DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Grand Theft Oil | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 5, 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 ultimate holiday weekend media dump: the overthrow of a sovereign head of state of a country most voters can’t find on a map. • Regime change against Venezuela: President Maduro kidnapped, VP less compliant than Trump hoped, Trump says he wants to steal the nation’s oil. Will the UN, Congress, Europe or the Democrats prove less useless than usual? John and Ted explain what’s happening and predict what’s next. • Never too many new wars: Trump threatens to attack Greenland, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Iran. Which threats are real? Will Congress insist on its war powers, or impeach the president? • AI psyops are go: Images of Maduro in custody and of Venezuelans celebrating in the street have been debunked as fake, but does it matter? Oh, and Russia is jealous of Trump’s “special military operation.”JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!https://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. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and John Kiryaku. It is Monday, January 5th, 2025. Thank you for watching, sharing, and liking the show. Obviously, we've effectively overthrown the government of Venezuela. Good morning, John. Good morning. Good morning. I don't mean to laugh, but yeah. We've effectively overthrown the government of Venezuela. So that happened. Normally these invasions are prepared, John, with a lot of propaganda, right? We both remember the buildup to, I mean, look, I remember being in Afghanistan in late 2001, and I saw a U.S. APC drive by with a sign on it that said, Next Stop, Baghdad, 2001. We didn't go in until March 2003.

All of 2002 was spent ginning up propaganda about weapons of mass destruction and having the New York Times come on board and support all that. And then by the time that Bush actually went in, you know, it was approved of. Of course, obviously it didn't go well, and it turned out to have destroyed his presidency. But it started well. And it wasn't something that he needed to hide. Here, this was basically treated like a, holiday weekend media dump, it was done in the dead of night, basically, over the, over the,

you know, the New Year's holiday wasn't prepared for. There was no propaganda of, you know, of any import. Basically, we knew this, you know, like you mentioned, and I mentioned this before the show, John, but you very astutely last week pointed out that someone who had trained you at the agency told you very early on that you don't send carrier battle groups and tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of personnel, not to mention support personnel, stateside assigning them to this unless you plan to do something. So it's not a surprise, but it's shocking.

That's exactly the way to say it. Shocked but not surprised. You know, it's funny, I'm kind of the eternal optimist. I shouldn't be because because maybe I would be better prepared for life if I weren't always so optimistic about things. But not only did I know what you just said, I said what you just said.

You did. If you really want to know if the United States is going to invade a country, look at naval movements. We don't send a carrier battle group if we don't mean business. We sent a carrier battle group, the USS Gerald Ford,

and then we overthrew the Venezuela. government with that said until the very end ted i was optimistic because i kept telling myself but maga is supposed to be the anti-war party now right and that's why he keeps saying we need to give these people the benefit of the doubt on this issue of war and peace well no we don't anymore and another couple of things too you look at the uh you look at the responses from Republicans, especially Republicans on Capitol Hill. And they're almost uniform. They're celebrating, practically dancing in the streets over this, led by none other than Her Majesty Lindsey Graham, who is just repeating what he said 23 years ago as we were preparing to cross the border into Iraq.

so you know is maga is maga a real movement i'm coming to think that maga is another temporary flash in the pan just like the tea party was it came on strong and then it just vaporized and i i also came to the conclusion this weekend that donald trump did not create maga MAGA was created around the rise of Donald Trump. Do you remember about a year ago, Ted? Maybe not even a year ago. It was when we were first starting the show. You probably don't remember because it was a minor point.

But there was this conversation that we had about a complaint that Marjorie Taylor Green had made, about something that Trump had done. And we were talking about whether Trump, was MAGA. So whatever Trump said, that was the MAGA position, or whether MAGA was a movement and Trump was straying from it. I think our answer now is very clear. Agreed. And it's extremely dispiriting. I mean, you know, I think of the, I think we and I've alluded to this in the past, right? The Mantu's invaded China. Two generations later, the Mantu's were no more because China had absorbed them, right?

Maga conducted a hostile takeover led by Donald Trump of the GOP, but the GOP has now eaten MAGA. Basically, the neocom have won. You know, look, I don't think, I mean, George W. Bush had other regime

change projects that we don't talk about anymore, like the Kyrgyz Republic. That's right. Stuff like that. But still, he had two main ones, Afghanistan and Iraq. This is bigger, if we to pay any attention to him. I mean, you know,

the weekend, he basically threatened to attack Iran again. He said, Marco Rubu said, quote unquote, Cuba is in big trouble. He said, we have more harsher threats, no more amusing against Greenland. You know, it's just that,

right? I mean, so, oh, and also Colombia, and the president of the United States, a grown man told the president of Columbia he has to watch his ass that's a quote um this is a major u.s. ally by the way which and those aren't john's words Columbia has major u.s. ally status major non-nato ally status it's i mean so the whole thing is so i mean you and i neither of us suffers from trump derangement syndrome and you and i both have been optimistic about this president in certain respects, right? Like not, certainly not maybe

on economic policy or a distribution of wealth or health care, but certainly on foreign policy, which is super important. And also, you know, for example, RFK and, you know, and MAHA and stuff like that. And so, I mean, we don't suffer from TDS. We don't. I'm just going to say this, we haven't talked about this. I think now officially Donald Trump is really dangerous. And at this point, If I'm in the Congress, I'm thinking, we might need to impeach this guy. I don't think that they have the guts. I don't either. I'm worried on a number of fronts right now.

