DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Half of Americans Struggle to Afford Groceries and Gas | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• 95% of Americans say the US is suffering an affordability crisis, as many report trouble with the rising cost of groceries and gas, according to a Harris poll for the Guardian. More Americans believe the overall economy is getting worse (57%) than in February (46%), Fewer people today believe the economy is getting better (16%, compared with 28% in February) and more say their financial security has gotten worse. Half of all Democrats, Republicans and independents say they are having trouble affording everyday necessities like gas and groceries. Two-thirds of Americans – including 49% of Republicans – said they have little faith that the federal government will improve the cost-of-living crisis.• Far-right leader Marine Le Pen says she'll run for the French presidency next year despite being sentenced to wear a court-ordered electronic monitor for embezzlement.• An ex-girlfriend of embattled Senate candidate Graham Platner told The Washington Post that he repeatedly removed protection without her consent when they were having sex.• Trump says he believes the ceasefire and interim agreement to end the war with Iran are now “over.” Iran launched a wave of attacks against American bases in the Gulf in retaliation for U.S. strikes. Washington said this was because Tehran had earlier hit three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

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Snipeable Insightes. So many tips, you'll have the deepest roster in the league. Ozone. Well played. We're watching D-Program with Ted Rall and Jermal Thomas. It is Wednesday, July 8th, 2026. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. We're here 9 a.m. Eastern Time to 10 a.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday,

and because it's Wednesday and you can't get enough of us, we have not one, but two hours of program, second hour coming up at 12 noon. today until 1 p.m., that's open mic type thing. So any questions you may have, comments, whatever, if you are one of the many people who talked to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes yesterday, please go ahead and chime in. I personally went on a bike ride with Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes, and we talked a lot about alternative rock of the mid-1990s.

He's a huge fan of Interpol in particular, and also the strokes. And we talked about Iran, and I'm looking forward to him getting back to work. If you don't know what I'm talking about yesterday, this just makes me laugh so much. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Majority Whip John Barrasso, as well as Scott Jennings, former Mitch McConnell advisor, now on CNN, all posted identical statements saying that they had spoken to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes and that they'd spoken to him about Iran and then cut and paste two other topics. And they, word for word, we're looking forward to him getting

back to work very soon on Capitol Hill. And the internet went crazy. It's Thomas Massey, Bernie Sanders. I did. Everybody's posting like what they did with, everyone talked to Mitch McConnell's weekend at Bernie's with Mitch McConnell. The guy's been brain dead now since May. Okay. I mean, that's credible reporting. He basically passed out. We know the EMS showed up.

He was basically flatlined. We're never seeing him again, right? Until we see his funeral service. If it's an open casket affair, God, I hope it's not. Anyway, it's absurd. It's so insane. Good morning tomorrow. Sorry.

No, you're fine. I just think it's funny. It puts me in a mind of, like, when Democrats were talking about Joe Biden, they were like, Joe Biden has hard sex with his wife. And it's like, he's out of his mind. It's like, what are you talking about? But they're trying to make him look virile and awake. And he's always on it when I talk to him, you know,

the hard sex with Joe Biden was the funniest thing to me in the world. Ozone gives you a better way to play in Canada. Perfectify practice. With so much experience to do. drawn, it's like having your own coach. Whatever your favorite game, we have your playbook. OZoon, well played. Discover free sports tips, casino games and poker guides at OZoon.net.

I don't remember they said that. Were they claiming he was balls deep in Jill? I don't remember who said it, but it was the funniest thing in the world to me. And I suspect they were making a joke about them acting like your mind was just kind of mentally on it. But he's a virile man who's, you know, Corrine Jean-Air famously said, he's like a tor-he's like dolomite. I can't keep up with him.

He's the human tornado. I try to keep up with him. We can't keep up with him. Behind the scenes, it's crazy. But that's what it puts me to mind of, right? It's like, no, no, Mitchell's perfectly, okay, he's not brain dead at all. We had a long conversation with him. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, how is it, how, by the way, I mean, How is this system any different from, like, say, you know, any autocracy or the Soviet Union or, you know, any, I mean, honestly, there should be a rule. Like, if you get caught doing something like this, you're never allowed to work in politics again. Like, John Thune, you're done. You have to, we just come and clear out your office. We give your job to someone else. You're done.

You just shouldn't be able in America to say shit like this and just have it be like you get to brush it off and move on. Like, no. We have lying as a norm, not as a, you know, that's not a book. That's a feature, as people would say. If that's the case, all of these tools need to clear that. But, I mean, look, we know that, like, there's some bot that, like, runs all the manga accounts and all the DNC-related accounts, too. And that basically, word for word, everyone's like, oh, our talking point is,

man, the reflecting pool has never looked non-algae. GA in its life. It is so non-green. It is awesome. But, you know, the thing is, it's conceivable that, like, 15 people might all say, wake up one morning and decide to praise the reflecting pool. It is not conceivable that three Republican officials would all have the same exact thoughts in the same word, in the same verbiage. And you know what I mean? Like, that's not like, this is like, I always quote my lawyer. It's like, not only is that, not true, that could not be true. And I demand a higher quality of lying from my professional lying politicians. If you're going to lie to me, don't insult my already low intelligence.

Like, work for it. If you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to let me know that you're lying to me, like, like I know that and you know that I know, like no, fuck you. I'm pissed now. Please tell me you've watched boss. Have you ever seen that with Kelsey Grammar? No. it is exceptional. It is exceptional. Like, Kelsa Grammar is incandescent in boss. I've never seen him act that well. In fact, I haven't seen most people act that well. And he's good. So basically, he's a Chicago mayor who is losing his mind. He has a degenerative brain disease. In fact, it opens with him being told by his doctor that you have a degenerative brain disease, that your brain is effectively falling apart. You are losing it. You're going to lose your competence. You're going to lose your brilliant. You're going to lose all of it.

