DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Greenland Is Next | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • Under a 1951 agreement, the US can “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.” Will Trump exploit it to seize the island? • Trump says Venezuela will send 30 to 50 million barrels of oil — about two months’ worth of production — worth between $1.8 and $3 billion to the US. It is unclear if it would receive anything in return. Meanwhile, Russia has deployed a submarine and other vessels to escort an oil tanker — which is also being pursued by US forces — across the Atlantic. • Aldrich Ames, the counterintelligence officer for the CIA who spied for the Soviet Union and later Russia, has died at age 84. The 31-year veteran is believed to have compromised more than 100 intelligence operations and sent a number of Soviet agents to their deaths or prison, as he traded information for large sums of money that funded his lavish lifestyle. 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

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I don't know. ...you know, ...you know, ... Thank you. Hey there, you're watching the program with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou. It's Wednesday, January 7th, 2026. Good morning, John Kyriaku. Good morning, Ted. Good to see you again, buddy. Likewise. I always look so washed out and you always look so put together. I don't have any lights on or anything. It's got to be a lighting thing. It's got to be. You know, do you have one of those ring lights? Yeah, but it's off.

Oh, I thought maybe it was on too much. No, you look good. I don't. I don't. I just have natural light facing the east. I don't know. Actually, that's not, is that true? No, it's facing west. I don't know. I'm facing north. I don't know. Filtered light, filtered light's good. Maybe it's my naturally ruddy complexion. There you go. Something one of my ancestors didn't tell me about, you know. I thought I was all French and German, but you just never know. You never know. No, you really don't. Anyway, my French. Scott Stantis found out that he was like part Ashkenazi Jew and he had no idea. He thought he was just Lithuanian.

I'm like, you guys over there in Eastern Europe. That's normal. That's normal. There was someone to whom I was once very close who went through her entire life thinking and telling everybody she was French, French, French, French. And then as soon as that 23 and me came back, it was no German, German, German, German, German. Which she didn't like one bit. Although, you know, frankly, historically, genetically, they're kind of exactly the same. Right, right, right, right.

So, all right, so I always, people always freak out when I tell them where the word France comes from. Anyway, they can look that up. So we obviously are going to be talking about the ongoing lust, neo-imperialist lust of the administration to acquire half the world, like it's a game of risk. We're still talking about Venezuela. John, just as we went on the air, I'm sure you saw the breaking news. that U.S. forces finally boarded an oil tanker, a Venezuelan oil tanker, that they had been pursuing for months. By the way, I love this story. The United States wants to overthrow governments and run them, but it can't catch an oil tanker for months at a time.

Not known for its incredible speed. No, only in that movie with Sandra Bullock. Yeah, no, it was just like really, really funny. So, and meanwhile, another oil tank, so that oil tanker was wanted for supposedly carrying cargo to a company or an entity that was somehow linked to Hesbola, linked to being such an incredibly nebulous word, that's a different oil tanker, apparently, from the one that the Russians are now escorting, which I feel if that does set up, set the stage for a confrontation between, uh, Russia and the United States that I would suspect neither country wants. I would imagine not. We will get to that. So the New York Times is reporting that there's a 1951 agreement between the U.S. and Denmark that basically allows the U.S. to, quote, construct, install, maintain, and operate

military bases across Greenland, house personnel, control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operations of ships, aircraft, and waterborne aircraft. waterborne craft. I mean, it basically seems like the United States could de facto occupy Greenland anyway. But it already, yeah, and it already does. We've got the, we've got the military base there. It's been there forever. We can do anything we want. The whole of Greenland is only 50,000 people. So everything we could possibly want to do with Greenland, we can already do. There's nothing left. I mean, it's ours de facto anyway. So why, yesterday there was kind of an important development on this story, Ted.

The European Union, literally every country in the European Union sided with Denmark, every one of them. That's a big deal. That's a very big deal because we're talking about Poland and Hungary and all of the other pro-US, you know, less pro-EU members. of the EU. One of the EU analysts who, and I really liked this quote, I bet you saw this, this quote, said, you know, what basically the crisis that's set up here is, what happens when a NATO member turns out to be a wolf rather than a fellow lamb? There you go. And that's exactly the issue here. Yes. And last but not least, maybe I'm going to think one of the, certainly one of the most notorious spies in U.S. history, Aldridge Ames has died in prison.

at the age of 84. Obviously, I know you have a lot of opinions about this. You know, I remember him. He was one of those faces in the halls he'd see all the time. And I remember saying to a guy that I worked with, doesn't that dude ever work? Because literally every time I go, like, to the credit union, which is, you know, on the first floor of the old building, you go to the blind man stand to buy a pack of gum or whatever, literally every time I would leave my office, there was Ames, just kind of want.

wandering the halls. And I read in his obituary last night that he may have actually had brain damage from long-term alcoholism. That was one of the reasons why he sort of didn't get a break from the agency when he agreed to plead guilty because he couldn't remember all the bad shit that he had done for the Russians, for the Soviets before the Russians. Anyway, he died yesterday at age of 84 in the maximum security penitentiary called the Communications Management Unit at the federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland. One of the reasons why he is so notorious, and really that's the word, he's notorious, was because not only was he a traitor working for the KGB, but he volunteered.

number one and then decided that well you know what it's maybe probably not even maybe it's probably too dangerous for me to work for the Russians when we have spies Russian spies working for us I'm going to out all of them so they can't out me and all 12 were executed so this guy had a lot of blood on his hands, the blood of people who were, you know, working for the CIA, helping the American government. He was responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. And I'll tell you what, there's another spy who just got out of prison that nobody's talking about. And that's a former CTC colleague of mine named Nicholson. He did his 30 years and got out. But when Ames was captured, when he was arrested, Nicholson said, well, I've been turned down for promotion so many times, and Ames was just arrested.

