DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Hamas Dissolves Its Gaza Government | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: July 7, 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:• Hamas will dissolve its government and hand over power to a new, Palestinian technocratic governing authority. The move comes as a US-backed peace process, which resulted in a ceasefire last year, has largely stalled and as Israel’s bombardment of the Strip continues regardless. Hamas is looking to pressure Israel by appealing to Trump, and show that the group is committed to handing over governance and allowing the peaceful rebuilding of a devastated Gaza.• A month after he captured the Democratic Senate nomination in Maine with a fiery populist message, Graham Platner is facing mounting pressure to leave the race after a woman accused him of rape.• Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, faces a legal reckoning today that could disqualify her from running for France’s presidency next year. A French court will rule on her appeal of her conviction on charges of embezzlement stemming from her party’s use of European Parliament funds to pay its own staff. She was barred from running for public office for five years.LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning, you're watching D. Program with Ted Rall and Jamar Thomas. It is Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Thank you so much for joining us. I don't know what's going on with Jamarle. I just see his icon and it's a beautiful. There we are. There we is. Good morning, James. What's going on, man?

Good. I mean, I like you. You know, your icon's great, but you're better talking and moving in general. True. When I, you know, when I pop in, it defaults. to not showing it. Oh, really? I didn't even know that.

Okay. No, no, you're perfectly fine. It just defaults to it. It's fine. How you doing, man? You're doing okay this morning? I'm doing great, and I'm really looking forward to today's show because I always do, but this is a lot of really interesting stories that are, you know, they're like textured,

which is my favorite kind of story. So, and we're, I like to think that's our strength. So hopefully the audience agrees. Guys, we're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.m. time. So, and this is a regular work week, so we will be here all week. As usual, if you have questions, please like, follow, and share. Please put your questions in the live chat. Producer Robbie West will put them up. Paid chats are, of course, very, very appreciated and much needed, whether it's on Rumble or on YouTube. Those are the super chats on YouTube,

the Rumble rants on Rumble, obviously. Okay, so we should just get to it. I don't even I think we have time to summarize what we're going to be talking about just quickly. We'll talk about Graham Platner, Marine Le Pen, and Hamas. I would vote that we go to Marine Le Pen right away because that just broke before we went on the air. What do you think? Go for it. Okay, so Marine Le Pen is, of course, the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen. She's the heir to the right-wing party in France, the far-right party, the Rassamplement National.

Not the furthest right. People should know that. And basically, she's managed to reform the party since her father's days. Long story short, she's favored to win the French presidency in all of the polls over the last couple of years. The election is being held next year. Emmanuel Macron is being term-limited out. But she suffered some lawfare back in 2023.

So what happened at that time was that some of her parties parliamentarians at the EU parliament in Brussels. They were entitled to receive some European funds to pay their expenses and some of their salaries. But apparently some of them also did some work for the party while they were there, sort of like on the clock. And they weren't supposed to. Now, this is a technicality. Yes, it is. It's definitely not like a serious event. But nevertheless, she was personally convicted of embezzlement. She said that she didn't know anything about it. I actually believe her. It doesn't sound like the kind of thing she would have been brought into the loop for. It's too minor. And she was unaware of it. Anyway, the point is she was personally held accountable, because in France,

the head of the party is held accountable. The powers that be definitely in the media do not want her to be president. So they basically went after her. She was, the main part of the sentence that affected her for this story is that she was told she cannot run for public office for five years. years that would take you through next year's election into 2028. This has huge political ramifications for arguably the oldest democracy in the world, right? Basically, the thing is the party that is favored to win, the candidate who's favored to win was ruled, was basically was going to be denied running on more or less a technicality. That's certainly the way her followers viewed it. I think it's the way a lot of Frenchmen, I mean, you know, I'm on the far left, and I viewed it that way, too.

I view it that way. I'm not even there. And so, you know, I mean, she, so basically she took this to the next level, the Paris Appeals Court. They just ruled. It's afternoon in France. And their ruling was kind of a mixed bag. They said, okay, well, actually, we're suspending your five-year man. But for the next year, you are going to have to wear. ankle bracelet, an electronic monitor. What? That's right.

So she had pre- Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Yeah. Marie LaPen wasn't supposed to go to jail. Why does she need an ankle bracelet? The case was like, we're not going to put you in jail, but you can't run. So now the appeals court came back and said, where's the ankle bracelet coming in?

It's a punishment by itself. So in France, when you wear the ankle bracelet, it's not like here where they're trying to know where you're where they're trying to know where you are so that if you decide to bail and they, you know, they like, oh, you know, Ted's at JFK Airport. Let's get him. It's not, it's less, it's more of a punishment because they're depriving you of your privacy rights. Like, we know where you've been. We know who you talk to. We know who you meet with. We know who's, who's donating to your campaign because we know where you. This was an appeals case. I didn't think this was another case entirely. This isn't a, this is a, no, it's not, is this not a new case. This is the same case. This is the

This is the Paris Appeals Court. Ted, this makes no sense. So I go to, I go to court. They say, okay, Jamal, we're not going to put you in jail, but you can't run for office of five years. Okay. She was never going to be sent to jail. It was more like, it's like, Arjama, you're not going to be able to run for any

public office in the U.S. for five years. It's like, well, okay, you can run, but you have to wear an ankle bracelet. Yeah, but I thought they got rid of. And correct me if wrong, it's been a while since I saw this case. But I thought jail time was a potential. They got rid of it. And they told her. She never had it.

