DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DOJ vs. SPLC | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Trump’s Justice Department charged the SPLC civil-rights group with a financial crimes, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment focused on its past use of paid informants to infiltrate far-right groups. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, accused the SPLC of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”• When is a Blockade not a Blockade? Lloyd’s List Intelligence says “a steady flow of shadow fleet traffic” has passed the U.S. blockade, including 11 tankers with Iranian cargo that have left the Persian Gulf since April 13. “The dilemma for the U.S. is: The tighter the blockade, the greater the pain is in the global oil market, so there are conflicting priorities there, and it seems there is a policy of not intercepting every single shipment of Iranian oil,” Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal Middle East analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, says. Almost all that oil is going to China, and the U.S. has to manage that relationship as well, with Trump planning to visit from May 14 to 15.• Navy Secretary John Phelan is fired.• For the first time in decades, the U.S. could be experiencing negative net migration — more people leaving than entering. Brookings estimates net migration turned negative in 2025, the first time in at least half a century. People born in the U.S. who move abroad make up a small portion of those numbers, but influencers on social media are helping bring wider visibility to the shift.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Good morning. It's Thursday, April 23rd. Thanks for tuning into D. Program with Ted Raal and Jamaral Thomas. Good morning, J.T. What's going on, man? Doing okay? I'm doing probably better than the leadership of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which we will be talking about. That's a very strange and interesting and complicated case. So we'll try to unpack that for you guys. Also, the Navy Secretary is out. But hey, it's not like the U.S. Navy is up to anything. important right now. When is a blockade, not a blockade? Apparently right now, it turns out that Lloyds of London says that a lot of Iranian ships are being allowed through by the United States because the truth is they're afraid of the effect of not doing so on its relationship with China

as well as with its effect on global oil prices. And JT, I put this in because of you. The U.S. is experiencing negative net migration for the very first time. A lot of Americans are moving overseas and they're attracted by the lower cost of living. And all sorts of social media influencers are sort of spreading the good word about the pros and advantages of living outside of the United States. And you have experience with this personally. So I thought we should talk about it. We were not able last week to get...

Sorry, earlier in the week, Dmitri Lascaris, but we are being told that he now has power where he is. So Dmitri Lascaris, journalist who often reports from Lebanon, is going to hopefully join us in 27 minutes at 9.30 a.m. Eastern time in order to bring us up to date on the latest from Lebanon from his own personal viewpoint there on the ground. So I'm looking forward to that. I think it'll probably work out this time. please like follow and share the show. Please donate to the show, whether it's through super chats or otherwise. If you have a question for either or both of us, please put it into the live chat in the 9 a.m. Eastern hour. We are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time coming up at 10 TMI show with me and Manila

Chen, except Manila's out pregnant. Well, not pregnant. Post-pregnant. She's a newborn. Yeah, now entering her 10th month of pregnancy. And then I have the DMT America podcast coming up at 11 a.m. With Scott Stantis, that's every Thursday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. And we have guest cartoonist Marshall Ramsey, who is from Mississippi.

And I'm interested to hear what he has to say about this Southern Poverty Law Center story. All right. So shall we just hop into the SPLC story? Yeah. All right. What do you make about it? I need you to give me a breakdown of that story because I didn't quite understand it. I mean, I know they're going after them, but it was some kind of fraud thing.

Yeah, so basically what's going on is that the DOJ is going after the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a storied venerated, I should say storied, maybe not completely venerated, civil rights organization founded back in the 1970s by a coalition of sort of northern white do-goaters who came down south to help with the civil rights movement and stayed behind. and local black people who were working for civil rights in the deep south. They're headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama. And for many, many years, you know, people who were on liberal mailing lists like my mom would get these sort of donation shakedown letters, donate to the SPLC.

And Alexander Coburn, who is now gone, he was one of my colleagues at the Village Voice in New York. He was an investigative journalist, and he criticized them from the left, and he said it was basically back in the 90s and OTS. The SPLC was a grift that basically they were ginning up, they were exaggerating, even though racism obviously is an omnipresent problem in the United States, that they were exaggerating the level of far right sort of Michigan militia, you know, alt-right, proto-alt-right groups that were really out there. He said that their numbers were really very tiny, and they were acting like, you know, the clan is everywhere. And so they've been criticized also from the right because the SPLACLC has gone after a lot of what they call right-wing hate groups. And some of those are things that are like not really, that people on the right are like, what do you mean? Focus on the family isn't a hates group. And so they're, you know, I think their SPLC's defenders would say,

We must be doing something right because both the left and the right don't like us. I've heard that argument from like the New York Times and stuff like that. What seems to be true is that the SPLC has been paying members of far-right organizations like Aryan Nation and keeping them on their payroll to the tune of $1 or $2,000 a month. And so the question is, what's this all about? They claim, the SPLC says, these are confidential informants. We're paying them to give us information and to sort of keep them safe, but also to induce them to give us confidential information about the membership roles,

tactics and strategies of these far-right alt-right groups so that we can know what's going on in there. And they say, in this respect, we are no different than the FBI paying confidential informants. and all we're doing is the same exact thing. We wouldn't be able to get this information out of some of our sources otherwise. What the DOJ is alleging is that these constitute financial crimes, specifically wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The legal basis for this is that, and I think it's a little weak, the DOJ case says that they didn't tell.

their donors exactly what they were doing with the donor money. Oh, this is kind of like thinking, all right, well, what 501C3 organization specifically tells its donors what it's doing with their donor money? I mean, you know, I remember when I was at Columbia University, there was an alumnus who donated several million dollars for like to re-landscape the outside of a dorm. And then like two years later, they trashed the door, they trashed the garden. and put a building right on top of where the garden was. And it's like, sorry, thanks for the money, bye-bye garden.