The Russians are going to probably need a spy to replace Ames, so I'm going to volunteer. Wow. He outed to the Russians the names of 200 of us, including me. Wow. and so he got caught and was set a certain type of careerism you can say that again people are sick anyway but the bottom line is there eames had a lot of problems he was a chronic alcoholic he constantly got not fit for service ratings uh he did a tour at the u.N not fit for service he did a tour overseas not fit for service so they gave him a desk job but what's the desk job they make him

chief of the counterintelligence division a counterintelligence branch in the soviet operations division 23 people were identified for discipline um by uh james wolsey the director of the CIA 11 of them had very strongly worded letters put in their files they were ineligible for promotion for a whopping period of one year and and the rest just went on with their careers so to hell with aldrich eames i'm sure that he's already arrived there as i told you before we went on the air i hope he packed light because it's going to be hot there and um maybe he'll become reacquainted with the souls that he was responsible for uh for sending into the nether world perhaps so um yeah i mean so i you know was he like what was his personality like was he a pleasant fellow an unpleasant fellow or um you know he

was he was one of those rare deo introverts uh he always smelled the alcohol i remember that always like all day long um but i'll tell you one of the reasons why he was unpopular he was he was dangerous to be close to because you're not supposed to drink he drank constantly you're never ever ever under any circumstances supposed to have sex with one of your sources not only that he have sex with one of his sources he married her and then brought her in to spy against the united states with him she ended up doing five years she testified against him and she moved back to columbia um so he was unpopular for that and he was stupid too you know how he got caught uh he took a he took a huge amount of money from the russians two million seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars for outing the the dozen um agents who were

killed and then um like a moron he bought himself a multi-million dollar house right right walking distance from the cia which nobody could afford if you're working for government and then drove to work in a jaguar the next day and people are like whoa you just bought a three million dollar house walking distance from the CIA where none of us can afford to live and you're driving a jaguar and your wife doesn't work and you make 70,000 dollars a year and that's how he got caught he got caught actually that piqued their interest what got him caught was he was bragging to a colleague that he had put in an in-ground pool in the backyard and built a gazebo and then they were like okay that's enough we got to investigate this and that's how they caught him uh yeah i mean it's like it seems

so basic right yeah it is i've never been part of of this world but you know i know for example the way that the old school mafia lived in queens in like in modest houses in howard beach seriously you you go to al capone's house that's you know people are still living it in in in chicago it's a two-bedroom one bathroom brick bungalow yeah and that's how And that's how, I mean, I know John Gotti was a little different. But before that, they were, you know, they would just like, they lived, their cover was that they were plumbers. And sometimes they actually did some plumbing and, you know, or waste management or whatever. Right.

Yeah, that's just, it's, that's so basic. It's nuts. It's so basic. I guess the closest I came to that was working at the bank and there were guys who embezzled funds. And, you know, they knew them. They knew enough to keep the money in cash in a shoebox. Exactly. Exactly.

My God, put it in diamonds or gold bars or overseas in Lincoln Stein. Yeah, exactly. Small and portable. Moron. And yeah. And these days, oh, my God, there would be no excuse with Bitcoin and stuff. Oh, by the way, we have an announcement for that, right? We will soon be able to accept donations in Bitcoin for those who prefer to do that.

And for people who have not been able to use PayPal or, you know, any of, you know, of the other methods because they live in countries where they don't have access. Let's do a little bit of housekeeping here. Please like, follow, and share the show. Robbie Aid is now in day four. Just so you guys know, thank you very much. We're almost there. We are at about $750 out of the $1,000 that we need every month to keep Robbie on as our producer.

Full disclosure, John and I both kick $500 each. up his way. So you guys are sharing the burden with John and I. Obviously, extra funds are welcome. Robbie has a family. And, you know, things, believe it or not are not that cheap in Montana. I'm sure Robbie would love to talk about that at some other time. But I saw that myself when I was there visiting him. Anyway, so let's, so I'm trying to think what else is. Oh, and Robbie, if we have an ad, let us know. And I will go ahead. And I'll bring in Robbie, I guess I'll bring in Robbie now to talk about Robbie aid, and then we can move on.

Hey, Ted, can I, oh, I'm sorry, Robbie was going to, oh, and okay. No, go ahead. No, sorry, sorry, sorry. Go ahead, Robbie. I was just going to say, we're only a couple minutes into the show, and there are some awesome questions already. I'm just taking a look here. Sorry, we're going to get to all your questions, we promise.