Like, I'm really, truly genuinely worried. If you are the president of Cuba, you can't sleep at night the last couple of nights, because you know you're next. And you're going to, even if they, we don't. invade directly we're just going to you know it's basically an oil embargo it's an oil embargo now is the time to squeeze cuba cuba i think cuba this is the beginning of the end for the cuban government but then you have to think about what the iranians must be thinking the iranians have to be absolutely panicking right now first of all benjamin netanyahu was here over the holiday what the heck did they talk about down there at marilago where netanyahu comes out

smiling, says it was one of the greatest meetings of his career, flies back, and we invade Venezuela, not invade Venezuela, but we cross into Venezuela and snatch Maduro. I want to add, too, a minor point. It was Delta Force that was sent in to snatch Maduro. They did so successfully without a single casualty. There were reports that a couple people suffered minor injuries when a bullet struck one of our helicopters, no big deal. As a matter of policy, Delta Force team member identities are classified at the secret level, right? They have to carry out their missions, their duties, they have to do it in secrecy,

and so their identities are secret. It was minutes before the leader of the Delta Force team was identified. He was identified, I'm sorry to say this, as Dimitris Kunduriotis, a Greek-American and direct descendant of Admiral Kunduriotis, one of the greatest heroes of the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire. You look at this guy's background, which the Greek press just laid out all over the Internet over the last 24 hours. this guy is a renaissance man he's a full bird colonel he looks like he's in his 20s obviously he's not but he looks like a kid full bird colonel accomplished finished carpenter a beekeeper raises his own honey of course you know volunteers to read to underprivileged children in his time off this kind of guy right um the pentagon hasn't said whether all this stuff is true or not but

the greek media have decided that the mitris kunditius is the hero of this thing and so while the greek government is saying eh you know you probably shouldn't go out and and invade countries and snatch their leaders but it's okay we support that you did this but you really shouldn't but okay but at least the guy who did it's a Greek and there's this celebration in Athens right now it's killing me in all seriousness though

in all seriousness though Cuba and Iran should be very very worried about where this is going I'm not sure why people are bringing up Greenland again I mean I know Trump did we're not going to invade Greenland we're not going to launch an act of war

against a NATO member country. I think that the idea is that if we bully the Danes enough that they'll just give it up or lease it to us for 99 years or something like that. But I think the focus now should be on Cuba and Iran. Agreed. Yeah, especially Cuba. Well, let me ask you a question, too. What do you think this does for Israeli plans vis-a-vis Lebanon?

I mean, this is, I mean, it does seem like, you know, Israel is trying to create greater Israel, right? The, I think the heat is off the Israelis for Gaza now because without a doubt, you know, all attention is not on it. In the same way, by the way, we should probably, you know, mention the Epstein files. We're probably not going to be talking about that for a little while either. The West Bank is well on the way to total. annexation. I think, you know, the Israelis would like to, my theory has always been the Israelis would like to basically occupy the southern third of Lebanon. They don't really need or want the whole thing, but they want that buffer. I think that's their thing. So I think they're,

I think they're going to choose a moment, and I think it's already been greenlit by Trump, and they're going to go in. I mean, it's not the first or the last time, right? I mean, I don't think, I think Lebanese independence is in real trouble. I think so too. I think so too. And this is going to get bigger and bigger because we have now no right whatsoever to criticize China or Chinese moves toward Taiwan. Or Russian moves towards Ukraine.

You know, I'm glad you brought that up because there's been a lot of reporting about how official, like, you know, basically pro-war, pro-Kremlin Russian news sources have been editorializing, you know, basically about how they don't really approve of the overthrow of Venezuela, which was, you know, a Russian friend. But they're jealous of the way it was carried out, the efficiency, the quickness, the rapidity of this, you know, special military operation, as they kind of jokingly called it.

And they, you know, and I think, but this, you know, the subtext here is also, listen, the U.S. has just completely relinquished any right at all to complain about anything we ever do. And, you know, morally, there's no, there's no semblance of a moral high ground because, you know, it's one thing to say, well, you guys invaded Iraq 22 years ago. It's another thing to say, you guys just kidnapped a sitting head of state like, you know, a couple of days ago. So who are you to tell us anything? And they're right. Right. Ted, what do you make of, what do you make of the fact that we've killed, we killed at least 80 people in this operation? Got to be more.

It's got to be more. At least 80 people, including at least 35 Cubans. And that we bombed and destroyed Hugo Chavez's tomb. What's up with that? Yeah, it's disgusting, right? I mean, it's like, it's not, it's like, you know, like the band Nirvana called it, territorial pissings. Not only are we going to get our way, but, you know, by the way, I got to say that this is probably a violation of U.S. law because the U.S. military is prescribed from hitting, from deliberately taking out any historically or architecturally notable sites during, during, in combat. I'm sorry, but Hugo Chavez's tomb is a historically notable site in Venezuela. And it seems like that would be not just desecrating, you know, a revered figure there under the current

