I'm going to hear you. hit reboot so don't panic you got it a better connection here you know it's funny as recently as five years ago nigel farage was was a joke he was like a kind of a neo-nazi fascist weirdo fringe weirdo from the british right wing and just over the last five years with the humiliation that the electoral humiliation that the uh that the conservative party underwent for Raj has come out as like a real voice on the right. He's no less fascistic than he was five years ago.

He just has been accepted by the mainstream as a legitimate, and this is nuts to me, but as a legitimate right-wing voice. When I was last in London, I was there in March, there was an article in the Times of London. And the Times, of course, it's a conservative paper and it's owned by Rupert Murdoch and all. but there was a piece saying that Nigel Farage would likely be the next leader of the Conservative Party. If that happens, I could see the end of the Conservative Party as a viable political force. Really?

Uh-huh. I think because conservatives who aren't that conservative, they're called WETS, I think the WETS would move to the Liberal Party, which is not liberal. It's actually quite conservative, especially on foreign policy. And I think that the ones who remain by, the Nigel Farage conservatives, would just be sort of a rump party. Farage is a very interesting character because it sort of reminds me, not reminds me, it reminds me of what I've read happened in the UK in conservative politics. in the run-up to the Second World War. There were a lot of Brits who thought Hitler was A-OK.

And a lot of those Brits, you know, it took years for them to change their minds. Oswald Mosley types. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, people forget that the British Fascist Party was a real thing. It was a real thing and there were members of the royal family that were members of it. Yeah, by the way, thank you so much to Peter. for becoming a monthly supporter over on Rumble. Much appreciated.

Okay, so, okay, so let's talk about the politics here. I mean, Trump is going to, I think, you know, I've got to think that the reason Trump's not all in on this plan, as he knows that it probably won't work. And, you know, he doesn't want to get behind a plan that's likely to fail. That's right. And then he'll be made fun of, and he hates that. That's right.

Yep. So, yeah, there are a lot of moving parts here. And in the end, look at it this way, too. Donald Trump does things that benefit Donald Trump. So how does this benefit Donald Trump? It doesn't really. I mean, I would think that it would be kind of, I mean, look, I think that the Republican Party is planning to go after Mamdani has basically turned him into their bitch for the next four years.

I wouldn't be so sure it's going to work. You know, he seems like a really smart young man. who's surrounding himself with some older seasons New Yorkers who are going to hold his hand over at Gracie Mansion and at City Hall and they're going to tell him how things work

and I don't think he's just going to go in there like a bull in a china shop. I mean, he's been running a fucking great campaign. I think you're right. Which is funny because, Ted, you remember I mean, you remember better than I. You're a New Yorker. When Mamdani came out ahead, said so many on on the right or not even really on the right in the center and on the right said

this is a fluke it's temporary we're going to keep running everybody's going to coalesce around quomo and the DNC is going to live happily ever after and that's not happening it's not no not at all mon die's political godfather happens to be Jewish and so when people say Oh, Mamdani, he's going to open ovens for the Jews. No, no, he's not. No, no. And New York voters, many of whom are Jewish, are voting for him. And they know, they know, they know what he's about.

That's right. You know, so we shall see. Nixon Barley says all of him, Donny's advisors are young. Guy is talking about his group. His, I got to tell you, though, he had that guy. that, God, now his name is escaping me, who was running with him, who ran against him in the primary and then endorsed him. And they kind of co-endorsed each other in the primary. And that guy is like older than we are. And he's holding. Yeah. I think it's a big part of it. We'll see.

We'll see. We will see. Hey, before we move on, too, we've got a good question from road beef here. If we mentioned Frudge, I must also ask Ted and John for their opinion quickly on Boris Johnson, two peas in a pod. You know, Boris, I think there was nobody, there was nobody in the UK more shocked when Boris Johnson became prime minister than Boris Johnson. He was a joke. Yeah. He was a, and not just a joke, he was a, he was a provocateur journalist who made a career by pissing people off on purpose, right? He was one of those original, I have an opinion, right-wing journalists, and what are you going to do about it kind of people?

