DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Did Hegseth Just Commit a War Crime? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • WaPo reports that the Pentagon deliberately launched a “double tap” second bombing strike against the survivors of a boat blown up by the U.S. in the Caribbean. A bipartisan group of Congressmen wants the incident investigated as a serious war crime. Can you commit a war crime in a non-declared war against a fictional entity? • Trump issues ultimatum to Maduro: Leave Venezuela now. • A.I. data centers are driving up electricity rates in Red America. Will the rising price of kilowatt hours be as politically charged as the price of eggs?• Trump blames Biden for the Afghan ex-soldier who shot two National Guardmen in D.C., who was trained by the CIA, even though the suspect was granted asylum in April.

Good morning. It's December 1st, the first day of December on the countdown for Christmas. So get out there and start shopping. You're watching the program with Ted Raul and John Kyriaku. Filling in for the vacationing John today is none other than producer Robbie West. and we are very grateful, Robbie, for your ability to fill in and we'll discuss that. John is out today. He'll be back tomorrow. Hopefully, where he's at will result in some very good news here on the show. Regular viewers probably have a pretty good sense of what we're talking about here.

But we can't go any further than that, and we will ignore, deny, and deflect all queries. to the contrary. Today, we got a lot to talk about. We haven't been on the air since for almost an entire week. We were last here last Tuesday. And so a lot's happened over the Thanksgiving holiday. Most notably, there's the sort of undeclared war against Venezuela and against the fishermen and other random boats in the Caribbean

has heated up as the Pentagon blew up. a ship, and according to the Washington Post, and then survivors ended up in the water, and Pete Hagsath reportedly ordered a second strike to kill the survivors, a bipartisan coalition of congressmen in both the House and the Senate, are looking at that and calling it a war crime. That's obviously the main topic today. We're also talking about Trump's call to Nicolas Maduro, which happened earlier in the month, about two weeks ago. The two men talked on the phone, and Trump told Maduro to leave Venezuela and gave him some terms.

Those talks broke down. But obviously it shows you how far these things have gone. Very interested in your take, Robbie, since you live in a red state about this story about AI data centers that are causing huge spikes and electricity costs in the middle of the country in particular, which is where those things tend to be, and how there, you know, some political analysts

are saying it could be the new price of eggs in terms of affecting politics. And finally, the Trump administration is blaming the shooting of two West Virginia National Guardsmen on a guy from Afghanistan, even though he was formerly admitted into the U.S. under the Trump administration earlier this year. So, Robbie, let's also talk about the fact this is the first day of the year. year so sorry of the month so we are good this is when we do Robbie aid now last month we explained to this but we're going to explain it again now so Robbie you were doxed out of your day job a couple like about a month ago and and so basically the deal that we kind of arranged here was if we could get get support from the listeners and viewers of D program that you'd be able to come

here and work with John and I on a full-time basis to build the show. And you've been doing that, and it's been fantastic. And last month, and basically, so the arrangement that we have is for at the beginning of every month, we try to raise $1,000. And once we get to $1,000, we shut up, and it's like a pledge drive, we shut up. You don't hear from us until the next month. So if we got $1,000 like right now, we would not talk about this again. So here's basically how it works. If you want this show to thrive and survive, we need a producer. John and I can't do all the production stuff and the promotion stuff that's needed to be done.

So what we do is we're asking, reaching out to you. And John and I are paying Robbie as well. We each pay him $250. So he's getting another $500 from us personally, even though we're not making really any money, significant amount of money from this show yet. but we believe in the show we believe in you guys who believe in Robbie and so we're asking you guys to pitch in a grant so here is the URL it's gofundme.com this is different from the one from last month this this one will stick gofundme.com slash f slash i don't know why f but gofundme

dot com slash f slash deprogram robbie okay so i'm going to read that again go fund me dot com slash f slash d program robbie robbie any comments about any of that uh well i mean just really that the thank you to the person who docks me because um well you've done two things one uh you gave me a you gave me a a voice so i appreciate that uh so you tried to hurt me and you've failed and so good on you and if you really hated my politics before you're really going to hate them now it's uh yeah it's not the best way to win hearts and minds to docs people for sure and nor is it to blow people up in the caribbean um okay so this is a crazy story right so basically the washington post reported on friday on uh what i've dubbed the official news dump day so that you can

say, you know, a newspaper or other media organization is sitting on top of a, of a hot story. And then they dump it on a day when they think people are not going to care about it so that they can tell their reporters, look, we released the truth, but we're not really offending our pals in the government who really tell us what to do. And so that's, you know, kind of like what's happening here. Let's see. Let's talk about this a little bit. And then we'll talk about this a little bit, get into some questions from listeners as usual if you have any uh comments or questions please put them in the live chat in youtube and or um on rumble and we will shut we will we will get to them and uh and bang them out one at a time as much as we as much as possible so um so robby this is a

crazy story and i have a lot of thoughts about it and uh so you know i'm sorry if i go on too long just you know shut me up but basically uh you're good because i'm killing TMI right now. So the more you're talking, the better off I am right now. You just jump. Listen, it's hard to produce and and coes at the same time. It's a bear. Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. So what we've got is a, so basically, you have an undeclared war. I'm not even sure you can say it's a war, right? It's like if only one side is shooting, is it really a war? I mean, you could say it's a combat situation, but there's not even really combat. These are Venezuelan alleged quote unquote narco. So let's get through this. We're attacking

