DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - F&#k You! And Pay Me $200 Billion | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• The Defense Dept. asks Congress for $200 billion for an Iran War they were never asked about. Will Congress pay anyway?• Iran is gaining the upper hand as it squeezes the global economy. Iranian attacks on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facilities slashed Qatar’s export capacity by 17% and will take 3-5 years to repair, as oil rose to $108/barrel. The U.S. may lift sanctions on Iranian oil at sea and release more oil from its strategic reserves to lower prices. Netanyahu says Israel acted alone in its attack on a gas facility in Iran. Saudi Arabia threatens Iran. A tanker operator paid $2 million for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.• Mediators have given Hamas a “take it or leave it” proposal to hand over all weapons, leaving an undefined new authority in charge. Hamas will wait to see the outcome of the Iran war before replying.• Worried that he might be hobbled by the unpopular Iran War, JD Vance might not run in 2028. ​65% of Americans think Trump will order a large-scale ground war in Iran— just 7% are in favor, a Reuters/Ipsos poll finds. Trump's broader approval is 40%• Denmark prepared to deploy troops to Greenland to sabotage Greenland’s airstrips with explosives and flew in blood supplies amid fears of a potential U.S. invasion earlier this year.JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLEhttps://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowFOLLOW TED:https://rall.com/https://x.com/tedrallFOLLOW JOHN:https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakouhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLISTEN ON SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuLISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Good morning. It's Friday, March 20th. It's Ted Roll and John Kirooku with D-Program with Ted Rall and John Kirooku. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. How are you? I'm good, good. Lots to talk about today. I always try to make the rundown short, but the news doesn't cooperate. Let's go through it. Defense Department wants $200 billion for, we don't know how much Iran won. Congress wasn't consulted, so we're going to find out. Are they going to pay up anyway? Can I interrupt you on that? Can I interrupt you? Congress was not consulted. And what's funny is now the really hardcore Republicans are starting to say, well, like the MAGA guys, well, you know, we don't want to put our warfighters in harm's way. So we're just going to have to give it to them. We shouldn't. Now's not the time to be asking questions.

From what I can gather, John, even adjusted for inflation, this is more than the cost of the entire. Gulf War. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. And I mean, and we don't, during the Gulf War, we had that thing called burden sharing, where we actually made the Kuwaitis pay for everything. Yeah, pay for the cost of their own liberation. Always, always, well, Bush had that idea for Iraq, too, but I don't know how that worked out. Yeah, I don't, we'll see how, so I'm curious to see how, I mean, Congress is a bunch of of licksbittles, but we'll see what happens. Iran, okay, so here's what we've got, They've been squeezing the straight of Ormuz.

Iran attacked Qatar's Rasla Khan, natural liquid natural gas facilities. Qatar says that their export capacity is down by 17% and that it'll take at least three to five years to repair. Oil shot up to is at $108 a barrel. Down from 115 just a few hours ago. And who knows where it's going to go next. This part, John made me laugh. much. The U.S. is thinking of lifting sanctions on Iranian oil at sea. So in other words, we go to war against Iran. And then after Iranian oil has been sanctioned for years.

And because we attacked them, we're going to have to lift the, because the prices are going up so high. And there's something to that. You know, Trump has been talking tough about, you know, we're going to have to just tighten our belts. We're going to have to just pay a little bit extra we're going to have to be all in this together and then an indian ship paid for the oil in yuan and this was yesterday and the iranians said okay free to pass no that's the two million he said wait a minute wait a minute the oil has to be paid for in dollars otherwise it's going to crash our economy and they said tough luck for you so then we lifted sanctions on iranian oil And that said, was that the $2 million fee?

Yeah, I read about that. And then Netanyahu says basically Trump is pressing Netanyahu to say that Israel acted alone in its attack on that gas facility in Iran. Who knows what the truth is there? I have my suspicions. I suspect you do too. Meanwhile, we're forgetting all about Gaza, where Hamas is still in charge, the mediator, in Cairo have handed Hamas a proposal that basically says you should hand over all your weapons and we're going to have some new Gaza authority take over.

And we don't know what it's going to be. But basically Hamas is now saying, you know what? We like the way the Saran War is going and we're not getting back to you until we see how that plays out. And then J.D. Vance, I thought this was fascinating. he's worried about the unpopularity of the war, and he's signaling to people close to him that he may not run for president in 2028. I think he's a sure loser.

I really do. He's young. He can run 10, 20, 30 years from now if he wants. True. And still be plenty young. I think that if he were to run in two years, sure loser. I agree with that.

He's implicitly tied to Donald Trump. I agree with that. 65% of Americans tell the latest Reuters poll that they think Trump will order a large-scale ground invasion of Iran, just like Iraq, 7% say they would be okay with it. Broader approval rating for Trump is hovering around 40%. That's a couple of points higher than it's been. I attribute that to the rally around the flag effect.

And, Denmark was preparing to, they were really, really scared that Trump was going to invade Greenland. They actually had plans to send troops to Greenland to large. line up all the air strips with bombs and blow up all the air strips. They had blood supplies ready to go. They really thought that there was a possibility. And then they weren't going to play either. They weren't going to take it lying down.

God bless them. I mean, what can you say? Every time I encounter a Dane, I want to apologize on behalf of the American government. Fair. Totally fair. But you're right. They did all the things that you just said they did because they genuinely believed Donald Trump was going to invade Greenland.

