DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DNC DOA | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: May 23, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM Eastern time. Today we discuss: • Kamala Harris “wrote off rural America” during the 2024 presidential campaign and failed to attack Trump with sufficient “negative firepower,” according to a post-election autopsy finally released by the Democratic National Committee. Chairman Ken Martin’s handling of the document and the direction of the party’s political machine has angered Democrats. Gaza doesn’t rate a mention. Will there be major reforms at the DNC? • Iran and Oman are in talks over a Strait of Hormuz Ship Payment System. The discussions suggest that the US and the Iran may not be close to reaching a deal to end a war that has badly damaged the global economy. • House Republicans abruptly canceled a vote on a War Powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US forces from Iran or win approval to continue the war, after it became clear they lacked the votes to defeat the measure. It’s a striking setback that exposes fractures within the GOP over the conflict at a moment when the party has begun pushing back forcefully on Trump and his agenda. JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow FOLLOW TED: https://rall.com/ https://x.com/tedrall LISTEN ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Yeah, so let's try that again. You are watching Deep Program with Ted Rall and Jamaral Thomas. It is Friday, May 22nd, 2026. And thank you for joining us. We are here 9 a.m. Monday through Friday, Eastern Time. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning. J.T. How are you? What is happening, my man? You doing okay this morning? I'm doing okay. Yeah. We've got to talk about this DNC report, fun read. So basically, three main things I had in the hopper to talk about. The War Powers Act Resolution picked up steam overnight, and the House Republicans had to cancel the vote on it because they don't think that they can defeat it anymore. And it looks like it's going to pass the Senate. It's going to pass the House.

Obviously, Trump can and would veto it, but it would be a huge, a humiliating thing for him. And it's showing the fracturing of the MAGA coalition. Iran and Oman, JT, are doing exactly what you predicted. They're setting up a formal toll collection system for the Strait of Ormuz, which indicates to me that the Iranians do not believe they're anywhere close to a deal with the United States and don't feel like they can reach one. So they're negotiating in a sort of non-peace, sort of a permanent non-peace kind of mentality.

I think they're hoping for the best but planning for the worst. And we all recall that the Democratic National Committee under Chairman Ken Martin decided to bury the traditional party autopsy that follows every election, especially after an election loss. Both Republicans and Democrats do these every four years. Obviously, Kamala Harris's loss was devastating, morally, and otherwise. for the DNC. And so everyone was curious to see what was in it. Basically, because nobody stopped asking for it, ultimately, he felt enough pressure to feel compelled to release what looks to be like a first draft

of a report. My first take on this, and I'm dying to hear what you have to say about this, but my first takeaway is because it's a first draft, it looks like there was a first draft, and then Ken Martin and perhaps others in the DNC decided to kill the entire process. They didn't even allow the autopsy to move to a towards multiple drafts and a final resolution. I mean, it's full of misspellings. It's got statistical, statistical errors, calculation mistakes. It's clearly the Democratic Party not really did not want to know or hear what went wrong in 2024, which is even internally, that's astonishing. I think,

If I had to put my finger on it, I think what it boils down to is the moment that you... Okay, let me transfer it to something else. Do you remember after the wars, I think this came out a few years ago, maybe five or six years ago. They had this document called, what is it, Reasons? I forget the specific name, but it was basically the Afghanistan Fouts. The Washington Post, I believe it was a post that came out with. Correct, yeah. where they had military assessments of its own behavior in Afghanistan

and how they acted up so bad in Afghanistan when they were effectively, when the U.S. military was operating. And it was brutally honest because they never expected it to come out. They thought it would stay just within the confines of military. And so you had military brass, three-star generals, and below even just regular people who were on the ground, giving commentary about what they thought they got wrong in the war. And so when the thing was aired, you think that is, okay, well, this have ever been aired if they thought anybody would ever see it?

Meaning, would they have said these things if they thought people would see it? Well, the same thing is true for the Democratic Party. If they are putting out a document that is explaining how they got it so monstrously wrong, as you pointed out, morally and legislatively, then you are kind of stuck with whatever you write. Like, meaning, if I have to recount my sins, on some of the... level the recounting of the sense you would think especially if you're being sincere is that you don't repeat the sense what is it when ultimately you will repeat the sentence and you will repeat the sense because your fervent belief is the first step Jamarle is admitting you have a problem but you don't want to admit if you have a problem because if you're the dnc you are the problem you are the problem

like your policies the things that you expels the fact that you you take money and there's this implicit, I'm sorry, explicit contradiction in this idea of we're going to be to release Valfa capitalism while taking, you know, more money than Republicans. Okay, how do you mend that gap? The party is the issue. And I don't know how you write that in a way that doesn't fundamentally change the vehicle itself. Yeah, I imagine they wouldn't want to write that document. But they needed it internally, right? Um, look, a lot of this stuff is totally, you know, there's no big shock about the fact that the original sin of the 24-24 Democratic campaign was putting Joe Biden forward as the nominee again.

We knew that he was senile back in 2020, and we knew he was senile throughout his entire term. We knew he was physically frail as well as mentally unfit for office. I was saying that back in 2020. We were all shouted down. But, okay, that's well understood finally now. You knew that Kamala Harris. The autopsy says something I'm not sure I totally agree with, which is that the quick coronation of Kamala Harris was a mistake that she was a,

they shouldn't have done that. They should have had some kind of abbreviated primary process. I don't think that's true, given the timeline that they had available to them. No, I think the original sin of, I think that once they chose her as vice president, they were stuck with her in this scenario because of the simple fact, it's the Democratic Party. It's the wokier of the two parties. And she's a woman of color.