And instead of him just going home with his grandkids, he's like, I'm going to hold on to political power and I'm going to ride this boat down. And all of the structures that he's set up in place in order to maintain power in Illinois, he's changing those structures because he's losing his mind and he's becoming much more dangerous in the process of losing his mind.

There's a scene in that where he is giving a dressing down to the governor. And he is effectively in the governor's ass saying, not only are you doing bad things, you are doing bad things poorly. Basically, if you're gonna do bad things, you don't even do bad things well. It's kind of like that, right?

Like if you're gonna lie to me, at the very least, act like I'm not just a brain made of cheese. Like, actually I have a mind, right? Like pretend I have a mind as you're lying to me, because otherwise you're just gonna piss me up. But you can make an argument. argument that that's, that's the change over. It's the, in the old days, you would just lie or you would just not bring it up.

And now it's, they've gotten to the point where they think, they know we're lying. What's the point of even working for it? Which is, I guess, a new norm, but a, I don't know what to make of that new norm. You know, you're right. And that's where it, like, these things often end up with. guillotine. And so, you know, I think we may see that at some point. I think we will. I mean, come on, if you go up one morning and everything was burning, would you be, you might be shocked, but would you be surprised? I wouldn't be surprised. I probably run out and torch a police station,

if I'm being honest with me. I'd be like, the revolution is here. That's right. No, man, I don't know. I, I wouldn't be surprised, but the American public seems to be very euthanized. And the very reason that they think that they can do that, basically, everybody says the exact same thing. By the way, they do the same thing on TV. If you notice, like, those conservative channels, they would have like one script. The people would come out in different areas. They would read the same script. And there have been people who have documented this when you could see person saying the same thing, a new person who's a vessel saying the same thing, a new person who's a vessel saying the same thing. And it's on tens of hundreds of channels.

with them repeating the same script. Yeah. It's almost like brain entreatment. It's the way of, it's, it's, it's made population control easier. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, it drives me crazy. Okay, so at the risk, so to avoid repeating myself, let's, let's move on.

So we've got, we've got three big tough stories. We've got this new poll out of the UK. Sometimes you have to go to the foreigners to get news about your own country. And so basically, I'll just go through this. Maybe we can just do this now. We have to do Marine Le Pen following up yesterday. We have to do Graham-Latner following up yesterday. And the Iran situation, obviously, we have to do.

Okay, so but let's get this poll out of the way. So according to the Guardian, the UK paper, commissioned a Harris poll that found that 95% of Americans say that the U.S. is suffering an affordability crisis. You can't get 95% of Americans to agree on. anything. As many are reporting that they can't afford groceries or gas. More Americans believe that the overall economy is getting worse now than in February before the war started. 57% now, 46% back then. Fewer people believe the economy is getting better, 16% compared to 28%. More people say their financial security has gotten worse. Half of all Democrats, half of all Republicans,

half of all independents say they can't afford things like gas and groceries. Two-thirds of Americans, including 49% of Republicans, say they don't have any faith that the government will do anything or even try to do anything to improve the cost of living crisis. Obviously, there's an election coming up in four months. You know, I mean, it's a two-party system, so all you can really do to express your rage about anything is either to not vote, vote third party that's the ted roll approach or you can uh you know lash out against the

the incumbents or you can be like uh i'm so afraid of the party out of power that you decide to vote for the party in power again that's it that's it um i don't know what do you think they do you think they're oh soon gives you a better way to play in canada perfectify practice with so much experience to draw on it's like having your own co-executive Whatever your favorite game, we have your playbook. OZoon, well played. Discover free sports tips, casino games and poker guides at OZoon.net. Will be any repercussions from this.

I mean, obviously, if I were the Republicans, I would not like these poll results. That's a frustrating poll. Who the hell of the 5% that says this is great? And the fact of the matter is everybody's position is made worse. I mean, if prices go up by definition, everybody who's not a weapons manufacturer's position has effectively been made worse. This is a very frustrating, pulling, finding myself being very angry right now. I think your first premise of if you wake up in the morning and there's a revolution, would you be shocked by it? It's stuff like this that says, no, you shouldn't be shocked by it.

And that should be where we go. because there is no political solution. Voting in Democrats doesn't change anything. No. Meaning this idea of saying, okay, we're going to take out the Republicans because we're pissed off at what they're effectively doing. Okay, Joe Biden was doing a war in Ukraine that also was having economic consequences to the United States home front.

There is no way out of this box in a political sense. There's not. So will the public vote in Democrats? Yes. Republicans will be taken out on the rail because people are angry at what Donald what Trump is doing. Would that change their situation? No. No. And I get that people feel like they're in the box and they feel like they're trapped. They feel like they're no way out. And those people would be right. Those people will be right. Give me your take on this. I mean, I feel I'm

pissed off at us. I'm annoyed by this because they are damaging people in real terms. There are people who are trying to just make ends meet that no longer can make ends meet as a direct result of what the government itself is doing. It's almost like your government, not it's just working against you. They actively hate you and seem to be working contrary to your popular interests, which I think it's true. I just don't know why 90% of the public doesn't accept that to be true, if that makes sense. And trying to find a way out of it, I don't know if there's a political way out of it, short of, as you point out, guillotines or at the very least something a little bit more aggressive than a strongly worded letter to your congressman, if that makes sense.

Something needs to fundamentally change. That way in our politics. Give me a take on this, though. Maybe I'm getting this wrong. Maybe I'm too aggressive on this. I think Americans have been conditioned at least for the last 50 years to believe that there's nothing, that the economy is just one of those things that is out of the range of control of public policy. The public policy doesn't change anything.