quote unquote narco terrorists. First of all, that is a non-existent term in international law and U.S. law. But okay, in other words, drug runners, alleged drug runners in speedboats. These speedboats are, if they are what we think, they're carrying cocaine and they are going either to Trinidad or they are going to Africa, as John explained on the show over the last couple of weeks. None of these drugs are making their way to the United States. But we're going after these people who have this non-existent category who belong to a non-existent organization. The Cartel de Las Solas is, as of last week,

an official U.S. State Department designated terrorist organization like al-Qaeda. or ISIS. But the thing is, the Cartel de la Soles mean, which means the cartel of the stars, is literally just a slang term invented by Venezuelan opposition journalists to make fun of corrupt military generals who have stars on their, on their lapels. That's all, I mean, on their epaulettes, right? Well, aren't we also friends with the al-Qaeda now? I mean, we installed an al-Qaeda headchopper to run Syria. So, I mean, we are friends. with them now. At least that's my understanding.

Well, so maybe that's why we need a new terrorist organization to replace the one that we're buddies with. Of course, we were friends with al-Qaeda before, also, you know, under the Soviet Musha Hadin period in Afghanistan. So it's, I mean, but the point is so we've declared, we have an undeclared non-war war against a non-existent set of people who belong to a non-existent organization, allegedly, okay, then we've, and we've killed probably at least a hundred of these people, according to the Pentagon, so it may be more, but that's officially. We blow up their boats.

According to the Washington Post, they now, some people survived to this crash, and Pete Hagseth said, kill them all and issued a double-tap order. Now, that's the confusing. part, Robbie. So that's the war crime, not the first attack, but the second attack. So if you get killed the first time, that's fine, that's fair. But if you made it somehow like God start to spare you from the first attack, now, and then they kill you, oh, that's bad. That's a war crime. I mean, are they just basically talking to us that way because war crime is something that people understand as being really, really, really bad, or is it because they just don't want to admit that the whole thing, none of it's war crimes, what they really are is just simple acts

of mass murder. It's no different than, you know, than the University of Idaho guy who broke into the into the college, into the college apartment full of college students and killed them while they were sleeping. It's the same thing, right? I mean, they're just using military weapons to do it. No, I mean, they're just getting off on mass murder. And this is one of the things that really discussed me as a right-winger when it comes to the Republican Party. There is no higher power that anyone can have, whether you're a government or an or an individual,

than to kill someone else. There's nothing else that you can do that gives you more power over that person than just kill them. I think, I think, Ted, that these people are just, I think they're addicted to death. I think that they just love the idea of killing, of slaughter. They're drunk on blood, and I think that's really that's all that this is. And my question is, is where in the hell is Congress? They can put the plug on this tomorrow.

They can do it an hour from now. Well, the way they would do that is cut off the funding, right? So people forget that the way that the Vietnam War ultimately ended is that Congress stopped appropriating funds. For a long time, the defenders of the military said, oh, you can't do that if you cut off their funding. They're going to, you know, our troops will be stuck in a foxhole running out of ammunition as the dirty communist gooks overrun their position. Of course, that's not what happens. What really happens is, oh, man, there's not going to be any, any ammo in six months. You better go to the airport, board airplanes, fly away and leave and go home.

And that is what happened. Of course it is. I mean, so, yeah, so Congress, now here's a thing. Why do you think it is, Robbie? And we'll get to some of these questions after that. Why do you think it is that we finally have a bipartisan group of senators and congressmen who they didn't have really much problem with the whole bombing campaign against random boats in the Caribbean and in the, I should say, in the eastern Pacific Ocean as well? And we know that at least some of the victims were innocent fishermen. Why do they have not much problem or no problem with this at all?

But this particular report seems to have, you know, be on the verge of launch of prompting in a congressional investigation. Well, I think that maybe, no, no, I don't know for sure. I can't get my head that far up my butt to understand how a politician in D.C. thinks. But if I had a hazarded guess, I would think that just Trump, he overplayed his hand. I mean, blown up fishermen is one thing. lying to the American people is another thing. I mean, no one really cares

about that. No one cares about the bombs being dropped on civilians in Gaza, just like they don't care about the fishermen getting blown up. I think where Trump overstepped on this is when he decided to unilaterally impose a no-fly zone over an entire country, which is an act of

war. And even politicians, as cucked as they are, they still have a little bit of pride left. So they're probably like, maybe you should talk to us first. At least let us know you're going to do this before you do. So I think he just overstepped. And so I think that's where this is coming from.

This is a little bit of a pushback. Now, we could be your poodle, but you can't just show the entire world for your poodle. I mean, okay, so I do want to be, you know, fair here and sort of say, okay, well, there is a tradition in war that, like, and it is odd, right? Like if you're, if two, two armies are fighting and one army and like one group of soldiers captures another group of soldiers, the surrender, as soon as you surrender under the laws of war or you're helpless, you are officially like become wards of the, you're prisoners of war and you're entitled to rights under the Geneva Convention. They can't just execute you.