But I think that he got into politics just to troll people. And one crazy thing led to the other. And then he found himself to be prime minister. will say another thing too. Every time I go to the UK, I visit my host family, the family that sponsored me when I was 19 years old and I lived with them and they are absolutely wonderful, awesome people. My host father was a member of parliament in the 1980s for the liberal party. And he's in his late 80s now, but he is still 100% sharp and follows every detail of politics and he said this at the time he said Boris Johnson never wanted to be prime minister he

never intended to be prime minister this was all about just lighten a fire under people and then writing a book about it later and being able to go on TV and promote yourself and sell your book he didn't think he was going to actually be prime minister and then when he became it's like trump there's a lot of dogs that catch cars nowadays it was about the branding for trump trump didn't think he was going to win. This was about enhancing the brand. And so, um, so you find yourself prime minister of the UK and you've been yelling about Brexit, Brexit, Brexit for all these months. You're going to have to leave the European Union. It's like you got a Brex now. You got a Brex. Two great lines here from the, from the, um, from the scroll. Um, Mumdani, who Dini says,

Momdani, regardless of what he says during the campaign, if he wins, he'll get the talk and fall in line. Agreed. Just like AOC did. And James Gernalis, this is like poetry, James. Youth and cunning will always be outdone by age and treachery. Amen. That's, if I had a touch, you live in. Yeah, ugly world we live in. It really, really is. John, so let's see, Ross Houston wants to know, how valuable would access to a high-level member of the economy cabinet of the UAE be to the CIA? Not very valuable. The CIA doesn't really spy on the UAE. There's no reason to because they give us everything that we want.

And we don't really care about their economy. What we care about, most importantly, in the UAE is their commitment to the alliance with the United States against Iran. Against Iran and against the Houthis, we don't really care about the economy. Besides, it's the Brits, the Brits that make the UAE economy run. The Brits are all the bankers, the Brits are all the advisors, they're managing the national wealth fund. Yeah, that's interesting. All right, speaking of the talk, so if young bloods like Memdani get the talk. from the old school dudes who tell them what's what.

I think, you know, Trump has a boss, too, and that's the corporations. Trump got, is obviously got a call from the airlines, CEOs, and said, don't you dare go ahead with this last second Biden Buttigieg plan that basically would have required the airlines to pay you when, not because of weather, but through some fault of their own. like they're you know remember when southwest failed to upgrade their computer systems and people got delayed and i mean if you fly you know how aggravating this is it happened to my son recently you know he's changing planes the airline fucked up he doesn't make his connection he's stuck in a strange city they're like oh you can sleep in the airport overnight you can either do that

or you can pay shell out for you know a hotel at the airport on your own dime and you got to pay for extra meals and all that. Well, in Europe, and I have to say this is an imperfect system, but in Europe, they have a system where if the airline fucks up, you can put in a claim, and they have to pay you. They have to compensate you. Buttigieg and outgoing Biden pushed this through, like too many good things that they came up with.

They did in a cowardly way on the way out the door, so it never went into effect. And now Trump is sort of quietly on a Friday, getting rid of this. Airlines are scum. They make billions and millions of dollars in profits. They are, you know, squeezing us in. It's unsafe as shit to fly. I mean, if you ever, I mean, for me, okay, I'm six two. You know, I'm jammed in the seats, but that's not my main concern. The deep vein thrombosis I can live and die with. But like, you know, if you ever had to evacuate the plane, which I've had to do, you can't because there's no, there's no way to get past

anyone you can't the aisles are too narrow i mean it's literally a safety issue um and so i mean i just wonder this is such a corporatist Reagan type move this is this is it's it's the kind of thing that by itself it's not going to be enough to destroy trump's coalition but if you saw more and more of this do you think that we would lose people like the trump would i mean trump's already lost producer Robbie who voted for him, but would he lose more people like producer Robbie, more populist conservatives who are kind of like, well, you don't care about the people, you only care about the companies? Or are they just like not going to be aware of it and not pay attention? See, I think unfortunately it's the latter. I think most people aren't paying attention.