You know, wages, prices, all the interest rates, these things just sort of happen. And yeah, there's the Federal Reserve Bank, but they're independent. You know, the president can't touch them. They do what they want. And there's nothing you can, you know, and basically both Democrats and Republicans have been very clear on the fact that they don't, you know, they're not going to do anything. They're definitely going to do stuff to the economy, but not. not in a way that affects consumers, right?

And that then used to be the case always. You know, Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls. My mom, who hated Richard Nixon, she was a leftist. She said that, you know, those wage and price controls saved our lives, that we would have starved to death if not for, I mean, there were prices for things like sugar that were more in 1972, 73 than they are today, right?

I mean, it was, I mean, it was, things got really out of control. There's White House tapes of CEOs calling up Nixon and threatening him. There's even a conspiracy theory that Watergate was a setup and it was revenge from the corporate CEOs to get him out

because basically he had turned socialist. And so, you know, these were sweeping measures that really did have a huge effect. And, you know, the standard, you know, most capitalist economists will say, well, you know, as soon as the wage and price controls came off, the pressure was released and then inflation went wild under Gerald Ford. And, you know, there's an argument to be made there. But the point is that Nixon tried.

And, you know, you've got to give them credit for that. There's, I think we've just been conditioned to say that, like, no one can, the cavalry is not coming. nobody's going to help you. And you're on your own as an American. It's like, if you lose your job, sucks to be you. If your wife gets cancer, sucks to be you and her. There's nothing you can do. And that's just, you know, I mean, I think that's why we are where we're at.

But, and that works. But, I mean, I think, and it's also, this is also a country with no revolutionary tradition. I mean, yes, there's been uprisings. There's Shays rebellion early on in the report. public. There was the civil war. But there's, but we don't, you know, the American revolution is not a revolution in the French, Russian, or Chinese or Cuban sense, right? The overthrow of one set of elites by another set of elites. It's really not. And so, I mean, and that's why you don't have a street protest movement. You don't have, you know, any sense, like Americans feel and make very helpless.

So, I mean, I think that's, there's no organization. right? I mean, I just saw a thing about the DSA, Democrats, you know, they're like ascendant. They're this bragging right now online about how they have more, more members than the Socialist Party under Eugene Debs had. And, you know, 100 years ago. And that's quite a number. I don't know if Eugene Debs members were dues paying. I don't know if the DSA people paid dues or not. But, you know, it's an interesting number. Of course, the population is what, three times higher of the country? That's what to say. But, I mean, okay, it's still an interesting number. But, you know, where's the DSA marching, right?

They run some candidates sometimes inside the Democratic Party. But they're not a radical organization. So they're still part of the system, one of their own, you know, sort of is-ish, Graham Platinor's getting his ass handed to him right now. And the corporat just are trying to replace him. I don't know. There's a lot. I think it's a perfect storm.

Well, look at the square I gave you all yesterday. I mean, 4,000 Americans are losing their jobs. Four thousand Americans. Where are the Democrats? They're supposed to be the party for labor. Explain. Phil, fill us in for people who didn't. Okay, so basically what's going on is that Microsoft has announced that they are laying off 4,000 coders and engineers, American workers.

Meanwhile, their applications for H-1B visas have increased. They've always been one of the highest, you know, companies to, for H-1B visa applications. Right. So, so you lay off 4,000 Americans who went to school, did what they're told, you know, no, no, no, no, get in the STEM, learn out of the code, learn how to engineer, whatever. You go through, you get, you get all the debt, you get these jobs, you're just supposed to do. And then you get your pink slip saying, oh, by the way, you're too expensive for us to hire. You're too expensive for us to keep.

So we're going to get rid of you. the unions don't say a word. The Democratic Party doesn't say a word. The American people don't say a word because everyone is happy with the crumbs that fall off of the table and onto the floor for them to nibble on like mice. And until people figure that out, it's not going to change. And Mr. American, if you want to know why your country sucks, look in the mirror because you are why. You put up with this crap. That's why.

It's your fault. Welcome competent. I have no disagreement with anything around you just said about H1B is there. No, it's a fucking outrage. Yeah. You know, for sure. Indenture servants. They're indentured servants.

No, you're right. They're indentured servants. They're being exploited and American workers are being fucked over. Yes. I mean, the thing is, though, it's a capitalist system. I keep bringing that up, not because I am trying to take the piss out of capitalism. as a thing, meaning I'm not trying to bang that beat a horse. I'm trying to point out there that it's a democratic system with a capitalistic system

overlaying it. And any politician that you put in office ultimately is going to hit that rail. Like, meaning Microsoft are not hiring people because they enjoy hiring people for all intense purposes. If they could have all robots doing the coding, they would because people are expensive. And so they try to do everything in order to cut their costs while maximizing their profits. Sure. it's not about hiring people, meaning the system is not about doing that. It's not the company's fault for that. The companies, from its point of view, is just functioning in a system that tells it. We need to maximize our profit. It's like a machine. It's like me blaming a penny machine for putting out pennies. It's not that it's good. It's not that I like it. But you have a political system that says, that's okay. And that's just that's okay incentivize them for doing exactly that. And the catchment becomes anybody who you put into political office will have to touch that hot

real. Meaning even if Sanders got elected, ultimately Sanders is going to be confronted with the mechanics of a system that I don't know if he has the power to change, nor what I don't know people around him would be okay with changing. Meaning, I agree with everything Robbie said. I guess my issue, what the thing is, how do you change that without changing the breaks of it? Right. I mean, well, you know, what's at the root of that, right? The root of that is that, you know, Bill Gates or whoever replaced him can call up, you know, important people, maybe the president himself, and say, listen, you know, I really want to make sure you keep that H-1B visa program going, right? And, you know, I'm going to remember that when you run for re-election or your allies run for

re-election. And so how do you, I mean, what you want is a system where that phone call never can happen, where that phone, where that Bill Gates's replacement at Microsoft doesn't have a phone number that he can call. And if he gets that phone number, that the president or the decision maker doesn't take that call and is not tempted to take that call or that there's a punishment for taking that call or for making that call. I don't know, I mean, certainly I don't know under capitalism, I mean, how you get there. because what happens is, I mean, like, so I took this Chinese. I think you just answered it. You can't get there from here.