It's like, I don't think there was much of a lawsuit. It's sort of like, you know, you donated and we made the garden and whatever. So I think that there probably is some space for the SPLC to defend themselves there. But the way this is being framed, and I'm sorry to go on so long about this, but it is a complicated story. The way this is being framed already on social media by conservatives is they're showing pictures of like, say, January 6th or Charlottesville. And they're saying, just as we suspected, none of these people really exist. This is all a false flag operation.

They're not real. They were all paid by the SPLC, which is not true, cannot be true. And it's not alleged in the complaint by the DOJ. The DOJ, this, I mean, this is Trump's highly-posed. politicized DOJ following Biden's highly politicized DOJ. And they're going after an enemy of the administration because basically it's the enemy of my enemy, you know, is, you know, is my friend, right, or whatever. So this is, I got that one wrong.

Anyway, point out. I know to me. Yeah. And so they're, you know, basically the SPLC has drawn a bead on a lot of right-wing groups that are friendly or open to the administration, and the administration seems to be running interference for them here by taking out one of their gadflies. Now, that also said SPLC has a long history of sort of wasting money,

poor management, probable sexual improprieties on the part of its leadership, all sorts of grifting. So it's a complicated story. It's not like the SPLC is pure as the driven snow, but they're also not probably not guilty of what's being alleged here. Yeah, I mean, but there's, but Griff is not a crime, if that makes sense. I mean, look, it's a crime for the people who do donations. Fair enough.

But this is obviously, and as you point out, politicized justice department, going after a political enemy. I mean, regardless of the griff, regardless of whether or not, the SPLC creates threats, regardless of any of that stuff. They are dealing with a threat that is coming from the standpoint of the right, that is coming after them. And it is growing. Yeah.

So, you know, I accept that they may be, let's say, some impropriety, but it may not be legal impropriety. It seems like it's something that the Justice Department is crafting. I mean, come on. Like, let's say that they were paying thousands of dollars to right-wing groups in order to gen a threat of white ring groups. I don't really buy that. But, okay, what is the Justice Department

may not have to do with that? Like, that seems like an issue for the members, not, you know, that's like an espoise and pro-publica. Well, it would be fraud, I guess, of a kind. I guess, I mean, I guess the thing is, you know, like the famous guy from the NKVD said, I said, you show me the man, I'll find you the crime. Yeah, and I think that's exactly.

what's going on here. I mean, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can craft an indictment and they have that, that fits this purpose. I don't know if you can find 12 men and women good and true on a jury to, to find these people guilty. Right. You know what I mean? You can indict them. I suspect they're nervous, but they're probably not terrified. Yeah, but see, that's just that the indictment is the issue. Like, it's chilling. It's chilly. Yeah, I mean, the idea that the government is bringing a case against you and then the amount of money that you need to defend it. Like even if you walk, how much money did you have to pay to fight it off? Like meaning the indictment is the issue, not the conviction. The conviction may be an issue, but it's the indictment that's the persecution in this. You know, like the O'Huru, the group that they went after, the Biden administration went after.

They were saying that this African group. I believe they were in Florida, was working with the Russians. And so we need to prosecute the group for not filling out, well, what is it called? What is it called? The thing that says you're working with a foreign entity. Fair. Fair. Right.

Basically saying you're working with the Russians. For its agent's registration act. Exactly. And, you know, it's the- Which, by the way, it should be under the First Amendment ought to be declared unconstitutional. Oh, it depends. It depends. Like, because, okay, this gets into a whole other angle.

I mean, Sputnik had to do it. True. And it was a media organization. And a media organization ought not to have to do it. True. But there is, look, if I'm a country or if I'm leading a country, I want to know who's investing money into the country. Sure. Like, meaning, I want to know that the Israelis, I have spent $100 million in my elections.

I want to know how much money the Israelis have bribed. And I'm saying Israelis, especially. from basically Jewish organizations connected with Israeli government. I want to know how much they've paid to my politicians and whether or not that has influence in my political affairs. And the same thing is true. Not in Hungary. In it wasn't Czech Republic.

It was another, God damn it, what is the name of that country? Georgia. If you remember when Georgia had that the president who was effectively a spy for France and was doing everything in there, her power as president. of the country to effectively overthrow the country. It was very bizarre. And if you remember the United States got very pissy at Georgia because Georgia put in a fair law. In fact, we were saying, hey, we want to know who's putting money into our elections. Europe freaked out. The U.S. freaked out and you have to ask, wait a minute, we have a fair law. Why are you freaking out about another country instituted

the own fair law? The question was, the answer was obvious. They were trying to. Well, I think the fair law has been, all I can say is it's been, it's been abused and it's been weapon acts. Agreed. No, I agree. I'm just saying it's a little bit more complicated. Yeah, no, no. Well, this is a complicated story for sure. So, I mean, we'll continue to watch it. But I mean, so, you know, the thing is the, this is one of those cases where it's almost like because it's the Trump administration. It's really hard to see this as anything other than a political, like a McCarthyite type attempt to take out a flaw, a flaw. albeit flawed, but a watchdog of the right. Right.

Agreed. No, a thousand percent agree. It's hard to see this through any other lens. Also, even though they were the boys who cried wolf throughout the 90s, now there's a wolf. And people like us who pointed out during the Biden administration that you were weaponizing the Justice Department will come back to bite you in the ass. And here we are.