And this is one thing I really hate to is Americans have just accepted the fact that it's okay to be treated like cattle. I was in, um, yeah, I was. was in Spain in like February or March or something like that earlier this year. And I had to fly from Madrid to Dublin and then Dublin to Washington. So there was a mechanical problem in Madrid. And finally they got the plane fixed and they sent us to to Dublin, but I missed my connection. Because it's not my fault I missed the connection. Their plane was broken. So I went to the little desk there, the information desk, and I said, hey, you know, I was on this flight from Madrid. Oh, yes, yes, we've been waiting for you. You're Mr. Kariaku? Yes, I am. They said,

yes, unfortunately, there's not a flight to Washington until tomorrow. So we've booked you in this four-star hotel with buffet breakfast that could feed an army. And your ticket was $1,200. We're going to refund 600 of the dollars and I'm like oh nice okay yeah great so I went to the hotel they had a shuttle bus waiting to take those of us that had to spend the night took us the hotel expedited check-in it was a gorgeous hotel in the center of Dublin gigantic buffet and then I went around did some sightseeing and went back to the airport the next morning and flew to Washington. And then about six weeks later, I got my $600 transferred into my checking account. The craziest thing. How come we don't do that? Why are we held hostage? Look, I would go further

and say, even when it's a weather delay, there should be some form of compensation. I mean, maybe airlines can charge an extra fund. So it basically creates like a compensation fund so that when people, I mean, it's okay. It's not the airline's fault if there's a storm, and I don't want them to fly during a storm. But, I mean, you know. Sure, sure. Totally agree.

But people need to be able to stay at the hotel at the airport. Exactly. Maybe you don't put them up at the four-star hotel, but they should be able to go to the, you know, the Ramada or the Marriott or whatever. Yeah. Totally agree. Everybody should do this.

The Europeans are so much. DeWolfson, thank you so much for becoming a monthly supporter for us over on Rumble. Thank you. Robbie, go ahead and put that ad up, and I'll go ahead and read it when you do. So, yeah, so I mean, this, I mean, it really, it stuck in my craw this news. And I did notice that it was happening on a Friday news dump day, you know, sort of at a time of the year when people are still like, you know, spending a lot of time outside on the weekend. And I think, you know, they know this isn't popular. I still maintain that Pete Buttigieg is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 28,

not Gavin Newsom. And this, this, if I'm Pete Buttigieg right now, I'm doing a little dance, you know, because I could say like, oh, I promoted this and Trump killed it. I'm on your side. Trump is on the airlines and the corporations side. All right, here's the ad. Thanks everyone for listening to this. If you haven't already, make sure you down.

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Just search for Rumble, follow the channel, and be part of it. part of the action. And indeed, please do watch us on Rumble because that's where we make the financial action. And I want to say, too, thanks to our viewers and to Robbie, we were on the Rumble first page, front page. What do you call it? The splash page, I think is what they call it. The splash page the other day. So thank you for watching us on Rumble. It seriously boosted hour or viewership by a good, I'm going to say nine or ten percent and land at us on that front

page. So thank you very much for that. No, it's insanely very much appreciated. The support has been super inspiring. Peter says every airport should have the words from Dante's defined comedy inscribed, abandon all hope,

you who enter here. It is a bleak fucking feeling when you walk into an airport. You know, even if you have TSA pre, it's going to be an, you know, an undignified experience. It's like, oh, we found your applesauce criminal. And it's what a waste. I mean, I would seriously get rid of TSA entirely. I think it's a, we could go back to the old days where you can walk your, walk your loved ones to the gate. I mean, I told my son that the other day. And he thought I was kidding. And I said,

no, no, no. Everybody, the whole family just parks the car and just walks in all the way to the gate hugs and kisses there when i was a little boy when we would when we would visit washington dc visit relatives in washington my dad used to always take me in a national airport i remember i must have been three or four i still remember doing this and um there was an observation deck on the roof of the terminal and you could just watch the planes take off and land and for a little kid that was an awesome thing yeah you know it is awesome now kids don't even they're like get out of here that never happened you want to this happened the following thing happened in the early 90s my my my my my sister-in-law had a she bought a two she bought a round

trip ticket she couldn't use the return I returned on her ticket they didn't even check my ID I did that once and you know what and her name was Alice and literally the guy gives me a funny look I go you know like Alice Cooper and he goes okay oh okay I bought my mom and dad just like Alice Cooper you may remember this this airline it was around for a minute it was called bahamas express and they had flights from kennedy to the bahamas so you go at 7 a.m you arrive at like 930 in the morning in the Bahamas you hang out on the beach all day go shopping you have lunch whatever you get back on the plane at 5 and you land in New York at like eight and it was $99 that's awesome So for my mom and dad's 30th anniversary, I bought them two tickets to the Bahamas on Bahamas Express, not knowing that my dad had already bought tickets for them to go to Greece.