Yeah. They didn't give it to her. Right. They didn't give it to her. But they said, we're going to suspend that. So don't worry about that. But you're not going to be able to run. Right.

And then you go back into an appellate court. How are they reinstituting potential charges? Because that's what it comes across as. They didn't make a wear an counterme on the first time. Not reinstating the charge, the conviction stands. They are not wiping away the conviction. They're just reducing the consequences of the conviction. So they're saying, okay, so you can run, but you've got to wear ankle monitor now. That's it. Now, I haven't, you know, this just broke. The decision, I don't even know if it's been posted yet. It's in French, in legalese, if it, when it is,

I'm going to have to read it. It's going to be a struggle. It just seems very weird to me that this wasn't. part of the charges the first time around, meaning this wasn't part of the penalty the first time around. And now it seems like they're adding this at the appellate court where the appellate court is a determination of whether that they're going to appeal the first charge. It just feels weird. It feels like they're adding something to it. It's a, I mean, but they, well, they're not.

This is actually a moderating, I mean, she can now run. She believed, as of yesterday, she might not be able to run at all. she can run. So the, I mean, look, I'm not trying to validate what they did. So now she's in this position. She has to decide within hours because she said that this evening, Paris time, which is in a matter of hours, she's going to announce whether she's going to run or not. She has to, she has to.

She previously said she would not run if she had to wear an ankle bracelet because it would deny her the free. freedom of movement and the privacy that she needs in order to campaign freely. I'm not really sure I follow the logic of that. I think she should take a page from Donald Trump and weaponize and use this as she should wear skirts and show that bracelet and work it and say, look, I'm your vindication. They came after me. Look at what they did to me. this is the power of the French state.

She should work it. And she should be like, this is, you know, I'm a martyr to the system. The French are, you know, temperamentally, they hate elitism and they hate oppression. You know, this kind of thing pisses them off, left, center, and right. I think this would be kind of like when, remember when Paula Jones showed up in her cute miniskirt and her tight blouse to be frog walked by the police and when she was arrested. And she looked and she was like, I'm going to look great and I'm going to make them look foolish like arresting me.

And it worked. That's what she should do. She should like, she should, this is definitely, I predict, I mean, look, this is, I'm on a limb here. I think she's going to run. I think she's going to, she's not going to let this stop her. This will, if anything, just increase her popularity. I, I, to me, if I'm advising her, she had, she, her backup was to, if she didn't run, she was going to, her protege is 30 years old, Jordan Bardella.

And he's a force of nature. But I don't know if after Macron, who was also young, the French are really excited about running another, electing another young president, especially this young. I mean, 30 is young for a French president. I mean, I don't think she wants to do that. I mean, she trusts and likes Bordello, but I just don't, I don't see it. So the Ressamblema Nacional is probably going to run her, and she's probably going to win. And this all has massive repercussions.

National front for the English speakers who don't speak French. Yeah, not neutral front anymore. That was her, she rebranded. Oh, it's national rally now. National rally now. Yeah, the Rézombeil Nacional. Yeah, the national rally. I agree with anything.

That's a hot tip for people who don't know French politics. That is a reference to de Gaulle, right? Because his was the, was also a Rassemblemeil, a rally, a national rally. I agree with everything you just said. I agree with everything you said. I mean, look, European politics, I know people think that it's radically different. It's not radically different than the politics that happens in the U.S. The spectrum may be shifted, but it's not radical in a sense of that way we would understand it. When I was covering the European elections, they were saying very similar things that were being said in the United States, even though politically it was shifted in a particular way. I think You're right. I think Donald Trump has shown the gateway to how to weaponize and use this as a rhetorical device against your enemies, especially since your enemies was dumb enough to do it, meaning they have stepped out of the shadows and have effectively said, we don't like this person for whatever particular reason. And the public who hates that establishment that came out and said, we don't like this

particular person, is now going to be a target and a political weapon of that person, if that makes I'm saying this weird. Basically, the fact that they have tried to stop her from running may be the motivation for her to run in the first place, meaning if she said before, I'm not running, well, this is different. They actively tried to stop her using a bogus charge to do so. If anything, that may be more of an impetus to run than not. And it may be something that the French public gets behind her because of such, meaning she was already winning in the polls. And this is, people need to realize this. This is after decades of that party being seen as radioactive,

where that party has now become the leading party in France. And by the way, the same thing, or something similar is happening with the ADAP in, alternative to Dutlander, AFP, AFD, I'm sorry, and I always have to say the words, eternity for Georgia. Because the acronym of us throws me. The AFP in Germany, same thing,

where you have a party that was reviled as a Nazi party that because they pointed out, why are we doing this? Why are we taking a hit like this? Why aren't we using Russian oil? Why are we trying to go to war? And the people say, hey, there may be a Nazi party in the past, but they're making more sense now. I'm saying the same thing is true from a really pen. You're right. She should show that ankle mind at all. She should rhetorically bring up that they tried to stop her in the race, just like they stopped Karlin Gogetzko in Romania. She should bring this up. This should be a weapon for her. And yeah, I agree with you. I think she could win, which is wild because in a normal circumstance.

the national rally was always seen as this outlier party where the other political parties would do everything in the power to prevent from getting into political power. Do you, and I guess this is a question for you, you know better than me. Do you think that finally breaks in this upcoming election in 2027? Well, I mean, so it's going to be, so the French system is that you have, it's a, it's two rounds. Right. So all the candidates run in the first round, and then the top two vote getters face off in the second round. I think she's going to come out on top in both.