Oh, and by the way, I do have to apologize. I accidentally posted, you know, I used the construction from last week to create some of the social media posts. So some of them went out saying that there's a two hour show today. There is not. It is a one hour show, no call in today. I apologize for that. We'll do call-ins at some point in the future because we enjoy doing it. But that's not today. TMI show at 10 o'clock Eastern. Anyway, Robbie, John, go ahead. Go ahead, Robbie. Basically, just real quick, a little bit of housekeeping, if you come onto the chat and if you are hawking another show or if you are spamming the chat, trying to get John or Ted,

on to another show as as john just found out i will ban you if you want to get banned i cannot think of a better way of making it happen so uh plus you know what if listen i i'm a big boy i can take i can take criticism i do every single day but don't be an asshole in the chat trying to beat me i'm not going to respond if you're trying to bait me robby's just going to ban you which happened yesterday and the guy wasn't even a clever a troll he was just an idiot so he's banned well this guy well this guy I mean last week he got banned from discord and so he just comes back to the exact same thing on the youtube chat dude it's not funny it's not clever it's just dumb yeah read the room grow a clue so that's all i've got to say for that as far as robie aid those

uh truly i appreciate each of one of y'all that that donates i i could not do this without your help. So truly thank you. And starting most likely tomorrow for those of you who are into cryptocurrencies, deep programmed courtesy of Rumble will have the ability to take tips 24-7 in cryptocurrency. So looking forward to that. It's going to be fun. And Ted, I want one mechanical question, Robbie, about that. If someone donates in, I don't know, let's say Japanese yen, does that convert it to crypto and then send it in crypto? Or do they have to have crypto to begin with so what they would do is that they would buy the crypto using whatever their local currency is and you're able to move it that's one of the reasons why banks hate it so much it's because it's

totally fluid yep so that way like how youtube uh is famous for demonetizing people rumble if you're in the rumble crater program and if you have the ability to receive tips it is impossible to be demonetized it's pretty great yeah it's awesome rob you're you're kind of frozen there oh no he's not no i I see him fine. But maybe that's on my end. I don't know. I don't know. We have a 1775 coffee ad maybe you're ready.

John, do you still see Robbie? Yeah, I see him. He told you that you have a 1775 coffee ad if you're ready for it. Okay. Yeah, he can put it up when he's ready. All right. In the meantime, let's do a question. It is up?

It will be up here in just a second. I think it's you. I'm just seeing Robbie. circulate. All right, let's do a question here. And then maybe if it's a John question, when it gets a John question, I'll just re-boot. All right, just a comment from Luke for you, John. I recently came into possession of coins from ancient, ancient Macedonia. There's Robbie. All right, I'm taking Robbie out. Okay. Okay. Question for you, John. Why didn't the U.S. do to Cuba, North Vietnam, and North Korea what they did to Venezuela? Was it because Venezuela was too

weak or has the U.S. military gap to compare it to others increased? North Korea's, North Korea and, and Vietnam are different because China, China is right there on, on their borders. And a close ally. And a close ally. And the U.S. took on China during the Korean War and, um, and took it on the chin because of it. The Chinese have endless, literally endless supplies of soldiers that they can just throw at you. So it's different from Venezuela. Venezuela is as, you know, as we were taught in elementary school, is in our backyard. And the Chinese aren't going to come to Venezuela's aid all the way across the globe like that. I have a different take. I mean, an additional take. I also think that like

the, you know, the U.S. has, and Trump has learned from the U.S. experience in the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs that a direct military invasion often is doomed and not going to work. So, therefore, it's like, hey, can we do this? How easily can we do this? Can we just do a pinprick, you know, it's just, you know, kidnap the king and then maybe the whole, the whole kingdom falls just like that, right? I mean, it's almost, I mean, it's kind of childish. It's sort of like the idea of that special spot in the Death Star. If you just hit that spot, the whole thing goes up. Yeah, it doesn't really work like that for.

No, you're right. I don't disagree with that. Max Peck. Oh, let's see if our ads up. Our ads up, I'll go ahead and read it. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee. Now it's your shot. The 1775 starter kit just dropped.

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before they're gone bold beans clean fuel and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. Okay, let's get back to the questions. The fact that they're, Max Peck, the fact that they're even considering military force upon a territory that belongs to a NATO ally is disgusting. Disgusting. Do they want Europe to no longer trust an ally against them?

I think we're pretty well there. Yeah. You know, when the entire European Union comes out to say, not only are you wrong, wrong, wrong, but we're going to have to do something about it if you don't stop, you know you've gone too far. And I keep coming back, Ted, to this interview that Stephen Miller gave to Jake Tapper over the weekend calling international peace treaties diplomatic niceties.

They aren't niceties. They're international law by which we live our lives and by which we have lived our lives, you know, for centuries. Yeah, like it's a little suggestion. Yeah, it's a suggestion. that's right it's like a manner yes um all right y t viewer uh please discuss rumors i keep hearing that the capture of maduro was actually the result of a deal that maduro made with the u.s and that he essentially turned himself in i don't think they would have sent that many troops and i don't

think that he would have rushed for the safe room and we and we would have killed the 80 bystanders in the meantime by the way i love the fact that the u.s i'm glad you brought that up john I love the fact that in our current, in this day that we live in, killing 80 people to capture one or two is considered a surgical operation. Yeah, surgical. What a pinprick operation that was. I mean, please don't give me any surgeons like that. Seriously.