Insane that it got to that point. And you know, who knows? That crisis could, you know, the Greenland topic keeps popping up again like a mere cat. The analogy I don't get to use too often. So, John, we have a bunch of leftover super chats from yesterday that I promise we're going to get to first thing or maybe second thing. But let's kill a story or two first before we do that. What do you want to talk about first?

Yeah, let's talk about the Gulf. I think we should probably talk about the Gulf since that's sort of where all eyes are pointing. Listen, it's worse than it was yesterday. Yeah. This is not going to end quickly. It's not going to end easily or nicely. It's going to be hideous. The United States announced yesterday afternoon that it had killed the IRGC spokesman now.

We killed the head of the IRGC. We killed the minister who's in charge of the IRS. IRGC. Now we killed the spokesman. Benjamin Netanyahu is not dead. A couple of podcasters who until yesterday were highly respected said the reason we haven't seen Netanyahu is he's dead. The reason why we haven't seen his son is because he was sitting Shiva for seven days. He went quiet on Twitter for exactly seven days and then retweeted something yesterday because Netanyahu's dead. And then Netanyahu gave a press conference. Oops. Yeah, so he's not dead.

Yeah. There are plenty of bunkers in Israel. They're all over Israel. Everybody has a bunker. I saw a bunker yesterday. I was walking back from the speaking event with this young guy. And he says, hey, you want to see Hitler's bunker? You can't really go into it right now.

And I said, yeah, sure. He's like, it's right there across the street. It's a laser tag place now. I know it used to me under a car park, right? It is. It still is. Honestly, I think they should dig it up and turn it into a tourist attraction. I would totally go.

I think it would be awesome. Totally. I would totally be there. I'd pay whatever the price was. Yeah, totally. And I understand why they didn't do it for a long time. But I mean, I think enough time has passed. So, John, you know, where are we when it comes to, you know, I mean, I think we may see $150 a barrel oil.

And, you know, the conventional wisdom here is that basically the price of gas in the United States tax exactly one for one to the price per barrel of oil. If that's true, if you're currently looking at gas prices that are like $3.85 or $4 a gallon like most parts of the United States, you could be seeing $7 or $8 a gallon, you know, because we're now at twice pre-war. per barrel prices. I mean, will Americans freak out in California when oil is, when gas prices go to four digits, go to $11 a gallon? I mean, just at a normal gas station, I was just in L.A. two weeks ago. And normal gas station, you're like, oh, it's only $5.50 a gallon? I got to grab that. Right. You know, you go to the airport and it's like seven a gallon. Right. You're exactly right. That's that's under a normal circumstance. This reminds me of the hyperinflation in Turkey where, like, I would get up in the morning and exchange, I want to exchange my dollars as late as possible, just a little bit at a time because I'd get more lira later in the day.

Yeah. This is, I mean, you know, you and I both have, you know, we've lived long enough to hear, you know, presidential campaigns affected by a 10 cent or 20 cent deviation in gas prices. This is a lot more than that. I mean, you know, what about the political ramifications this fall? I mean, does that still matter? Because now the spin we're hearing on social media from the Republicans are. It's a small price to pay a little more at the pump to liberate 92 million Iranians. Is it?

Yeah. Yeah, that's what they're going to go with. The problem is that the Iranians don't want our liberation. They've been clear about it from the beginning. We overstepped. We overreached like we always do. And like we always do, we have no exit strategy. And then I wanted to reach into the TV this morning, Ted,

and punch Benjamin Netanyahu in the face when somebody said something about Israel's war with Iran. And he said, oh, no, no, no, this is America's war. We're America's ally. The Americans are the heroes here. I was like, you fucking asshole. He just played Donald Trump from beginning to end. He is an asshole, and he's a smart asshole, too. Yes, he is smart.

That's amazing spin. You know, how much daylight is there between Israel and the United States in this war? I think only a little bit, and I say only a little bit, because the Israelis have done a couple things like trying to blow up the South Pars that the Americans didn't want to do. You know, we call it South Pard. Only a third of it is called South Pars. The southern two-thirds are called the North Dome, and they're in guttery waters. Yeah, it's underneath. This is all under the Persian Gulf.

Exactly. It's underneath. And so if you're going to hit one, the other one gets hit too kind of automatically. And it just leads to from one problem to another problem. And the gutteries are like, what are you guys doing? But the Israelis hate gutter because the gutteries are pro Hamas. And so they're happy to, they're happy to bomb the gas field and then say, oh, sorry. You know what?

We didn't realize that the Americans didn't want us to bomb that. Sorry. And then Trump is like, they bombed it, but I told them to stop and they stopped. Now, they knew exactly what they were doing. They definitely did. Saudi Arabia says they're getting impatient. They're threatening Iran. They're saying all trust is lost between them.

They just, you know, they had nascent diplomatic relations. relations that only go back three years, barely. Yeah, barely, barely. After decades of no relations. So now basically they're kind of like, yeah, you have relations, but that's about it. You know, what would a Saudi slap back at Iran for hitting Saudi facilities and Saudi targets look like? You know, this is going to sound silly, but it's actually quite important. First of all, the Saudis could break relations again.

or even just recall ambassadors. I wouldn't be surprised if they broke relations. But if you really want to hurt the Iranians, you forbid Iranians from making the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. They did that for a couple of years, 1979, 1980, 1981. And it was a crisis. Let me tell you. I bet. Crisis to the point where the Iranians started carrying out terrorist attacks against Saudis.

they supported the takeover of the dome of the rock by Saudi radicals. People were killed. It's a bad situation. My guess is that's what the Saudis are going to start with. Just ban all Iranians from the Hodge. So interesting. So not a military response. Now, the thing is, and every time I say this, I take shit from Saudis,

but I'm going to say it again because it's true. There are very few Saudis in the Saudi military. they're almost all Pakistanis. The leadership are Saudis, the generals, the colonels, they're all Saudis. But the lower level officers and all the grunts, they're all Pakistanis. So they don't really care one way. They just do as they're told. You know, John, I just got to say before we move on to the Hamas thing and start dealing with the questions.