Yeah, well, that's true. That's always the lesson as we just sort of analogously, we haven't talked about. it. You know, but as we just saw with the voters of Virginia approving this plan to redistrict, to gerrymander, and now it looks like the Republicans picked this fight in Texas. And basically, in the end, between California, Virginia, and all the states, Republican and Democratic, that are doing these redistricting plans, for people who are from overseas, basically, every 10 years when the United States has its census, like in 2020, 2030. That's when congressional district lines are redrawn in the United States.

And suddenly last year, in an attempt to sort of try to increase the Republican control of the House or mitigate their losses this fall, they started this plan to do this. And now it looks pretty clear that the fight that the Republicans picked is going to go against them, and they're going to end up with a negative net number of seats as a result. Yeah, they had signs all over Virginia. As you're right, it's like vote yes or vote no on the thing. And yeah, when, look man, Virginia's a bellwether stick. And I remember when Hillary Clinton was running against Donald Trump.

And you could see in Virginia that it was like it was red all the way through. Like many, you could see based on the way the polling came out and the election results, when Virginia went that way, I was like, Clinton is going to lose. lose. Yeah. That's how I felt when I visit when I in 2016 when I visited Dayton, Ohio where my, where my mom lived and where I grew up, that was a bellwether, a classic Bellwether County, Montgomery County, Southwestern Ohio. And it's like I saw no Clinton signs. And I was like, holy shit, Trump's going to win. Yeah. I kicked off on election night at 845. I knew what was going to happen. Yeah. I saw it here in Virginia. I was like, she's going to lose. Like Virginia,

if Virginia is not turning blue. And if Virginia, goes red, the Democrat is going to lose. If you're looking for bail weather states, Ohio is one, Virginia is one. And to be honest, when we're looking at the way the election was going in the, like when you get into places like Michigan, et cetera. Yeah, it was clear.

Yeah, for sure. We have a couple questions that we didn't get to yesterday that were paid for us. So we should get a man child. Thank you for the dono. With a Pentagon failing eight straight audits, how can Trump gut safety net programs for a $1.5 trillion war machine, which is a 42% annual increase, by the way,

while burning billions on vanity projects like his 250-foot, Alcudder retard. That's a good question. And speaking of vanity projects, I think it was interesting that the list of donors, to the remodel, to the new ballroom came out. And it's a rogues gallery of big tech and, you know, big, big defense contractors. No wonder they didn't want this out.

But one point five, no, I mean, look, here's, it's insane. 1.5, I mean, it is by, right, the United States, most taxpayer dollars and a lot of conservatives don't know this. By overwhelmingly, you. you know, 54, now it's going to be more, but 54% of every federal tax dollar goes to either defense spending or interest payments on old wars. It's where all your money's going. It's not going to poor people. It's not going to food stamps. I mean, you know, those are substantial expenses, but they pale in comparison. And we're talking about a country that hasn't really been

attacked since the war of 1812. So we're not really, we shouldn't be such scaredy cats. We don't really need this much defense. And so to go from there to 1.5 trillion, the thing is, I'm pretty convinced that Congress will give them exactly what they want. Yeah, agree. Usually they give them more. It's like a tip. You're doing such a good job. Let me scratch you behind your ears. Even under Biden, by the way, like where Biden would ask for a certain amount, they would give them more. Totally. And the question is basically how can they do it? Because they don't give a shit about you. That's why. It's always interesting how that bill, right, the Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA,

is always called, have you ever noticed? It's like it's always Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, full-scale, and it's always the must-pass NDAA. Yes. Nothing else has ever must-pass. Like, why is it must-pass? It's not must-pass. Nothing is must-pass.

You could easily, maybe you, good case to be made, you really, shouldn't pass it. Yeah. Yeah, agree. I mean, we are not at war and we are, but we're spending over trillion dollars a year. We weren't even at war. And it's like we're hunting people in caves and it takes a trillion dollars. Do it? Well, this is the Republican schick. It reminds me of the Reagan era, really. I mean, in one respect, is Donald Trump any different from Reaganism? I mean, it's basically fuck the poor, fuck the working class. you know, trickle down economics, give, we, as he said privately at Easter, at his Easter meal, you know, we don't have any money for Medicaid or Medicare.

We're fighting wars. It's all about wars. That's all that matters. That's the brand of the Republican Party. I don't understand why anyone votes for them. Hell, I don't understand why anyone votes for the Democratic Party, but right now it's the Republicans who are in charge. I just don't get it.

Well, answer to that. I mean, dig into that for a moment. I mean, because you're right. this was always the crux of the anomaly. Like, you effectively have this kind of, what do you call it, blue collar billionaire. Yeah. And my mom used to always say, like,

you ever notice when you drive around past a trailer park, you'll see tons of American flags? If you drive by a rich person's mansion, you'll never see one. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's,

it should be the other way around. Well, it's a capitalist country. We orient our politics, our media and all of this stuff around this notion of, occurring wealth. And from the standpoint of benefactors of this country, it's the rich, right? And so you would think that you have a billionaire effectively running, that billionaire is coming down a go to an escalator, that the poor would be a bit suspicious of this blue collar billionaire. You would think.

Like, I'm not going to touch Medicare and Medicaid. And I'm like, yeah, Republicans, if they get the opportunity, they're going to go out there, Medicaid and Medicare, right? So, Social Security, all of these things on the chopping block. And finally, you get Trump said, yeah, we can't afford these things. We need to spend nearly 50% more in the military. Really? Do we? Yeah.