X-Rand, what are Americans' plans with South Africa, John? American relations with South Africa right now are not good. And that is by U.S. choice because we had a perfectly good working relationship with the South Africans until we decided to declare that whites are oppressed there, that they're victims of crimes against humanity. And if you are an Afrikaner, you're welcome to have emergency American refugee status. And the South Africans are like, what? So honestly, I think that eventually, it's all going to go back to normal and everybody's going to live happily ever after, but right now things are not good. I think that's like the whole story of the world right now. Everyone's trying to see if they can just wait out Donald Trump.

Yeah. Three years is a very long time. And I think the Danes have good reason to be worried. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, let's talk a bit about that, right?

I mean, so that treaty, I mean, so the way, I mean, the way I read that treaty, is it seems like the perfect opportunity for the U.S. to just simply say, okay, well, we have this one base in like this remote corner of the territory. We can now open other, you know, we can create ports. I mean, after all, that's completely legal. We can flood the zone. I mean, like you said, John, there's 50,000 people who live there. That's nothing. I mean, that's the smaller than the little Ohio suburb of Kettering where I grew up that nobody's ever heard of. So, So, and that's, you know, these are civilian people anyway. So assuming the Danes aren't going to try to go to war against the U.S., they're going to, we would have troops all over the place.

And at a certain point, you know, I mean, possession is nine-tenths of the law, right? I mean, you can just sort of say, hey, we're here, give it to us, we want it or else. Yeah, we could. And that might be, that might be what happens at the end of the day. I mean, I would say that's more likely than not. I don't think it's far from 100%. But I think it's not as low as 50%. What do you think?

I, yeah, I would agree with you. I would agree with you. Now, the only thing that the Danes have going for them right now in terms of being able to wait Donald Trump out is that you can't pop up a military base overnight. All right? And because Greenland is Greenland, you know, it's isolated there are no native trees just like iceland for example they're gonna the americans would

have to start from scratch and the conditions are brutal brutal so you can't it's not like you can you can um build 365 days a year you're only going to be able to build you know six months out of the year and even even then let's say you are able to build a base in addition to one that you already have. Donald Trump's not going to be president in three years. Well, hopefully not. Not if the Constitution means anything. And whatever is left of it means anything.

John, Trump, we got to talk about this Venezuela thing. Trump announced that Venezuela has agreed to send the United States 30 to 50 million barrels of oil. That's two months worth of current production from the country. That's between $1.8 and $3 billion to the United States. It's unclear whether Venezuela would be paid. First of all, do you believe him? I'm not sure I do.

No, because we don't know who the Venezuelan leader is. I mean, it could be Dulcei Rodriguez. The international community is recognizing Nicholas Maduro as the as the president of Venezuela. So who was this agreement negotiated with? I assume with Gelsi Rodriguez. And then the other question is, I mean, what are we going to do with that? I mean, I know what we do with oil, but I mean, it's, we already, the United States doesn't

have an oil shortage. We buy all the oil that we need. So what is that going to do? Is it just going to sit in the strategic reserve? I mean, it's just, I mean, not to mention also, speaking of disgusting, I mean, Venezuela's economy is reeling right now. Yeah, it is. In large, and due to recent events as well as, you know, the result of 20 plus years

of U.S. sanctions. Yeah. You know, this is a poor country. The last thing we should, we should be sending them money, not the other way around. Yes. You're right. We should be sending them money. I just read yesterday, for example, in the New York Times, that there is a real danger of starvation now in Venezuela because the economy is collapsed.

There's almost no oil being lifted and the government is in a state of chaos. So what do they do? You know, we're talking about multi-billion dollar deals now and we have this agreement and went over oil. And we don't know who signed it and we don't know who supports it. And then in the meantime, people are like, listen, there's no food. We should be talking about eating. I don't know, man. I mean, there's a, there's so many ways this could go.

But domestically in Venezuela, I could easily see a left-wing revolution, a true left-wing revolution, a communist revolution. If I were the State Department, I'd be worried about that. I mean, right? I mean, because, I mean, I mean, because, I mean, obviously, you know, a populist left could arise and say we're going to kick out the imperialists, you know, save the revolution, seize control of all of our oil, keep our assets for ourselves, make a, you know, reach out and have a really, a stronger alliance with Russia

or China. I mean, they, I mean, if I were the Venezuelans, I'd reach out to Moscow. Well, let me ask you about that. We want to save a deal with you that Belarus has. Why haven't we heard anything from the Russians or the Chinese? why haven't the Chinese said we're going to send our aircraft carrier over there to observe you know or to whatever

well the Russians are escorting that that tanker yeah so that is that's basically a message like you know you can fuck with our ally but you can't fuck with us directly and our shit yeah I think there's I think that the Chinese and the Russians are they both are motivated by

it's first of all they do believe in spheres of influence they think that Venezuela is more our sphere of influence. So are they conceding that? Is that what this is? I think partly. And it's also, if they concede that, then tacitly, it builds the argument that Ukraine is in Russia's sphere of influence and that Taiwan is in China's sphere of influence. And you know what?