And by the way, please like follow and show the show. Please go ahead and put your questions into the live chat. if you're watching live at 9 a.m. Eastern time, and both in Rumble and YouTube, and we really appreciate you. Super chats get priority, unfortunately. That's just how it is. So let's see.

What do you think the... I mean, I have to just say, every morning I wake up and I'm worried that something really big, like the Turkmenistan thing that we talked about yesterday, is going to happen, something big is going to blow up and we're going to have a massive ecological and environmental disaster to deal with on a global scale and no ability or will to deal with it.

I mean, you know, putting out oil fires is extremely difficult and complicated. Yeah, and it's it's not like, you know, the Exxon Valdez where you just, you know, everybody just runs there and starts taking Don dish soap and cleaning off animals. This is an active war zone. Right. You can't get there. Right. And you need incredible amounts of, you know, brilliant engineers and, you know, amazing, huge amounts of demolitions, well placed to cave in the hole so that you start, you have a chance of putting out an oil or a gas fire.

But it's not, it's no, it's no piece of cake. The one in Turkmenistan that we talked about, it's been going since 1971. And, you know, what, we didn't talk about Centrelia, Pennsylvania yesterday. Oh, right. Centrelia, Pennsylvania is a, it's a ghost town now in the middle of Pennsylvania. In the 1950, the whole town sits on top of a seam of coal, right, by two minutes coal. And in the 1950s, somehow the coal caught on fire. Somebody dropped a cigarette or knocked over a lantern or whatever, but in the 50s, it caught fire.

Even static electricity could do it. Even static electricity, it is still burning. And if you've ever, you can still drive through Centralia, the whole place is abandoned. Nobody lives there anymore. But everywhere you look, there's just smoke coming out of these holes in the ground. And it's going to burn for the next 500 years. It's insane. Is there no political will to fix it?

No political will at all. They talked about how they would do it. You know, you could put, like they put out the Kuwaiti oil fires. You put Rolls-Royce jet engines above the holes and then blow them out. Oh, wow. But even that, the seam is so big. It could go for miles. It could go for hundreds of miles.

We don't know. Yeah, a lot of that part of the, yeah, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania have a lot of caves. It's kind of like all my God underneath. Oh, we used to do that on weekends. Just go caving, spalunking. Yeah, yeah. Your caves. Yeah.

Good time. Yeah. Definitely for awesome for kids. Hamas, let's talk about that. I mean, you know, Hamas, they're sitting pretty. You know, it's been two and a half years since October 7, 2023. You know, the Israelis flattened Gaza, but they didn't flatten Hamas. They're still the only game in town. And it's and seems like they've been really, they feel like their take is Israel is bogged down in Lebanon and in Iran.

they don't have time to deal with us. They're not going to be able to deal with us. We're still here like cockroaches. You can't kill us. But they're being told, nevertheless, as part of the ceasefire deal, hand over all of your weapons. And they're like, yeah, we're not going to do that. Not anytime soon. I mean, what's going to happen is there's a deadline, right, approaching for these negotiations.

Yeah. I mean, can Israel? Like, I mean, I suppose they could go back to genociding. I mean, it's not exactly a target-rich environment anymore in Gaza. No, there's nothing left to blow up. They've blown it all up. So what do you think's going to happen there? I think that as crazy as it might sound,

Hamas is actually in the catbird seat right now. Hilarious. The Israelis can't force them to take this deal because they're preoccupied in both Iran and Lebanon. Asbalah's putting up a tougher fight than the Israelis had expected. Not to say that Hasbalah's winning. They're not. They're getting creamed.

But they're fighting back. There are almost one million Lebanese on the run right now, internally displaced with nowhere to go, because they're surrounded by Syria on two sides, Israel on one and the Mediterranean Sea on the fourth. so there's nowhere to go. So, you know, for me, the big takeaway of all of this, the big meta headline is, Air Wars are overrated.

You can say that again. All right. So we do. For one second real quick. We all sent around footage yesterday of an F-35 being hit by Iranian ground fire. At first, people were saying, no, it's AI. it's bullshit, it's a stealth fighter, they're invisible. No, the Iranians hit it.

And not only did they hit it, they wounded the pilot to the point where this morning, the Pentagon released a statement saying that he made it back to an airbase in the Middle East and that he's in stable condition. So he's admitted to the hospital. He's been wounded. But nobody is saying, why, how, the Iranians, whom, to use the president's word, we have obliterated, he said it twice yesterday, how they were able to hit an invisible plane that is the state of the art of the American force.

True. Another question is, why didn't the pilot eject? Yeah. Well, probably because he didn't want the Iranians to get the plane. They would turn it over immediately to the Russians and the Chinese and then we're screwed. Yeah, well, and I, you know, my, my father, you know, was in the Air Force and he, project manager for a lot of these fighter projects. And he said, one of the problems is that the fighter pilots really don't want to eject. Like they want to, they're, they're so trained to try to fix every problem to the last second that sometimes they wait past the last second. And they're just so, they're so like in love with their, their machine, you know, they just don't want to let it go. It's like captain of the ship.