I mean, unless there's another Macron-type black swan moment where it's like someone who steps out of nowhere sweeps French politics, that does happen. France is very amenable to that. or let's say the left is able to unite behind Jean-Luc Melanchon or someone else like that. I mean, Menoncheon, he's good, but he's missing that certain it factor that people in a representative democracy are looking for in their president. He just is. I love him, but I just, but I see that problem. And I mean, I voted for him in the last time. So I do love him.

But, yeah, I mean, it's like if the left can unite, maybe if the left could unite. Like, when does that happen? So, I mean, look, it would be a seismic shockwave. You know, this was her father's party, which she has burnished the reputation. She's rebranded it. But, I mean, he literally went to, he literally was convicted of denying that the Holocaust happened or that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz. He literally talked about how great Philippe Petin was, the collaborationist leader of Nazi-occupied France in the 40s. So, I mean,

that's where, that's her dad. She broke with her dad, rebranded the party. And, you know, she insists that now it's basically French for the French only. She doesn't, I mean, by American standards, the national front isn't really, it's not as far right as Trumpism or MAGA. I mean, you know, like, let me give you some examples. National health care ain't going anywhere. The early retirement at age 62 under a national front government going nowhere. Social safety net going nowhere. Retirement going nowhere. All French workers cannot be dismissed for cause. You have to be, your boss can't, I mean, sorry, only. only for cause, right?

Like if your boss wants to fire you just because like he feels like it, like here, they can't do that in France. You have a contract. All that stuff is going to stay under a right-wing National Front Party. Climate change, they believe in it. So, like, it's not as far right as ours is, but it'll be, like, definitely nativist, controlled borders, reduced immigration, hard to see how that works within the EU.

right because they have open borders with all over their neighboring countries so you know how do you do that i mean france and along with germany is one of the two founding countries that created the e u together um so it's like they're not just one other country you know they're not like another member like croatia so it's just that's that's complicated but um she i think the french are really pissed off the establishment going after her just makes, you know, it really, I mean, this gets her 10 points in the polls, you know, I mean, it just does. You know, people who would never have considered voting for her will vote for her as a spite vote. Yeah, this was basically, it's going to backfire.

It's like Mumdani. The reason I voted for Mumdani. It's like I thought he was too young. I thought he was an experience. I thought he was wet behind the ears. Then when I saw how badly the establishment despised him and were afraid of him, I was like, oh, that guy's got my vote. Yeah, it's a Trump factor. Yeah.

It's like they did everything in the power to go after Trump. And some people thought it was out. I thought it was outrageous. I despise Trump. And I thought it was outrageous. Yeah. Like, if you lose me in this. And I was, you know, we talked about it at the time.

I agreed with you. Yeah. And look, look, I think there's a chance that Kamala Harris, or if Biden had been able to run, they would have been able to win in 24 if they had just fucking let Trump be Trump. and not fucked with him for four years. Yeah, but in their mind, this is a pressing threat. He's, I mean, it's a pressing threat to them. They can't help.

And that's, God, man, can we, let's talk about that for just a second. Yeah. This paternalistic thing that you're sitting at the top of a political space and you look out and you say, hey, that guy's a threat. Now, you may even say he's a threat to America as a whole. not just a threat in and of itself, that we can't let somebody this incompetent hold the reins of power. And then you think to yourself, okay, so what do we do in order to stop her from doing that? And even if we have to go outside the norms in order to get rid of him, we should do that because that is in the ultimate best interests and it backfires.

I think the issue with that mindset, and I get it, I may even get stuck in that mindset if I was in that position. The problem with that is the country chooses and the country, country chooses for reason because the person in charge may not be the best person. And the person who is in charge will, in some cases, obviously, look at themselves as being the best thing for America. This other thing is bad, but that's a self-interested point of view, hence, elections. I don't know. I mean, I can kind of see where they're coming from by the same token. That perspective is nonsense. Or give me your take on that. Or do you think it's not? You're right. I mean, what you're talking about that these elites suffer from, and particularly in the media, is it's paternalism,

right? It's the idea that, like, we know better. We can see the country headed toward disaster. We know better than them. We can't leave this to the whim of the electorate. We can't let democracy prevail because, you know, what if the voters make the wrong call? The voters often make the wrong call. That's part of democracy, right? I mean, I mean, so, and like if you don't like democracy, then don't, then just, you know, have a coup and go to authoritarianism or monarchy or whatever. But this is kind of like, I mean, it's like parenting, right? At a certain point, your kid, you have to let your kid drive the car when you're not around. And they could drive too fast and they could show off with their friends and they could drink or smoke weed while they're driving.