I think Donald Trump would agree with that. Right. No, I think that, you know, so I think it's kind of like, well, great powers be great power. and that's just how that rolls. You know, and I think also neither Russia nor China wants to pick a fight with the United States or with Trump. And also, I got to say, it's that also that rule.

When someone's fucking up, don't get in their way. Donald Trump's fucking up. This is not good for Donald Trump. Right. I mean, we should talk about the polls that are out. There's another set of polls that have come out. And basically they sort of stip—this all shows that the American people—so basically there's weak support for this operation against Venezuela, one out of three Americans, not even a majority of Republicans, sort of like 40-ish percent, 45 percent of Republicans, are okay with this. But even they all think that the president's top priority ought to be the U.S. economy, domestic affairs, fighting inflation, and creating affordability and more and better jobs. The American people have sent a clear message now for the better part of 10 years that what they really care about is the U.S. economy and they're feeling worried about being able to pay their bills.

And they should be because of AI and all that. And so this is not going to play. I mean, I think this is, you know, basically people are sitting at home and they're starting, you know, this just started a week ago, right? Yeah. But they're starting to think, you know, what is the president? on about what is he doing yeah what's the goal he's not his eye is no longer on the ball i think phd dissertations are going to be based on this period and what this means for maga is this what maga is or is this the death of maga i you know and i think it's true that that sort of nick quintus

you know there is a there's first america first and there's maga and they're not the same um so And America First is an old idea, right? Like, yeah, as you know, I collect political ephemera. I have Woodrow Wilson buttons that say America First on them. That's why it took us so long to get involved in the First World War. We came in at the end, and then we claim we won the thing. Yeah, my favorite one is the one that says, he kept us out of war. Reelect Wilson, 1916.

That's awesome. Black Panther asks, John, what do you think about a movie and TV series, Tinker Taylor? the movie and TV series Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. Yeah, awesome. Where was I just talking about that? Oh, no, no. I was talking about that on my other podcast. I did a Q&A a couple of days ago,

and somebody asked me for my favorite spy movie, my favorite spy novel. And I can't just pair it down to one. But I said Tinker Taylor, Soldier, Spy, the man who came in from the cold, Those were the books that introduced me to the spy genre. Absolutely amazing. And who's your favorite spy novelist?

It has to be John LaCarray. Really? Yeah. I mean, obviously you come from a different place. So subtle. Yeah. I love Len Dayton, though. Len Dayton's great, too.

But for my favorite espionage movie, I gave this a lot of thought. And I decided that it's North by Northwest. Oh, wow. That is the classiest. Yeah. I think it might be my favorite movie of all time. Wow. Yeah, I do.

I never get tired of the day of the jackal ever. Wonderful, wonderful film. The pacing of that movie. Oh, my God, just amazing. Yeah, and I'm partial to Hitchcock. I love just about everything Hitchcock ever did, whether it's rear window or rope or 39 steps or love 39 steps my favorite is suspicion suspicion is wonderful just wonderful the birds i can do without but i get it yeah i get it yeah he was he was dabbling in horror

his wife hated psycho and she hated the birds i think i'm i think i'm on team mrs hitchcock here yeah she said that she said that he had he had um damaged his reputation as a serious Arture. I think that's true. By moving into horror. I think it probably is true. In the end, in the long run, it doesn't matter, though. I know I risk being banned by Robbie for saying it, but can I plug my other show? And the only reason I want to, the only reason I want to is deep focus, my other podcast that's on YouTube, I have 99,900 subscribers today. You want to get to 100,000? Today, I'm going to get that. I'm going to get that YouTube button.

Congratulations. That's amazing. I'm excited about it. Also, I was thinking we need to start mentioning our books. So John, tell me which is the, we'll start doing that tomorrow. And I'll put the covers up and we can start selling our books here. Yeah, that's a good idea. So for those who are, for people who still read, McKenna, why is the U.S. not part of the ICC, the International Criminal Court?

Do you think they should be? one million percent they should absolutely positively yes but the reason that we're not is because we commit crimes international crimes all the time and we don't want to be called on the carpet for it that's it's exactly it um as kenoid uh the jolani regime is attacking the kurdish and christian quarters in aleppo what's the plan what's the u.s plan it's like the CIA is supporting the Islamist regime and the Pentagon is supporting the Kurdish army with heavy arms. And that is exactly what many of us predicted what would happen. And we were accused of being pro-terrorist because, listen, I said, I said this a thousand times in podcasts and I've taken

it on the chin from people. But I said, you don't have to like Bashar al-Assad's politics to recognize that he is the only thing standing between the Christian community and total annihilation. And that's what's happening now. That's true. Yeah. Polar plunger, good question. After the blatant rhetoric of annexing Greenland, what do you think Denmark's options are revoke U.S. bases, wait for a new administration or acquiesce. John, I don't think they have time to wait for a new administration. No, I don't either. A new administration could just be more of the same. That's right. they've got they should kick the united states out of greenland immediately in my opinion totally agree with that i i say all the time kind of semi as a joke that one of the first things