Let's do some questions from yesterday. Hocko, thanks for the $799 Australian dollars. Trump points the finger at Israel for the attack on South Pars. A sign of the relationship fracturing? Is Trump trying to back off by shifting focus? I don't think the relationship is fracturing. I think there are always disagreements in times of war. And I think Trump is probably getting a little sick and tired of Netanyahu pushing all the blame onto him.

I think that's what it is. Yeah, I think that's my take, too. So here's a super chat from March 18th when John you were out. Hey, John, I'm a 21, and by the way, thanks for the 1999. Hey, John, I'm a 21-year-old student pursuing a career in intelligence analysis. What degrees of study would be the most applicable to the modern day, in your opinion? What information and media should I be consuming? Sorry, it's so small, to familiarize myself with the world of analysis.

Thank you. That's a great question. I would focus on your geographical area of interest. For me, it was the Middle East. Some people devoted their whole lives to Latin America, Eurasia, China, whatever, become the go-to person on that issue. And honestly, consume everything, everything. I don't mean, you know, go to info wars and watch people floaty for two hours every day. day. But in your field, in your area, be sure to get everything. I would even force myself through

you know, foreign affairs magazine, which is sometimes so dense. And the article is usually written by people who have never actually created or implemented foreign policy. They've just studied it. But you have to know what everybody is saying. And, you know, oftentimes, and I mean this literally oftentimes there are issues that I know I'm going to have to comment on that I just simply haven't formed an opinion on. And so I need to see what other people whom I respect are saying so that I can form my own opinion. Yeah, about foreign policy. I feel like that's like why I used to like to read time in Newsweek just to know what mainstream middle America was being spoonfed. Foreign policy is like what the Beltway is thinking. Exactly right. Exactly.

A few, like a month or so ago, foreign policy basically started admitting that Ukraine had lost the war. And that's like, well, that's sort of, you know, you and I were talking about that years ago. Years ago. But like, you know, basically it's like, okay, so that means the establishment has accepted it. Pink Lady Apples, 83, thanks for the $5. Hey, Studs. John, are you going to do a book signing tour with your new book coming out? If so, could you please come to Atlanta or North Georgia?

I need a selfie with those gorgeous dimples. You guys are like that. I get it. Oh, geez. Thank you. I got to tell you. Tony Lyons from Skyriss Publishing called me the other day. And he said, Tony is the owner, the publisher. And he said, you're everywhere in my feed.

You're on, you're on Instagram. You're on TikTok. You're on YouTube. And I said, I know, I can't figure it out. You know, this kid cut my videos up. And, you know, I told him the same story. everybody else. So he said, we decided to republish your, your three books, the CIA Insiders guides to surveillance and surveillance detection, lying and lie detection, disappearing and living

off the grid. But we're going to do them in one fat book. Can you update them? And I was like, yeah, I guess so. When do you want to buy? He's like, Saturday. I said, I wonder 50 pages. I can't do it by Saturday. He said, he said, Tucker Carlson's going to write the introduction. I said, said, oh, nice. I'll call him and thank him. He sent it the next day. Wow. So I call him. I was like, you wrote the introduction in one day. He's like, well, it's not that long. Yeah, he said, I just dashed it off. But you need to get this book out. I said, we actually don't. It's all still in print. That's true. We want to repackage it and update it. So I'm going to do that. They want me to update the CIA Insiders Guide to the Iran crisis, which is going to be a bigger work since

were at war. I've got the cemetery book that was supposed to be out actually in four days and and now is postponed two months for reasons that are inexplicable to me. And I've got the mafia book that is done. I'm just waiting on a release date. And now I'm writing a book of stories. I've got to get all my stories all in one place and release that. So it's going to be a big, a big book year. But yeah, you know, now that I have a really great literary agent, I'm hoping that my books from now on will be published just by one of the big five.

And my best relationship is with Simon & Schuster, since they've done several of my other books. And so Simon & Chuster, Random House, Penguin, Knopf, all those guys, Putnam, They have PR budgets. And so they will send me on a book tour. It won't be extensive, but I'm going to do my best. Yeah, book tours are good. Yeah.

Decatur, Georgia, has a great book festival. Really? Yeah. L.A. does too. Yeah, that's true. John, I've been reading Directorate S by Steve Cole. From your experience, where does it get the CIA, Pakistan, and Afghanistan war right? And where does it miss nuance?

Thanks for the and thanks for the five dollars, Ryan. Thank you, Ryan. I hate complimenting Steve Call. Steve Cole wrote an article about me in the New Yorker called The Spy Who Talked Too Much. And I wanted to punch him in his face. And that was after I welcomed him into my home and he like held my kids. Well, what did the article say? You know they don't always write the, the author doesn't write the headline.

Yeah. And he said that to me when I called him to yell at him. from prison, no less. That's true, though. I know, it's true. Yeah, I never, ever write my own headlines. Never. Yeah, I always suggest one.

They almost never use it. Twice. I've suggested headlines that people have used at both times at consortium news. But Steve Kahl is actually one of the country's great writers, one of the country's great investigative journalists. And in addition to being an investigative journalist, he's the dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia. Mm-hmm.

So he's a very big deal. That book was excellent, I have to say. And I'm not sure he missed nuance. I think he pretty well got it. I read one of his other books, and I did like it. Yeah, I wanted, as I read it, I wanted to criticize him, and I couldn't. He didn't write the headline, John. $4.99, thank you so much.