I guess I don't, I never understood that feature, that factor. I couldn't tell if it was what everybody believes they're going to be rich at some point. Everybody believes they have the opportunity to be rich. I wasn't, I'm very curious about that effect. And yet, that's part of a moment. Probably that's thoughts. Yeah, Robbie, what do you get thoughts on this? Well, I mean, as far as right-wingers go, even ones that are, no, working class or poor,

for them it's not so much about getting rich because they know it's never going to happen. That's my default position. I'm never going to own a house. It's just baked in. It's just not, it's never going to happen for me. There's only two things that I can do. One is build a better future from my kids. And second, I want the government to leave me the hell alone.

I don't want, I don't want men in my daughter's bathroom. I don't want Pride flags flying at every school Just leave me alone That's all I want It's the culture war stuff I get the culture war stuff But this culture war stuff wasn't

Like that in the 90s Or was it? It was different stuff Well it was different stuff Agreed but you had I guess it was plainness There was flag burning Remember that

Yeah true Sister soldier It's just all just comes down to whatever it is, you know, whatever the pain point is that you want to touch. I mean, ultimately, if you're on the right, like what I am, it comes down to, I want the freedom to make my own mistakes. I don't need a babysitter. I don't need a granny. I'll pay my taxes in exchange. You provide law and order and you stay the hell out of my life and leave me alone. Well, that's the question. Republicans aren't really providing law in order though. Right.

No, they're not. Well, and the summer of love, prove that. So I mean, you pay your taxes. Your businesses get burned down. The courthouses get taken over. The police are AWOL. And then you have people like me. Why am I paying taxes then? Because the social contract is broken down. But even beyond that, right?

Like, law and what does law and order mean? I mean, to me, law and order means like if I'm wronged, if I'm, you know, whatever, someone steals the, my intellectual property as a cartoonist, someone breaks and steals my car, someone attacks me, I can get justice and that person will be held accountable. And that'll serve as a deterrent, right? I mean, am I wrong? That's basically what law and order is. Well, you're missing a really big thing because another thing about the whole order

prospect of it is I should build walk down the street without seeing, you know, waiting through 50 or 60 homeless people defecating on the on the street or people shooting up drugs. That's the order component. That's the order component of it. And I agree with that, too, by the way. And so, I mean, that's what we want. If you're a white winger, like what I want,

to walk down Main Street, not have people walk around like zombies stolen out of their minds. I want clean streets. I want to be able to. Left 21st want those things, too. That's what to say. This is not a right wing position. But liberals don't care. Well, no, I get that.

But now here's the thing, though. The Democratic Party is all about except what's different. And if you don't, you're a bigot. While the vast majority of people are going to be left alone and be able to live in a clean, orderly town and not get pushed from a subway or get mug. Once again, we hit the difference between liberals and leftists, right? I mean, the left likes order. You know, the Soviet Union liked order.

China likes order. I don't want to see homeless people on the streets. But they're everywhere. And the other political party cares. And so that's true. And so that's why so many right-wingerers like me are opting out of the system. And for me, that's the most terrifying thing. because when people figure out the voting doesn't matter that the system is broken,

that's when you start getting a best rebellion, a worse revolution. It starts with apathy. Oh, for sure. Once there's no buyout, once there's no buy in, things fall apart. True. And I remember Mark Frosty's to make that argument. Like the moment that you lose credibility in the system, the system sucks. I don't just the system at all.

The government could actually be telling me the truth right now about about whatever topic is that's in the news. I would not believe them because they've lied to me too much. It's just like this whole SPLC thing. If I was in North Carolina, I would have been in that Charlottesville thing, not because of a Nazi, because I'm against book burning and tearing down monuments.

I'm against erasing the history of a nation. When I saw that, it was called Unite the Right. That's kind of forgotten to history, right, to the midst of history, because that poor girl got killed. But I was jealous. I was like, man, unite the left would be awesome. And you know what? I would be there.

If the two of y'all, if y'all were able to put together some kind of event where y'all had people from the populist left just coming up and saying, no, this is what we're against. There is more uniting the populist right and left than people realize. Oh, completely. That's true. And I would 100% be there with y'all. We disagree on all kinds of things.

And that's a good thing. But like I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear, like, you know, like, oh, I'm disgusted when I see, you know, people taking a shit on the street and, you know, who wouldn't be? Right. But I mean, but like, well, San Franciscans who are liberal Democrats, not leftists, they don't care. They're like, oh, this is like, it's a beautiful thing to see people living their best lives. It's like they're not living their best lives. Right.

You are watching people. They've been thrown away and they're living in, they're wallowing in degeneracy and they're dragging down. working people with them. We are watching a society commits mass suicide in slow motion, and that is repugnant, and you don't have the right to do that. I'm sorry. Maybe you call me an authoritarian if you want.

You don't have the right to destroy yourself, especially when you do, it's just really stupid. Yeah, it's dumb. Not in public you don't. A lot of this stuff is not right-wing positions. And I know, and maybe... Law and order is not a right-wing position.

You can't have socialism without law and order. True, right. And I guess my thing is like, I agree with you with the monuments. I thought it was dumb trying to take them down. It's one thing if you reevaluate the monuments. Like it's one thing if you've seen them as heroes and later on you see the guys. Let's say you wanted to have an explainer historical marker adjacent. Right.

That's perfectly fine. We have them. Like this is a statue of Stonewall Jackson. Stonewall Jackson was this person. He did this. But the thing is, if you're a liberal Democrat, Stonewall Jackson would have been your hero. Because if you go through and if you read what the man wrote,

I mean, the fact that he violated Virginia and Confederate law by donating to churches teaching the children of slaves how to read, which is against the law. And he did that. He was with prosecution. He said, then arrest me because this is what I'm going to do. The man hated slavery. And yet there's a lot of these things like that are very complicated.