government, right? I mean, he basically founded the current government, the Bolivarian Socialist Republic of Venezuela. So I think it's against the law for whatever it matters. But John, all of this is against the law. Yeah, it is. There's no moral, I mean, there's no legal basis for any of it. I mean, it's hard to even know where to start with all the law breaking, but seriously. And there's a, there's a law that when you launch a military operation, you have to inform the leaders of Congress. Just wanted to get to that. And they didn't. And they, and they didn't, and they inform the leaders of Congress. They didn't even go. And I always thought it was a cheat to go to the gang of eight and say, well, we went to our eight buddies and we told them. And that's, that's been the way it's

been for the last few decades. I've always objected to that. It's bullshit. That's not in the constitution. There's, there ain't no gang of eight in the constitution, right? That's right. But the thing is, but still, okay, so they didn't even do that. Rubio, I mean, Rubio to me always looks like a guy who knows better, but is doing it anyway. That's just sort of the vibe I get. But on this, though, this just has Rubio written all over it. Oh, yeah, especially the Cuba part. Especially. He's got a hard on for Cuba, even though Castro is long dead. And so, like, so, I mean, yeah, we get him to, so I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Rubio. Yeah, so Rubio, yeah. So Rubio, he goes on yesterday onto the morning talkies, and he says, you know, basically, well, we couldn't tell Congress, John, because after all, you know, they, this is, this is a sensitive military operation. I'm like, well, they're all sensitive military operations. I mean, you know, D-Day was a pretty sensitive military operation. I think, you know, declaring war against Imperial Japan was a sensitive military operation. I think the Doolittle raid was a sensitive. They're all sensitive, right?

So basically what they're saying is, well, we can't tell, we're not going, this is basically effectively telling Congress, we will never inform you of any impending military operations. Like, those days are over. You guys are gelded. You guys are your cucks. You guys now, you know, I don't know what they're good for. They might as well just pass an enabling act like the, you know, like the Reichstag did for Adolf and be done with it. You know, that was the law that just said everything that Hitler proposes is automatically rubber stamped. Right. There's even, There's even more to it here. Over the past several years, whether the Democrats were in charge in Congress or the Republicans is irrelevant.

But over the last several years, Congress has consciously ceded authority to the executive, right? We have the strongest presidency right now in American history. No doubt. Congress is just secondary to everything. And really, it's fallen on the courts, the third branch of government. to say whether or not the executive can do something or not do something. Well, now all of a sudden, Congress wants to assert its authority. Well, guess what? Too late.

You don't have any authority. It's been taken from you or you voluntarily just gave it up. So too late for you. It's going to take a generation to rebuild this authority. They could take it back. They're not going to, John. You're 100% of a chance. But look, we're dealing with another, we're looking at another show.

shut down possibility, right? Yes, that's right. That extension expires, the CR expires in very shortly. So here we go again. So this would be the big opportunity for Republicans and Democrats who think the president's gone too far to shut down the government. Also, I think there's probably a little bit of buyer's remorse among some of the traitorous Democrats who basically ended up jacking up everyone's health.

care costs. There's an opportunity here for a do-over. The Republicans had promised that there was going to be, you know, of a health care vote. That never happened. No. Shocking. So, yeah, I mean, you know, they could do this. They do have tools at their disposal, is all I'm saying.

They're just choosing not to use them. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Even the big media outlets have reported on Mike Johnson being. the weakest speaker of the house in the history of the house, the weakest. And you know what? He doesn't care.

There was a piece in Washington Post two or three weeks ago about Johnson that there was some big bill coming up for a vote on Monday and people were just beating him up over it. He turned his phone off and went to church. That's what he decided to do. he's turned his phone off and went to church i mean yeah that's his model i look he he knew when he took the job that he wasn't going to keep it unless he unless he ruled like this right yeah um oh my god

oh by the way we do okay so we have an ad and uh robbie we need to come on and explain robbie because it's that time of the month it's that time okay so i'm going to go ahead and put and pop on robbie so robbie um let me first tee this up so um Robbie got a few months ago from his day job. And so we basically set up an arrangement with you viewers that if John and I and myself and you all kick in, we can make up at least part of what Robbie lost in his income and he can work for us full time. That he's been doing.

It's been helping to grow the show. We're now over 10,000 subscribers. The amount of income that's coming in is not enough yet, but it's increasing, which is what we like to see. And that's, and, you know, the technical aspect of the show is far improved now. So that's all thanks to Robbie, and that's all thanks to you guys. So every month at the beginning of the month, we ask you to go to GoFundMe and please basically kick in $1,000 or more. There's no opposition to that.

GoFundMe.com slash F slash deprogram Robbie. I don't know why the F is there. That's not Robbie's fault. But, you know, the FF is for, I don't know, famushed. Um, and, uh, anyways, just go there and, and we get a grand, uh, at the beginning of each month. And then we stop asking you until the next month. So this is the beginning of this month. And so Robbie, take it away and explain the whole thing. Yeah. So basically it's kind of like what they said. Um, it allows me to, uh, to work for them full time.

And I really do appreciate y'all support. Uh, y'all can see we got a, I got a brand new shiny web camera so y'all can see me without the fuzziness. It is very clear. It is nice. So now you know it's your favorite right-wing, I guess, producer looks like, without the fuzzies. And also, just real quick, we are currently number eight on Rumble. We are killing it. So this is all thanks to y'all. And without your support, honestly, I couldn't be here. So thank you.