Oh. So I'm stuck with these two non-refundable tickets. And in, you know, 19, whenever it was, no, it wasn't their 30th. It must have been their 20th. because I was I was 18 well 200 dollars is a lot of money oh yeah especially back then 1982 it sure fucking was yeah and so I said to my brother I said hey you want to go to the Bahamas just the two of us will go down for the day we'll drink and party and go to the beach whatever he's like yeah my mom's name is Stella right so I hand the guy the ticket and he looks not like

Alice Cooper. There's no rockers named Stella. He looks at the ticket. He looks at me and I'm just standing there looking at him. And he says to me, I'll never forget it. He says, buddy, $50 name change fee next time. And I said, okay. I got on the plane. And nothing happened. No, no, everybody was happy. And my brother and I have some great pictures to remember our day in the Bahamas. And don't forget, TSA. did not, well, TSA didn't exist. The predecessor to TSA. Right. You know, those box cutters were legal to bring on. Yeah, they were. Yes.

You know? So, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I know I think security matters. But, you know, John, have you ever, what do you make of the fact that, you know, you have to basically go through an anal probe to get onto a plane? But a train is no problem or a bus. You just get on.

I'm always amazed by that. They all arrive. I don't think there's any more terrorist attacks. Has there ever been a terrorist attack against a train in the United States? The last time I can think of one was like the South Maluccas terrorists in Holland in the 1970s like hijacked a train. It like never happens. Carlos the Jackal killed a handful of French policemen on a train in the 70s at some point.

But no. And Ted, you and I both travel by train with some frequency. I mean, we live on the East Coast. It's really the only way to get between Boston and Washington. I do too. I love trains. And not only do they not have security, they don't even look at the ticket until you're on and the train's already going.

Like you don't have to show an ID, nothing. You just get in line and get on the train. One time recently. It's a beautiful thing, John. It is. I mean, and the bus, you can get on any, you know, Greyhound. doesn't care. I mean, Bolt bus doesn't care. No one cares.

No, Bolt doesn't care at all. No. This trip where my flight was delayed and I missed my energy. There was that attack. There's a movie about it that was thwarted by the U.S. airmen on the TGV.

Oh, that's right. You know what? I should remember that because the hero was Greek American and he was like on the front page of all the Greek papers. M.W. Knox wants to know. Do we prefer the prunos scanner or the pat-down i'll take the scanner i hate when people strangers are touching me like that i do not i don't i don't do the uh you know by the way at the airport now they have this thing it's really freaky um where they they they say oh stand over here

and we'll take your photo yeah facial recognition don't like it and you don't have to say yes It's optional, but they basically say when you step up there, they don't say you don't have to do it. They say, step over here in front of the camera. And you have to say, you know, I decline. They're like, oh, you decline. I mean, it's not like they give you a really hard time. But, you know, they clearly don't like it. No, they don't like it.

But you can decline. It'll delay you just a couple of minutes, but you can decline. I had a friend, journalist currently at the New York Times, flew out of Tel Aviv. and he was he had just he worked on a kibbutz he's you know as jewish as the day is long joint citizenship in israel he's flying back he's flying alone so el al they decided to give him they literally were like we need to do a body cavity search what and uh and i was like you me and i was joking i'm like so including your anus he's like yeah and i'm like so what did you tell him he goes well i didn't want to miss my flight like are you kidding me i would have been like fuck you call the

call the U.S. Embassy. And it's like, it's like, oh, I would have missed my flight. I'd miss my flight for a week. Those people aren't sticking their fingers up my ass if I can help. No way. No. I got strip searched in Iceland in December, down to my underwear. And I was boiling, raging mad, but I never spoke a word.

Never said a word. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction. What would have happened if you declined or refused? I think they probably would have told me, turn around and leave the airport and there's no other way to get out of iceland you're kind of stuck you know and it's just a miserable miserable pleats yeah it's just terrible oh m g omg oh jenn wants you to finish your story i don't know did i interrupt you i apologize yeah that oh that's okay what story was that jen what was i talking about sorry i do that i get i get over enthusiastic

i don't remember what we were talking about we were talking about trains Jen, general, Jen remembers. She'll put it up. She's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a, a frequent follow follower. So she has to. Excellent. Um, okay. So we have it. We did Eric Adams. Um, we, we should probably talk about the, well, we have to do the war department. DoD, John. Yeah, we have to. And you know what? Call me crazy. But it is a federal, a federal It was your train story, Jenna saying. Sorry. Yeah, I don't remember what I was saying about the train.