So really, you're going to shit-can the sitting vice president, woman of color, who has not done anything wrong, nothing right, but nothing wrong. She hasn't broken any laws. She hasn't, you know, she didn't swallow her own tongue. She, you know, nothing happened. And it's like, it's fucking June of the, of election year. Let's not forget that. It was June.

And it's like they had the convention coming up not in months in weeks. And like, and what kind of like squirrely last second primary process could they have cobbled together that would have had the same legitimacy as primaries? They couldn't have. I mean, it was not possible. I mean, primaries are held in. in cooperation, you know, with local and state boards of election. They have to be, you know, put you have, they have to have the facilities. They use schools, churches.

I mean, there's tens of thousands of precincts across the United States. I just think it logistically wasn't possible. You know, basically she should not have been picked to be one heartbeat away from the presidency back in 2020. But once she was, they were stuck with her. if they were going to do that, because I think I disagree with you on this. Okay, good. Because I don't think they, in multiple elections, the Democratic Party effectively chose their nominee, not the people themselves.

True. If you think of what they did, Sanders, if you think of this Joe Biden thing, if you think of Kamala Harris, there's something inherently wrong with this idea. Like, because they really didn't have a primary, if you think about it. I mean, they basically put Joe Biden on the marquee knowing full well that Joe Biden wasn't necessarily going to be able to do it. They installed him. That's why I'm going to bring up the name that was forgotten before it was remembered. Dean Phillips, right? I mean, poor Dean Phillips.

He was like, you know, the Cassandra here. He was like, I agree with Joe Biden on every single thing. I vote exactly the same way he does. I'm like Joe Biden, but not senile and old. Let me run instead so that you all have had a choice. Poor Dean Phillips. Everyone was like, fuck you. we hate you, get the fuck out of the party.

And they drummed him out. Basically, we don't want anybody going up against Joe Biden because we want to make sure that Joe Biden is our command. And let's make it even work. Let's be very clear about it also. Does anybody believe that Joe Biden would have been able to survive the next term? No. I mean, do you really believe that, I mean, I'm talking life in one context,

politically in another? does anybody believe that frail barely making it seem to be out of his mind Joe Biden? Cancer? Yeah. Like, meaning, and they knew this. And they covered up the cancer too. And they covered it up.

So what they wanted was Joe Biden to win it and then let Kamala Harris take it because they didn't believe that she could win it, which is also problematic. That's deeply problematic. I don't know. I take issue with this idea of being imposed. a candidate, even for a party that I don't support. It's just, it's so... Normally, I'm on your side. I'm just saying from their point of view,

you know, they've painted themselves into a couple of corners. And it's kind of like their options were limited going back to 2020 when they decided like fuck Bernie Sanders were putting in Biden Harris. And by the way, and seeing this very slow-moving train of the 20-20, election moving toward them one day at a time, like it did for all of us, they could have made a decision in 2022 to allow Joe to bow out and install Kamala. They could have even done something where they sort of said, we're going to do something unusual. Kamala is going to be really making most of the decisions. I'm going to be holding her hand and training her how to be president.

And that would have given her a chance to shine and to be seen doing things and in the public eye. You know, sort of like if Clinton had stepped aside in favor of Al Gore after Monica, it would have given him too. I mean, I don't think Kamala Harris, to be clear, has any shining to show off. But I don't know that. Okay. I don't, we don't, none of us really know that. Like, I, you know, I'm 90% sure, but that's not 100% sure. I agree with him. He should have stepped down.

Yeah. I mean, like, if they were going to play this game and play this role, he should have stepped down, let it be president. At the very least, give her. Resignation is for. Look, I mean, if the court can do it, the president can do it. Yeah. No, I agree with you. On this one, I agree with you.

She should have, I mean, Joe, well, Joe Biden was being very shady at this point. Joe Biden was very upset. He was very upset. It was so shady. I mean, we could go on and do it. and our own autopsy of like, oh, I mean, oh my God, like the appearances that he did, like the CNN healthcare town hall during COVID,

where he was fed the questions and the answers. And then even though he, even though it was all softball stuff, he couldn't answer them. So then CNN carefully edited out the most embarrassing moments from the archives that appeared on their website. Just like one thing. I mean, the fix was in.

all over the place. Guys, if you have questions, by the way, don't forget if you're watching on YouTube or on Rumble to go ahead and put those into the respective chats. Super chats and Rumble Rants are especially appreciated because they help make this show possible. And we really do appreciate and need your support

to keep this going. But I say shady. I mean, Joe Biden was viciously angry when all of the Democrats came out to tell him to get out the race, something that they shouldn't have had to tell him to do. No. And they kept saying, get out the race. And when it finally became clear that they were pushing him out, he seemingly put a knife in Harris. Like, if you, if you remember, one of

the things he says, hey, you're with me, right, kid? Basically, you are not to deviate from my position in the least, despite the fact that the positions was completely unlike. Meaning the disapproval for Joe Biden was very high. I want everything for me. to war, all of the stuff. And the polls were very, very clear that the, you know, Democratic voters did not want him to run for a second term. They were like, he presented himself from behind the scenes. It drives me crazy when Democrats say today, show me where Joe Biden ever promised

that he was going to be a one-term president. Well, okay, there's no speech of him saying that. But he did let it be known through the Hill and Politico, through back channels, that that was his intention and he never and he never retracted it or denied it right so he he absolutely uh wanted to do that i wanted to get into some some of the contents of this um of this autopsy first draft right um it seems like one thing democrats and i'm going to include bernie sanders tend to do is they they just don't think that they need to run for the entire country uh they they pick and choose certain demographics and states to run for and they ignore the rest and they hope they come along. And this autopsy

claims that basically she was really interested in upscale, coastal, white-educated suburbs and to the exclusion of rural America, which she wrote off completely and let, you know, instead of making Trump fight for every state, instead of making him, I mean, she should have been a whirling dervish. I mean, if you have 109 days to run for, president. You know, you suddenly find, I mean, if you woke me up and said, due to some very strange twist of fate, Mr. Raul, you could be presidents of the United States. You will be the nominee of a major political party, but the bad news is you only have 109 days to do it, but you're going to have a billion dollar war chest to do it with. What do you think I would do?