They can't abuse you. They have to feed you. There's all sorts of rules that govern how you have to be treated. right so we're kind of but we're acting as if these guys had so that that that that I think they see that as an analogy right like oh you're now in the water you've been blown up so you're helpless now we can't kill helpless people but the weird thing is they were helpless before they were bombed in the first place because they were never combatants because at most these are drug runners I say here's the thing though Ted I don't buy that and so

And one, I can make, I'll make two different arguments here. One is probably going to piss off the left-leaning members of our audience, which, okay, that's fine, whatever. But more to the point, though, from a legal standpoint, we are not at war. I mean, that's the whole thing. I don't think that's going to make anyone angry on the left. I think everyone on the left wants to see the legality, you know, follow, which they are never are. really well no i'm going to get that i mean no you have you know you have a large section of the population including an elected office you have no problem with abortion if you're concerned

about killing a helpless person there's no one more helpless than an unborn baby so let's just let's just just put that one off the table no one cares about the about the killing of an innocent life it doesn't matter doesn't compute when it comes to a legal status if you're not whenever people think of war we at least a lot of people that that i know they think of two different armies getting out there just beating the hell of each other one side wins one side loses if you lose you put up the good fight you're treated with dignity you're putting you're putting to you're taking to a POW camp and you're exchange the war ends everyone goes home America has not had a declared war since 1941 correct people forget that every war we've been

in from Korea on every single one of them under the constitution has been illegal true because they are only Congress will declare war. That's why Trump is tap dancing about this. But there's only been five formal declarations of war ever issued by the United States Congress that has financed hundreds of wars. Oh, yeah. Well, look what the, I mean, Congress ever declared war against American Indian tribes. I mean, they just went in and did what they did.

I mean, let's just be honest. I mean, but I mean, that's where I'm going at with this is the reason why Trump is made up this, well, he didn't make it up, I guess W did, about the, and it's, be combatants, well, are you still a human being? Are you still a person made in the image of God? If so, then that means you have rights based off of your humanity. Well, if you dehumanize someone, so this person is a drug runner, they're murdering all these people. I got this debate yesterday at church with a guy who was just out and out supporting what Trump is doing. I said, if you can find Venezuela on a map, if your argument is that Venezuela is funneling all this dope

into the United States to kill 100,000 Americans a year, which it is doing, then you wouldn't be going after Venezuela. Uitts in the first Marine Division down to go visit President Shinebaum in Mexico and have us sit down with middle management. That's how you would do this. True. It's not Venezuela. You might have a chat with the Canadian, a little bit of a chat with the Canadians as well, too.

For sure. So, all right, let's get into some comments. First of all, for people who are joining us belatedly, John's out today. He's fine. In fact, he's more than fine. He's great, but he'll be back tomorrow. However, thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. For sure.

Again, if you aren't familiar with John in his situation, you will know why. Okay, so some questions. Gregory Pat is CFA. We're going to punch this question until tomorrow, because John will be back tomorrow, but here's the question. How do you and CIA analysts learn a new country unrelated to the work you've done in the past, for example, if you wanted to learn about South Korea or Vietnam, where would you start? I can say, you know, a little bit about that.

I mean, let's say, you know, I mean, I actually, so, all right, so if I were going to go to learn up, you know, study up on South Korea, I literally would just start, I would start with an internet, Wikipedia, you know, reading about like the history and culture of South Korea and how it got to be divided and all that sort of thing. And then I'd probably look on Amazon for like the most well-reviewed history of South Korea, let's say. And then ultimately, you've got to go. And that's like a really important thing. So and going, the beauty of going is not just about just showing up and seeing what's what and talking to people.

The research you have to do in order to go to a place, you know, in terms of where are you going to stay? How are you going to get around? all that teaches you a lot of stuff about the culture but still that's a question we'll keep for john mania the cat's asking what was with tulsi gabbard ordering a raid on CIA archives regarding the the JFK assassination the CIA seems to have known about the assassin beforehand more than previously thought they did John talked about this last week if memory serves or maybe it was the week before But basically, Lee Harvey Oswald was in Mexico City. The CIA was following him around.

They knew what he was up to. They denied having had contact with him. I asked John about this. His theory was that the CIA had always been interested in him and the FBI had also, but that they basically, when the Kennedy assassination happened, rather than answer questions that would lead to more questions, they would rather just deny that they knew anything about him and that way they were hoping that the whole inquiry

would just not start in the first place. Of course, you know, something this hot is always going to get out. If you said, thanks for the dollar so much. Hear about the two northern Texas men who were going to invade an island off Haiti, kill all the men and make all the women's sex slaves. They were actively recruiting for their invasion. It sounds like something out of the first.

Frederick Forsy book The Dogs of War one of my favorites John likes it too I'm going to read more about that maybe we can tell John and I

can talk about that tomorrow June Ed Joveid thanks for the dollar good morning to you as well did Elliot wants to know did either of us

follow coverage of the first conference of the Jerry Corbin founded your party conference this week no but I will look into that. Did you, Robbie? Do you know anything about it? I did not. This is the first. So

while I did this weekend, I was completely selfish because, as you know, back when I had my day job, I did a lot of overtime and stuff. Well, now I no longer have that opportunity to work overtime at the old day job. So instead, I hang up with my family. I unplugged and I did absolutely nothing. I did. Insane. I know. What kind of American are you? A bad one. A clear. Because, I mean, I suppose, no, I oppose executing unarmed, helpless people, and genocide. So I'm obviously a bad American. If you said, thanks for the additional dollar, old PD, I can think of Petey Wheatstraw, the Bruni Raidmore character. But Hegstaff thought he was being metal, screaming, kill him all.