All right. So the URL is gofund me.com slash F slash D program. Robbie, if you are driving or something, and it's very easy to just go to GoFundMe.com and search for deprogram Robbie, one word, and it'll come right up. So thank you, Robbie, and we will get, oh, Robbie, well, I've got you. Maybe you can repeat what you were saying before the show about like the, how American laws, the implications of American laws supposedly applying overseas to countries like Venezuela. Yeah, well, the entire debate over birthright citizens, stems from the 14th Amendment and whether or not no people who are born in the United States or at least in territory claimed by the United States are under the jurisdiction of the American government. Because if you are, then you get citizenship. That's how slaves got citizenship after the war between the states. Well, if the United States can decide that Venezuela or any other country for that matter is subject to U.S. drug law or any kind of U.S. law, then by definition, the people of that

country are under the jurisdiction of the United States government. In which case, they should all be citizens of voting in American elections. Not necessarily, though. This idea of snatching people overseas, it began during the Reagan administration after the Kiki Kamerana case. Kiki Kamerina was a DEA agent who was kidnapped by what was then known as the Guadalajara cartel. And he was he was tortured over the course of a month and then executed. Congress passed a law very quickly, allowing the FBI to make extrajudicial arrests overseas and bring people back for prosecution. So all the Trump administration needed to do to make this thing legal over the weekend

was to have one FBI agent on that plane or on a helicopter. as Delta Force did its thing. One FBI agent to escort the Maduro's back, and according to U.S. law, it's perfectly legal. Yeah, but that's crazy, though, because you... Of course it is. I mean, what you're talking about, you know, for example, in regards to Trump being that, and I agree with you,

I mean, before Trump, Abraham Lincoln was the most powerful executive in American history. I mean, the dude suspended the Constitution, let's be honest. Yes. Although, in his defense, he suspended the He suspended habeas corpus only in Maryland, only temporarily. He also deported a traft state. Yeah, he also deported a congressman. So let's not forget that. He deported a congressman from Ohio to Virginia.

So there's that. But the point I'm trying to make is that a lot of people think that MAGA are people like me. Maga are Trump cultists and sycophants? America first people like me despise what Trump has done and we hate him for it. This is a complete betrayal. We're going to have to talk about the domestic political implications to this, maybe starting tomorrow. I think there's still so much international stuff to unwind right now.

But thank you, Robbie. We'll be talking to you soon. Please, let's have that ad whenever you're ready. John, we have a lot of questions to get into. A lot. I guess before we do, I have one question for you. Greenland, Cuba, Colombia, Iran, Mexico. So which ones face imminent risk of military, direct military attack?

Iran. And it may come in the form of direct Israeli military attack, but I think Iran is in big trouble right now. And one of the reasons that Iran is in big trouble is because there are legitimate protests taking place in Iran over the state of the economy, which happens every couple of years, right? And they're not gigantic or anything. there were 15,000 people that were in the streets. In the U.S., that would be a big protest, though, John.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it would be. In Iran, it's not that big of a deal. But Donald Trump said something over the weekend that if any protesters in Iran are killed, that we will come to their aid. Well, 15 were killed over the weekend. So what does that mean? We're going to invade Iran.

We're going to allow the Israelis to bomb Iran. the Israelis have really ramped up propaganda Persian language, Farsi language propaganda over the weekend. Interestingly enough, aimed at the shortage of water saying that that in and of itself is reason enough to overthrow the Ayatollahs. We'll give you all the water expertise you need. We'll send scientists from Israel.

We'll do whatever we can to help you find water. They don't want the Israelis help find water or anything else. no but um but i if i were the iranians i'd be worried if i were the lebanese i'd be worried and if i were the cubans i'd be worried i'd be yeah i'd be extremely worried yeah no for sure um the uh all right so let's go ahead as promised and get into uh some of the questions that have piled up thank you for your patience everyone and i the first question is a great one van kutesh uh how do we tackle seclusion and the wrath of the establishment whilst standing for what's right. How much of it is spiritually guided and how much of it is raw rectitude? Love that question. That's a really

smart question. You know what? I'm going to give you the first shot at it. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, look, you've suffered more than I have. I've certainly been marginalized. I know that if my politics were different, you know, I probably, you know, would have had a Pulitzer by now, probably would be on staff at a major magazine. Without any question. And so, you know, look, it's a lot of it is, it's personality for me. I mean, I'm really, first of all, two things, and I'll turn it over to you, John. First of all, when I was a kid and I read stories about people standing alone, like, you know,

high noon, Gary Cooper for what's right, you know, I always took those tales very seriously, and also from history, people like Harriet Tubman or whatever, and just thought, Those people, I want to be a person like that. Rosa Parks. Yeah, they stood up. If I want to be, if it comes to a test, I don't want to be the piss. I don't want to be, you know, Speaker Johnson. I want to be fucking Ted.

I want people to say that was Ted fucking raw. And, you know, whatever else we thought of him, he wasn't a pussy. He stood up for what he believed in. So, so it was that. I mean, and then number two. We're going to, let me interrupt you. We're going to lose our ad. Oh, okay.