Well, the first thing I would do is put on a big pot of 1775 coffee. And then I'd be like, and then I'd be like, schedule me morning, noon and night everywhere, flood the zone. I want to be in all 50 states. I want to be in every county. I want to be in Guam. I want to be in the Marianas Islands. I want to be, I want people to be sick and tired of Ted fucking Rall by the time this is over.

Kamala Harris didn't do that. She basically, they were like, well, we're just going to. to go for these like swinging little places and see, you know, if that just tips the balance. I mean, that's crazy to me. I mean, I don't know if it's because she's not a hard, she didn't want to work hard or they just didn't think they needed to or they just like decided we're going to pace ourselves to a fault. I don't get it. So two things. Yes, agree. I would be everywhere. Like meaning as much as long as my body. Every podcast. Rogan, everything, everything. Everything. Everything.

I want Joe Rogan, if he wants me, I'm there. Yeah. There's more gay. He wants me on there. Like, meaning, I'm taking everything, right? Everything. Even Sean Hannity, who I wish was dead. And I would ask Joe Biden to step down.

I mean, because it's a problem that come out of her. Well, one, she had a few problems. One, she didn't know how to spend her money. If you remember, despite having over a billion dollars in a hundred days, she owed millions of dollars at the end of the race. So the spending thing was just weird. in a way that she'd spend money. This happened to her in a primary also.

If you look back to the primary before this particular election, Kamala Harris, when, especially after the Tulsi moment, where Tulsi put a knife in her, if you remember in that campaign, she overspent in that campaign also. And so spending and the way that she uses money seems to be a little dodgy. I think one of the biggest problems though,

is she was tethered to Joe Biden. She could not engage policies. Like, so Joe Biden is drowning on the guy issue. I mean, I have to say, comes out and it's like, yeah, I'm going to make peace in Gaza. And she is stuck with the Biden position of beating down

Palestinians and beating down people who want to bring up the Palestinian cause in any notion or democratic spaces. Like, they told her she had to do that. You know, some part of me, again, I like the... It lost for her. It lost. Like, when you ask people, that was one of the things that lost

for Kamala Harris. She lost, but it was like, by that. points or something. He had one guy saying, the piece and her saying, I'm sticking with the same policy. Yeah, it caused some people to flip to Trump, and it caused a lot of people to sit on their hands and just not vote. You know, the word Gaza doesn't appear in any of the 50,000 words in this report. It's literally not mentioned, even though even the uncommitted delicate movement, you remember that? That was a big deal. That's not mentioned. The base is, isn't mentioned. I mean, okay, it was a first draft, but that's weird to me.

Yeah, because all those were big factors. I mean, the uncommitted movement, some of those places have more votes than Joe Biden. They had delegates. I mean, which is amazing when you think about it, like, meaning people saying, I am not going to support you, I support a genocide. And they get more votes or at the very least more delegates than the principal in a particular state. That is amazing. That is amazing. And it's like, how do you not put that or factor that into your analysis of people who have become so disenchanted that they check out of the political process. It's not even that they go vote Republican. It's more so, I mean, some do I suppose, the vote against the party. But it's more so to get across that you are not in line with your face and the lease.

And you seem to believe that the Republican can be enough of a specter that people are compelled to vote against. what they consider to be their own self-interest of their own moral values. Okay, but that proved to be wrong in every with Harris. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing, right? I mean, you couldn't, look, you and I talked during that campaign. I mean, neither of us could really tell you what a President Harris was going to do. She didn't really promise anything other than to be joyful if that was about it. And I guess she would have been joyful.

maybe the memories of the the dude that she sent, the innocent dude that she sent to death row in San Quentin, kept her happy at night, I don't know. I think she's a horrible person. But also, this was also interesting. This part, you know, I do try to be fair and look for empathetic moments. And this was one of them for me in this report.

It said that it was hard to define Trump as bad. And here we are, of course, obviously, with Trump's approval ratings in the absolute toilet to the point where his coalition's falling apart. We're going to talk about that very shortly. But he, but they couldn't, but the Democrats and Kamala Harris basically couldn't really make a strong case against Trump. And they can't say in the report even what that would have been. I mean, honestly, what were you going to say about Trump? I mean, I don't know what you could have. I mean, Donald Trump, the Donald Trump, the Donald Trump, who was the candidate in 2024, is not the Donald Trump who became president in 2025 and

his president in 26. Those are two different guys. And so, you know, I mean, if someone's willing to misrepresent themselves to that extent to the American people, like, oh, I'm for peace. I want peace in Gaza to like, I'm a full-fledged partner in genocide. And now I'm also going to go to war on behalf of the genocidal maniacs in Israel to attack Iran. and destroy the entire global economy. I don't know what Democrats are supposed to do. They can't predict the future. True, but the issue is not predicting the future,

at least from not going to view. The issue is not one of, over and over again, they seem to think that this is purely an issue of language. Like that this is purely issue of, we need to be able to linguistically define our opponent or linguistically define our opponent, or linguistically define ourselves and create a narrative around ourselves and etc.