They can do all those things. And you have to be okay with letting them make some bad decisions and maybe crashing your car because otherwise they will never fucking grow up, right? And they'll never be adults. And like these people are treating us like the DNC and everything like we're children. Like, you know, like Rosenthal, the, you know, the CEO of the New York Times. These guys are deciding for us. And like the thing is, I guarantee you the American public will make many.

more bad decisions. We voted for Nixon over McGovern. We voted for Bush over, you know, over Kerry. We made we made a lot of bad decisions. You know, James Buchanan was elected by the people who are allowed to vote. That's, you've got to be okay with that. Otherwise, you're fundamentally anti-American, un-American and anti-democratic, small D-democratic. I mean, you're right. And like the it's like and it also it backfires you make things worse when you put your thumb on the scale look what happened yesterday we were talking about the about the world cup look you know belgian burned up the united states yesterday when i woke up this morning i was happy to hear it yeah they they destroyed them they said that belgium played like they were on fire because you pissed off right

Americans were played like derps. It didn't, cheating didn't help, right? The energy, they were, I think subconscious. Soccer players all say it's very psychological, right? The mood that they're in. And like, the, you know, they knew they were kind of like benefiting from something that wasn't right. The Belgians knew that they were, had been aggrieved. And they won.

I mean, don't put, there's a chance. There was a, the U.S. might have done better if Trump hadn't. called the FIFA guy. It's just like that. Fucking stay out of it. Let it be. What if your kid crashes the car and gets killed in the car crash? That can happen.

And, you know, that's the thing. It's like, yeah. And what if, let's say, your German democracy decides to elect an Austrian corporal? You know, that can happen. And so it's a legitimate concern. And there are people watching. whose kid probably died in a car accident, right? I mean, that can't happen.

And, like, that, I mean, to say that that sucks doesn't even begin to touch help. I mean, it's a complete catastrophe. Yeah. But then... And that's where... That's the system. That's the world we live in. You have to be honest with you.

I think I would be susceptible to that. I'm a control freak. I'm a control. Before I went on the air today, I noticed that the curtain behind me was off kilter and I went and changed it. I'm a control freak. But like you have to, part of being an adult is like recognizing these impulses in yourself and saying like, okay, I know that I want to do this, but I will not do this because it's wrong.

Oh, see, that's the rub. And you know, it's wild. Just to put this in context, both political parties attempted a coup. Yes. The U.S. I mean, the Democratic Party tried to solve coup with Trump in either trying to take them out of the political space by putting him in a cage, something that we do to other dictators or other world leaders that we don't particularly like. I mean, look at where Maduro is now. He's sitting in a cage,

not because he didn't anything wrong, but because we just didn't necessarily like him. Okay, we tried to do the same thing. And for the last part, Trump tried to do it just directly, right? I am God emperor from here on out. Like, there's, we are going and careening into bad places in our 250th year. This is not going well. No, it's not going well. And, you know, I mean, look, as paternalistic as American political and journalistic elites are, man, they don't touch the French.

I mean, because they still, there are still people there who think that they're aristocrats and have titles. They somehow didn't get the whole guillotine memo. And, I mean, it's like the class system is really, rigid there. So, you know, and so, I mean, it's also an incredible meritocracy. Like, you can come from Jordan Bardella, who is the, you know, Le Pen's heir apparent 30 years old. He grew up in the Bonnier, which is, you know, it translates to suburbs, but that's, it's not like our suburbs. Okay, the French suburbs, it's the projects. It's, it's brutal. It's, it's dangerous. It's rough.

And he's a product of that. And he went to the, he, he, he, he, he, he, he's, I'd eat hard, went to the best colleges in the country. And it is a meritocracy, because if you get into the Sorbonne, you know, you go for basically for free. You just have to pay your books. It's like, and in France, they can do that. But so it's weird because it's like paternalistic, but it's also a very egalitarian society in some in other ways.

It's complicated. But look, I think, you know, we have to start looking. I mean, if Lepin chooses not to run, that'll be political. suicide for the Assembleman Nacional. It would be foolish of her. I don't think one thing I've never seen from her is foolishness. Sure. I think she'll run. I don't believe, I don't think people is heavily favored to win. Yeah, yeah. I don't think people give up political power like that. And this is, she has been at the head of this party for more than a decade. Yeah, and she looks a lot older than she is. She's 57. I mean, she has a lot of, a lot of energy. You know, she's still.

Yeah. So she's been headed this party for God knows how long. She was able to bring it from She stole it from her dad. Yeah. And the party is to where it is now. I just don't believe that after all of that work while she's at the precipice that she says, yeah, I'm out. I just don't buy it. The point is this doesn't hurt her. Right, at all. It doesn't reduce her chances. I mean, I think honestly, she's cold-blooded, and she would be, she literally cares more about her party than she cares about herself. I think that, like, if she thought there was a 1% higher chance of Bardella winning than her, she would let, she would tell Bardella to run. Yeah. But I don't think he has a better chance than her. I think her chances are better than his. 100%. No question. Yeah. All of this work. You don't get this up. Definitely not. If you're just joining us, we're going to talk about Graham Platner. We're going to talk about Hamas.