Right. No, look, I think, like, I'm fascinated by this guy. We could go down the historical rabbit hole. John Steve Reckinridge, who was the vice president of the United States under James Buchanan, between 1857 and 1861. And then he ran for president in 1860 in a four-way race, then became Secretary of War under the Confederacy. And then ended up, you know, basically he died in shame, basically for joining the wrong side. But the truth is, he was from Kentucky.

He didn't really care for slavery. but he was like my state went with Kentucky is Kentucky went with confederacy I'm loyal to my state as Robbie you've always pointed out you know it was really considered more of a confederacy of states at the time and you know he so he went with that it's a complicated figure it's not like you know it's nuanced it's like the guy didn't like you know didn't care for slavery fought for the Confederacy what he did or not he existed the statute is there It's no point at tearing it down. And it is a historical.

It's a historical teaching opportunity. Yeah. From my point of view, that's historical, right? It's, I mean, granted, the counter argument is do people put up his,

um, uh, statues of Hitler? And they did. No, they did. And in my opinion, in Germany,

every street at a Hitler street. Again, for teaching. You can go and you explain, okay, how did this guy get so popular? What exactly happened? Mm-hmm.

No, explain the history. I can think it's, One of the reasons I've never visited. Sorry, go ahead. And by the way, there's an argument that those statues were put up after the fact, which basically these things up as icons, despite the fact that these people weren't icons. They were fighting for slavery.

That's true. That's true. You're not, just right? Are you mean it in the Confederacy? In the South? But the reality of it is nuance, yes. But you're fighting for basically an apartheid system that was protest. And I'm not talking about basically.

Sure. I see Dimitri. Awesome. As long as we have power, let's go ahead and bring them in. All right. Joining us is Dimitri Lascaris, Canadian attorney, independent journalist and political activists based in Montreal and Kalamata, Greece, a former high profile securities class action litigator who recovered over $450 million for investors.

He left corporate law in 2016 to pursue independent journalism and peace activism. He reports from conflict zone. like Lebanon, which is why we have him today. In 2024, he received the Serena Schim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. Thank you, Dimitri, so much for joining us here on D-Program. Pleasure to be here with you both. Thank you for having me. It is our pleasure. So let's talk about Lebanon in many ways that that conflict is usually overshadowed by whatever else is going on in the region, if something else is going on the region. It was overshadowed. It was during the peak of the Gaza genocide. It is being

overshadowed now to a lesser extent. But it's still kind of viewed as like sort of, oh, and by the way, there's also Lebanon in wake of the conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran. You know, why is Lebanon important and what's going on? Let me first of all give a shout out to the resistance in Lebanon. outside of Palestine, Lebanese have experienced more civilian casualties than any member of the access of resistance, including Iran, as admirable as Iran's resistance has been.

And Lebanon has a much smaller population. So as a percentage of the population, you know, it has suffered vastly more casualties than any other member of the axis of resistance outside of Palestine. And I've been there five times since the genocide began in late 2023. including most recently about 10 days ago. And the level of destruction I saw in South Lebanon is comparable to what,

I wouldn't say is quite as bad, but it's now becoming comparable to what we saw and continue to see in Gaza. So the Lebanese people are absolutely critical to this struggle. And outside of Palestine, I think they've made the greatest sacrifice of all. Do you think that Israelis are planning to annex southern Lebanon, particularly south of the Latani River or maybe even more? I have no doubt that they want to.

This is an ambition they've carpeted for decades. Whether they believe that's possible, judging from the statements that have been coming out of Israel's military leaders, I don't know. They, for example, recently admitted to the Israeli media that they don't believe they can disarm Hezbollah and that that's going to have to be done by the Lebanese army. and I don't think any astute observer believes that the Lebanese army is even going to try it, let alone accomplish that task.

So if they're not going to disarm Hezbollah, if the Lebanese army can't disarm Hezbollah, and if Hezbollah won't do it voluntarily, which is clearly not the case, how are they going to occupy that territory? This is something they've repeatedly failed to do, and right now the Israeli army is a mess. It's an absolute mess because of all of the casualties they have sustained the fact that this military force is constructed. for short-term wars and it's been continuously engaged in multi-front warfare for now two and a half years. So I think he's a pipe dream, but I have no doubt that there are people in Israel, particularly people like Smotrich and Ben-Givir, who continue to harbor this ambition. Even now, I mean, well, obviously even now, I'm sorry, Dimitri, what's going on, man? I am super curious about what is taking place internally in Israel with the pressure that has been applied from the standpoint of the war,

because they just went through, well, they went through a 12-day war. They've just gone through another war where Iran has been effectively hitting their targets continuously. What is the pressure that's being applied to the government itself under the barrage of missiles, under the, as you pointed out, the failure in their campaign to take sub-Irelevenile? Do we know what's going on internally societal-wise in Israel? Well, if the polls are to be believed, Jamal, and we have good reason to doubt how accurate they are, and especially whether they reflect the informed opinion of the Jewish