It's not that. I think this is a substance issue that they don't fully understand because they've been delving in this whole linguistics for so long. Like basically, hey, we can lie to the American public to the degree that they put us in office. And this is just an issue of image management. I don't think that's what this is. I think this is a sea change. I think, I'm saying this weirdly. person who should have been up against Trump, if reality was let to unfold in the way that it was going to unfold, was Sanders. And some of the other people that's been like Sanders. That's what sides of the point. From the standpoint of a substance issue where you have an election where the public is sick and tired of both political parties. One political party makes a change in substance in the case of Trump.

And it's not that he is radically different than a Republican Party per se, but he is the next. face of the Republican Party in this sense. Whereas what you would have got the fullest expression of the base from the standpoint of Democrats in the similar way to Trump would have been Sanders. You would have had a fight off between, okay, who does the American public believe is the actual real blue collar, you know, blue collar fighter for them. And it would have been Sanders. Like it's, it's, yes, you would have been convinced some people with Trump, but all things been equal. What you got would have been Sanders. That's not what happened. That substance change in the Democratic Party didn't happen. And as Chris Matthews point out, if Sanders wins, he's going to take

the party for a generation, which is what they were terrified of, which is why they behave the way that they behave. I guess my argument is what the paper gets wrong is that it's trying to imply that the American public can just be bamboozle through language, that all of this is an issue of narrative. I don't think it is. I just don't think it is. I think the Barack of the public was looking for something else, and the Democratic Party never caught up with the fact that they were looking for something else. And if they were going to write an honest autopsy, it's very difficult to put that in it.

If indeed you're not going to make that change in regards to a substance change in the party. Give me your thought on that, though. Maybe I'm talking to my ass. Do you see this? How do you view it? I think you might be overestimating the appetite of the American people for substance. That may be true. That may be true.

I mean, I think framing is super important. And part of the evidence for that is the fact that Donald Trump won. I mean, Donald Trump's, you know, did not run with a coherent political platform that anybody could predict. He ran on a pair of principles that were, you know, intentionally vague to an extreme. America first, make America great a way. What do those even mean? It means whatever, you know, you want them to mean. And that was kind of the point.

I think that, look, I take your point. I think that there's a place for a candidate like Bernie Sanders who has very clear platform planks that we can understand, easily understand, repeated, you know, in his case, it was, you know, what were they? So remember them. Medicare for all, $15 an hour minimum wage, student loan forgiveness, right? That's it.

We understand what they were. They were easy to remember. And we, everyone knows what the good and the bad aspects of those were. But with both Biden and Trump were running essentially a substance-free campaign. It was all about the messaging. The messaging was, you know, basically people didn't hear exactly what Trump was saying. What they heard was anger, and they felt angry. And they were like, that's why they voted for the guy who sounded the way that they felt.

It was I remember being driven crazy, the joy thing. I was like, people are not feeling joyful. They don't, they're, they're not happy. And right now they're really pissed off. If it was 1996, joy might have been the right push, you know. The economy was booming. Things were getting better. So, but this was not that election.

And they misread the public. But I do think, look, it's like in cartooning, the best cartoonist is, has great ideas and draws well. Okay. But really, truly, there's a lot of people who draw well. There's not a lot of people with great ideas. But, you know, if the sweet spot is to have both, but you really need the ideas, the drawing, well, you know, you don't have to have that. And in politics, I think, you don't have, you know, the sweet spot is to have a great platform with great messaging. But if you don't have the great platform, great messaging will get you there, I think.

Well, just to be clear, what I mean by substance in this case is Trump came across as a quantitative difference than, let's say, a George Bush or a Marco Rubio or a Mitt Romney or et cetera, that came across as just a normal politician. That's what I'm trying to get across from the standpoint of substance. I don't mean that Trump has substance. Obviously, I think he's a narcissist and a psychopath and is an evil human being. very malevolent. So it's not about substance and a sense of having ideas that you strongly believe in anything. That's not what I mean about. I mean that when you're looking at Trump and you're comparing Trump who's on stage with, let's say, Emmett Romney, okay, these people seem very different for one another. Even if the ideas and the things that they do are going to be somewhat similar,

they seem different quantitatively. Trump seems like a different brand of politician. Like the idea to come out and drop the F bomb as president. on social media, it's just outlandish. And if we were talking about the 80s, it would have been impossible for a president to do that. They would have been rolled out of office, like the meaning that the perspective of media would have been out like would have been over thewhelming.

Today, because of who Trump is and kind of, it's almost like the space conformed around him, it's accepted. But that's different. But those things are, right? I mean, it's like Lady Gaga, doesn't have to wear many clothes because she's basically built a career around that. You know, if, you know, Ethel Merman had done that, it would have been a different thing.

But that's, but therein, that's my point. Democrats put up normal politicians against somebody who the political space considered to be abnormal and who the public wanted. And in that sense, Bernie Sanders might not have even been abnormal enough. But maybe, maybe not. Although, he would have won for sure. But putting up Hillary Clinton is a no-no. In essence, it was on that point.

There's no doubt about that. That was catastrophic. John Park, one, says Kamala was tokenism at its finest and assumed that a woman of color was enough to beat Trump. They got cocky and deserved to lose. I hate Trump, by the way. I don't think they assume that. Look, if that was true, they may would have made that, argument that Joe Biden stepped down early. That wasn't the case. If you remember from the very

beginning, the belief was that Kamala Harris couldn't win. Even going up into the point where Joe Biden stepped down, the belief was that Kamala Harris couldn't win. There's a comment about that. Ryan says, I kept asking that question at the time of Kamala is so great. Why isn't she the president now? Because it's been obvious that Biden's brain was mush for years. Exactly. They didn't think she could win. Yeah, don't forget. She only got 0.6 percent. in the Democratic primary in 2020, she never, she did, she had to drop out before the first, before the Iowa caucus, right? Yes.