Thanks for joining us. Please like, follow, and share. No ad, so we can just press onward. Should we talk about Grand Platner? Get that out of the way? Sure. All right, so I assume you heard what happened. So, Graham Platner has had like a whole series of, he's the Oisterman,

who is the, led a from the left insurgent challenge to the Democratic establishment. and managed to score a surprise win in the Democrat for he's now the Democratic Senate nominee challenging Susan Collins to become the new US Senator from Maine. I don't know if he would have won or not. I think it's pretty clear he's going to drop out of the race today. So a bunch of revelations came out about him being abusive to women, including physically abusive. and now yet another, I guess this is a ex-girlfriend,

is saying that he raped her violently about five or six years ago. So one of the things that happened when he was approached by his donors during the primary process, they said, like, there's not going to be any new shit, is there? And he was like, no, no. No. It's like, well, yes. And so, you know, here we are.

And, I mean, you can imagine how pissed they are. I mean, it's just a reminder that you have to vet your candidates really well. But, yeah, so, Grand Platner, he's, you know, basically, I kind of, like, I'm kind of mad at him because it's kind of like. Why you mad at him? Oh, because he didn't tell anybody that he was a valent rapist. Everybody knows, you know, like, if you ran for, I'm not going to say what they would be, but I know if I ran for the Senate that I know what things would come up from my past and would be used against me.

And some of those things I could probably brush off very easily, could not even talk about them. Some of them I'd have to confront the way that Obama did early on. He knew that he had used cocaine. And so he put it in his book that came out years before he ran. So by the time someone brought up in 2007, hey, he used cocaine. Everyone's like, yeah, we read it in his book, douchebag. You can, you know, so you. And then there's stuff like, you know, I haven't raped anyone.

But if there's stuff that you're like, I might not be so easy to get rid of, right? Like if you knew there was someone who might drop a dime on you like that, then maybe you should spare your party and yourself and your loved ones. the pain of this public scrutiny. I mean, they're going to find out. I mean, I know nobody really knows what Lindsay Graham does in bed, but like, you know what I mean? Like, it's people are going to know. I mean, you have to assume. So, like, why did he run? Well, I don't, well, I don't think the pool boy is going to tell on Lindsey Grant. To, I don't know. I was going to ask you, why do you? Why do you?

you think. I mean, because you're right, right? Like, this isn't like Carlos danger where it's, it's embarrassing, but it's not rape, even though it's embarrassing and it's politically damaging. But he was able to, what is it, Wiener, Wiener was able to have a political career. He got into Congress. He just couldn't stop for whatever particular reason. He just kept doing this stuff even when he was in Congress. I mean, he people forget this. He got, he got, caught. It was a big news story. The New Yorkers were like, well, who hasn't sexted, you know, bits of their junk to, you know, someone. And so New Yorkers are like, it's a very liberal state. Right now there's documentary about Robin Byrd, who was community access cable. She was sued,

right? Robin Byrd was porn. It was porn on community access cable. And someone who sits for obscenity, He went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And this is, I promised Jermaine, the U.S. Supreme Court said, well, this is all based on community standards. If you were in Birmingham, this goes against community standards to have porn on, this is New York City.

And they said, New York City does not have community standards. Okay. It's a point on community access was okay. And I kind of thought, we should have that on T-shirts. Like, that's like a great thing. Like, nobody has no standard. nude people walk down the street in the middle of the night i'm like yeah that's true there's no

community standard okay so but like this guy so weiner got caught and then like you said he couldn't stop he got caught i mean some right winger was basically like he who was 17 or pretending to be 17 or something basically got him to do it again it's like yeah dude you got burned already Like, you know, from now on, you're using a landline, right? No more cell phone for you. I mean, in fairness, he's married to Huda. So, sir, the man can get a pass. She was that woman.

If I remember directly, she's very attractive. That was Clinton's press secretary or something or, or a secretary or somehow. Her close political aid, yeah. Yeah. Your idea of beautiful in mind. She's a very rich dude, right? Yeah, your idea of beautiful in mind are very, different. Okay, maybe I'm misremembering her. Oh, no. Maybe I'm misremembering her. I mean, she's not,

I mean, she's not ugly. But I mean, if you're best friends with Hillary Clinton, probably you're not the most pleasant person to be married to. He's married to Alexander Shoros now. Oh, right. They got divorced after the dick pics and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, he kept sending dick pics to people. I mean, I mean, Huma Abidine is hot. No question. That's what I thought. She's very attractive. Yeah, very elegant. I mean, it's true the fact that she was like hanging out with the hillster is not politically appealing to me. No, it's not.

I guess my thing is for the guy, though. I don't know what will be in his mind. Maybe you don't think that this stuff is going to come out. Maybe you think the people aren't going to expose it. I don't know. I mean, rape is pretty heavy. That's fucking planet, right? I mean, like, it's one thing to be.

like you're running for alderman. But I mean, this is the U.S. Senate. And like in a highly polarized environment, you know the GOP is going to fucking dig up everything they can on you. That's kind of their job. The media is going to go after you and look into your past. You know, I don't know. It's just sort of like, I mean, he's an idiot.