You know, I think that's true. I do think that he thought he was being a fucking badass. And I think, I don't know that this is going to go away. do you think i don't think it is i think it's just going to be a slow festering wound and uh philip blair he has a a question i would like to answer john if i could because my dad as you know was a was a was a korean war veteran so funny story about him he was in the navy and he was uh he was actually on shore leave in soul when the north kreans and across the border so he was a gunner on a cruiser the cruiser left my daddy ended up staying there in soul he ended up getting up with a bunch

Marines. And for like a year, he was at the Marines where the Navy figured out that he's supposed to be a gunner on a cruiser. And so that's how organized our military was. But Phillips' question was, was the Korean War legal because Congress ratified the UN treaty? The answer is no, because the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land. It has a higher authority that even a treaty does. And the Constitution is very clear. Only Congress can make war. that's it only the Congress can do that but it was a UN sanctioned police action and that's so so if the so the UN so the UN it's technically a UN war and the UN calls for its members to send troops to support it so are you saying that like in order to honor its treaty obligation every time the U.S. sends a single soldier to a police action let's say as a peacekeeper in Yugoslavia or something like that that the congress would have to formally declare war or at least authorize the descending of troops well in this so as far as a peacekeeper goes i mean if you're there as a police force one let's just be honest soldiers make very terrible soldiers make very terrible guards and

cops yeah so that's probably bad idea to do in the first place that the entire idea that you would send an army as a peacekeeping force to police a population is insane because soldiers not trained to be cops. They're trained to blow things up and kill people. So that entire concept is an oxymoron. But more to the point, when Korea happened, we went in because the North Koreans invaded. So it was an act of war. Congress is a responsibility of Congress to declare war. The same argument can be made in Vietnam. If you're going to go in, do it the legal way. That's the whole problem, right? We have a, we have a rules-based order, not a law-based order. If you make the rules, you have, then you have the

power that you give yourself to blow up fishermen in the Caribbean or to drop bombs on apartment buildings in Gaza. That's not law. So Timbertime brings up a good point. It's international law regarding maritime conflict. Once a ship is blown up, any survivors are not threats and are supposed to be given quarter. I mean, that's true. That is like we saw that in, you know, most notably in the Pacific theater in World War II. And once you blow up a ship, you're supposed to take everyone in. So, F.E. So, thanks for another dollar.

Zero evidence presented that these fishermen were drug runners. That's true. Zero evidence. Murder without due process. Trump and his goons are mass murderers. Yeah, that's true. F.U.S.O. asks me what my favorite cartoon was, as a child. My favorite comic strip was peanuts.

That's kind of boring. I also liked Garfield and the Far Side a little bit later on. And I read comic books too when I was little. I started out with the sort of wimpy ones like Richie Rich and Little Lata, but rapidly got into weird war and horror comics. That's just how it was. Heathcliff is awesome. Heathcliff.

Heathcliff. the dog you remember fat albert uh of course hey hey hey um so all right so we this is all related by the way to the uh conflict uh you know with to this obviously this effort to impose regime change on the venezuelan government um and so we should talk about that bobby um so we know that the other day uh i think it was uh if memory serves it was on november 16th that Trump picked up the phone and talked to him to Nicolas Maduro and he gave an ultimatum. He said, you can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now. Apparently, the U.S. offered safe passage for Maduro and his wife and their kid and also

several top officials in the government. and Trump did admit that this call did happen. It happened in the week of November 16th. My apologies. Maduro basically the talks froze up when Maduro asked for global amnesty for himself and senior members of his circle and the right to retain command of Venezuela's armed forces, even if there were free elections and he lost. He'd still want to control the armed forces.

So basically Trump. So I mean, obviously, the quiet part is no longer the quiet part. No. And one thing I got to say, I'm not a, listen, I'm not a Venezuela. I'm an American. I live here in Montana. I've been here all my life except for a short time. I was in Brazil.

I, for one, am 100% Taduro on this. If I was a president of another country, you wouldn't matter if it was, the symbol of sultan someplace off the coast of the african of the african the horn if so if if president trump or someone else said okay you must leave i would say go to hell you'll get to make that call well i mean so this is so i mean i have to admit i mean this is a new level right i mean like obviously the iraq war famously infamously was ginned up uh you know but but Still, there was a need, obviously the Bush administration felt a need to put in, to go to the American people, propagandize and say, listen, we are going to need, you know,

we need to overthrow Iraq because they're a threat. They made up the threat, the weapons of mass destruction that were supposedly left behind after the Gulf War, even though they were supposed to have been destroyed. Okay, that turned out to be live because those weapons. were destroyed. I'm going to read an ad, Robbie, but I'm going to, before I do that, let me just sort of ask you so you can think about it. I mean, what do you make of the fact that there's no effort here to have a cover story that makes any sense at all? And they're not selling this to the American people. Trump's not giving speeches. Vance isn't giving speeches