So, so. Or I guess it was, oh, they did South Carolina first this time, right? Oh, no, is that right? Yeah, that. Either way, she was, 2020. It was, it was, Iowa was first, yeah. Yeah, either way, it was very quickly. She never, she never was in an actual, she was never in a primary.

She never made it to the primaries. when she was in the debate, she got crushed very quickly. Yeah. And her polling, she just tumbled down from that point on it. I guess I'm pointing out that she was that little girl on the bus. Yeah, I was that little girl on the bus Joe Biden. By the way, being busted to an elite school. And supporting the same policy that she was putting a knife in Joe Biden about.

I mean, don't be wrong. Great debate performance. In this case, because she had Joe Biden defending states' rights. but she supported the same policy. Point that I'm making is they didn't think she could win. That's true. But that's why they should never have, I mean, that's why it was so mystifying. I mean, you're in 2020, you're, you know, I guess you're in a vape-filled room.

And these guys are plotting and scheming. And they're like, okay, so we're going to put Joe Biden in. I mean, we know we're like flying close to the sun here. because the dude will be the oldest dude to have ever been elected to the American presidency. And we've had senile presidents before. So here we go. Joe Biden was never that smart to begin with. And look up the shape he's in. But we're going to, for his number two, we're just going to balance the ticket with a, you know, we're going to choose a lady of color. And basically that's it. But she doesn't really bring much else to the table in terms of, you know, I guess the only other thing is she'd been a. So she played the classic vice presidential liaison to the U.S. Senate.

That's it. But there's nothing else that she brought to the table. I mean, I mean, he was a little old, but Bernie Sanders would have been an interesting choice for vice president, by the way. Yes, agree. Agree. Well, so. Well, it would have guaranteed victory. Well, the reason it chose, agreed, agreed, agree.

The reason it chose Kamala, he would have been. bastardized in a position. But I agree with you that he would have been he would have been playing the LBJ role in 1960. Yeah. From my understanding, the reason that they chose Gamala Harris is because they made a deal. Joe Biden needed South Carolina. And Joe Biden needed to make an agreement that he would basically allow the candidate. This was a Jim Clyburn production. Exactly where I was going, Claiborne. And by the way, and by the way, that you hear they're scheming, the Republicans, South Carolina are trying to gerrymander Clyburn's district into oblivion, so he's gone. That's amazing. I'm not shot back, but that's amazing. Yeah, it won't make me cry, really.

I hate him. But, I mean, for all intents of purposes, Clyburn made the deal. Hey, you want South Carolina. Because keep in mind, if Sanders took South Carolina, he was off to the races, that would prove, hey, you were able to get the black vote. And you're able to beat Joe Biden for that black vote in a black. Well, they call. call it a black state, even knows not a black state, but whatever. Right. You get my point. I do get your point.

So, Claber was the culprit. No, I'm just saying Clever was a corporate in all of this. Totally. Mantell, thanks for the two bucks, with the DNC fumbling its own post-mortem and the GOP afraid of president retard. Is it safe to say that both parties are running on absolute chaos? Is this the biggest opportunity for a centrist third party?

I don't know if a centrist third party, but it is not a centrist third party, but it is not for a well-funded independent party. Yeah. I mean, you could cobble together. You could cobble together a party that has a completely post-contemporary realignate, post-1932 realignment, right? Like a party that is truly nationalistic and protectionist of jobs and anti-militarist, you know, that basically appeals to the populist left and the populist.

right. I think you could put that together. So do I. But the problem is I don't know how you get to 270 electoral votes in a presidential election, but you can certainly build, you can certainly build up a campaign. You can you can build up from the base. You could certainly start running people for local and state office, of course. I mean, I would argue that you could thread a needle through the left and the right and get both. I mean, like, because I am a firm believer that, and tell me if I'm talking about my ass on this. I'm a firm believer that the American public would allow you pet projects if you attend to the main issues.

Like so, for example, like if you think about it, would the American public take issue with Trump going after immigration in the way that he's gone after, even in excess if he was also, I don't know, stopping the war? So, hey, I'm stopping the war in Ukraine, but I'm doing this immigration stuff because that's the thing that I enjoy. Yeah, I think they would. I think they would too. Or like, or we want to spend a lot of money on a Mars base.

Again, they'd be okay with money. Yeah, I think the public would be okay with that, providing your attending to their needs and the things that they want. No, it's true. It's like there's a movie. I think it's on HBO called Bad Education. Terrible name. Great movie.

And it's about an obscure scandal in American history. It's the Rosalind School scandal. Rosalind's a little town in Long Island, New York. Basically, long story short, it was about the administrators top brass of the school district who were, you know, leaching money out of the school for years and just lining their own pockets. No big deal, right? The interesting thing to me was that the school district was excellent. The educational attainment level were good. The teachers got paid well.

There was always up-to-date equipment. So the kids and the parents never noticed anything wrong because they weren't pigs. They didn't take out so much money that there was nothing left. They got, to your point, they got the basics done. They took care, and that's why it went on for years. Because as far as anyone could see, they're paying their taxes. Their taxes aren't too high. They're getting good services.