You can't get there. Every incentive in the world is for that call to happen. And every incentive in the world is for the president to take that call. So one, there's an economic analysis of the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties that sort of illustrates this, right? So Chinese dynasties collapse when the peasants have been overtaxed historically and they rise up in a rebellion. and there's civil war, and basically lots of people get killed, and then finally someone consolidates power, and usually that person is smart enough to say,

okay, we can't tax the shit out of the peasants, so we're going to tax the rich. And that at the beginning, so that's the beginning of a new dynasty. That dynasty starts out, well, it's prosperous. The people who can afford to pay taxes are paying taxes. The peasants who can't afford to pay taxes have relief, and they're happy, and they're working hard. The economy does well.

and there's political stability. But over time, rich people, you know, they curry favor with people in court. They get close to the emperor. Eventually, they get personal audiences with the emperor. Eventually, they ask for favors. They might not exchange money, but they get to the emperor. The emperor is not hearing from the peasants. He's in the forbidden city.

And then over time, every now and then the emperor is like, okay, all right, I'll cut your taxes. if you cut the taxes for the rich people, you have to increase it on someone else. That's the peasants. And then that dynasty declines, then you end up, you know, it falls apart, civil war, and the cycle begins again. I mean, and the reason I bring this up is because it illustrates like, it's sort of like a hardwired aspect of the system. unless you have like some sort of post-finance or post-capitalist system where if the word, you know, where it gets out, like you have the, it's a strict law. Like, oh, did you hear that Senator Johnson took a call from a CEO? Oh, well, we're going to have to execute him on national television.

Unless you do that, right? Like, it's like happening. Well, you know, you saw the thing where China was put a CEO to death row for taking all these bribes. Yes. They execute videos. They do it in a heartbeat. Well, I'm not going to say they do it in a heartbeat. That sounds over the top.

But they will do so. Yeah. When has the CEO gotten executed in the States? Like, I remember exactly? I mean, the Changed Milk scandal in China where they, they shot the dude on national television. Good. And then it's cold. literally bring they literally show up at uh they send a soldier to your widow's house and they charge her

like 80 cents for the cost of the bullet because the people should not have to pay anything for your worthless ass something right about that that's it's cold gosh i mean it's cold but it's also babies dying of milk poisoning is yeah right like i don't want to sound like an asshole saying it's something right about it but as you point out their baby the babies were dying as a result of this guy trying to maximize profit. I don't know how you get around certain vagaries in a system like this. I just don't. Like it makes all the sense of the world for the rich to pay politicians in order to get favors. Why wouldn't they do it? Right? If you were thinking of it for just personal incentive, what is in my best interest as a person, as a company? I have a huge amount of money. I need

political influence because we have a democratic system and a democratic system can restrain my business or for that matter, my expansion. So I need to control that system. How do I control that system? Oh, right, I can pay this guy and this guy can do favors. It makes all the sense of the world, right? I don't know how any politician that is functioning in that system, Ted Raw, Senator Ted Raw, is still stuck with the dynamics of that system. Yeah, unless Senator Ted Raw is personally wealthy and, you know, that's not likely to be true. Right. Exactly. And so, no, no, that's true. And it's so frustrating, right? I mean, I think it almost has to be like, almost like a religious thing. So, you know, like, if you're a Christian, right, it's anathema. If you find out that,

like, let's say your kid's teacher is a Satanist, okay, you know, report her. You're going to, you're going to publish articles in the paper. Like, you're going to protest her. You know, you might, you might shoot her. You're just not going to tolerate it, right? If you look at it out in the community, that in elementary school, you're, you know, in a Christian community. So it's got to be like that. It's got to be like a cultural thing. Like finding out like it's repugnant to everyone. Like finding out that someone's a pedophile.

Like nobody's going to be okay with it. So it's got to be like that. Like, oh my God, did you hear this politician? Like they had lunch with a fucking boss. Like what? Kill them both. You know, it's got to be like that. And it's like it has to be like impossible.

Like it's got to be like, dude, you know, hey, I got some money for you. It's got to be, hey, I'd like to take you money, but I like my life too much. Like, no. They've got to be operating on fear. This is like the Dermal Thomas approach about, you know, the way we discuss Iran and stuff. But, I mean, I think it's true. It's like if it's not like fear, you just, you know, it's like, I don't know.

It's like the normal, like nowadays. Let's say you're a 30-year-old guy and you get a message online from a hot girl who says she's 16 and wants you to want to get together for some nookie if you're a sane 30 year old you might be tempted because she's cute but then you're like oh no no no no I don't want to do that I could get in trouble like I'll be ruined I'll end up on Megan's let megan's like sex registry no no thank you it's got to be the level of fear has to be there yeah I guess I guess the question is how do you get to that and I guess my thought is it has to be systemic well I I think there are two things. One, I think it's an issue of failure. Oftentimes, failure is the thing

that brings people around to, okay, doing this is a bad path, that you don't necessarily know always as you go into it. And keep in mind, people are willing to accept a lot of things that are imperfect if it's not chaos. Right. If you know, okay, chaos is on the other side of this, so I'm willing to accept this imperfect thing. But you're willing to accept the imperfect thing up until the point where the imperfect thing is less bad than the chaos. if the chaos is a better option, then people would accept the chaos in order to change it. I guess the question becomes, at what point does this become worse than chaos on the other side of it? The second thing is the moment that it's understood that this is much worse, and this is a catastrophe, people have a tendency to have a cultural memory to not go back to the thing. Meaning people could say, well, we don't like living in a situation of murder.