on national television saying how dangerous Venezuela is, how they're overrunning, They're flooding our streets with derrugs that are killing the American people. They're just blowing people up and trolling the president of Venezuela. All right. Like, here we go. I'm going to read this ad. 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 our channel and hit follow. That way, you'll get a notification every time we go live. No missed shows, no extra steps. You can grab it right now using the link in the description or the PIN's live chat. Download it to your phone. and if you're ready to go 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. That's it. Okay. Yeah. So when it comes to what you're to what you're talking about,

about just the arrogance, and that's really what it is, it's the arrogance. They think that they don't have to tell the American people the truth anymore. Or even come up with or even work to or even a lot. Yeah. I mean,

what they do is say, well, they're running drugs. First of all, look at a map that they're 100% not. But I mean, at least not here.

But it's just, it just goes to show. I think it's two different things. One, I don't think this has anything with Maduro. I think that this is an effort to try and cut China off of the Venezuelan oil trade because they buy so much of it. I mean,

China's even built refineries down there. because trying to the Chinese oil it's a growing economy it's a growing nation so they want to cut off the oil they're trying to starve it I think that's really

what this is all about it's not drugs stuff in Maduro because Venezuela is the largest producer of oil in the western hemisphere yeah of course it is and then as far as just the

as far as just the arrogance I think it's two things one they know that the economy sucks they know that it's getting worse and so people are distracted by the cost of living the cost of food energy housing, that's all a major problem now.

And we're going to talk a little bit about that very shortly in a few minutes. But, but, but, but, Robbie, I get the whole, you know, war as distraction, war is a force that gives us meaning as, uh, Chris Hedges, beautifully titled one of his books, but, but it's like, okay, again, if you're going to distract, then distract. Why are, why is there a lack of a PR campaign to the American people? You know, why aren't they, why don't they have like a Judy Miller type? person at the New York Times who is liaising between the media to spread the message that Venezuela is horrible and evil and killing our young people. Why are they not bothering?

Why is Trump not giving prime time Oval Office speeches talking about how evil Maduro is? I mean, of course, obviously, and this is a two question question. And then what, assuming that Maduro gets on a plane with his onto? Rajan takes off, what are they going to put in? This is the Iraq question. Who are you going to replace that regime with? You know, you and I both know they're not going to just allow free elections if they deal with a socialist is going to win. Yeah, well, I mean, it's a two part, it's a two part thing. So one, it's arrogance. Number two, I mean, the right is in a full-on civil war right now. I mean, on one faction, you have, you have Donald Trump, you have Mark

Levin, you have Sean Hannity, you have all the Republican neocon hacks. On the other side, you have Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Dave Smith, just completely wrecking them. And one point that I would like from my side of the right, the populist right to point out, if you're concerned about migrants like I am, then blowing up a huge country in South America is probably going to exacerbate that problem. So why, first of all, how is that putting America first? Second, if your concern is about migration that why would you do something it's going to cause more migration and then you have that idiot lindsay graham who uh posted a video a couple of weeks ago saying that america has to destroy venezuela because venezuela is a friend of hesbalah i mean he said that

on live tv on fox news ridiculous it's like first of all most americans can't find south america on a map not to mention venezuela second even if you could the thing that you you're going to say that Venezuela is propping up his Bala because Iran is weak and smashed. That's even a dumber argument than saying that Venezuela is flooding the country with drugs. It's insane. No, it's just arrogance.

It's like cancel culture, right? No, I know Ted that you and I have talked about this before. The left lost the ability to debate when they figured out that they could cancel people with culture war. Well, whenever you cancel people, you get really, you get lazy with your arguments. Because what need of you to have a debate?

if you could just cut their tongue out. That's what this is all about. They're lazy. They don't know how to sell the argument because they don't have anyone that's able to articulate. But here's the thing. If you don't have, I mean, we saw this in Vietnam. We saw it in Iraq.

Iraq's a good example. I mean, the American people were 90% behind invading Iraq on the week of the invasion. Now it's widely considered one of the biggest mistakes that this country has ever made politically. And it really hurt It led to Obama's rise and election in 2008 and the Democratic sweep in 2010. But it didn't change anything because then Obama destroyed Libya and now have open-air straight markets.

But the point is that there's still kind of a feeling that a society can't prevail at war for any length of time without popular support, at least at the beginning, right? here there's no effort to do that this war will be owned 100% by Donald j trump on day one and it's like everything that goes tits up as a result of it is going to be Donald trump's problem but that's why he's going to be blamed and the GOP will be blamed well of course it'll be blamed but trump one thing doesn't care about the about the GOP and the GOP doesn't care about the american people just at the Democratic Party doesn't care about the american people that's why trump is not framing this as a war, that's why he's not wrapping himself in the flag and going out and just talking about how these evil South Americans have to be destroyed because they're the next Hitler.

The reason why he's wrapping this up as a crime fighting measure is because people are smart enough to realize if you're in New York and if you're worried about crime, which you probably are, then it's easier to slide in a fake narrative into an existing reality. That's what this is all about, in my opinion. Okay. Mr. Outstreet on YouTube says there are rumors of Venezuela, then possibly Cuba. Any thoughts on this? Are they throwing out the deal JFK and Khrushchev, I assume, is what he's talking about here between the U.S. and USSR made?