Who's going to look into it? You start to look when it's like, wait a minute, I'm paying really high taxes and everything really sucks. If the Republic, you know, if you had a party that, like Trump or whoever, they're taking care of the basics. You know, your life is affordable. Things are looking for good for you and your kids. You know, we're building high speed rail.

I think people would be like, you do you, I'll do me. Yeah. I'm taking care of. I don't really care what you do. Like, that's what it becomes. Like, I know that sounds so selfish. No, but that's reality. That's reality.

I think that's reality. I think that's just so we're not functions. Because if you think about it, there's so much stuff that the U.S. government does in one moment. And a lot of that, you're not going to let. Right. But some of it you may. And if you have a government that is attending to things that you consider to be core values, then you may not, you may say, okay, I don't like that, you know, dude is doing X, Y, Z.

But I'll accept it. But I'll accept it. I mean, A, you may not have a choice. But B, it may be illegitimate, exception if it needs a better alternative. Hey Ted, just pop it in real quick. Are you seeing the chats in the Discord that I'm dropping? Let's see. They're backed up there, my friend.

Okay, all right. Let me get to them. All right. Thank you, Robbie. All right, so let's get through these. Okay. Question for me from Frasmatat. As a cartoonist, any insight on these non-white, pro-white nationalist mass shooters who are obsessed with cartoon characters, it's a weird culture spreading in Asia. I am familiar. Of course, you know, there's the whole Pepe, the Frog thing. I honestly don't fucking understand it at all.

And being a cartoonist provides me with zero insight into this. I don't know what the fuck. Okay. Sneaker Dad, thanks so much. much for the $20. The two-party system is gone, as is the Constitution. Let's see. Oh, Ryan Newton, the Democrats preferred Trump to anyone who was even nominally left, agreed. Skylaski, I can't stand people who say they were duped by Trump because how did I see through it from, how did I see through it from the start? It's all bullshit, meaningless words and promises. He never cared about.

anyone other than himself not wrong government so the lesser of two evils is what we get plus the last president to have have a surplus was clinton so no matter who wins the debt will grow and i think this catches us up daddy of triplets thank you so much for the five dollar donation for me the third parties have always lacked a legitimate serious candidate the politics were there the candidate wasn't um i was usually true the closest we got i think it's usually true the closest we got i think to someone who I could actually see as president as maybe Ralph Nader? Yeah. Yeah. And he had a good plan also. He didn't put a night at him. Like nobody's business. They sure did. And they still blame him for Florida 2000. I put a question up on the board.

Can Democrats push through real reforms following the autopsy report? I don't think it's possible, right? I mean, there's calls for the resignation of Ken Martin, but he's still in charge. The DNC seems to me like it's always one new asshole after another, right? It's never, I mean, it's the culture. It's the DNC is the DLC. They are militantly centrist, corporatist, and it's an anti-left party. It's where the left goes to die. Leftist or liberals are.

who vote for the Democratic Party, vote against their own interests. You know, there's an interesting, and I'll make this quick, Deep Smeese-Latne once had this conversation about the Cleon Empire to a Cleon. Wharf. I don't know if people who know who were who were this. But Ezra Dex was having a conversation with Worf, where Worf was basically talking about, you know, the pride of the empire and blah, blah, blah. And Ezra gave him this assessment that I think applies to us.

And she was pointing out like, dude, I understand. you guys have this notion of honor and everything else. But your empire, when have you elected a leader that you can even look up to? And she made the point of saying, like, if an honorable man like you still support what is a obviously corrupt declining power, which is your empire, then what does it mean for the empire itself? Meaning if you as an honorable man would support this institution that is obviously corrupt, then what does it mean about this entire edifice?

And I guess I feel the way about the Democratic Party and I feel the way about the government broadly. But all of these things are inherently corrupt. And a political organization that is supposed to be a political organization just seems like a money-making operation to me. With, you know, the politics being a bug and had a feature. It's just very bizarre. If your aim is to get elected, you don't behave this way. And maybe they just got so accustomed to laying against Republicans. that being even created platform that people give shit about it's not something that they could do at this

point they haven't learned their lesson i mean honestly they just haven't um speaking of lessons well let's talk about before we move on to iran um war powers act that's related to iran so um speaker johnson decided to cancel a vote that he seemed likely to approve as it yesterday that was supposed to happen today looks like enough republicans and pro-war Democrats have bled over to the correct side of the aisle. This doesn't mean that they're against the war necessarily. It just means that they have enough votes in Congress to basically send the message that under the War Powers Act, after 60 days, the president has to come to Congress and get a rubber

stamp in order to proceed with continued hostilities. The president doesn't want to do that. Two questions. Why doesn't he just go to Congress? in ask for authorization because that would help give him cover, right? I mean, if Congress denied him, and then he could tell Beebe and he could tell, he could tell, and if the war, you know, got even worse, he could say, look, my hands were tied. The Democrats in Congress and their rhino allies, you know, stopped me from winning.

We would have had so much winning. It's their fault. And if they sign off on it, whatever it goes wrong, he can say, well, you know, we were all in it together. They voted for it to, They can't run against me on this. Why not go to Congress and get their approval or try to get their approval? If I had to guess, he doesn't want to legitimize Congress. Like, if you go to Congress, you legitimize congressional power over the president to wage wars. Now, obviously, it is Congress's purview to wage wars, but power is taken. It's not necessarily given.

And if the president makes the choice of saying, okay, I'm going to go to Congress, then you're stuck with whatever Congress gives you as opposed to you, effectively not acknowledging congressional power in this case and you're proceeding on your own. I think it's at your power, if I'm being honest. I mean, Congress obviously has pershings. Congress can obviously pull the reins. And the fact that Johnson pulled this vote meant that Congress was not going to give him what he wanted, meaning in this continuation of whatever the hell he's doing. I suspect Trump wants a deal but I think you're right and I think that's sick because the partisan advantage that would be gained would be tremendous by going to Congress. It's really a no lose except you're right.