We don't like living in a situation or rape is okay. We don't like living in a situation where people have slaves. We don't like living in these situations. It becomes a cultural memory of this is a no. We're just not at that. This is a no yet. But at some point, hopefully people will get to the point of like, okay, this is a fail. None of these people are credible.

We're just being lied to what is the spark that changes it? Because that's not, or at the very least it doesn't seem to be taken to political space. And one last point. The Chinese thing, we had that. It was called Franklin Roosevelt. It just so happened. happened in the context of a Second World War where the Great Depression and then all this other stuff where FDR doing the New Deal. At least that's Peter Turchin's argument. If it wasn't for the New Deal,

we would have had a revolution in this country. Oh, 100%. I believe that. I mean, you know, the Bolshevik revolution had just happened. I mean, you know, the capitalist certainly thought that. All right, let's take, we have a bunch of comments. Some of them are weird. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. F you so is thanks for the dollars. Mitch McConnell dead or is just getting his new reptilian body? I think he's in a coma. Dushbag in a coma.

I know. I'm serious. Okay. Here we're some weird ones. Blake, let's get a $5. I guess we'll take. We do a lot for $5 here on D program. Let's get a look at those big old bitties, Ted.

let's let the girls hang out big boy. Jesus. And then you know. I actually had tits when I was a child. I lost you at least $5,000 to put your money down if you're serious. I repeat that. It's only going to go up, by the way. I'm going to raise it to $6,000 tomorrow.

Well, wait, just to be it's $5,000 to see tits. To see my tits. I guarantee you it's not worth it. But okay. We need a fundraiser for that. I think that's just worth it. It's worth it. All right.

Hey, me, F you say, how much crazy can you handle if she is super hot $1? Oh my God. I don't know what that's wrong. There are some people out there who have taken, I guess, law investigators up on that thinking there were 16-year-olds. Not worth it. It's never worth it. It's never worth it.

Man child, inflation is a disaster. It's destroying our middle class. It's destroying everything. Campaign Trump. I love the inflation. President dump, Trump and Republicans don't. don't give a flying fuck about us. Thanks for the dollar.

True. I don't think Democrats do either. No. If I'm being honest. They don't. I mean, give them out what they did. They ran against. Sanders ran on the platform that pretty much every Democrat ran with.

And they went after him with full burrows even to the point of cheating. Like, meaning he's like, I'm the embodiment of everything that this party says it is. He's just, all he is is. Get me out of here. He's just Hubert Humphrey. I mean, he's just trying to bring them back to where they used to be. But think about what Chris Matthews said. He was like, if Sanders takes the party, he's going to take it for a generation.

And I think Matthews was right. Yeah, that's the funny part, right? I mean, we're seeing all of this now with Grant Platner, right? We should talk a little bit about this. Grand Platner is on the ropes. He's, of course, the Democratic nominee for Senate from Maine. He's had a bunch of sort of Me Too allegations, although we don't call it Me Too anymore, about basically one girl ex-girlfriend said that he raped her.

Another girlfriend came in ex-girlfriend and said that he stealthed. I had not heard this term. But basically he would, this happened according to her numerous times, where they were having sex. She's like, you know, he puts on a condom, but then he takes it off in mid-sex. This wasn't the allegation that Julian Assange is. accusers, waged. But she was, like, upset because she wasn't on birth control,

but he allegedly kept doing this. And so, you know, now there's... Why does she get having sex with him? Well, that's weird, right? I mean, that's the part of... I can understand, like, it happened once, okay? Right. So she's not...

And she's like, don't let it happen again. And he should be like, yes, ma'am. And... But if it kept him... happening. Right? I mean, if it happened once, that's even too much. I mean, you could have got me pregnant. Right. Like, you'd have me pregnant. I mean, and then you have the rape allegations. Look, it is impossible for us to know if these are true. I think the bias is to believe them because there's such explosive allegations to make up. I think it's that, right? Like to say

somebody violently raped me is pretty it's no fun for the women and the right they're getting and you know that like people around them are telling them oh my god we finally have a fucking chance of democrats taking back the u.s senate and you're fucking it up what are you doing can't you let it go you're not going out with them anymore yeah yeah yeah i don't think it's easy for the woman to bring these allegations up which is always i guess my bias to believe it by the same token it's also true Yeah, it's he says versus she says. So I don't know. I mean, when Don came on basically said a guy should drop out.

Personally, I think he should ride that boat to the ground. If he is firmly into beliefs that, well, he would know it or not, whether he did it or not. Yeah, you have to, at this point, you're in taking your rule. He would need to do, frankly, what I did when the whole LA Times thing started. I called up all my business associates, all my editors, and I said, listen, this shit is not, you're going to hear, none of it's true, it's lies, I'm going to prove it. I'm not asking you to support me. I'm just asking you to maintain an open mind. Don't hire me.

Don't fire me. Don't fire me. Don't do anything. Just sit tight. Give me a week or two to figure things out. What did they accuse you up, by the way? I never really. They accused me of lying about the way I was,

treated by a police officer when I was detained for J-Walk. I was I was mildly roughed up and handcuffed. And they claimed that and they said that that never happened and blah, blah, blah. So that the cop had been incredibly polite, you know, it was really polite. He was such a nice guy. It was very polite and polite, media officers, very famous. Yeah. And so then hilarious, without going down the rabbit hole, they then said,

oh, their ace in the hole was, we have secretly, the cop was recording the encounter back in 2001. And it's like they released the audio, and they're like, you can't hear anything on the audio. It's literally just static. And it's like, see, you can't hear you being handcuffed or anything. I'm like, this is, that's totally illogical. And that's your audio tape.