I work at the EPA, and I'm wondering what you think about the EPA rescinding the greenhouse gas endangerment finding. Thank you. hashtag pardon john oh thank you yeah i i i lose sleep over these over these issues i really do um and the only solace that i take is something that i told a friend this morning there's only two and a half more years of this like even if a republican wins it likely won't be as bad like with the wholesale deregulation across the board deregulation and you know putting up statues of slave owners in Washington, D.C., which they announced yesterday they were doing. And trying to make it so married women can't vote.

Yeah. Charging people with murder for taking an abortion pill, which also happened yesterday, changing the name of the Kennedy Center to the Trump Kennedy Center, minting a gold coin with his face on both sides. Yeah. Turkmenbashi. Yeah, it's Turkmenbashi all over again. I mean, John, the thing is, though, even if we were to get President AOC,

which I don't think we're going to get. But if we were, you know, you and I both know Democrats wouldn't roll back most of that stuff. No, they wouldn't because they're because they're cowards. Yeah. And because they want the power and authority for themselves. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is like, you know,

Joe Biden did not roll back much of the Trump first term stuff at all. No. In fact, Joe Biden never reestablished relations with Cuba, which had been the crown jewel of the Trump. Trump, Biden, foreign policy. Steve, and thanks for the two Canadian dollars. Ted, are you in a bathroom? No, I respect my viewers too much to be in a bathroom while doing a show. If you so.

It looks like you are. I understand the question. Thanks for the dollar. Shout out to Qatar for the worst return on a $400 million bribe, the airplane to Trump. I forgot about that in modern history. That's true. If you so, your dollar is well-placed. Royce Bet, 1999.

Hey, John and Ted. I'm a U.S. Filipino citizen. My question is, how is the war in Iran going to affect the U.S. Philippines alliance? The Filipino people are suffering from the effects of this war. I'm wondering how the Filipino, do you know why Filipinos would be suffering? U.S. Philippine relations are very close right now. I think the Philippines imports all of its oil. And people are poor there.

And this is just going to just push people into misery. And they have a lot of light manufacturing, like cheap clothing and stuff like that. That's also going to be affected by this. Yeah. I don't know. I can't believe, I can't imagine that the conversation yesterday between Trump and the new Japanese prime minister was terribly warm, not just because he mentioned Pearl Harbor, but because Japan imports literally 100% of its oil.

They have zero oil or natural gas. Which is how Pearl Harbor happened in the first place, because we had a U.S. naval blockade of oil imports to Japan. That's right. And the Japanese were desperate, and they were basically trying to bloody our nose and tell us to fuck off and leave them alone. Yeah, it's true. So, Bryson, thanks for the $999. Third Super Chat this week.

Thank you for the, love the show. Thank you for your support. How would you both rank Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden? That's a good question. And if you had to live under one of those presidents for the rest of your life, God forbid. Which would you choose? Oh, my God.

What a question. It's a great question. Well, Biden was having no president at all, basically, I would say. Yeah. Everything was on autopilot. Yeah. I mean, so that's pretty rough. I mean, I guess you could say it's a tribute to the American system that you could survive that.

Yeah. I feel like Trump one and Trump two are two totally different animals, so those almost have to be separated. I hated George W. Bush. I hated Barack Obama. I'm going to have to say I'd go with Barack Obama because he presented the, least bad outward-looking face to the world, even though he was busily droning people in places like Pakistan and, you know, pissing people off all over the place that we didn't know about. But still, Bush, I thought, was reckless. So I guess I'd go with Obama, even though I really,

I can't stand him. You know, what, in good conscience, I just can't with Obama. Because of what he did to you personally. He prosecuted me, and not just me, but seven other whistleblowers. Yeah. He's the worst, harshest enemy of whistleblowers in American history. And the worst part is that was peak brunch Democrats, too. You know, everybody went home and put their protest signs in the closet because Obama was president.

Yeah. And Robbie's pointing out in our chat that it was Obama who destroyed liberal. I would add. It was Obama that destroyed Syria and Somalia, too, in part, Somalia. And Honduras. And Honduras, that's right. Thank you, Hillary Clinton. Yep. And he appointed not just Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. So no thank you.

Bush was a war criminal, so that's a heart no. Yeah. Trump, I mean, what are you going to say? Biden, you're right, the country was running itself. for me personally, the least damaging of all those presidents was Joe Biden. That's true. Least damaging. You know, what a choice, huh?

It's like, do you want to punch you? The economy was pretty good under Trump won. Pretty good. But then the way he behaved recklessly with COVID, bizarre. You know, I mean, on the other hand, I give him credit because I don't think, I don't think President Hillary Clinton would have approved the vaccine. vaccine, you know, to go so quickly. You don't think so. I do. I think Democrats, they would be so obsessed with the testing process, be like, let's take

five years. Do you remember those idiots, some married couple in Arizona? Trump mentioned something about, I forget what, and it happened to be an ingredient in their pool chemicals. And so they ate the pool chemicals and it was died. Yes, I do remember. the Darwin Award goes to. Wilmer 80, whatever happened to the Darwin Award.

Do they still do that? It used to be one of my favorite things. I used to love that thing. Vilmer Air 8791. Thanks for the two Canadian dollar. What are the odds that Trump brings up Hitler to the German Jetsler? Not zero. Yeah, not zero.