Well, that deal, I think, has been dead many, many years ago, which was basically leave, you know, the Soviets pulled their missiles out of Cuba. We pull our missiles out of Poland that we're facing the out of Poland, out of Eastern Europe. They're pointing at the USSR, and we leave each other alone in these two spheres. I think the U.S. clearly views Cuba as vulnerable. I think if Venezuela worked, the idea would be that they could move on to Cuba, but it's not going to work. I mean, they're going to deal with hostile military opposition if the U.S. invades. There will be a guerrilla war, you know. Matina V says Venezuela is all about immigrants in South Florida.

They want to move back, speaking of the Castro Cubans, you want to move back home and take their country back. Well, you know, good luck with that. Have you so, thanks for the buck. Rubio wants it all cut off to cut off Cuba from Venezuela. That's a good point. Cuba will, gets a lot of support from Venezuela. Sneaker dad.

Robbie's trying to use common sense to explain U.S. foreign policy. They do not mix. so true. All right. So shall we pivot a little bit and guys keep the questions coming? We do appreciate them. For joining us late again, John Kirooku, my co-host, will be back tomorrow. And we're doing Robbie Aid because it is the first day of December.

Every month we need $1,000 from you guys. So if you can kindly afford it and step up, please go to gofundMe.com slash F-D program Robbie. I'll leave that URL up on the screen. That's GoFundMe.com slash F slash DprogramRobie. Or you could just go to GoFundMe and just search for deprogram Robbie, one word. Okay, so Robbie, let's talk a bit about this story about the, I thought this story about AI was absolutely fascinating. So out in, so obviously a lot of, you know, data centers, which are these giant, these giant rooms, warehouses full of computer servers that go on and on and on and on they're all over the country they're not just in flyover country and they're not just in places like nevada but there's an inordinate number of them in places like nevada because they are that like in nevada it's kind of like a remarkable there's no weather right there's no tornadoes there's no wildfires there's no earthquakes generally speaking if you put some like you when you drive across nevada you can still feel see the ruts from the wagon trains on the side of the highway.

So, you know, things really don't change there. It's kind of like, it's like, you know, it's like Egypt with the pyramids. So, but anyway, the point is these AI data centers, which are all over the place, are, they're gobbling up billions of kilowatt hours. And what that's doing is putting a huge strain, not only putting a huge strain on the existing infrastructure of the power grid. That's causing, that's requiring these utilities to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades in improving their equipment for adding more generated. Those are costs that they pass on to the rate payers. At the same time,

it's also just supply and demand. There's more demand for power. And so, therefore, when there's more demand, the utility can charge more per unit. The bottom line is electricity be getting more and more expensive, and I think we talked here on the show, it's sort of a canary in the coal mine in terms of economic, when you're looking at how individual American families are feeling economically stressed, we've seen that electrical bills are now starting to fall behind at a much higher rate than previous And that's dangerous because, I mean, that worries economists because if people aren't paying their power bill, I mean, they're really in trouble. People pay their power bill before they pay their rent.

They have to have electricity. You might be able to fight off the landlord in landlord-tenant court, but you got to have the, you know, you have to have power. Otherwise, you freeze to death. You can't do anything. You know, you can't refrigerate food, obviously. So the point is there's speculation that rising electricity prices, which are now on people's, on voters' radar, could become an issue next year in the midterms and in the 2008 presidential campaign. I don't know. Is that like a wishful thinking on the part of the Democrats, Robbie, or is that something that is actually, you know, is that real?

In other words, it's power the new price of eggs. Yeah, it's real, but the Democrats can't run on it because they're not doing. anything to stop it. So, I mean, it's kind of like them with the whole warfare state. Show me a Democrat that's actually up and actively campaigning against the against undeclared war. You can't find one. It's the same thing with utility costs. Neither political party cares. Now, and here in Montana, no, right now this morning, it is a whopping negative two degrees outside my front door right now. And so, yeah, it's a little bit cold. And so people here care about the cost of electricity.

because here in the flyhead, next time you come here, I have to take it to the dam. Our electricity is generated from the Libby Dam, which is a hydroelectric dam. Well, our energy prices keep going higher and higher and higher every year, even though God keeps giving us water every, every year. And the reason for it is is because a flathead electric keeps selling more and more electricity to states like California and Nevada. Well, because they keep selling this energy, They keep selling this electricity, so they're obviously making a profit, but they're greedy corporatist bastards.

And so what do they want to do? They want to keep on jacking the rates here in Montana. And so it's a socialist, you know, I think that any expense, any that is essential for life and is something that should be controlled by the government and should be non-profit. And I would say electricity qualifies. oh for sure i mean if if this is cold as it is here in most places people don't have heat people die i mean it happens every year and so that's just a fact of life but more to the point think about this so so i is one of the reasons why electricity costs is going up a i is also a leading

cause for people losing their jobs like verizon laid off 14 000 people last week uh there's more there's more layoffs coming and when they were when the corporate you know the corporate overlords released this, is it because these jobs are outsourced to AI. So not only is AI taking the jobs,

then AI is driving up the cost of living, all the while the government is creating inflation to pay for wars that it can't pay for any other way because there's not enough money to tax.