And then I sent- We can't hear the cop being the shit out of Ted Raw. So obviously, the Taylor wasn't getting a shit kicked out of him. It really was a recording, but they had tampered it. And it really was a recording of the incident. And when it was cleaned up, it revealed people screaming at the cop, let him go, quit hurting. Wow. Take off his handcuffs.

So, I mean, it's a really interesting and bizarre story. But anyway. That's amazing. Yeah, but the point is that's what Grant Plattner, if he's innocent, he should be doing. He should be giving a press conference, for one thing. He should meet the press. And he should say, I'll answer any questions. I'll give you an hour.

Anything. But it's like it didn't happen. None of it happened. It's a lie. I'm fighting this. I'll prove it. I'm going to court. You know, it didn't happen.

See, it's the bitch your wife problem. The moment that you have a conversation about beating your wife, you have a conversation about beating your wife. Correct. It's, you look horrible, just having to take the slop off of you of rapists and not. Nazi supporter. If I were his handling his communications, God forbid. I would say something along the following lines.

Listen, we all know the way the corporate Democrats are desperate to keep control of the party. This is part of that bullshit. They're smearing me. They found some people to go after me who are corporatists. You know that if I step aside, they're not going to put in a good progressive like I am to fight for you and for the and for you know, people in Maine who are struggling to pay their bills. This is what this is about. Now I'll answer your questions. That would be probably the best messaging for him. But he's like the fact that he's hiding out, no pressers. It's not looking good. I mean, I just, you know,

whether he's interested or not, he's not handling it well. You have to go through this. I don't think you can go around this. No. Like, I don't know if you can deflect on something like this. You have to go through it. I agree with you. Yeah. Well, there's no. There's no. Yeah.

I mean, it's like the Tylenol crisis management thing, right? Classic. So, I mean, yeah, but here's the thing, right? Democrats are also kind of in this weird space where a lot of them feel like they ousted Al Franken too quickly over very little. And now they don't want to make the same mistake. You know, we also are in the Asian. of Donald Trump need I say more and they're like well the Republicans fucking get away with

everything and say and do anything so why can't we have some you know why can't we have our own turd ascend to the U.S. Senate and and beat Susan Collins I would rather have my Democratic progressive rapist third than my then Susan Collins and her right way Republican bullshit. I mean, that is literally the argument that's going on in democratic circles right now. Do you know what I would do if I was Graham Platner? The people who are going after me are the same ones that are protecting Jeffrey Epstein's clients. Think about that. I would go there. I would go for the throat and I would just tear my brands making new one. The people who are the people who are trying to put me on the cross are the same ones who are denying justice for the victims of Jeffrey

Epstein and are circling the wagons with Donald Trump and the Democrats are right there doing it. So you want to talk about me? Come on out. Come on out. Drop the reports. Show me what you got. Show me your crusader for justice. By the way, one thing, and I had a very big discussion about this, JT, I'm very

curious what you have to think of say about this. A lot of Democrats are beating themselves up because they're saying there should have been, there were red flags. We should have noticed this guy. There was that camp. He had a campaign official who resigned, I guess, about a month ago. And she said, like, oh, he wasn't properly vetted. She didn't get into the details.

Now she's looking prescient. You know, I was saying to me, the biggest red flag was military service, including Blackwater, right? Like the dude worked for Blackwater and he served in the military. I mean, I hate to say this. It's a volunteer military. And, you know, you volunteer. And I, look, I don't buy that whole, like, oh, people in flyover country have no fucking other options other to earn a living other than to go overseas and kill people who live in their own countries. I don't believe, I don't buy that because I grew up in flyover country.

I was poor. My mom and I missed many meals. You know, I was, we had child protective services coming around because I was underweight repeatedly. You know, so the point is, I grew up poor. I looked into the military when I was 17, and I heard what they had to say. And first of all, they don't really pay that well. I was like, you know, I could make basically the same going to work at Wendy's and, you know, in a year or two become like assistant night manager.

And I'd be just the same. And those jobs exist everywhere, right? So, I mean, I don't buy it. I mean, I kind of think, like, this isn't World War II. You're not fighting Nazis. You're not fighting Imperial Japan. Like, you're not liberating anyone. If you join the military in this day and age, and I mean by this day and age since the Vietnam War,

you're agreeing for a small amount of money to go and kill innocent people in their own countries. You're not defending the United States. The U.S. military is not for that. So, I mean, we shouldn't really, I think we should kind of like hold military service against you in our society. It shouldn't be something that, like, Democrats are obsessed with that. Oh, like, look, he's macho, he's butch, he's prying open those oysters, and he killed brown people. Yay. Fuck that.

I mean, to me, that this is a warning sign about that. But, I mean, you're not allowed to talk about that. Well, agreed. Let's be perfectly honest, right? It's not the Department of Defense. I was in agreement calling it the Department of War because that's what it is. We are waging war against other things. We were murdering fishermen.

the guy who was running that. I forget the black guy who was running it, effectively step down, honorably stepped down. This is not what I got into the military to effectively murder people in the Caribbean that are effectively fishermen. That's not what I got into the military to do,

but that's what they were doing. The same thing with the strikes in Iran. Again, we did that. We decided to do that. You can make an argument, and some people do, that many of the people who were even involved in those strikes that were on Lebanon and whatnot.