Let me read that ad. Okay. And then I'll talk you number two and then turn it. over to you. So I haven't tried 1775 coffee now as your shot. The 1775 starter kit just dropped. Only 1,000 units. You're getting the bold, dark roast that hits hard, the smooth, medium roast, and the vitality mushroom coffee for clean energy and laser focus. No crash. All single origin, small batch, toxin free and mold free. Plus, you're also getting a gold spoon clip because freedom isn't through plastic. A frother, strong enough to stir up your coffee and your mother-in-law's opinions,

and a black 1775 tumbler. $170 worth of coffee in gear is yours for 99. It's for the ones who've been watching 1775 blow up on rumble wondering if it's actually worth it spoiler it is go to 1775 coffee dot com slash studio and grab your starter kit before they're gone bold beans clean fuel and a morning routine that stands for something just like rumble does and my number two thing is honestly i'm a stubborn bastard it's a personality thing me too i can't fucking stand um you know people who um you know stand by and let shitty things happen i hate them and i would rather sleep outside in the fucking street than be one of those people and probably i'm stupid but that's basically even my ex-wife said the night of my arrest she said man if they thought this was going to silence you

they didn't know you at all that's what people told me about the la times like you know people the people who knew me they were like oh they thought they could just fucking roll you oh bring it on I didn't know who you were. Bring it on. That's right. That's exactly how I am. It's a personality thing, right? It is.

It is part like pig-headedness. I mean, I don't really look down. I do have contempt for people who roll over. I do. But I also, part of me also kind of admires them. I'm kind of a little bit jealous. Like, oh, people who can just go along to get along. Like, you know, sometimes I wish I could be like that.

It makes your life easier. Yeah. I've told you. Now, there's so much in the news, I won't go into a story. But yeah, you know, just I know I'm jumping out of order, but so many people have commented in the, in the chat over here about something. We've got to get to it. Yeah.

I have to say something really quickly. Over the weekend, the entire Greek IFR went down, the entire thing. All Greek airspace was closed. all planes were grounded nothing in nothing out it just went down that doesn't happen that's not an accident

somebody took it down I talked to the Greek media over the weekend a couple of times it gave a couple of interviews and I think all of us are of the opinion that it was the Russians this was a Russian operation the Greeks are all in on Ukraine

and for whatever reason Prime Minister Konstantin Mitsotakis loves loves loves Donald Trump. And so anything that the American government has asked of the Greek government, they've done it. There was a piece in the New York Times over the weekend that you sent to me about Kimberly Guilfoyle. We have never had an American ambassador in Athens as universally popular as Kimberly Gilfoyle. And she, there's this guy at Giroz, who's a major singing star, major, major pop star in Greece right now.

And she's friends with him. And so he performed at a club in Gleifada just south of Athens along the coast. And so she went to see him because she said friends support their friends. And there were some rumblings in the media. Well, she stayed out all night. And she said, this was the best quote in the whole piece. She said, I didn't stay out late. I was back by 3 or 3.30.

Like, that's not staying out late. That's a Hunter Biden lifestyle. But anyway, I've written two op-eds. I wrote one in 2017. I wrote another one a year ago about how and why the Greeks so deeply love Donald Trump. And I mean Greeks everywhere from the left to the right and everybody in between, they all love Donald Trump. And it's because they see him as somebody who cuts right through the bullshit. If he wants to do something, buy.

God he does it he doesn't make any apologies he doesn't ask any permissions that's and they think it's great they love it it's a personality thing it is all right john let's see if we can get through these questions because they are i mean not surprisingly piled they got right now okay thanks for the two bucks if you so now that the u.s empire runs venezuela will uh when will the saddling of i mf debt along with extreme poverty begin well we don't First of all, I just want to say, I'm glad you brought up this question because Trump said that we're going to run Venezuela. But the truth is the vice president and is now the acting president. She is running Venezuela.

And Rubio went on and just basically said we're going to run for the time being. We're going to run Venezuela through coercion. Basically, we're going to keep a, we have a choker collar on them. And every time they misbehave, we're just going to tighten the noose. It's, you know, I don't know about that, John. I think it's deeper than that. I don't think this was done on a lark. I think a lot of thought went into this.

I'm writing a piece right now for Covert Action Magazine. I've been working on it all weekend. Politics aside, whether or not you love or hate Donald Trump aside, there are very serious foreign policy questions. questions at play here. We touched on them a moment ago with, you know, this laundry list of countries that have to be genuinely worried right now. And I just got a question from Tempeo Howvo, T-E-M-P-I-O-X-A-V-O. So, John, tell me if I'm wrong here. Trump's trying to piss off Xi attest what his reaction would be, thus risking an economic escalation that would split the

world in half and could destroy Europe, China, the U.S. Yeah. I think that's right. And I think He's, I think. On the other hand, he's also giving President G permission to invade Taiwan. And I think that when push comes to shove, Trump doesn't really care about Taiwan. He doesn't. And I'm not sure he should. Yeah, I'm not sure he should either. I'm not sure why we so care about Taiwan when the Taiwanese government policy is that it is a part of China that someday will be, you know, reunified. And they don't have the balls to declare independence.

No. So what do we care? So, yeah, let's move on here. Nick Fuentes, Elliot Covert, Nick Fuentes has recently started to distinguish between MAGA and America first. Yeah, we've talked about that. That's true. Elliot, I hate to agree with Nick Fuentes. I seriously, seriously do, but he's right about that.