they teach you in business school is that hope is not a strategy and there's not a whole lot the danes can do right now other than hope but i agree what they should do is they should shut down the U.S. base right now. They should flood Greenland with Danish troops and dare the Americans to come and fight. Yeah, and they should, I think, put

the, they should put NATO on notice that, you know, there's an eminent Article 5 situation. Yes. Right? That's right. I mean, and there is. There is. Effectively, the world's biggest superpower is massed

on Greenland's border. Yes. effectively. Yes, indeed. So thank you for that question. Jonathan Petlantis, any thoughts on Cash Patel moving the FBI out of the Hoover building? Oh, yeah. Oh, listen. The Hoover building is the most obvious example of brutalist architecture in Washington.

It is right on Pennsylvania Avenue. That in the old Washington Post building. That in the old Washington Post building. The Hoover building, in my humble opinion, is the most hideous building that has ever been built in Washington, D.C. And it's worse that it was built on the Nations Boulevard, Pennsylvania Avenue. If it were up to me, I would have nuked that thing decades ago. Donald Trump, God bless him, is the only person with the guts to say, that freaking building is so ugly it should be in a heap of rubble right now. So is it purely on aesthetics, or are there technological reasons that they're?

Oh, there are technological reasons. First of all, it's falling apart. The roof leaks, documents get mold all over them. It's full of rats. They can't control the rats. And I'm not making a joke there. It actually is full of rats. It's really funny.

I had a, I mean, I've had several conversations with people, with friends about, you know, Trump's executive order that all future government, federal government buildings should be built in the Greco-Roman style. Right. Even my, all my ardent, like, socialist friends, they're all like, you know, Trump's got a point. We're tired of this brutalist architecture. It's awful. It's hideous. It's hideous. And, you know, it's funny. The reason why Trump said in the first term that he wanted to knock down the building was because he so hated the FBI, he wanted to scatter them all over the country, right? Which I, listen, yes, totally agree. Send him all to West Virginia for all I care.

I don't care. Make them move all over the country. But the truth is that building is hideous. It should never have been built in the first place. It never should have been named after that drag queen, J. Edgar Hoover. And so finally, a president has the guts to say, the building's not working in addition to being hideous. It has to come down. So for years, and this started during the Clinton administration, by the way. So for years, there was this federal commission to try to decide what to do with headquarters. Where do you put it if you're going to tear down the building? And so when Barbara McColsky, remember her, was the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and one of the most powerful, probably the most powerful woman in the Senate, she got Congress

to approve relocating the FBI to Prince George's County, Maryland, which is like the shithole. county of suburban Washington, D.C. Well, that's kind of good, right? It's like an economic stimulus for Prince George. Absolutely, absolutely. And then, you know, Obama said no, and then Trump changed it to scatter them all around the country. And then Biden said, no, we're going to renovate the building.

Well, now we're not going to renovate the building. We're going to tear it down. And I don't think Trump cares where the FBI goes now at this point. Have we, the answer for me. is no. Rojo Grande, have either of you heard of Professor Zhang Shweit Kin on YouTube. He posts his lessons on U.S. global hegemony and Israeli influences on the West among many modern subjects. I do not know who that is. I don't know him, but thanks for the lead. I'll check them out. Check them out.

O'Gaga, Happy New Year to use. Use two. How important do we see the midterms for the Republicans vis-a-be President Trump? Should they be worried? Oh, they should be worried. Well, say the first part again? How, so how important will the midterms be for the, oh, wow, oh, oh, oh. Listen, they be worried. Yeah, they should be worried. I have a friend at the Republican National Committee who told me recently that the Republicans,

that the Republicans internal polling shows the potential for what my friend called a bloodbath. now if you look at if you look at the polls that have been public publicly released it doesn't look like a bloodbath because the republicans have pretty well protected themselves but with the death of another republican congressman day before yesterday the republicans have a majority of five which means if they if the democrats flip three seats it's done which they will they're looking at flipping 15 seats that's what the republican polls show 15 to 40 i'm going to go with 15 i don't see the republicans hanging on to the house no but trump said in a closed-door republican offsite on sunday that if the democrats went back the house he expects to be impeached again oh i agree

with that yes i mean of course nothing he won't be removed in the senate but yeah no um can i can i add one thing we had a question at the very beginning of the show and now i've lost it oh shit but it one of our viewers and forgive here it is jones jameson absolutely excellent question and thank you for the 499 there's a photo of medora wearing a blindfold and noise cancelling headphones is this a violation of the geneva convention and does it count as torture yes it is a violation of the geneva convention i tell a story on podcasts all the time where the night that we caught Abu Zubeda, we caught dozens and dozens and dozens of other Al-Qaeda fighters. And there were so many of them that we had to bring them into the safe house in shifts in a patty wagon. And when the

first load of 10 came in, I said to this idiot who was working for me, why do they have hoods on? And he said, we don't want them to see our faces. And I said, are you seriously telling me that you've never read the Geneva Convention. You cannot put hoods on them. That is a violation of international law. It's a war crime. And I said, take those hoods off. And he says, wait, leave the hoods on.