It should be zero. Sean, thanks for the 499. And to think Qatar, okay, donated that expensive plane only to get bombed by Israel and Iran within a year. Great minds think alike. Bailey, thanks for the 499 pounds. I'm interested in your opinions on Pierce Morgan, especially regarding his false publication of U.S. troops torturing Iraqi prisoners. You know, I have to say that I've kind of come around on Pierce Morgan. I loathed Pierce Morgan.

I really did. And then his producers started how to... me to go on the show. And I went, and he treated me really well. And then a couple of times ago that I went on, I was on with Scott Horton, and I have the deepest respect for Scott Horton, libertarian Scott Horton, not the Atlantic monthly journalist Scott Horton, although he's okay to. But I was on with libertarian Scott Horton, Alan Friggin Dershowitz, and General Dan

Danny Ayalaan from the Mossad. And in the end What a group. Oh, it was harsh, man, and they were at each other's throats. And I was just kind of sitting there watching the whole thing play out. And then finally Pierce says to me,

John, we haven't really heard from you. He says, do you consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization? And I said, I didn't until October 7th when they attacked civilians. Fair. I believe that they were a liberation organization.

But when they murdered civilians, yes. Agreed. He says, do you believe October 7th was a terrorist attack? I said, in part, yes. Well, then what's your position on Gaza? I said, the Israelis are wrong and they need to get out of Gaza immediately. I said, listen, Pierce, the bottom line is this. You can't have as your policy, kill everybody.

That's the definition of genocide. And if anybody should know genocide, it should be the Israelis. And then he said, and I was very heartened by this, he said, I've finally come around on this issue, and I have to agree with you. And he's been Joe Zionist from the very beginning. Yeah, I've seen that transformation with peers also. You know, I mean, again, you know, one would hope that you'd have the moral clarity to see something like that. on, you know, October 8th, 2023, but better late than never, seriously. Yeah, yeah.

Trump thanks for, sorry, yes, yes, thanks for the 1799 Emeraldi Diram. Trump rarely makes an unwitted political mistake. If you had to guess, I wouldn't say that's true. What's a mad genius strategy we might not see? But I'm just going to push back on that. The Save America Act is a mistake. and his opposition to vote to mail in ballots during the pandemic was a huge contributing factor to his defeat.

So he makes mistakes. But, okay, genius strategy that we might not see. Let's take that question at its face value. I believe that he believed Netanyahu's propaganda that if we decapitate the Iranian government, the whole thing comes down like a house of cards. And I think that he believed that was the genius strategy. And instead, he's gotten us into a war that we're not getting out of. Remember, to win, we need to wipe out the entire Iranian government and military, which is not possible,

and install a pro-American or pro-American and pro-Israeli government, essentially a puppet government. It's not going to happen. And anything short of that is an... American-Israeli loss. What the Iranians need to win is just to survive the war. And they're good to survive. John, one more question we'll bring in Robbie. He has some stuff to talk about. What would you say, I mean, to my theory that he's kind of, Trump has kind of lost his superpower. He spent much of his first term still doing rallies, which was weird, you know, campaign. a president continuing to campaign.

But it kept his ear to the ground, maybe not with America, but certainly with half of America, with the conservative half. And now he doesn't do that anymore. No more rallies. I feel like he's out of touch now. He's firmly wrapped in D.C. in Beltway bubble wrap.

And I think that's fucking him over. I think that's right. Yes. Okay, one more. So, and thanks for the 1999. Good morning. if you were to have dinner with John Brennan at Philomena in D.C., what would you get off your chest? The same for Ted, lunch with your L.A. Times boss.

What would you ask and would it end with a handshake? Hashtag closure. Great questions. John, you go first. Somebody asked me yesterday, we were talking about somebody that we mutually hate. And I said, I can literally count on one hand. number of people in my life whom I hate. And I said, I hate John Brennan. I wouldn't have that meal. He came up here yesterday on the show, yeah. Yeah, he did. I wouldn't have that meal with Brennan. I wouldn't shake his hand. And frankly, I'll say this and I won't say anymore. I am working very hard right now to see that he spends much of the rest of his life.

prison. If you could say something to him, what would you say? Shame on you. Monster, ruiner of families and lives. The thing I would say, I have no idea if we would end up with a handshake or not. I wouldn't know until I went into it. I certainly would sit down with Austin Butner, but I would ask him, did you give any thought whatsoever to the damage you were doing to me personally as a human being and to this institution, the biggest newspaper in the state of California that's like, did you give that any thought at all? I would want to know that.

All right. With that, let's bring in Robbie West. Robbie, thanks for coming on and filling us in on what you have to fill us in on. Yeah, no, of course. This would be really quick. y'all over on rumble John's newest premium episode is up

talk about how he became a internet superstar it is a rumble exclusive so what y'all need to do if y'all over on YouTube come on over to rumble I promise you the weather is fine the water's okay it's not frisid like it is here in Montana and y'all can see all of

their premium content here on rumble you can become a rumble subscriber for $10 a month or if you just want to support D-program and then just support John and Ted, you get on a live stream for just $5 a month, and they keep 100% of those proceeds. Rumble does not take a dime if you become a channel member,

which is huge. And also Rumble pays on based off their watch hours as opposed to ads. So they actually earn more money for you watching here on Rumble, just the way that the business models work. And lastly, John, for you, more of his content will be going up on his official rumble channel today including shorts his channel's really taking off as exploding so thank you everyone that's supporting that supporting them and also john do not feel bad about hitting john brennan one of the things that people have a big misconception about is that they think that christians are commanded not to hate we're not commanded not to hate we are commanded to hate our brothers and no and to pray for enemies but we are allowed to hate enemies we're not commanded we're not to hate our brothers and no and to pray for enemies but we are allowed to hate enemies we're God and John Britain is 100% that. So hate away. Thank you. And I have a rumble page too.