But right now, it's like MAGA has just had their dick cut off, and I don't know if they're going to be able to grow it back. FUSO, thanks for two bucks. Rambo Maga, final blood and Epstein distraction. Yeah, that's a good point. Let's talk about the Epstein thing. Is Epstein now for long gone, never to be talked about again? I kind of would be surprised. Epstein, who?

Yeah. Listen, there are charges now, very serious charges against Nicholas Maduro and his wife, Maduro facing 30 to life, the wife facing 20. How many pedophiles have been charged? because of the release of the Epstein documents. How many pedophiles have been identified because of the release of the Epstein documents? How about zero?

That would be correct. DarkWorks 88. Do we think removing Maduro and carrying out this action is anti-Maga or bad for the U.S.? What opportunity did this action give adversaries who were there to collect intel on our methods? I like that second one. Maybe you should go after that one, John.

That's a very good. good question. So look at this way, too. This was not the same as the operation to snatch Manuel Noriega back in 1989. In the Noriega operation, we actually invaded Panama. And not only did we invade Panama, people forget, Noriega had already taken refuge inside the Vatican embassy. In the Holy See, yeah. And so we began to torture using bulls, hordes and megaphones with you know death metal 24-7 beamed at the vatican embassy we tortured all of them in there until the vatican ambassador the archbishop told norega get out you got to go we can't do this anymore just get out somewhat reminiscent of asanj in the very much so in london so in london so

in this case in venezuela we didn't send you know 25,000 50,000 troops to occupy the capital city and another thing we did in panama that we didn't do is we made the panamanians disband the panamanian military there is no panamanian military anymore there's a national police force but there's no panamanian army frankly we did a favor there i wish someone would do that to us i know right um so uh i think that i think that this is that's a great question in that you know our adversaries will have learned something about American policy planning. But this is very different from 89. It's very different from 83 when we invaded Grenada and overthrew the government there. This was a lightning strike and we got everything we wanted. Look, the answer to the first

question, I want to say certainly it's anti-Maga. It's very bad for the United States. though. Very good. Because, I mean, and I think for a number of reasons, but topping out with the fact that we lose all moral authority, it's going to make us even, it's going to trigger more anti-Americanism, possibly terrorism against the U.S. and its interests. And it's also, it just puts us in a position where, you know, we, we basically, the American people can be blamed because we're sitting bypassively. There were no significant protests of any note since this happened over the weekend. The American people, you know, the American people, are passive and docile. The Democratic Party has nothing to say about any of this. So, you know, in the same way that people looked at Nazi Germany and said, oh, the German people are okay with all this. People around the world look at us and they're like, oh, the American people are okay with this. That's the part that terrifies me. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Question for you, John, from Phasmataz. Any idea of what's going on? Oh, yeah, we talked about the Greek airspace issue. I'm not going to repeat that. Okay, Greg Pattis, thanks for this question.

What will ultimately happen to Maduro? Well, what happened to Noriega? I think, yeah, what you see is what you get. They're talking about major high level on the federal sentencing scale. You're talking about a crime of between level, say, 36 and 40, with 36 being 30 years and 40 being the death penalty, the federal death penalty. He won't get the death penalty, of course, but it doesn't get very much more serious. than this i mean it's interesting right that like the stuff that they the casas belli to the extent

that they were ever cited by by uh by by trump did not match the indictment no right there's no mention of a fentanyl at all in the indict in the federal indictment because the fentanyl comes from mexico and china and even the drug running to the u.s is basically like a it's an afterthought right I mean, so, you know, basically it's barely met. Oh, Cartel de la Solis. I don't think that phrase appears anywhere in the indictment. No, I read the indictment yesterday. It doesn't.

Because it doesn't exist. Right. Hey, there was another thing, too. Did you happen to see that the judge, now so far, we don't know who's going to be the trial judge, but the judge that is a reigning Maduro this morning is 92 years old? Jesus Christ. And a Clinton appointee.

What the fuck? So what do you? Oh my God. I had an 85 year old judge and I thought I had my hands full in L.A. Oh, my God. Mine was 86 in my federal case. You know, as a 62 year old man, I would say you should, as a judge, you should probably have to retire by the time you're 70. I think about retirement every day.

I mean, I financially can't do it yet. but 92 years old, come on now. If I'm not retired, I mean, let me put this way. I doubt that I will be producing good work at the age of 92, seriously. Although anything's possible, but I doubt it. I'd probably be one of the few. If you so, thanks for the buck. No humiliation, no humiliation ritual like Perp walk for Maduro's wife.

By the way, I don't think Maduro takes it as a humiliation. Well, but you and I were talking before the show started. I think a lot of those photos were fake. They were AI generated. A lot of them were faked. Yeah, it turns out that the UK Guardian did, they have a team that now analyzes AI fakes, and they found that a lot of the Maduro in custody,

perp walk photos were fake. Also, all of the images of Venezuelan supposedly celebrating in the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities are fake. There were celebrations in, like, Miami, of like two kind of rotund Venezuelan ladies like dancing in the street, okay, yay. It's siobs, right?