We're Americans saying basically that Israel in no way can a country of nine many people have that many airstrikes by itself. I guess I'm trying to make the point of saying you could put a circle around that as speculation. The point that I'm trying to make is I agree with you that for all intents of purposes, what we do is kill people. Nobody is at our gates, right? There is no Armada sailing to Florida in order to kill people that our military is going out there to fight. We have the military that is involved in wars of aggression, not defense. Those are radically different things. You can say defense of Israel.

I don't think we should be doing that either if I'm being bluntly honest with you. So I agree with you. Add to that Blackwater, that would have been a note right off the bat. These people are murderers. They're lunatics. They're psychopaths. And there's no veneer of patriotism. That's just the money, right?

Yes. That is purely, here's money. Go murder people. Thank you for the cash. who do I need to kill? Who do I need to canoe? I don't know if they hit the person in the head that make the head split out in a particular way. They started having games with the people that used to murder because murder apparently in and of itself wasn't exciting enough.

They're psychopaths. So I guess my thing is that would have been a no-no right off the bat. As soon as I heard Blackwater, nope, nope, nope, nope. Why am I going to put a psychopath in office with the other psychopaths that are in office? So, no, I agree with you. That's not positive. That's not a, hey, this is great that this guy was out there killing and murdering brown people for our military and for contracting services.

By the way, you've got to love the liberal Democrats. How shocking it is that a person who voluntarily signed up to this bloodthirsty military enterprise and became a mercenary that they turned out to be violent and disrespectful to women. women. Who would have never thought? Yeah, who knew? Who knew? He's gambling in this establishment. Who knew? I think of Richard Gear, officer and a gentleman, you know?

I'll lift you up right where you belong. Really? No, I agree with you on this. I mean, it's not a opinion that a lot of people hold. By his own account, right? Well, it's not an opinion that a lot of people hold because there's this rob, rather military stuff. And I get the rob, rather military stuff in the context of defense. I don't get it in the context of just murder and killing. No, no.

I mean, totally. And frankly, then there's the people who are like, well, I joined after 9-11. Okay, so you're stupid. And so, like, I don't know. We already have a lot of stupid members of Congress. Do we need more? I mean, mostly, almost all, maybe all. I mean, you know, it's like, anyway, let me do some more comments here.

You're sinister. John D. Cacaphafeller. Too many smooth brains. I don't know that term. Genuinely. Smooth brains. Is that what he said? Smooth brains?

Genuine brains? Oh, but the brains have crevices. He's trying to say that they don't want to know. Oh, the list tissue can be voted away. I'm in academia. I hear objectively brilliant people say stupid shit. Like, we just got to vote blue. And then it something turns around, I guess.

There's a missing word. Thanks for the $2. dollars. Little matter who. Yeah. Okay. Phileas Fob, thanks for the dollar. Shit libs to poor people.

Get an education. Lift yourself out of poverty. Also shit limbs to poor people. Fuck it. We need to import skilled professionals now and for less. So no jobs for you. Correct. And just to add one point to that was while about that.

The argument that Donald Trump made when he was trying to get in office was I'm America First. We need to increase jobs. We need to stop companies from exporting jobs and all of the southern nonsense. All good arguments. All good arguments. But then you follow it up with,

we also need to fire people. We need to gut the Department of Education. We need to import more people through H1B1 visas. These things. Federal workers. Federal workers are workers. Where do you think they go when you fire them, Elon Musk? they compete against you and me and Jamaral for jobs.

Yes. You know, I mean, if you're going to do that, you need to have a base in order to support that, needing more money into education, more money that people going to colleges. Hell, college is free. Manufacturing, like, meaning you have to do stuff in order to create a context for the system that you want to actually have. It's not magic. John D. Cackelfeller says,

A smoothbreen has no wrinkles, ideas, just. slide right off it. That's pretty funny. I thought it was no neurons, but yeah, same the difference. If you say, what's worse being a goyam or being a muggle? Thanks for the dollar. I don't understand that one. Yeah, I mean, I know what they mean. I don't understand the question. It's a Harry Potter reference.

As a parent of teenagers, a muggle is a half breed. So it's your half-wizard and you're half-human. So that's a muggle. Like, Harry's a muggle. I got it wrong. In fact, I thought it was Jaime is a muggle. Her mom was the one that was...

I thought a muggle was just... It was a non-manic person. It was a muggle. Non-n-n-hackle. Yeah, I don't know. Like a normal person. Like a civilian. They're a muggle.

I've never read... A muggle is a half witch. Or half... A muggle is a half magician and a half human. Jaime was a muggle, which is why they were being persecuted. I believe in Harry Potter 6.

I know this too much. I know too much. I've seen all the Harry Potter's repeatedly. John D. Cackefeller, LMAO, I love Ted, but saying service should be held against someone is a liberal take. I don't know about that. Liberals are all about, like, thank you for your service on CNN and MS Now and all that.

All the time. Man, Obama, you know he's just like swooned when he saw those guys with like the lettuce on their uniforms and all the stars on their epaulettes. I mean, he was so impressed. And it should be like, dude, don't be impressed. You're the boss. You tell them what to do.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's because liberals always were called weak. And somewhere along the way to have internalized military. I mean, Obama wasn't weak in regards to the military. No. By any stretch of the imagination. I wish he were. Yeah.

I mean, but he wasn't. I mean, and keep in mind, at that point, the JCPOA was like the weakest position. These guys wanted to go to war for all it did's purposes. They thought the JCPOA was a way out of war. No, these guys weren't weak on military. Obama was hard-ass on this stuff. Okay, so we have been corrected. So a mud blood is the half-breed that's half-wizard, half-human.

And a muggle is just a normal. He's not much-cum. Yeah. So Ted is right. Oh, okay. Thank you, Chair. I was like a warlock, nor a magician, or yeah. I got it.