And that's the part, you know, this kind of behavior is the kind of thing that makes me wonder whether we're going to see midterm or presidential elections going into the future. Because consolidating power seems to be job one for this president. We have an ad that I should read, and then we can continue the discussion. We hear a lot about crypto, but here's the part most people miss. Crypto was created so you could actually own and control your own money. After the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin was designed as an alternative to banks. So instead of a bank holding your money, delaying transfers or limiting access, you're in control. And if you've ever had to wait for a transfer to clear, you felt that problem.

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So, yeah, so War Powers Act. So, yeah, I mean, I'm very worried that there won't be elections. I am also, but I am, I don't think, my mom and I got into a conversation yesterday. I'm not going to call it an argument because it's not really argument. And I have a spirited discussion. A spirited discussion. I am not a religious man. I'm not an atheist, but I am not a religious man.

I don't have this belief that anything cares. We are in it on our own. And to be honest or to be fair, and on our own is not precisely the way I think about it. I think nothing intervenes. Nothing cares in order to intervene in the sense. And so anything that happens, it happens. And what happens effectively, it's either human will in order to make that thing happen or not using human will to make that thing happen if that makes sense. Meaning if people are being murdered and killed, there's nothing to stop that, nor does it need anything to stop it?

It will just keep going on his own volition until people are just full of drinking blood. The conversation about the Iran thing is a really good example of that, where it's like we are murdering people. Shouldn't there be a consequence? And fact of the matter is, if you think of the number of people that we've killed all across the globe and all of these wars and everything else over all of these years to maintain hegemony, why should we be absolved and given grace? It's that question. And I understand that that question is uncomfortable. This idea of $11 gasoline, okay, why should we be absolved from that? This idea of having a radical maniac as the president, why should we get grace on this stuff?

From my point of view, these are consequences of the U.S. being an empire where it's just rolling in a mechanical process, where we've got to the point where the world is changing, and they're trying to pull away from this idea of this hegemonic control, and we get the naked face of America being displayed, not just the external world, but also the us. I would argue this is mechanical. This was always bound to happen. In fact, I don't even know a way out of it where a hegemon was going to just give up the reins to give up the reins. I mean, even Britain, they gave up the reins after a war broke Britain. What about America? And doesn't it seem like we're careening into larger conflicts around the globe? Give me your take on that, though. Maybe I'm...

No, I agree with everything you've said. What I would just also add is in some ways, even though there's, you know, people are acting obviously, you know, of their own volition as individuals and as part of a group. Also in many ways, there are historical cycles that, like you allude to at the end of that, are inevitable. Sort of like the way that, you know, how does a flock of birds, individual birds move sort of, you know, it's kind of like the way that you know how to walk if you're going in and out of a big sporting arena and you sort of get into a rhythm. There's certain flows of history that are just inevitable. And it's like you're not going to be able to just reverse course. We are late stage capitalism. We are late expanded empire. And it would be great to, it's sort of like,

it's sort of someone, like someone says like, well, if everybody stopped throwing their trash out the car window, then there wouldn't be any litter on the side of the road. Right. And that's true, but that's like a statement that means absolutely nothing because right, you're going to still throw their trash out the window. Right. And so, like, there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, I guess, I mean, sometimes you can do something radical. Like, you know, if it was the Taliban, they could pass a law that says, we catch you doing that.

We're going to shoot you right on the spot. They do that enough times. That might work. That does work. But, you know, we're not likely to do that kind of thing. So it's not impossible. It's just that, like, the odds are so low that they're barely worth talking about, I think is the way I would put it.

We have some more comments we should get to. Manchild, thanks for the donation. With the DNC fumbling, it's, oh, I already have that. Okay, oh, I guess we already had those. That's a repeat. I don't know if... By the way, the reason that I was trying to make the point to her, nothing stops until you make it stop.

That was the point I was trying to make. Well, yeah, yeah. And like, you know, people can, and they can and do make things stop. A revolution is an example of that, where people have just finally had enough. And often a revolution will be sparked by a spontaneous event, like the French Revolution being caused by the tax-evoiding, highly annoying Marquis de Sade, you know,

locked up in the Bastille with four other fellow prisoners, drunk and carrying on and shouting down on a hot day to a bored crowd of Parisians that he was being, the people were being tortured and killed. None of that was true. But they were all drinking like the day, was long because, you know, they were Parisians. They didn't have potable water. So all they drank was wine and beer all day long. So, you know, by three in the afternoon, they're lit and ready to go. Next thing you know, they've stormed the prison. The French Revolution is often running. I mean,

it's not a very noble start, but the fact is if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. The tinder was dry, the embers were blowing around. It was going to blow. And that's, I think, you know, I guess we're, I feel like we're getting there. I'm not, I'm not sure if we're there yet. We're moving in that direction. Yeah, I don't think we're there yet. No, I mean, you know, it's like that thing, like it'll seem inevitable after it happens, right? I think that's RFK or maybe he was quoting someone.

So listen, I wanted to give you, let you take a victory walk here, straight of our moves. So Iran and Oman are now talking. they are having it, they're negotiating, but they're saying, it's not a toll system. It's a toll system. They're like, it's a facilitation system. Whatever.

We will facilitate you going through, and we will facilitate you giving us Bitcoin, but we will facilitate not blowing a hole in your hall. That's our facilitation. And we will facilitate not bringing your cargo and confiscating it. That'll be how we facilitate. Yeah. So Oman is a U.S. ally.