But why did they arrest her, though? Why did they arrest the wife? What's the point here? The indictment, it says that she was complicit. She conspired with him to do X, Y, and Z. I'm not buying it. And I'm sure. They're going to use her to cut a deal with him

so that he pleads guilty. And she walks? Yeah, I do. I think that's the whole idea. So basically, and they'll let her go to Spain or, yeah, they'll let her go to Spain or go to,

you know, wherever she wants to go, just get out. Yeah, that's, it's, the whole thing is so gross. Tarik,

thanks for the money. I just finished watching the Seymourche Netflix documentary, which is great thoughts or anecdotes on him and what he represented. I want to watch that soon. You know,

side doesn't like, me. And I'm not crazy about Sai, just as a person. He's legendary, the Milai massacre, all that stuff. But I'll tell you one thing I don't like about him is that he will run with a story when he has one single source. And half the time, his story is debunked and then he looks like an idiot. Yeah. On the other hand, he's the great Syhurst. So we have to, we have to pay homage, you know to him but um i don't know size never liked me and i've never liked him i'm not a laura poitras fan because it seems like everything is always about laura poitris um i thought she took maybe one cheap shot at him in this uh in this uh documentary but i got my i got my sag um the sag awards

now it's called the actor awards list of nominees the other day she's nominated for best documentary she's always she's an automatic entry yeah yeah there's certain people i wrote a column about two three months ago about that how there's people who are in the protected class yeah like it's like in my world if art spigelman shits out part of a book it will 100% be like at the top of all the recommended reads and the New York Times and all that. Indeed. Because it's our feeling. Indeed.

Alex Gibb is exactly the same way. She is like that. Five bucks. I'm ashamed of the desecration of graves. So much for Christian values. Fear the man who does not fear God. I don't disagree. P. Vecchio, thanks for the money.

Does this support the Gaddafi principle? Don't give up your WMDs or you can get cooed. Well, Venezuela didn't have double. WMDs, but, you know, maybe they should have acquired them. I mean, I always think that Kim Jong-un is always like, this is what I fucking tell you. Exactly. Exactly. And I'll tell you what, if I were the president of Iran or if I were the supreme leader of Iran, I would say, we need a nuclear weapon yesterday.

Ramp it up. Yeah. Yeah. I would make that number one. Yeah, that's exactly what Elliot Covert just said. Angela Falaala, thanks for the five bucks. Yep, we talked about this. Do we think China was in on it? I mean, in a manner of speaking, right?

Man, how many, here we go, Langhorne Clemens. Are the French uniquely responsible for terrorism? Its origins in the French Revolution and the modern tactics as an outgrowth of the French treatment of the Algerians. So the terror, of course, you know, that followed was marked that basically marked the beginning of the end of the French Revolution. That's certainly true. But terrorism, I think, as we understand it, is really old as a tactic of war, for example.

I mean, think about the Mongols. The Mongols basically developed a reputation, like, you know, they would basically present themselves at the city gates and say, surrender and become our vassal state, and you all get to live, but you're going to have to pay us taxes. And if you don't, we will kill all of you, everybody torture you and we will rape your women in front of you and we will kill you violently and painfully yes they got that reputation basically it made it true and then it got to the point

where some cities just threw open their gates and they were in fact absorbed into the monocle emperor that's terrorism i mean that is terrorism it's like you where people are just like, you know, do you get the reputation for being fucking crazy and scary? Yes. And people do it, do whatever the fuck you know, you know, whatever the fuck you want. Let's see.

Okay, also let's do, let's bring in, let's bring in Robbie to talk about why we should bring in some people over to Rumble. So here we go, Robby. Hi, I'm back. So I'll make this short, sweet, and fast, especially since Ted keeps freezing. So the biggest reason is

Is that Rumble pays us a lot more than what YouTube does So a good way kind of think about it Rumble pays us based off of watch hours YouTube pays us off of ads So the more people that watch The longer than they watch The more Rumble pays John and Ted And it's really awesome

You know what kind of thinking about is like for every nickel That YouTube pays us Rumble pays us about 94, 95 cents somewhere in there So it's a significant savings or a pay boost for them. Also, you can get Rumble premium content that you cannot get anywhere else. And my cats here are trying to tear.

Let's talk about terrorism. My cats are terrorizing me. You can also get Rumble premium content here on Rumble. And also, lastly, if you value free speech, Rumbles the platform that did not demonetize John and Ted, that does not suppress John and Ted, whereas YouTube has done both of those things.

So if you value, you independent media, come to a platform that actually values independent media. Yes, and the cat says so too. So says the cat, so say we all. Okay, so John, this is for you. Oh, I think, yeah, you already answered that question about President G. Dalton Sparks, not sure if you all have discussed this yet, but what's your take on the U.S. charging Maduro with possession of machine guns, which I find interesting, as if a sovereign

nation cannot possess machine guns. And I just want to add before, John, you try to answer this question, that we, the only charge that the American Taliban, Johnny Walker Lind, was convicted of, was possession of an AK-47 in Afghanistan, where it's practically illegal not to have an AK-47. So, I mean, the countries are washing them. I mean, they go for like 150 bucks, maybe. We've all gone mad. Yeah. So, so what? Yeah, what is the legal basis here? Like, what the fuck?

I know we're not lawyers. The New York Times said yesterday that the government may have a tougher time than they think they will convincing a jury of New Yorkers that these things are crimes. I was very interested, John. Why do you think they charged in New York, which has no connection to any of this whatsoever, as opposed to the so-called national security? Court, which you've talked about over there in Northern Virginia, yeah, which would have been a rubber stamp for the government.