So it's a perfect storm. And the Democrats the whole time are sitting on their hands, squawking like a bunch of geese, but doing absolutely nothing about it. Well, I don't see how they run on.

their story on everything, isn't it, though? I mean, it's, by the way, parenthetically, I'm sure you saw these polls about how the number of Americans who think that either political party cares about them, not if doing anything,

cares about them, is like in single digits now. Nobody believes that. To me, that's a harbinger of revolution, collapse, revolt, something. Well, you've got to look at, well, I mean, to your point, Now, you have to look at why are people like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, who I think is an insane blowhard, why is Nick Fuentes getting so popular?

It's because he's tapping into that rage. Tucker Carlson is doing the same thing, but Tucker's doing it a responsible way. He's just like, you know, we have to understand that the goal that the task of the American government should be to put the American people first. Meanwhile, Nick Fuentes is talking about blow it all up, starting to build a fire, start over to a hard reset. And that's the problem. These two people are getting more and more popular for a reason. And the question is, is who are you going to end up with? Are you going to end up with Tucker or are you going to end up with Nick?

Because you only get one of the two. Well, I think the powers that be will, they rest easy at night. As long as populists on the right only talk to people on the right. and populists on the left only talk to people on the left there they feel like oh everything is nice and divided and conquered and we're good yeah but that but that whole thing though is breaking down ted this show is living proof of that i'm a creature of the right you're a communist what are we doing right now we're talking true that that is what and we both and and no and even more notable than that is the fact that like we both see a lot of the same systemic problems right i mean yeah uh no

question about that let me put so if you so thanks for the buck i'll read this comment i bet lindsay graham could be seduced by r feldching poems okay that's the second belching reference here thanks to you on the show mania i think this whole venezuela thing might just be about screwing with china they're in a deflationary spiral right now and trump is trying to throw them over more wrenches in it yeah that's true um deflation by the way my latest column is about why we don't, why people who are agitating for improved living conditions for working people should not be trying to get lower prices. They should be trying to get higher wages because you don't want to trigger a deflationary spiral. Tiny Dancer, as far as Hague Seth and

the SEALs, as in not the animals, but the military guys, it depends on whether they're executing under Title 10 or Title 50 of the U.S. Code. Team 6, Seal Team 6 can be delivered. from legal culpability if they're working under the CIA or maybe let's just say maybe not culpability but maybe exposure might be a better word um rules of engagement differ he continues remember when the seals invaded pakistani airspace for osama bin laden that was a kill only order to under cia rules of engagement totally legal morally flexible just saying point taken yep um so so okay so is there what can i mean should any should there be a role for government to regulate uh you know utility prices and should there be also should we be demanding

that the tech companies who are using all this bandwidth that they fucking pick up the tab for all the power that they're using uh But yes to both those things. And more to the point, I think that these tech companies should also be required to pay a rebate every year because they're mining our data and selling it. I mean, that's all the reasons. No, Trump, no, but when professional D.C. was going ham over TikTok, you know, being owned by the Chinese company and that the evil Chinese communists were stealing our data and then selling it. Well, how is that any different from what YouTube is doing right now? There's no difference.

It's all the same. Here's the difference, though. The Chinese have never once hurt me. Neither have the Russians. The American government hurts me every single day. True. Speaking of which, there was an interesting, I don't know if you saw it, Bobby. It was in the New York Times, not a funny article.

Again, this is one of those things that when you're gone for five days, you've got a lot of news to dig out of. So mayor-elect Mamdani in New York City campaigned a lot against the surveillance states as an even introduced legislation to try to regulate it when he was a state assemblyman up in Albany and now he's about to become mayor and he'll have control over the New York City part of the surveillance industrial complex you know the the lattice of license plate readers the the flashing cameras for example when you enter New York when you enter Manhattan from one of the outer boroughs or from New Jersey you'll see these flashing lights

they're taking your picture and they're taking a picture of your license plate and they form, and they keep track of all that, even if you're a law-abiding citizen, first of all, if you have an outstanding warrant, the state police are waiting there, like at the end of the Triborough Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel, and they arrest you right on the spot. But more than that, they literally, you know, if, let's say you become a target of investigation, literally they'd be like, oh, so Robbie drove from, you know, the Elmhurst section of Queens at 304. He He crossed the Bribeorrow Bridge at, you know, 308. He stopped at a big old place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 109th and Fifth Avenue at this time.

And so, you know, basically they know everywhere, they know, and, you know, it tells them a lot about you. I mean, like, it tells you they can, like, determine your socio-economic status. They can, you know, probably your politics. Did you go to a protest? Did you go to a political event? Did you go to a left-wing bookstore? You know, they know a lot about you. It's terrifying.

Mamdani's going to be in charge of that, but he has had Dick to say since being elected mayor. And the Times is sort of saying, like, oh, he's probably going to have to just shut up and leave it in place because it's all part of the sellout that inevitably has to happen when you actually win elected office in our corrupt system. I don't know. I thought it was funny.