And now we're past the primaries and the Democratic Party has to figure out what to do. I mean, I'm assuming he's gone, right? But he's got gone. And they're like, now it's kind of funny. It's like a repeat of 2024 where they're like, you know, with Biden's withdrawal at the same time of the year. Oh, maybe we can do, we can stand up like a sort of abridged new primary process and have a do-over. It's like, come on. They should have a mini primary.

Don't choose the candidate. Do not choose the candidate. have a many prime, like meaning I get that this is a disaster. It's a disaster. But you found a disaster by just picking some rando as opposed to actually having another. I know it's not great. Is there time though? I mean, you know how it is.

They have to print ballots. They have to. There's filing deadlines. I mean, it's, it's. I mean, they have to what November. Challenges here. Well, the election is in November. When is the deadline for the thing?

I mean, because otherwise. That's looking to Maine into Maine's politics, right? I mean, but like I would imagine that this is a matter. you have maybe a few weeks to, and they have to set up, you know, a ballot in every little, like, village in town in rural Maine, which is a very rural state. I mean, what's the alternative? Appoint someone, just know you're going to lose. Oh, do you want to do that?

I mean, I guess I'm looking at the race with Kamala Harris and the way they just chose. That's different. That's the presidency. You think it's different? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a big fan of, I mean, obviously the party is a corporation. They could choose whoever they want. And the reason that they have the primary process is because they want buy-in from the public. They don't need buying from the public, but they don't want their candidate to win.

I guess my thought is, I don't know. I don't know. I guess choosing just assumes that you're going to lose the seat. Well, I think you can assume that. I mean, don't like you're racist. I mean, they lose. literally elected a rapist. They elected, yes, a probable, a probable racist. I mean, this is like the Bill Cosby thing. You know, one person, it can be a false allegation, maybe two. There's too much, there's too much smoke here.

There's too many exosations. I mean, it's just basically like, just look at him. The guy drinks too much or has drunk too much or both. You know, he's a mean cuss and he fucking hurts women. I mean, the end, right? I mean, we'll see if he drops out. I mean, these are kind of explosive allegations to be like, I'm just going to rat this shit out.

Yeah. I mean, if you were Donald Trump did. True, but those were different. I mean, like, can you imagine being on a debate stage and Susan Collins is calling a guy rapist the entire time? Oh, that would be disastrous. I mean, Trump wrote it out because to be honest, the allegations against Trump seemed ridiculous. Like meaning like the idea that when we were in a room or we were in a store, there was nobody there.

This happened 30 something years ago. And he sexually assaulted me. Okay. There's not. I wanted to make out I didn't want to fuck. Right. Like it's so like the timing to me, the fact that it was like, what, this is from the 90s? Yeah.

And you're bringing this up now during the presidential election. and we have in a shred of evidence that attests of being raped or assaulted, and we're just supposed to take your word for it? Like, I don't know what to go with that. Like, I don't know. I mean, again, I despise Trump. And I didn't know what to go with that. Yeah, now.

Especially when you're giving a guy, like, millions of dollars, just because he said you're lying. I know two people who know Jean Carroll and just full transparency. They say she's extremely credible, but, you know, for whatever that's worth. I mean, but it's not about her being credible. It's just I don't have any evidence for it. Right, no, I know. I think you can't fuck someone over for something where there's no evidence.

Yeah, no, I agree. Here you've got, here you have strong, well, you have evidence. I mean, a number of accusers have stepped forward. So, you know. Yeah. I mean, look, here's a thing. At bare minimum, his ex-girlfriends don't think he should be a U.S. senator, right? That's why they're stepping forward, even if they're lying, right?

It's like they don't, like, I got to say, I don't think my ex-girlfriends would say I should not be a U.S. senator. You know, I think my ex-rel friends would think that I would make a good senator. You know what I mean? Not that I'm running. I mean, I don't think they would come forward and trash me regardless of whatever they think of my political ambitions, meaning I don't think they would come forward and make shit up just to stop me from getting in the political office. Right. Even though they hate it in the guts. I don't think they would do that.

Right, exactly. No. And so like, yeah, so all of that, it's, it's bad, you know. I hope he fights it. And, and here's why. Oh, all right. Go, Robbie. Let's hear that. I'm all years. Let's hear. You know, I'm being dead serious. And here's why. It's because if the establishment is trying this hard to take somebody out and if they offer enough incentive for false accusations, if that's all it takes, Keep in mind, this guy's never been, he's never been convicted. He's ever been charged. This is all in the court of public opinion.

And he's a true insurgent. He's never held political offices. Anyone could say anything about anyone. And if you think that the establishment will not give some kind of incentive to bring forth a wave of false accusations against anyone that they perceive as a threat, you're giving way too much credit. These people, they're going after him because they are afraid of. of him and if they were afraid of him but then he been by definition i would support him because i want

to burn the system down wait what if he's guilty i have no idea then he should then they should have went to the cops and charged him they should have there is a legal process you know if if i was if i raped somebody then i should be taken to court and convicted of that crime that never happened here this is this is public character assassination is what this is there is a Well, it's not the character. I mean, I guess it is. My definition it is. They are attacking the man's character.