I'm sorry. If you think of it, let me know and I'll finish it. So, um, War department. Yeah, it is, it is a war department. It was the Department of War until 1947 and President Truman changed it because it sounded kind of war mongery. But it is, it is. What was it about World War? I mean, it's weird that, I mean, I don't know the politics of this. Why did Truman change it in 47? I mean, we just won World War II.

Everyone loves us. I mean, was it just, what was the point? He didn't want to be seen. He didn't want the United States to be seen as, as an aggressor, as an imperialist. And so he changed it to defense. But listen, we're all relatively moderately, you know, intelligent people. We can tell the difference between defense and offense. And we're an offensive military country.

Yes, we sure are. Since we achieved, you know, so-called superpower status at the end of the Second World War, we invade countries all over the globe all over the place we're overthrowing governments we're invading we're occupying it is a department of war I have no problem with this change now he signed I'm sorry let me finish this thought

he signed an executive order he announced it last night he signed the executive order today mandating the change a president can't change the name of a federal department it has to be an act of Congress Do you think Democrats will go along with it? Or do they, actually, do you need, is it a simple majority vote? Simple majority.

You need 60 in the Senate because you have to break cloture. But, I mean, there's so many more important things to worry about. I don't think the Democrats are going to care one way or the other. I wouldn't. But they may oppose it just to make life harder for Trump and for the Republicans. Well, you know, liberals are right about this. Pacifists have been saying for years that it should be called the war department. So I'm wondering what they're going to say about it.

You know, I mean, it is more accurate. I have no problem with it at all. I mean, definitely Trump's statement yesterday was hilariously insipid, where he's like, defense sounds too defensive. We also have to be offensive. And I'm like, don't worry, Donald, you're always offensive. But it's just so, like, dumb. But, yeah, I'm totally fine with it.

You know, no problem. I just wonder if it's going to maybe backfire in the future and make it a little more difficult for, you know, the defense appropriations to always get rubber stamped year after year after year. Sorry, the war appropriations. Hey, I want to ask you to, we have a question here. It's an important one. First of all, my good sir, thank you very much for that $10. He says, can you please cover the breaking story about U.S. Marines going into North Korea and killing North Korean civilians? Oh, yes. To me, this is a huge story. It is a huge story. And I want to read to you Trump's response. Trump was asked if the administration had engaged with North Korea since this happened in 2018.

It's a story broken by the New York Times. And listen to this response, quote, I don't know anything about it. No, I'd have to, well, I could look, but I know nothing about it. I don't know anything about it. I'm hearing it now for the first time. First of all, liar, liar, pants on fire. We're not going to send SEAL Team 6 into North Korea for a botched operation where they start shooting civilians

and the president didn't know anything about it. That's not how covert operations work. Not only did the president have to know about it, he had to physically sign a paper called a finding, authorizing special forces to do something like this. So he's lying. So to bring people up to date in case you didn't follow this piece in today's New York Times, John, correct me if I get any of the details wrong.

I'm just doing this by memory. But in 2019, 2018, at the time when relations with North Korea and the U.S. were sort of thawing and the U.S. thought and Trump thought was hoping there could be a rapprochement, They wanted to learn more about Kim's thinking, and they thought we need, they have a device that would allow them to eavesdrop on Kim's communications, but the catch was that the device had to be planted on North Korean soil, or it wouldn't work. So, SEAL Team 6 was assigned this task. They planned it out well and practiced a lot, but it didn't go well. And basically when the weather was a little off, the landing didn't go quite right. And basically they, and the water was super cold.

The conditions were hard. And basically, while they were trying to do it, they saw a North Korean boat arrive and nobody spoke Korean. And they couldn't hear what they were saying anyway. They thought it was kind of like, look, there's something going on. And so anyway, they aborted the operation, shot the people on board who turned out to be fishermen. Killed everybody. Killed everybody on the boat. And screwed the pooch and took off, right?

And didn't manage to plant the device. And the New York Times got this information. And basically, in the context of apparently SEAL Team 6 and groups like it often have botched operations. and they tend to brag about their successes, but the failures don't get much PR, and this was one of them. And Trump had to personally sign off because it was so risky that they were worried about,

you know, they could be caught on, they could have been captured or killed on North Korean soil. So it would have been a huge embarrassment and a massive international incident. Huge. And listen, there was a serious violation of protocol on the part of the White House, too, because the law says that the White House has to inform at least the gang of four, if not the entire committee on both sides.