Meanwhile, Trump has said that the ceasefires off and everyone hit Iran very hard tonight. That's breaking. Yeah, let's talk about that. Basically, this is, okay, so this is a cliche, but I guess in this particular case, it's true. Hard to know who started this particular thing. What do you mean? Well, okay, so basically. I don't think it's hard at all, but let's get into it.

All right. Well, so Tehran struck three commercial ships in the strait of our moves. My understanding is because. because those ships didn't follow the proper Iranian procedures that they're supposed to. Washington then struck Iran. Then Iran struck American bases in the Gulf. But the question is, did anything precede the Iranians hitting those ships? Yes.

Was it the Israeli thing in Lebanon? What was it? No. So, okay. I believe it's element five of the memorandum of understanding. is basically says that Iran controls the strict. And it does so for it in 60 days and it will facilitate ships going through the straight of remorse. The United States has been using, as I keep saying, the U.S. never believed in the memorandum of understanding.

It was always a pivot position. It was vigorously and remorselessly violated from the very beginning. Iran didn't get any benefits out of that memorandum with the exception of the sanction relief, which was a blip in comparison to. the damage that the United States caused in the strikes and sanctions and everything else. So I hope you get my point. Iran was never going to give up control of the strait because that's their strategic weapon of sorts. And so a memorandum of understanding, it comes across as if it's understood for the next 60 days

that Iran is going to control the straight and allow and the ships go through, which means Iran controls the straight in the way that they understand it. And there was never going to be a situation where they would ever create or sign a memorandum of understanding giving up that control because that is indeed the that is the guarantor of their security in this case. So when ships try to go through, the United States has been used in the memorandum of understanding to try to carve out a pathway for ships to go through that evades Iranian control, which from their point of view and the memorandum of understanding, they control. meaning you're trying to pry away my leverage in order for you attack. Totally. Yeah, yeah, they're trusting them.

Yeah. I mean, it's like meaning the U.S. is doing everything in their power to try to find a way to get around Iranian leverage. Even J.D. Vance, when J.D. Vance pointed out saying, hey, we needed to fill the coffers of our energy, basically effectively pointing out that we understood that we were running out of energy

and the ability for Donald Trump to effectively verbally keep markets low. was wearing thin, considering he had said it like 40 times that the war was coming to an end. I'm trying to put out, boil it down. The U.S. was doing everything in their power to evade Iranian control of the Strait of Ramos, in order to take away the leverage that Iran had with the control of the Strait. They were doing it from day one. When Iran exerted that control saying, hey, that's a no-no, you're not prying our hands away from the leverage. The U.S. attacked. And at this point, having to fight over who controls the strait and who controls ships moving through the Strait of Ramoos. Iran's assertion is, we control it. We're not giving that up.

Hence, the back and forth in regards to reprisal strikes between the two back and forth. This is not going away anytime soon. I said the war wasn't over. It wasn't over. Well, yeah, things are definitely coming up tomorrow. One last thing we got to talk. We did call this yesterday. We said that we thought Marine Le Pen would run. She did, in fact, say she's going to run. one little detail about the ankle bracelet. According to her lawyers, they believe that, so they've decided to file an appeal to what they call this, I think it's called the cessation court or the,

and anyway, basically it's the equivalent of the French U.S. Supreme Court. It's the highest court in the land. Anyway, they believe that pending the appeal, she doesn't, that they can suspend her having to wear the ankle bracelet. But I think she should wear that fucker. And parade around with it. No pantsuits. Like, you know, you don't have to wear a miniskirt, but wear a skirt.

And, you know, show me that I would paint that thing, like fuchsia. So, like, nobody can miss it. You know, just like make sure it's real obvious. Like, you know, make sure always stand up not behind a podium. No, she should like work it. But anyway, she's running. She's the, she's the favorite to win next year. I mean, it would be, this would be a political earthquake in France and in Western Europe.

Yeah, I agree with you. She should, wait, for some of my ass, it's very weird this one. Yeah, she should parade that thing off. She should run with it like Trump. I think Trump gave the pathway on how to weaponize the fact that they're coming after you like this. The Fulton County mugshot became, like, iconic for him. Yep. be wearing it on t-shirts. I agree with you. She should be out there with the thing showing,

make the argument. Hey, they tried to take me out. They tried to stop me from going in the office. There's a reason why these elites, these Epstein class, wants to stop me from going in the office. She should run into that whole hall. I mean, explain to the audience, it's just the significance of the national rally taking power. Like, I've watched them year after year after year, horse trade to keep the national rally out of power. In fact, even in Macron's situation, where the prime minister that was running at one point, if you remember, it was the left party that had more votes. Macron ends up using a political deadlock to put in his own person, despite the fact that the government had collapsed on more than one occasion. Like, meaning

Macron has been doing things in order to try to remain in power, whereas now this is not necessarily going to be the case, the national rally. may be taking power in 2027. We get into more detail that. We'll follow this up on the Q&A show coming up at 12 noon because there's a lot to talk about there and we can start out the show that way. But yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, what it would mean

is that basically a party that's been associated with Vichy and the Nazi occupation and anti-Semitism, Holocaust denialism would be, no longer to be clear how, those positions anymore. But it's certainly nativist and right wing would be ascending to the to the highest point of power in the country that completely defines what liberty and equality means under Western civilizational values, more so than the United States does, because we got those ideas from France. So it would be massive. Anyway, in the Ukraine War. In the Ukraine War. Yeah,

Yeah, that would, it would definitely, the France would stop supporting Ukraine for sure. Yeah. Thanks, everyone for joining. We will be back in a couple hours for the Q&A show. TMI coming up right now. Thanks everyone for tuning in. See you in a couple hours. And see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern.

Bye, J.T. Have a good one.