I mean, Ted, you just convicted this man on the internet by being based on allegations of rape. He's never been charged. Not one of these women filed a police report to my knowledge. There's never been any kind of legal or new process. You know who hasn't denied that he did this is Graham Platner. Why would you? Graham Platner did not.

If someone accused me. you denied that you committed a violent rate? I would sue them for liable. And I would and I would absolutely deny it. Here's what I would do. And listen, I don't have enough money to run, but if I did, I guarantee I would. And it would not surprise me if the Republican establishment went after me in any way, shape, or form that they could. I would take the Thomas Jefferson route when he was accused of being with with Sally.

Sally Humming. I wouldn't say a word because the press, they wanted him to defend what he did. They were trying to drag him through that whole circus, which you're never going to win. The best thing you could do in that case is not, is not give any fuel to the fire. Just save what I said. These people are afraid of me. They're dragging this. They're dragging this stuff up.

I'm not going to address it. Let's run the issues. Well, his problem is donors are going to drive. are drying up at even speak, you know? The reason I said this is not going to work is because if somebody, the first thing that people expect you to do is to say,

I didn't do this. Just as a normal human being. This is nonsense. And yeah, I agree with Ted. You sued a shit out of them for doing something like that. I mean, they're effectively, as you point out, they're assassinating your character. They're calling you a rapist. Like, can you say in the LA Times

that, you know, for libel? They, you know, I talked to lawyers, I talked to journalists. Everyone told me the same thing. It's kind of like, well, it's going to suck ass, right? It's like, and I know because I've done, I've been down this path before. But also, what you're broadcasting is you're willing to take big fucking chances to prove that you're telling the truth.

Like you expose yourself to discovery. They can fucking take your computer and like look at every email. They'll know, they'll be, if you lied, they're going to fucking know because you fucking expose yourself by suing them. So like, you know, if it's not true, he ought to sue. But here's the point, though. Can you wage a legal campaign like that at the same time you're running a political campaign? You only have so much bandwidth in the day. Yeah, that's the point. This lawsuit wouldn't see the light of day for years. It's America. You know, there's, you're not going to be in court next week. It's not Sharia law where they're

efficient. It's like, it's not, I mean, Sharia law is efficient. It's like, you're just not, it's, no, I mean, nothing would happen. You hire lawyers, they take care of it. I mean, Trump does it all the time, right? I'm putting in pressing charges against so and so. And then you let your lawyers basically do the years. Yeah. Okay. And again, it's the principle behind it. So who has more resources? Trump or the schmuck in Maine? Hey, those oysters. Who has the dollar oysters are breaking in the money. Listen, I'm just saying, I hope the Platiner fight. I hope he just keeps on going, takes his lumps, when loser fail.

And if he does lose the election, I hope he sues them, like these women who are accusing him, I hope he takes him all to court and just puts him on a cross. Dead serious. That's something he didn't do it. He looks guilty. Well, so do I. I mean, look at my haircut, Ted. People know.

Look, people, people do can look guilty. I mean, I think about Gary Condit, right? He didn't kill that girl, but everyone thought he did. I did. I thought he did. He looked guilty. Listen, the point that I'm trying to say is that the establishment was afraid of you, there's a reason why they're going after you.

Yeah. But also, if the establishment is going after you, like if I ran, I'm a communist, right? Like, I know they would go after me. They want to nail me to the wall. So it would be behoove me not to give them any fucking excuses, right? I agree. but Ted they're going Bernie Sanders Bernie's clean man he's clean Ted you'll have to give them an excuse they'll just make one up that's the point that I'm making here do you think that I'm going to lie

of course they will that's the whole point now let me have a show that I'll go away but we've done no comments so let's do some of these all right spooky fog thanks for the two dollars have you heard of Peter Teals project objection which sounds like sounds like a Cologne objection for men he is he is he is he is He is a psycho. He is. I mean, like, his association with humanity is very tenuous. He's very strange.

Very, very well said. He's terrifying. Objection is a tech startup, started by Aaron DeSuzza, sponsored by Peter Thiel. It's a pay to play AI Tribunal where users pay $2 to $15,000 to trigger investigations into unfavorable media coverage or published claims. or published claims. What the fuck? That's what I mean. Like these people, man.

Like, but he's not a nut. He's using power for his advantage. That's, I mean, that is literally using power for his advantage. I'm rich. I'm a big in an air. I have the capability of cutting now stories that are against my interests.

And so I'm going to pay money to do that. If you're thinking of the Washington Post, for example, He didn't do it just because he wanted he loved the news. He did it because he wanted to control it. Same thing with Bloomberg, same thing with Elon Musk and Twitter. These are billionaires who are paying money in order to, let's say, ensure that the coverage of those same billionaires is favorable.