Israeli public. But if they're to be taken at face value, a large majority of the Israeli Jewish population, who constitute about 75% of the population of 1948 Israel, want the war to continue. And they're quite upset that it stopped, which is absolutely remarkable. There are, you know, there's a significant segment of the Israeli Jewish population that is growing discontented with this war and you've seen somewhat larger protests, but the polls consistently show that a large majority want this to go on until they have achieved complete victory, which I think from their perspective means the total destruction of all resistance to Israeli hegemony. Can we talk about the Israeli Jewish liberals? Because, you know, when I used to visit Israel in

like the 90s and odds, they existed, right? And a lot of, I met a lot of ordinary Israelis who, Israeli Jews, who wanted to live side by side in a two-state solution. That's just, those people are gone, right? It seems to me like the opposition, whatever opposition there is to Netanyahu boils down to, it's not concerned for the Palestinians or for anyone else in the region. It's a different liberalism is gone. Am I misreading that? Well, if you regard the statements by Yer Lapid, who is sort of the standard bear today of the Israeli liberal class, that is gone. It's all over. I mean, Year Lapid has been completely supportive of the Israeli genocide. He is fanatically opposed to this two-state delusion. He wants the war on Iran to continue. He wants the war on Hezbollah to continue. There's no indication that his

his party, which is inherited the Israeli liberal movement, has the slightest interest in coexisting with Palestinians or with Lebanese for that matter. So I think Israeli liberalism is effectively dead. How did that happen? Well, I think it happened because of us in the West. We basically protected Israel from the consequences of its crimes, no matter how heinous they were. And so the entire Israeli political elite has become increasingly emboldened over the years to believe that there's no consequences for their depravity. And we should anticipate that it's just going to get worse unless and until the leadership of Israel is held accountable.

We created this Frankenstein. And it ain't going to get any better. It's just going to get worse. I'm curious on something else. From the standpoint of Lebanon, there is a weird relationship in regards to Lebanon. and its population. And I'm saying this kind of strange. The president, in this case, seemingly joined hands with Israel, effectively saying, all right, got to ceasefire.

As they continue the murderous campaign in southern Lebanon, you don't foresee this notion of a civil war in this case, because it seems that there's a contradiction between the government of Lebanon versus the population of Lebanon. on? What is going on with this strange engagement? Like you said, they wouldn't fire shot in anger at the Israeli military. And yet they would claim that there's a ceasefire. Obviously, there's no ceasefire, correct? No, Israel is by the resistance, this count, committed over 200 ceasefire violations. And we should be clear which quote unquote ceasefire we're talking about.

I don't understand the American media. Sorry to interrupt, but, like, you know, Western media constantly portrays it as like, we have a shaky ceasefire that is still holding, even though Israel is continuing to fire. Right. I'm sorry, am I an idiot, or do I just not understand English? I mean, what does that mean?

A ceasefire means that nobody's shooting. You ain't an idiot, but the people who believe these Westerners, Western media may be. I mean, the fact of the matter is that when the corporate media uses the words Fura-Jahki to describe these ceasefires, what they mean is that the resistance is restraining itself, but Israel is going hog-wild as if nothing has changed. From the very moment that this, the 10 days, so again, let's clarify what ceasefire we're

talking about, the one that went into effect, or was supposed to have gone into effect when Iran in the US started a ceasefire, that was supposed to include Lebanon and the Pakistani leadership made that absolutely clear. And there's no, there's, there's no way that the Iranians would have thrown the Lebanese under a bus and done a ceasefire that excluded now. But, so they just flush that down the toilet. Then they came along with a 10-day ceasefire, okay, which came into effect a few days ago. From the very moment, even the Lebanese army said within the first hours of that ceasefire that Israel had continued shelling villages in the south of Lebanon, amongst other ceasefire violations. Now the ceasefire violation, since that one was supposed to come

in excess of 200. Yesterday they killed a Lebanese journalist, a widely respected Lebanese journalist, during a ceasefire and seriously wounded her comrade, a photographer. And even the Lebanese government was forced to say that this was a crime against humanity. This happened during a ceasefire. By the way, she was killed in a double-tap strike, which is a war crime. So what's very interesting about this, though,

is at this time, Hezbollah is not restraining itself. In the period from November 2024 until February 28th of this year, when the war on Iran began, the most recent war, Hezbollah effectively did not retaliate at all to the thousands of ceasefire violations by Israel. But now it's retaliating. Yesterday, it reported four military operations against Israeli forces in the south of Lebanon. It just reported another one an hour ago. It's published video of its missile and drone attacks on these forces.

So the rules of the game have changed. This time, they are not going to sit idly by. and allow Israel to get away with these crimes during a so-called ceasefire. It seems like the rules of the game have changed for Iran, two. Two questions. Why is this time different for Hezbollah and for the Iranians? And how closely do you think Iran is coordinated with Hezbollah? Well, I think the rules of the game of change for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the Iranian military and political leadership, I think, is unanimous now that they can't trust the Americans. there's no deal to be done with this regime, nor frankly with the Biden regime, but this one in particular is completely treacherous and perfidious. So they've gotten that memo in spades. And I think that the bulk of the Lebanese population has understood that,

that there's no peace deal to be done with Israel, even if you were to disarm Hezbollah, that would just emboldened the Israelis to be even more aggressive in their land theft and their attacks on the civilian population. So it's partly a reality, check. It's partly the fact that they see that the Israeli military is greatly weakened, that the American military is greatly weakened. They've been much weakened by the war in Ukraine,

by the debacle in Afghanistan. Their munitions are highly depleted. So I think that they see this as the moment, the greatest opportunity that they will have to finally defeat the U.S. Empire in the region of West Asia. And I think they're right about that. This is the best opportunity they've ever had. Why didn't they all go, you know, go hog wild after October? October 7th, 2023. I mean, that seemed to me like a good opportunity to also defend the Gossans. Well, I do believe that that was a surprise to them, you know, although the line is that that was all orchestrated from Tehran and that Hezbollah was in on it.