I thought that was, I mean, that to me indicates like the mere fact that they're even willing to hold formal discussions over this, to me indicates that you're starting to see the something I had predicted that countries like Qatar

and so on are going to start to rethink their close ties to the U.S. and make nice with the Iranians. They're going to have to. They might. Right now, their inner feelings about, you know, being blown up or having the bass is blown up. But yeah, the management system, okay, we won't call it a toll system. It's like a management. It's like on Housewives. It's like he's dating a rapper. He's like, he's not a rapper. He's a DJ. It feels like that. It's a management system.

It doesn't really feels like, right. She's an escort. She's an escort. She's not a stripper. She's a dancer. She's an exotic dancer. Yeah. So obviously it's a total system. Obviously it's a total system. And yeah, I mean, from Iran's point of view, they've said it very loudly. This is now ours.

We are not giving this up. And by the way, if that becomes true, this thematic, strategic defeat would be clear, which is why people like me thought that there would be more strikes that would take place. before water reaches its level as a crude, you know, explanation or example or whatever, the way I think about the stuff. Meaning, it's hard for me to see the U.S. saying, okay, we're going to give you straight from Missouri, or at the very least, okay, we can't take this back from you. And we're going to end the war and the conflict, even if it's just the armistice with you holding onto it because of the way it makes us look, we look bad,

if that's true. Same thing with the uranium, right? When you get the president continuously putting out Red lines. We will take the uranium or else. Okay, that's the red line. That's you putting up an anti. You either get it or you don't. Same thing with the straight of remus. That is a obvious, clear indicator that you lost if you don't take that back or if at the very least you don't have the ability to remove Iranian control from it. Again, these are big ticket items that are ever been as much as interesting as a Cuban missile crisis. There's something that has been wagered. Does the U.S. have the capability of doing it, see A or N. That's fascinating to be.

Because very rarely do you get these kind of big things that have been clearly defined as objectives, that you either get the objective or you don't get the objective. We'll see. I think there'll be more strikes, but I could be wrong. Oh, I think there will be too, because I don't, you know, it's like, look, the only options are, you know, the beatings will continue until morale improves,

or the or like you're going to get real and talk to the Iranians like from a position of reality and respect this government and I'm not even going to blame Donald Trump personally this president can't do that Barack Obama couldn't do that nobody could do that yeah yeah that's hard it's just not it's a head in mind that's hard it's not it's not our bag you know Okay, so let's get a few more comments here. Manchild, thanks again for the donation. While D.C. plays chicken. The global economy bleeds.

Does anyone actually believe a deal is coming or are we just funding a forever economic war? Well, we're going to get real. When gas hits $10 a gallon later this year, they're going to get real. Well, see, that was a leak that came like yesterday. that Iran and the U.S. have reached a deal. And the leak, quote unquote, I'm calling it a leak, eventually was nailed down saying, this is nonsense. There is no deal. However, the gap has narrowed between the two sides.

I don't know what that means when they say the gap is narrow between the two sides. And the document that even RT had released looked like a surrender by America. Because America didn't get what he wanted in this stuff. And even saying joint control of the straight-defer moose, I don't know what that means. doesn't mean that the U.S. and Iran hand-in-hand control it? I don't see that. And so the document... That's nonsensical. Yeah, it's nonsensical on that front. Also, when it says... Oman and Iran can jointly control it? Absolutely. Well, that's the thought. And does the U.S. have a stake in the Oman part that allows that to make sense? I don't know. Yeah, so... Oman is America's sock puppet, is what you're saying.

Yes. meaning because that's the only way that makes sense. I have a hard time believing that Iran is going to be like, yeah, sure, we'll join hands with the U.S. Or that the Omanis would, or that the Omanis would shitkan the Americans to that extent. I mean, the Omanis like to just go along to get along. Yeah. I mean, the U.S. said the same thing about the nuclear power plant as Zaporosia.

It's like, hey, we'll work with the Russians for the Zapparosia power plant. And Russians said, fuck off. Like, are you out of your mind? That's what I mean. I have a hard time believing the Iranians would be okay with that. No, I don't think so. at all. Guys,

thank you so much for joining us. We are going to be away for the weekend. We'll be back on Tuesday with the show at 9 a.m. Eastern time.

Next week, we'll also have a show, a Q&A show Wednesday. So it's Tuesday at 9, Wednesday, 9 and 12 noon.

No TMI show. Robbie, you have something to say? Yeah, no TMI. I'm putting together a super cut. I'll be running later. on today. Just got a rerun, so it will be won today, and then one for Decoration Day on Monday

for D-Program and TMI, and we'll be- Also known as Memorial Day for those of us from the northern side of the War of Northern Aggression. Well, you're on the wrong side. I don't know about Decoration Day. That's Decoration Day. But no, we'll be raiding Putin-Bot-Gayman, so just come over, hang out, chill out. J.T. I want to get you, Balders Gate 3. Do you play on a console or a computer? ever played Boddysgate 3? I know you haven't, but I'm going to fix that.

We're going to play together. Huh? I mean, since there's no TMI, we have a little bit of time. Yeah. Explain. And by the way, why are we supposed to? Well, I'll be right over, so you can just go over and watch. Well, wait.

Over there are we supposed to have something at 12 also. I know we had talked about it. I don't know if it was confirmed or not because Ted is traveling. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I think we can. Let's talk. I thought we'll get on the phone afterwards.

All right. Okay. Oh, you don't have a conversation on air for everybody. No, I'm taking us out. I'm taking it out right now. Here we go.