And he said, I'm going to report you to headquarters. I said, oh, I'm already reporting you to headquarters. You've committed a war crime. And I took the hoods off and we reported each other to headquarters and I got in trouble. Wow. Yeah. So yes, that is a war crime. Are you in trouble because the, you know, because your bosses didn't want to consider them to have POW, you know, to be, have the status of POWs and therefore they have those rights?

Yes. So that's, I mean, so that's the, right. So speaking of which, President Maduro presented himself at, before the judge in Brooklyn, in New York and said, by the way, this 92-year-old judge who apparently has a habit of falling asleep during trials. Yes. But anyway, so we could have a whole conversation about that. Maybe we should. But presented himself for the judge and declared himself to be a prisoner of war. Was that of his own accord or do you think he discussed that with his new lawyer? He appears to be pretty good. His attorney is Barry Pollock. I know Barry. Barry used to be the chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. And he was Julian Assange's attorney. Barry is arguably one of the finest criminal defense attorneys anywhere in America. He would be on everybody's list of the top 10 best attorneys in America. If there's only one guy you can get to defend you, it should be Barry Pollock. So yeah, they know exactly what they're doing.

And so, yeah, I mean, so obviously that's going to be a play. It's not likely to work probably, right? But it's a good tactic. No, the dick is. stacked. How does Maduro, I mean, how do high-profile defendants like Maduro, you know, locked up, you know, basically kept under lock and key? How do they get legal counsel? Does a high-profile attorney like Barry see the story and then decide to reach out? Or how does that work? Usually, yes. Usually yes. One of Maduro's attorneys is, oh my God, we've had them on both of our

shows on Sputnik. It's, and he's on the board with me at, at Covert Action. And we're Facebook friends. What's wrong with me? It'll come back. It'll come back. He's a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh. Oh, right, right, right.

Yeah. Yeah, that'll come back. Anyway. Anyway, he's one of Maduro's attorneys. But I'm going to guess that once Maduro was snatched, um, lawyers reach out. Phone calls. about to visit or are yeah pop pollock maduro has a constitutional right to counsel so yeah the the lawyers

can visit yes um so they say hey listen i'm so and so i'd like to represent you blah blah blah blah dan cavallic dan cavallic yeah exactly i'm sorry dan i just had a mental fart sorry 62 years old that's my excuse um so let's see uh black panther has it been verified has it been confirmed responsible for exposing all of those spies or just simply due to lack of other evidence is it in other words were there other double agents out there possibly and they may and you know basically they threw they closed all the files once they caught aims um you know the cia has a very large unit called the counterintelligence center um they have the counterintelligence center because you have to always assume that there are moles and you have to route them out.

So, yeah, they always assume that they're out there, whether they're in the CIA or the FBI or DOD or at the White House or, you know, the Department of Energy or more commonly, American defense contractors. Yeah, you have to assume that there are, there are moles out there right now. question for Robbie so I'll put Robbie here um 10 thanks for the 10 bucks from unsung pat thoughts on Putin's view of American consumerism um from what I've seen is I basically think he's a debt trap and I really can't says I disagree with him I mean every every Christmas the American consumer goes in debt by millions of dollars and for what what are you getting out of it except for more interest agreed All right. Thank you for that, Robbie.

Let's see. Okay. Philip Blair, if the Trump administration moves against Cuba, might the PRC move to politically reunite Taiwan with the rest of China? Well, politically, they already have been moving toward that for many years. I mean, people don't realize that they have a, it's odd. The KMT government is the pro-unification party, as opposed to the DPP, which used to be the independent. Independence Party or so it's very it things are kind of flipped they're having a realignment there

but you mean I think you mean militarily and I think so there I'd go the odds are not zero but the odds are not as high as 50% what do you think John yeah I think that's right um young courthouse two bucks thanks very much not bait but I read Rick Prada's book and he tells a compelling side of his story alleging that Miami police corruption and framing him in a disprovable way I'm curious why John doesn't buy that story. I wrote a review of Rick's book. I knew Rick for years. Rick's a very nice guy.

There was credible evidence developed by the Miami police that before joining the CIA, Rick was a hitman for the Cali cartel. And that's how he came to the CIA's attention. That's how he specifically came to Jose Rodriguez's attention. Because when Rodriguez was a station chief in South America and the Cali cartel was whacking its opponents,

Jose thought, this guy knows what he's doing. We can bring him over to the CIA. And what do you think Rick did when he was at the CIA? He was in charge of the Special Activities Division. So, you know, I wrote this review of the book, and it was published in Covert Action Magazine, and almost immediately Rick's wife emailed me and threatened me. like it was a very specific threat because i said rick prado is a great guy i said you read the book

he loves his wife he loves his kids he loves the agency he hates communism he hates castro but what he didn't talk about is these credible accusations that he had been a hitman for the cali cartel and that he had carried out three murders of drug runners in miami and then all of a sudden that investigation just went away when he joined the CIA. Okay. A question for me, Nicholas Franco's.