There was good reason to believe that they weren't prepared for that at all. And I think that they themselves were a bit surprised by how ferocious the Israelis responded to all of that. and it took them some time to organize themselves to put up a fight when they then he was going to be very, very costly to them themselves. And now, as I say, I think this is a fight to, I think what we're witnessing is effectively a fight to the death. One side or another is going to be destroyed by this.

Now, when I say destroyed, I don't mean that the United States is going to be destroyed, but I mean that the United States will be driven from the region, or Iran is going to be destroyed. Inshallah. Yeah. I mean, really. It's also existential for Iran, right?

I mean, like, it's done everything in their power to avoid a war, and yet this war was always coming, especially with the fall of Syria. Have you been surprised that they've been so consistent and standing by Lebanon in this? We have some breaking news that's very pertinent to our conversation here. Trump is ordering the U.S. military to shoot and kill

Iranian small boats in the Strait of Hormuz. Well, good luck with that. First of all, how are they going to do that? Are they going to do it from the air? Those things shoot out, you know, they travel at high speeds. They're coming out of caves in the coastline. They haven't been able to do it thus far. And I don't see any way they're going to do that without inserting naval vessels into the Strait of Hormuz,

in which case the naval vessels are going to become sitting ducks. So this is, again, again, Donald Trump is just thrashing about, senselessly, but I don't think his goal has changed. I think his goal and the goal of the genocidal Israeli entity have been the same from day one. And that is the Libya solution. They want to turn Iran into a failed state. Everybody says it's a regime change.

I don't think that that's all that they want because if they installed, let's say, the son of the Shah, the Iranian people might overthrow him again and they'll find themselves back where they are now. So they want to ensure that no matter who is ruling Tehran, who's in power there, whether it be a puppet of Washington, or an Islamic government or some other government that's determined to maintain Iran's sovereignty, Iran will be incapable of defending itself. It will be incapable of resisting U.S. and Israeli

hegemony in the region. This is what they want. They want to destroy Iran as a functioning sovereign state. And so all those people out there in the Iranian diaspora, you know, who say, oh, we don't like this government and we oppose this government and we support what Israel and the United States are doing because we think they're liberating the Iranian people. You deluded freaks need to come to Jesus and understand that the goal here is to destroy the country. It's not about liberating anybody. And frankly, I think that there has been a significant awakening in that theasper. Some fanatics still cling to this delusion.

But I think people are waking up to that. That is the ultimate goal here. And the best thing, the only thing, actually, that stands between the destruction of Iran and, you know, the preservation of the Iranian people is the current government of Iran and the current military of Iran. They are the best protection that Iran has at this time. Whether you agree with their politics or not, they are the best protection. We have some questions from our viewers here.

So, this is from Mantrail. Do you see anything to be hopeful for, or is the region doomed for the foreseeable future? Does Israel deserve the right to exist? Two-part question. No, no, Israel, if it ever had a right to exist, it is for, for the, it many times over. Israel is a cancer, and the region needs to be cured of this cancer. And that doesn't mean wiping out the Israeli Jewish population, of course.

This means dismantling this regime by any and all means necessary. And those Israeli Jews who wish to stay and live in peace and coexist with the Palestinians, from my perspective, it's not up to me, but I would say you're welcome to stay. But if you're not prepared to live in peace as equals with the Palestinian people, then you need to find a new home. Get out. Sort of like the post-apartheid South Africa solution? Well, I think that the South Africa could have done a better job, frankly, of ensuring equality for the indigenous population.

But, you know, something in that direction. I think too many compromises were made. But to go back to the question, really, because I think this is very important. I actually am very hopeful for the future of the region. There's going to be a lot more suffering to come, sadly, to say. But I think this is their best opportunity, and I think they're winning. and ultimately this could prove to be the final blow to the U.S. Empire. Would love that.

Another question before we let you go from Flanderina. Do you think they actually want Hezbollah to be disarmed or do you think they want Lebanon to devolve into civil war? Israel generally benefits from chaos in the Middle East, or at least they think they do. Is this more of pushing chaos? Yes. Yeah.

Well, the first preference of the Israelis is always just to take the land. And if they can't take the land and seize exclusively, control over it. Their next option is civil war and devolve into chaos, do what they did to Syria. They're trying to do it to Lebanon. They're trying to do it to Iran. But I just don't see them succeeding in that regard. I think the odds right now are greatly favor of the resistance. Dimitri, do you have plans to return to Lebanon anytime soon? I don't have definite plans, but I will definitely go back within the near future, absolutely. To be honest with you, I keep going back to this region. I've been in Iran twice. I've been in Lebanon five times since the genocide.

that have been in Iraq, Jordan, because it's incredibly inspiring. I don't see any other part of the world. I mean, there are many brave, courageous people putting up resistance to injustice all around the world, but this particular part of the world is really something. Dimitri, where can people find your work? My main gig is Reason to Resist. That's our YouTube channel, and on X, you can find me at Dimitri Liskairz.

Dimitri, thank you so much for joining us on D. We really appreciate you and hope you'll come back. Thank you. We'll do. Thank you. All right. So Dimitri Lascaris, if you're just joining us as a Canadian attorney, independent journalist and political activists based in Montreal.

And he now hosts the reason to resist. That's the two is the number to resist YouTube channel. And he ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada back in 2020. Interesting. So, yeah, super cool. We have a few more questions we should get to. Parah Illegal. Thanks for the $10 donation.

What do you really think about Marines? Depends on the Marine. Yeah. Who would send me? You mean just as an organization in general? I guess so. I mean, here's the thing about the military, right? They're doing what the country tells them to do.