The gang of four being the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. If it's so sensitive that you want to keep it, you know, eyes only, you do the gang of four. And they didn't inform the committees either before or after the operation. I mean, heads should have rolled and nothing happened. May I add to, Hello, Akashem says, John, yesterday you mentioned Afia Sadiki. Can you tell us more about her, please? And thank you.

You know, thanks for that. Do we have a minute, Ted? Absolutely. So I had Afia Sadiki's attorney over at my house today for coffee. and we recorded an episode of my deep focus podcast. Talk about Afia Siddiqui. Afia Siddiqui was a Pakistani-American neurosurgeon with a PhD from Brandeis and a bachelor's degree from MIT. Woman was absolutely brilliant.

Her sister also is a PhD like neurologist or neurosurgeon or something like that. Afia self-radicalized right around the time of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks 9-11, and she went back to Pakistan, and she volunteered to join al-Qaeda. So we capture Khaled Sheikh Mohammed in August of 2002, I think is what it was, and he said, oh, there's this woman, Afia Siddiqui, she's really bad. I'm ratting her out. You need to grab her. Well, we found her in Karachi, and we grabbed her.

We asked the Pakistanis to grab her. They gave her to us, and we took her to Afghanistan and locked her up. Here's the rub. She had three young children at the time, a boy, a girl, and a young boy who was an infant. And as it turns out, well, before I tell you how it turns out, she was turned over from the Pakistanis to the Afghans, from the Afghans to the Americans. And the FBI flies out to begin interrogating her. Here's where the stories all diverge.

The official story is that she was in a tent waiting to be interrogated. One of the FBI agents had an M4. He leaned his M4 up against the side of the tent. She grabbed it. She tried to shoot him. the gun jammed, and another FBI agent took out of his gun and shot her twice in the stomach. She survived. That's the official version.

She went on to be charged with attempted murder, and she was found guilty and given 86 years in prison. She didn't murder anybody. She didn't even injure anybody. So he told me this is the longest sentence ever given. in American history to someone for attempted murder where there was no discharge of a weapon. 86 years. The story gets worse.

During the trial, they showed bullet holes, two bullet holes in the canvas of the tent. And they said, see, she got two shots off. We had to shoot her. But as it turned out, they had to shoot her. had been interrogating prisoners in that tent for, for months, and another photograph surfaced showing the bullet holes were already in the canvas of the tent weeks before Afia Siddiqui was ever caught. So no, she did not fire the shot. She didn't fire any shots. Here's what makes this case

even worse. The CIA kidnapped all three of her children, and they turned them over to Christian missionaries in Kabul. The eldest son was adopted by a missionary family and they changed his name. The middle child, a daughter, was adopted by another missionary family and they changed her name. No one ever figured out what happened to the baby. So the war ends and Hamid Karzai. who was president of Afghanistan

is placed under house arrest. My friend, the attorney, went to Afghanistan. He's befriended the Taliban government. He told them what happened. Apia Siddiqui's a giant hero in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And so he said, I really need to talk to Hamid Karzai. So the Taliban tells Karzai, you're going to talk to this British human rights lawyer. And Karzai's like, yeah, we, we snatched the king. kids. We turn them over to the CIA. They just farmed them out for adoption. He found the kids

and they're adults now, but he's reunited them with Afia Siddiqui's sister in Pakistan. They now live with her. The baby would now be 18 years old. And the only news that he's been able to get about the baby um was verbal and it was that that the baby had been dropped on his head and he was killed what and he says i think that's complete and total bullshit the CIA just doesn't want us to know where the baby is the baby like i said is now 18 so what he did is he got afia's sister to give a DNA sample and he registered it with with 23 and me and GED match and, you know, all these different, you know, Ancestry.com. He also used AI to age the picture of the baby to what he would look like at the age of 18 today.

And he said, we're trying to find him. And so now he's suing the CIA, which of course is going to go nowhere. he's suing the FBI, which is going to go nowhere. And he said, look, I know we're not going to win any of these suits. But I'm hoping that the suits garner enough public attention that some 18-year-old dark-skinned kid out there is going to say, maybe this is me they're talking about and that he does a DNA test. So I said, well, what about Afia? She's going to die in prison. She's at FMC Carswell, which is a maximum security medical prison.

and she's in solitary confinement and has been in solitary confinement since 2008. He told me that she has, for all intents and purposes, lost her mind. And of course, the prison doctors say, yeah, she's faking that craziness. It's not from being in solitary confinement for the last 17 years.