Yeah, he does. Yep. Ted Rawl. So come on over. I'm working on his channel now too. Thank you, Robbie. Do we have an ad? We do. I'll throw it off for you. Thank you. All right. Well, in the meantime, while Robbie's doing that, we'll take another question. Thanks for the dollar from Desert Fox. Breaking News within the past four hours, Ansar Allah has announced that they are getting involved and we'll start joint operations with Iran. Joint operations are going to be hard since Ansar ala is in northern Yemen and Iran is in Iran and never the two shall meet.

But good luck. Coordinated? Maybe if that means attacking, you know, shipping in the in the Red Sea. You know, 90% chance, I would say. Yeah, we've been down that road before. and they're going to get the daylights bombed out of them. Yes, they will. Rain Man 77.

Thanks so much for the 99. Do you think that the American Empire is over? I don't see any way that we can continue to afford this. Is the economy permanently cooked? The empire is on the ropes, I would say. Over or no? Certainly not. I agree.

Kevin Mills, thanks for the $30. Your favorite retired Oregon sheriff here. No question. Just wanted to say on. Hey, yes. Yes, welcome. Thank you. Go Oregon. Toast to God. Let me interrupt you. He's the one who agreed with me and said, don't talk to the police. That's right. Say, I'm represented by counsel and I don't talk to cops. I like it.

Toast to God, 99. I saw Nuremberg the other day and thought, boy, how the tables have turned. Israel is currently moving like the Nazis and it's extremely weird. You can call it. an anti-Semite for pointing it out you know for years I I I hesitated to say what I'm about to say and now I'm really convinced that the Israelis really were they really were inspired by Nazi Germany in terms of their tactics you know the the the retaliation against family members against people who resist them the humiliation all that stuff is very very similar oh we got to go do this now lose the ad all right let's go do that sorry about that that. Today's sponsor is Chicago Steak Company, and they're giving away four free stakes on every

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These are six-ounce top sirlines with a cracked peppercorn and bourbon rub, lean, beefy, bold flavor. Throw them on a hot grill and they're done in minutes. That's $160 in free steaks. $15,000, five-star reviews. These guys are the real deal. my Chicago stake.com slash rumble code BPSIR free that's BPSIR free link in the description all right cool so yeah thank you for that John um oh yeah Nuremberg so do you want to address the Nuremberg thing yeah I have to agree with you I think that the Israelis learned a lesson and um and history is repeating itself you know one of Tucker's uh producers reached out to me today and asked me to retweet a statement from a Zionist activist saying,

I've known Tucker for 20 years. The allegation that he's anti-Semitic is absurd, and then it goes on. I gladly, happily retweeted it. But this is where we are. Now, if you don't follow Benjamin Netanyahu's policies down the line, you're anti-Semitic. And that's a damaging, accusation. Very. How do you convince somebody that, no, I don't, I don't hate Jews. And then the allegation is, well, maybe secretly you do. So maybe you are anti-Semitic.

You know, no. That double-edged-human rights violations. And I hate Benjamin Netanyahu. That double-edged sword, John, is really, I think, now, finally, after all these years, It's coming back against, you know, the Zionist lobby because it really is causing real anti-Semitism. You know, it's coming back. And so the two things, and it's a real problem, and they're causing it. James Kelly, thanks for the five.

Do you think Israel's going to get what they want at the end of all this? Well, what they want is to disrupt Iran. they did disrupt Iran, but are they going to be in a more secure position? I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Like I said, this policy of just kill everybody. It's unsustainable.

And you just turn more and more and more people against you. Now, a clear majority of Democrats are siding with Palestinians. A clear majority of independence are siding with Palestinians. The Israelis are doing. to themselves. Young people are never coming back, too. That's the thing. It's just with the passing of time, as, you know, the people who support Israel, they're dying of old age. The people who are coming up, they don't support Israel.

I mean, time is not on the Israeli lobbies side. Just some dude, 99. Thank you so much. What do you think is the definitive breaking point for China's strategic patience? At what stage does their limited strategic partnership transition into overt combat? That's a good question. I think we're not, we're not near there. No, we're not. But we could get there one of these days.

Yeah, well, absolutely. David Young, thanks for the $10. With the midterm elections coming up, it should be a no-brainer for Democrats to vote against the $200 billion supplemental. Shouldn't it? Except for Federman, who has no brain. It should be a no-brainer. It really should be. It should be. I mean, it should actually be a no-brainer for Republicans, too, like Rand Paul. Yes. Pac-Man 10 bucks. Thanks so much. Do you think there's a

possibility or situation where Saudi Prince MBS is assassinated, given the geopolitical ramifications thereafter? John, I'm coming up empty, trying to think of any time that there were assassinations within the Saudi regime. Who was it? King Faisal was assassinated by a deranged nephew. And the nephew was immediately caught and immediately executed. But he had a long history of mental illness. So you're not going to get a situation like in, where was it in, was it Nepal or Bhutan?