They've gone broke. I have, my cousin used to be in the military. My cousin's husband, used to be in the military. In fact, we're supposed to be doing this, ah, this is inside. We're supposed to be having this cartoon or this costume paintball event. And I remember my my godson was like, hey, we need to make sure that the two people who are in the military are not on the same team. Now, my thing was like, stop in a coward, you know, stop in a coward. But I have no feelings about an individual Marine, per se. It's more so what they

do that I care about if that makes sense. But the organization is functioning under the auspices of U.S. power, if it makes sense. It's a civilian authority. So the issues the civilian authority. Less about the Marines. Yeah. That's my take. Give me yours.

It's a, I mean, it's an odd question. I mean, it's, like, I thought one of my, one of the coolest nuance films I've ever seen is a cross of iron. It's a Sam Peckinpah film from the early 70s. And it takes place on the eastern front. front and it's seen from the standpoint of Germans fighting the Soviets. And it's not a political film. It makes no judgments about, you know, who's right. It's just basically about combat. And the takeaway is sort of like you're going to find bravery and camaraderie in, you know, in any unit that's fighting. And there's there's ugliness and there's beauty and there's friendship and

nobility and also and atrocity all everywhere in war and combat no matter which side it's on and that's worth remembering when in our sort of cartoonish view of of the war of of the world and so the point is that like look millions of people have found a lot of meaning serving in the Marines or and for that matter in the military and you know and and so that's clearly true and at the same time, the U.S. Marines, like the other branches of the armed forces, are serving this imperial hegemon that is, you know, leaching money out that could be used to build high-speed rail and, you know, how up-to-date textbooks and, you know, pay teachers decently and all that. And it's while oppressing the rest of the world. So that's true, too. So, look, I guess

today's show is all about nuance and complication, right? That's not. That's a weird question. It is weird. It is a hard question. Unsung, Pat, thanks for the five bucks. From to serve and protect to law and order, private military contracts with Department of Homeland Security, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

I think that's Ben Franklin that's normally attributed to. Okay. And let's see. Okay. So we do need to talk about, well, we kind of touched upon the blockade, but okay, let's talk about that, though. So Lloyd's says that the U.S. blockade is deliberately allowing a bunch, not all, but a bunch of Iranian vessels to leave the Persian Gulf since the blockade went into effect 10 days ago. And basically, Trump is going to

visit China from May 14th to May 15th. So in about three weeks, and a lot of that oil is going to China. So obviously the Chinese are going to get upset about interdictions, any interdictions. But at the same time, also, the tighter the blockade, the more pain there is in the global oil market. So this blockade, you know, as we talked about originally, isn't really doing Trump or the people behind him much good, right? I mean, that's kind of that's the takeaway here. And the Iranians know it. Right. I mean, the entire point of blocking the strata for most was to prevent the, you know, the free flowing of oil and resources in that case. So putting a blockade on a blockade is just strange.

Yeah. I mean, I understand why Trump is trying to do it, but it kind of defeats the purpose. I mean, it's just an odd fallback position. I know a lot of people make this argument that this is about China. I'm going to become more, far less in that camp. because the reality of it is China has resources are the capability of getting energy from let's say Russia for example.

Yeah, in Central Asia. They get it from and from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and so on. Yeah, and they have large reserves already built into the process. So it feels like this is a fallback position. If the goal was to, let's say, take down Iran with the idea that Iran is a major,

let's say, chess piece in the context of China and Russia. Okay, fair enough, that may be true. It probably also has something to do with Israel. It probably wasn't a singular objective. But the blockade feels like a fallback position. It feels like the main objective was to take down the government of Iran. And then when that didn't work, it's like, oh, so we need to do something now in order to not look like we just fundamentally failed and our objectives. Oh, okay, let's do a blockade. If that makes sense, I hope that makes sense. It doesn't feel like that was the normal or that was the original plan. It feels like this was the secondary.

Yeah, no, totally. I do want, I do, Robbie, do we have an ad? Yeah. Okay, let's have that. We didn't really have time to get to the demographic shift, so perhaps we can do that tomorrow because we're out in three minutes. But in that time between the ad, let's talk about Navy secretary, John Phelan. He's out.

Apparently he clashed with Pete Higgseth. Phelan was, Pete Higseth is looking for sort of a more, modern rasmataz military navy more drones more cyber feeling wanted big big ass aircraft carriers golden class you know in tribute to Donald Trump and he seems to have lost that struggle and there are apparently some stylistic differences to hold that thought while I read the ad and then we'll we'll try to get to that they can freeze your accounts shut off your cards lock you out of your own money overnight banks don't protect you they control you that's while real financial freedom starts with ownership, introducing Rumble Wallet, a non-custodial

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the banking system, no permissions, no middlemen, no cancel button. This wallet is yours forever. So your thoughts about John, your thoughts about John Phelan. And then you're going to have to close out the show because as soon as I hit the countdown button for a TMI, I lose my audio here. Fair enough. We are not in the old world in regards to wars, right? And one of the things that we're seeing in the Ukraine war is that all of these things and projections of power

that were in the 80s have become targets. An aircraft carrier is a target to a hypersonic missile, right? So, yeah, the military does need to change the time. I want to make sure we get to that. Okay. We are closing that. That's got to be it. You go close.

Shout out to Ted Raw. Shout up to Robby. My name is Jamal Thomas. This is Deprogrammed. We will be back at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. I'm sorry, 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for TMI with Ted Rawl. And I would imagine, Robbie, it's going to be there since Vanilla Chan is in a hospital after given birth.

You all have a fantastic rest of your day. D program, signing off. Hi, everyone. Have it going, guys.