She's just faking it. He told me that on Thanksgiving, she was given a plate of food with turkey, potato, stuffing a corn and some pumpkin pie and she let it sit and they asked her why she didn't eat her Thanksgiving dinner and she said no no she's saving it for her son because he must be so hungry by now and they wrote it up they said she's faking this PTSD she said that she's waiting to feed her son and everybody knows her son is dead so I said well what what can we do and he said she does respond to letters.

He answers, his name is Clive Stafford Smith. Hold on one second. I'm going to find him. There he is. Listen to what an awesome guy he is. He's a member of the Order of the British Empire. The Queen, Queen Elizabeth, gave him an OBE because of the work that he's done on human rights. he has never charged a client a single dollar in all of his life.

He just lives on donations. He's devoted, he's represented 66 Guantanamo detainees, and he's gotten every one of them released, all 66. And he says to write to him, it's Clive Stafford Smith 2020 at gmail.com. He will deliver the, the letters to Afia, but he said, her only hope is that President Trump commutes her sentence and lets her go home to Pakistan, and that's not going to happen. John, I hate to bring this up, but we do have some breaking news.

Also, I should probably, we have another ad. So, Robbie, whenever you're ready, but first I'll break this. So a federal judge has blocked Christy Noon. and the Trump administration from getting rid of those temporary Biden-era protections for the Venezuelans and Haitians that they're trying to deport. The judge was extremely upset with the administration. The U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said that Christy Noem illegally stripped that status in a truncated and condensed timeline that did not follow the law.

So another defeat in court for the Trump administration, but I think they see that coming. Let me read this ad. Quick pause to tell you about Pickax, the creator and user first platform built for people, not algorithms. You know what big tech is up to. Data mining, bot-driven feeds,

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up next month. On Pickax, your Rumble videos play seamlessly right in your feed. As if they were built into the platform, no embeds, no workarounds, just smooth native playback, even better. In beta now, creators can connect their Rumble channel to Pickax to automatically post live streams and videos, so your followers never miss a moment. We'll have to do that. You can also write full articles directly on Pickax today. In fact, I did that today. And later this year, you'll be able to blast them out as well as email newsletters with one-click and build up your own email list for direct audience access, monetize on your terms through paywalls, revenue sharing, or affiliate ads that auto-insert promo codes and tracking links. And because bots shouldn't steal your

spotlight, Pickax hands you a free blue check so everyone knows it's really you. Pickax is building tech that builds up humanity algorithm-free, noise-free, human first. Head to pickax.com, sign up and take your platform to the next level. Real voices deserve a real home. I like that. John, so what about this latest court thing? I mean, obviously the Trump administration is used to this. They do what they want. Then they know that

while they're doing it, the courts are slow. The courts will get around to it. When they lose, which they do, they appeal. And I guess they kind of their ace in the whole is the Supreme Court, which seems to be really supplicant. Yeah. I agree with you. I think this is this is the strategy. The strategy is do anything you want and let them sue you. And so they

lose, what, 50% 60, 70% of time, whatever. But they do what they do in the interim. And then in the end, they win a couple. So yeah, I think it's the policy. I think that they fully intend or fully expect rather to lose. And they say, we don't care. We're just going to do what we want. indeed yeah oh can i add one that one last thing about afia sadiki somebody's asking me what was her side of the story her side of the story was actually quite believable um her side of the story was she was sitting uh in a chair in the tent when the fbi agents arrived she heard them speaking English. And she said, oh, the Americans are finally here, thinking the Pakistanis snatched her, turned her over to the Afghans, the Americans are going to save her and protect her.

And so she says, oh, the Americans are here. So she got up, she took off her veil, looked through the slit in the tent, a soldier said, she's trying to escape, and he shot her twice in the stomach. That's her side of the story. which is very believable to me. Well, while we're talking about... 86 years in prison. That's some bullshit. And while we're talking about some bullshit,

the Trump administration just imposed sanctions against three Palestinian groups, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Al-Hawk and Al-Mazan, for having the temerity to ask the international criminal court to look into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. These are Marco Rubio's sanctions. His complaint was that they asked the ICC to get involved and look into this without getting Israel's consent, John.