Yeah, it's not going to change. I mean, I think the beach is going to go on. I think he's going to be Akosio Cortez with a beard. I think that's inevitable. I don't think you can. I think that if, let's say,

Ted Rawl was elected to high office, you know, that he would sell out too. Or he'd be completely ineffectual or they'd come up with some kind of scandal to drive me out, right? That's what they do. You cannot affect change

from inside this system. Well, you can affect change. but you can blow it up and here's where I would disagree with this because I have known Ted Rawl now for for a couple of years really good guy and so here's what I think what happened with Ted Rawl I think that I think that Mayor Ted Rawl would realize he cannot change anything that he is that the system is completely rigged so I don't think Ted Raw would try to blow it up at all but I don't think you try to fix it I think Ted Raw would nuke it I think Ted Rawl would go in and set as many fires as he possibly

could just to hollow out the course that way just implodes on itself and then as you after you get impeached as you walk out of the building you'll you'll flip the capital off or stacy mansion whatever it's going to be yeah well they can't kill you because then that makes you a hero it's better just drive you out as a quack but the point is is that the damage is done listen we know it's easier to blow things up and burn things down than it is to build something that's why the vandals are so effective at destroying Rome. It took a thousand years to build it. It took them a year to wreck it. Politically, be the exact same way. Just go and hollow it all out. Just do as much damage as you possibly can. Because at least while they were having to rebuild what it is that you tore up,

they're not screwing anybody else. They can't. So Philip Blair says, so New York City is able to give speeding tickets based on level of wealth like in Sweden. Yeah, they could if they wanted to. They don't. I actually like that, though. I mean, it does make sense, right? If you think about someone's driving a Lamborghini, should they really pay the same exact speeding ticket as someone who's driving a, you know, 15-year-old accord?

I think not, right? I think so because the law is the law. And if you start making it subjective, then why else can be subjective to? I mean, I get it. I can see the argument. It's about making it hurt. That's the point.

Well, it's not going to hurt. Actually, I'm against financial fines anyway. I think, you know, the real, if the law is the law, you can affect everybody equally. Like, for example, it's like, oh, it's six points on your license. Whether you're rich or poor, it's six points on your license. And if you get to 12, you're going to lose your license. Right. And that would inconvenience you.

I mean, granted, rich people could just take Uber everywhere, but it's like, it's still, it's more equitable. We don't have a lot of time left, just a few minutes left in the show. Robbie, but I don't want to forget about the blame game being played. Obviously, when I saw the report, the two West Virginia National Guardsmen had been, you know, who are kind of like patrolling Washington, D.C., supposedly either to help ICE and or to supposedly fight crime in D.C. I remember when I heard about it, I thought, oh, this is the resistance. Here it goes.

We know there's going to be armed resistance. Here in New York, we had an incident over the weekend, by the way, Robbie, where New Yorkers drove ice out of the city with their tail between their legs and spontaneous groups of New Yorkers were throwing shit at them and the ice guys like fled to New Jersey. So things are getting spicy. But anyway, the point is it turned out it was just this fucking whackadoodle veteran of an elite Afghan killing unit. that we and the CIA trained, needless to say, we will be talking to John about this tomorrow. And it looks like he basically lost his mind from the shit that he and other guys in his unit pulled back under the Ghani and the Karzai puppet regimes that ran Afghanistan for 20 years under U.S. occupation. and that basically he cracked. He was admitted to the U.S.

He crossed the border from into the U.S. in 2024 under Joe Biden, or whoever was running the country under Joe Biden's name. And he was admitted formally this year under Donald Trump. What's Trump on about? Why is he trying to blame Biden for this? When clearly, this is an American ally who, you know, we tend to allow our former goons into the country and some of them snap i mean i don't know i'm not really under i'm not getting the the point of this other than to if i blame you then you first

then it's harder for you to blame me is that basically it well it goes against brand i mean trump is right to call out what biden did with throwing open the borders and allowing all these people in you know my position on immigration anyone who anyone who's watched this show knows my position on immigration. I would say if you're here, if you're, if you're, I came to talk right now, if you're here illegally, you round them up, you send them back home. They can, they can return to, they can return to the place from which they came. No problem with it.

I do not feel sorry for you. Goodbye. Do not let the door hit you on the way out. That is doubly so if you're a traitor to your country, if this dude's an Afghan, he signed up with an occupying force that invaded his country, the dude. is a traitor. So then don't be surprised when you recruit a traitor. You train the traitor. The traitor is killing his own people. Do not be surprised when the traitor then betrays you and kills your people too. I mean, that's not a good play. Can we just call it what it is?

I agree with you. Look, I have no sympathy for people for those people who basically worked for the U.S. as an occupying power. To me, they're no different than V. She or any other fucking quizzling during World War II. But anyway, we will, I'm sure, continue to follow the blowback from that fiasco. Please help out with Robbie Aid, so we can keep this show running smoothly. And, you know, in situations like this, when me or John has to be out, Robbie can fill in and we have a show on day to day that we would not otherwise have had. Please pitch in.

We're trying to get to a grand. We'll let you know when we do. And then we're off the hook until January 1st. The URL is gofund me.com slash F, like Frank, slash D program Robbie. Please stay tuned to for the TMI show with me, Ted Raul, and Manila Chan. For a lighter and quirkier take on the news, culture, politics, and everything, we will see you on the other side.

We'll back tomorrow here on D. at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Thanks so much for listening and for all of your generous donations. Take care. Bye, Roddy. Bye-bye. Thank you.