Nepal, Nepal. Yeah, a nephew or the crown prince or whoever it was just wiped out, literally, he wiped out the entire royal family. Crazy. And I guess some of the guards must have been in on it or just ran away or whatever. I don't know. Do you see that? I mean, MBS's security must be top-notch. Yeah, he rarely appears in public, like actually out in public. He's very, very difficult to get to. And of any Saudi leader in the history of the country, he's got the best security. So he's probably okay. Reintzhan, thanks for the $799 Australian dollars. Is it, is all decent? and petrol being price gouged locally to you guys.

Yes. Here in Australia, they might investigate price gouging in fuel companies. Yeah, it's total bullshit, John, right? I mean, like, the gas that's currently at the pump was pumped and refined years ago. Yeah. Right. That's right. Hazel 50, thanks for the Fiver.

Much appreciated. DJ Dogg, 2000. Thanks for the $5. Howdy, John and Ted. I'm wondering if you both think Congress will reclaim any authority. God, I wonder that too. Do you see the executive getting only more powerful in the coming years? What does that mean for the future?

I keep thinking at some point, but there's no sign of it. No. That the legislative... Now, and the Democrats are the same way. Just as soon as a Democrat wins the White House, the Democrats are going to gladly concede whatever authority they have on Capitol Hill. 100%. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.

surprise if the Save Act were to pass. Yeah, exactly. FECO dollar, thanks, the vaccine was a money grab scam. Cady Catastrophe, $1.99. John, did you say remains of the day is postponed? Yeah, I talked to the publisher about it last weekend, and he said that this is not on them, it's on Amazon, that Amazon was just slow in the uptake to order from the warehouse. So instead of March 24th, it's like June 25th, I think. Yeah, makes me very angry. Claudia, thanks for the 5,000 Argentine whatever. I keep saying that. I'm going to have to look that up. Ted scooters, gasoline shortages and rationing are daily problem in Southeast Asia and the Philippines right now. Gas is beginning. Diesel expected for the next month,

directly hits tourist services. So people who live off it, the poor are always the first to suffer. John, you know, with the day that you were out, and Robbie and I were talking about. We were talking about how there's countries like Myanmar and Vietnam and Singapore that only have 30 days of gas level before they run completely dry. Taiwan, I think, has 100 days. I mean, that's going to roll around. That's going to come around sooner rather than later. The squeeze is really, it's hard to overestimate how harsh this is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is bad. It's like, you know, American, most Americans are like one medical disaster away from bankruptcy.

It's the same thing with whole countries in this case. These countries, as you said, like Singapore, Myanmar, Myanmar's a little bit more resourceful, I think. But Singapore, Japan, the economies will just screech to a halt. There's only so much oil available on the open market. And if it's not coming through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for at least, 30% of the world's oil supply, then their SOL. And then what do they do? I imagine the mullahs down in their bunker playing a 45 of the Rolling Stones.

Time is on my side. Just over on loop. They just have to hang tight because time is on their side. I mean, we know how to blow shit up, but that doesn't mean we know how to win. That's right. Soma, thanks for the 1799 Diorams. Great thumbnail. Why do you think Iran has been targeting Gulf countries so much more than Israel,

aside from the fact that we're much closer? Well, I think probably they don't have Iron Dome, right? Also. No, they don't have Iron Dome. So, you know, if you only have a certain number of missiles, you want to make them count? And aren't the Gulf states, I mean, Iran must view the Gulf states. States as traitors to them. Oh, yeah, to the Gulf states have always hated each other. And there was this uneasy, you know, coexistence. But if, if the Gulf states are going to, are going to sponsor and

house American, you know, troops and airmen and ships and all that stuff, then the Iranians are all in. And the Abraham, by the way, in the Abraham Accords must have driven them absolutely crazy. that was that's what added insult to injury yes um so let's talk about uh j d vance um i know we've mentioned it at the top of the show but do you think do you think that it's really true that like this war would be so unpopular that it would he wouldn't be able to rinse off the stink of it in 28 i don't think he has time to and he's gonna have to either break with don't know with don't Trump in two years. And I don't think he can survive that within the Republican Party. I think it would be far more advantageous for him if he were to finish out the term, go back to Wall Street, make

millions and millions of dollars, and just wait a little bit like Richard Nixon did. I mean, I always had this fantasy that Colin Powell walks up to the UN lectern says they gave me this speech, but it's all lies. The music starts to come up. Both parties nominate him. in 2004 for president, right? He runs unopposed. I think something like that might have happened, right? But I think if JD Vance were to like resign as vice president and say, in good principle, in good faith, I can't support this war, it's wrong.

But J.D. Vance, that doesn't mean he gets to become president, right? Because he's just not beloved. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, that's it. Even though we might agree with him and be like, good for you, J.D. Yes. what does it say and we're going to we have 30 seconds

45 seconds left what does it say that the Danes were so fucking worried that they were they shipped explosives to air strips in Greenland to protect themselves their territory from a U.S. invasion they believed

they took Donald Trump at his word. He said Greenland will be ours and they knew that they were going to have to fight this Goliath somehow. And so you might as well take the place down with you. Yeah, no, ball balls out, though. You know, I mean, I seriously didn't think they had it in them. Yeah. Kudos to them. Yeah, yeah, cool. Well, John, go and have a great weekend. It's the end of this show, but we'll be back

Monday as we are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. Please, we had a, if you missed it Yesterday, John and Scott Stantis and I had a good chat on DMC America. That's up on YouTube and Rumble. Go check that out. And please stay tuned for TMI with myself and Militian coming up right now. See you Monday, John. See you.