Aye, aye, aye. So next time I'm pulled over for speeding, I'm going to file a complaint against the police officer for not getting my consent to pull me over. over. Yes. And to fire that radar gun at me. Well, if you watch YouTube videos, don't I deserve, don't I deserve to say? And if you watch YouTube videos, you know that what you have to do is just start screaming, I do not consent, as soon as they come up to your window. Right. Because that always works. Yeah. You're making friends. They love that. Right. There you are in the middle of interstate 80 between like clarion and clear field and they're they're loving that yeah oh my god so i mean it's just the the israelis i mean they've lost it they've completely lost their

minds when when are we going to be able to finally call the israelis on their on their bullshit. I'm not optimistic. I actually am. I just, I mean, I guess it's too late to be optimistic because so many people have already died horribly. So it is too late for that. But honestly, I do think it's inevitable. And I think it's going to be, it's either going to be Trump or someone like him. It's going to be someone who normally is always in the bag. And it's just going to say like, you know, Lindsay Graham, like enough. Right. Right. Just like. And it probably won't be Lindsay Graham.

But, you know, someone who's just, it's going to come out of left field. It'll be like when France recognized Palestine, when suddenly it's just like the damn bursts. That's what it's going to be like. I think you're right. Well, let's see. Do we have any, I guess that's about it, right, for today. J.D. Vance, Budini, says, that's a good guess, actually. A really good, I'm serious.

Yes. I mean, J.D. Vance is, we know he'll change his mind. Oh, yeah. Hey, Democrat. Nah, I'm a Republican. I'm an anti-Trump Republican. I'm a pro-Trump Republican. Uh-huh. You know, he'll be anything you want him to be. That's right. I think that's right.

All right, guys. Well, this is, that's it for an awesome week. By the way, guys, if you haven't listened to, if you're not Rumble Premium, you got to go to Rumble Premium or think about being Rumble Premium just to check out John and producer Robby's I interviewed both of them Robbie's story is amazing John's obviously amazing we've dropped three

three episodes about an hour each where I interviewed him about his life story and we're probably going to be doing two more maybe three more who knows I mean just you know we're taking I apologize in advance as I told Ted yesterday

I have what no no there's no apologies allowed And honestly, it's just amazing. You know, it's a privilege to do them. And, you know, I sent the links to a few friends and they loved them. Oh, great. So, yeah, so definitely check that out. John, do you have a website you want to pimp?

Sure. You know what I have? It's john kiriaku.com. We're going to seriously beef it up soon for a couple of reasons. Well, you know what? I'm going to spill the beans. I'm going to spill the beans. They told me I could if I wanted to.

I am finally going to appear on the Joe Rogan podcast on October 9th. Thank you. And I'm thinking that with his 18.9 million subscribers, that might drive a little bit of traffic to the website. We just want 1% of them. That's right. I'm going to talk about deep program and deep focus, but I'm also expecting to start to restart my speaking tour in December.

And so I got to have that website, like, perfect. It's decent now, but it's got to be perfect. Rawl.com for me, cartoons, columns, and everything else. I have a substack, tedrawl.com. My latest book is called What's Left. And it's basically a prescription for what the left, the real left, not the Democratic Party, should be asking for domestically and in terms of foreign policy. Anyway, I really appreciate it.

You can get those on my website. all.com, Amazon, ordered from your local bookstore, whatever. Okay, guys, thank you so much for tuning in, as always. Thanks, everybody. Super appreciated. Thank you, producer Robbie West. As always, oh, Putin-Bot gaming.

Go check it out. Go check out that gaming channel. It helps him, and helping him helps us. So, Robbie's keeping this whole thing going. Robbie, I'm popping Robbie on here. There's Robbie. Howdy. Say something.

say something about Putin bot bait gaming yeah I'm on YouTube and Rumble uh if I'm a part of the Rumble content creator program so if I'm on if I'm live if y'all just pop over say howdy or call me a kind of name that you won't uh there's a chat metric that's involved and I'll stream as much as I as I used to because well I'm here so if y'all could do that they would just help me out a lot and um I've already told John and Ted that they're out of work and I'm not so I'm doing this for free. So if y'all can come over and throw some watch hours my way, I appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, have a great weekend, everyone. Take care. Thanks for watching Deep Program. We'll back next week, Monday, 5 o'clock Eastern time. We're here Monday through

Friday, 5 o'clock Eastern. Like, follow and share the show. Watch us on Rumble. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.