I think that because there is this, there has been a silly precedent that when we kidnap foreign leaders and charge them with drug crimes, like the president of Honduras, for example, New York is, in fact, the New York Times yesterday called the Southern District of New York the drug court. Right? That's the first time I had heard that, but it's, it's akin to the Eastern District of Virginia being the espionage court. So I think that that's, that's just what it is. That's where the expertise happens to be. And so they just did it, not really maybe thinking through that they're going to have a lot of New Yorkers who may think that this is bullshit. Oh, they also made a point, Ted.

that this is an extraordinarily complicated case and it's going to take at least a year just to seat a jury. And then the trial could last another year beyond that. This is going to be brutal. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine that like probably, by the way, he's going to be offered remarkable legal representation. Oh, the best legal representation in America. And I would think that his lawyers are going to have some fun with a lot of the statements that came out of this administration. I think so. That seemed to run completely in contradiction to everything that's going on here. By the way, we are at record viewership right now. It's just saying, he's giving us those numbers. Hey, great. So that's good to hear. A question for both of us,

what does this show the world now about what we've done in Venezuela and Trump making comments It's about us still wanting to take Greenland away from the Danes. I mean, we have touched on this. We should, we should. I mean, I'm not so, okay, so, John, you're right. If we attack Greenland, you know, obviously that we are now at war with NATO. Yeah, we can't do that. Because that is Denmark.

It is Denmark. That said, I mean, can we just talk about the, the, I mean, I know you agree with me on this, the recklessness of like, of throwing around idle threats about invading other countries that have done no harm whatsoever in on completely baseless terms of justification i mean how toxic is that thomas jefferson was the first president to deploy american troops to attack the barbary pirates yes but they really were barbary they really were inflicting on american shipping um you know i mean say whatever we want about Abraham Lincoln, you know, the South really did secede. That actually happened. But there is no Cartel de Las Stolas. There are no seas full of Chinese and Russian ships around

Greenland. These are completely made up things, the fentanyl. All these are just fiction. I mean, when you are, when you, how can you be taken seriously or should the U.S. be taken seriously as a country, much less the world's most powerful country? when it just throws around bullshit and then is willing to murder people and overthrow their governments over that on using that bullshit as a basis. Yeah, it's,

if there's a longer-term strategy here, I'm just not seeing what it is. I don't understand what the benefit is to the United States of threatening Greenland. of threatening the government of Denmark. Yeah, we have a base there. We don't need any.

We have a military presence. But the government of Denmark is one of the staunchest U.S. allies in the world. And we're talking about essentially invading Denmark. But it's the same thing that we saw during the, was it the Obama administration, the first Trump administration? I don't remember with the Hague Invasion Act.

saying that if any American citizen is arrested and taken before the international, what is it, the international criminal court of the International Court of Justice and the Hague, that we automatically authorize the U.S. use of military force to invade the Netherlands.

It's insane. And by the way, phrasmataz, I'm sorry, no, I have not heard of Emily Hughes, but I will look into her. The question was about this young animator. And it's possible that Elon and AI are secretly subsidizing her Sora animated YouTube cartoon series. I don't know. I'm sorry. I will look though. Thanks for the five bucks, Young Courthouse. And Young Courthouse wants to know, is there a case to be made for the international law that might defend this? I feel like

international law is often invoked, but rarely understood, including by me, that's a great question. That's a very good question. Well, normally under international law, you have the right to conduct hostilities against a foreign country if there's an imminent threat to your country of invasion or attack or maybe to, I don't even know if you could say to a, maybe to an ally, right, to an ally that's about that's about as far as it goes well it has caused an imminent threat from venezuela to the united states there are three there are three ways you can enter another country is if they are an imminent threat what's called a clear and present danger if you are invited by that country right that clearly is not true or if uh the action is authorized by the united

nation's security council that's it those are the three ways that you can you can invade another country speaking while we're talking about there's so many cucks to go around these days between the democratic party the gop let's talk about the u.n and the e u. um the u.n uh had the security council had an emergency meeting to do what they do best which is to jawbone um nothing will come out of this nope nothing ever does nothing ever does the ewe I thought it was very interesting to me that the EU, which has been at odds with President Trump on a number of issues, has had very little to say on all this. You know, President Macron doesn't seem to have much to say about it. What do you make of that?

Why do you think the Euros are keeping their holding their, holding their tongues? I think it depends on the country. The likes of Macron and, you know, the UK. think that they've just made a policy decision to let the Americans do what the Americans are going to do and not get sucked into it. For the smaller countries, like Greece, for example, I think that they see a real benefit in just cheering the administration on, joining it at the hip, and then hoping for the best. We've got to talk about this tomorrow. I wonder how that plays domestically in these countries.

In Greece, man, they are loving, they are loving some Donald Trump. That's all I can say. These are very strange times. And we'll be back tomorrow to continue the analysis and dissection of these very strange times. This is the end of D program with Ted Raul and John Curiacu. Until tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock a.m. Eastern time. We'll be back from 9 to 10 as usual tomorrow.

Please stay tuned. I will be discussing Venice. and a few other things on the TMI show with Manila Chan. As always, thanks for watching, liking, and sharing the show. Please don't forget Robbie Aid. Please kick, let's get to a thousand bucks quickly. GoFundMe.com. Go search for deep program.

Robbie, thanks very much. See you later, John. Have a good day, Ted. You too. Thank you.