In past streams, you've said that you believe in spheres of influence, therefore Russian actions are somewhat understandable. Isn't the same for the U.S. regarding Cuba and Venezuela? Yeah, it is the same for the cube. However, I think there's a misunderstanding here of what spheres of influence mean.

It doesn't mean that you can can just invade willy-nilly any country that you feel like. It means that if you're a great power, you have the ability and therefore the right to secure your borders and your particular area and make sure you don't have like enemies all around you, right, or on your border. Like in the United States' case, Venezuela is far from our borders. And even if it was on our border, presented no military or other threat whatsoever to the United States. So therefore, there's There's absolutely no reason under the old spheres of influence from the 20th century. There would be no excuse even by like 1955 standards for the U.S. invading Venezuela.

Thank you, MT16 for the 20 bucks. Thanks for Mike in Nottingham. John, what made Goose? I'm going to butcher this. Avrakalos, a great CIA officer. Gus Evercatus. Gus Evercottas was played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film Charlie Wilson's War. Gus was a dear friend of mine.

He was my mentor at the CIA and one of my operational instructors. What made him good was that he was quite literally not afraid of anything or anyone, period. He was not afraid of death. He was not afraid of what operations, if they were to go bad, would do to his reputation. He believed that what he was doing was right. And so he went and did it. This is the only guy in the history of the CIA who was able to take a swing at the deputy director for operations connect and not only not get fired, but get promoted to the senior intelligence service. There are stories I could tell you about Gus.

God, that I actually shouldn't. There were a couple of stories I had to leave out of my book, my first book, at the request of his family. They're like, yeah, yeah, don't tell that story. Frasmetast is asking me, but John, I don't know if you know the answer to this question, too. Did we check out the Elon Musk-approved Nazi cartoon series, The Will Stancel Show? I'm not endorsing the message, but the medium format style is interesting.

No, that I don't. it and I know what it is and I agree that the format is interesting. So I'll check it out. You know, I mean, look, we're in it, we've been looking for, I've been looking as a cartoonist and many of us have been for ways to turn around commentary quickly using the latest. Like I would love to be able to generate a cartoon based on a breaking news story and get it out within like 10 minutes or a

like 10 minutes or an hour. And this is kind of like, you know, this is almost like that. It's almost like a crowdsourced, you know, cartoons. So it's cool. That's a cool idea. I mean, you know, what it's about. All right, Alex, John started reading about Carlos the Jackal. His bio and OPEC raid sounds like something from a super villain story. I know, right? I've encountered anyone like him in your line of work. I like that question. Not like Carlos. Carlos is, I talk more about Carole. in my, in my grad school class at the University of Salamanca, then I talk about any other terrorist or terrorist group.

Carlos was a, Carlos was an operational genius. And he was only captured by accident. We don't have time for me to tell that story, but it was purely by accident. We will get to it. You're right. We've only got a few minutes left.

Someone's calling you out. So, and if you don't want to answer this, we can just tell him to fuck off. But Lorraine Frost, says, don't know that John reads the comments, he does. So asking you to relate to John, it's disheartening that John doesn't have his full attention to us of viewers. What's he so fascinated with in his laptop? No, it's not my laptop. I'm on my, I'm on my desktop and I have ongoing computer problems where things are freezing on my screen and I'm looking at the keyboard

trying to figure out how I can free up my desktop so I don't have to trash it and go to Apple and buy another $2,000 unit. Okay. See, now you know. And then once it unfreezes, then I can look directly at the, at the screen. Yeah, by the way, if we start making more money, John, you can, I mean, I know, seriously, this is an ongoing problem for me. I paid like six grand for back in 2018. Yeah. And so these things are not cheap. See, and I bought this in 2017, and it's on its very last legs.

Like this morning, I missed a conference call because I just could not get the little circle of death to stop spinning. so all right now you know um who that john or ted have you ever considered running for office i have i have two i actually told my ex-wife in in 2009 that i i was thinking of making a run in pennsylvania's fourth congressional district and she said um she said i've never said no to anything that you've wanted to do including blowing the whistle she said on this i'm putting my foot down and you are not running for congress and so i didn't I was recruited by Elliot Spitzer to run for Congress and before all the troubles and when he was governor. And basically I just thought about the fact that it's impossible to affect change and you just be sitting in a bunch of fucking boring meetings.

And I was just like, I could use the money and the notoriety, but I don't, but honestly, you only go around once and I want to try to do something that seems to be somewhat useful. Thanks for the 20 bucks. Dad, we have triplets. Thanks for another great hour of insight. That sounds like great. Oh, yeah, we're going to have to leave that there. There was a question about learning Arabic. Yeah, that's good.

We do not have time for. We can do that tomorrow. No, we can do it tomorrow. It's all about immersion. Okay, there's the answer there, but we'll talk more. We'll be back tomorrow. That will be Thursday, 9 o'clock Eastern time just for an hour. That's the new deal here at 9 to 10 a.m. Eastern.

Thanks, John, very much. Thanks, Ted. Stay tuned for the TMI. with me and Manila Chan tomorrow will be Scott Stantis and I will be doing a DMZ America podcast at 11 o'clock not today all right thanks everyone bye John see you tomorrow Thank you.