They use power for their advantage. Do we see, and this is a good transition because we do need to talk about this. Thanks very much for the $10 donation from Zoh Zola Rosa, did you see Venezuela is normalizing relations with Israel? Like, why? Because Venezuela has been taken over by the U.S.? Correct. Del Marosa? I mean, let's be honest, Maduro wasn't, didn't walk out there on his own. And it's not like they fired a shot in anger at the U.S. when the U.S. effectively came to get Maduro. He was obviously betrayed. He was obviously betrayed. He was obviously betrayed. Yes, that's totally true.

Maybe Blue Funk. Platner made an appearance on Tim Heideker's office hours live. There he said someone reached out to him to run. It's not impossible that the Dems knew this guy had skeletons and they set him up to fail. Oh, man, that's an expensive setup. Yeah, it's not impossible, but it's not likely either. P.W. That would be losing a seat, just for the sake of losing a seat.

Rape accusation, yeah, it's a Senate. Rape accusations didn't derail Biden. The media that ignored those accusations back then are suddenly paying attention to Plattner. Yeah, because Biden's part of the club. Plattenor's not, Blottener's an oyster man. It's that. Membership has its privileges, you know?

Yeah, it's that. Privileges has a term. had accused Joe Biden of rape, had, I mean, all sorts of stuff. And what did they do? They shooed her away while going after Andrew Cuomo at the same time. Manchild, thanks for the dollar.

In a statement to NPR, Plater adamantly denied the allegations calling them troubling, serious, and false. Innocent until proven guilty, y'all. I don't like that. I do not like that denial. What do you mean? What do you mean?

Serious, troubling, and false. it'd be outrageous an outrageous false outrageous and defamatory would be better

fair enough but we I'm not going to put it over false he accused you should be angry he should be angry and he did say they were false I mean

I don't know I don't know look from my point of view he had to deny it right off the bat if you can fight through the headwind That's the question.

And Robbie is maybe a believer. I agree. He should keep fighting. He should keep going. Yeah. By the way, it looks like Mitch McConnell is, wow. He's being reported to be brain dead. That report that came out years ago.

That's wrong. I'm sorry. That's wrong. That's wrong. But accurate. That's wrong. I mean, there's nothing about you is lost at all. No lives detected.

Yeah. But the terminal duty is very upset. We like our monsters. Yeah, we do. It's that, right? I mean, Mitch McConnell is a horrible human being. Yeah, he's a, and yet, he's been around for so long. He just kind of get used to the fact that the horrible human being is there.

I don't know. Yeah, fuck him. Yeah. For real. I mean, he's had a much longer life that he deserved. Yes. We should talk about Hamas. So Hamas has, I think, pulled an amazing move.

Look, I'm going to go out. I'm going to say this again. October 7th was a brilliant piece of strategy. It put the Palestinian conflict at center stage where it had been backburnered for years. And now they've done and pulled another brilliant move under the ceasefire agreement from last year, which everyone forgot about because Israel violated every single. single day. Hamas has

announced that they're going to turn over in accordance with the ceasefire agreement that they signed, their power to this new technocratic sort of Board of Peace type thing. And basically, they're going to remain. The military wing of Hamas will remain

the military wing, and they have pledged to disarm at some point in the future. But in the meantime, we're turning over the administration. Here's the car keys. You drive, Gaza, it actually puts a lot of pressure on the Israelis. The Israelis are very upset because they're like, well, this is a trick. It's a stunt. Well, I don't know, adhering to the terms of the agreement that you signed could be viewed as a stunt. It could also be viewed as like, you know,

looking good to Trump. Like, look at Hamas is doing what they said they were going to do. You're also, how can you administer a territory that is 57% now under IDF direct occupation and that the Israelis have completely leveled and destroyed? Oh, you want to administer it? Like, you know, the 1.8 million people who you haven't killed yet, you feed them. Okay, fuck you. And so basically the Israelis are saying, well, this is an excuse not to have to disarm. It's like, it's two separate issues.

But I think it's, you know, it's. It's a smart move. I don't even know. I agree with you. I don't know how Hamas would be expected to administer a spot that is being occupied by the Israeli military. I mean, they have people effectively living in tents in a small section of what's left of Gaza, living in tents full of rats, full of water. Yeah.

I mean, it's utterly depraved what Israel has these people living in, living in, like the situation that they're living in. I don't know how you would administer that anyway. The majority of the place has been leveled. They've taken down like, what, 80, 90% of the buildings in Gaza? That's right. And so I don't know how that works in practice in general. So from Hamas's standpoint, they probably thought, what's the point? Either way, right?

We have no, it's impossible to administer this as if it was some traditional governmental structure. They used to. They used to. Yeah. No, they used to. They were on the schools. Traffic cops. They picked up the garbage. Yeah, they were in charge.

No, no. I'm saying now, however, the place has been leveled. Right. And Israel is occupying 60% of it, give or take, with the idea of occupying 70% of it at some point. So, look, I get it, right? From a homasa standpoint, what's the point? I don't believe they're going to disarm any times. But I wouldn't. Why would you? Yeah.

Right? Like how, what would be, it's not like, like, this is kind of like they have Hezbollah thing. Disarming doesn't stop Israel from attacking you. It just makes them more predacious in those attacks because you no longer have the ability to defend yourself. The only thing that is defending southern Lebanon is Hezbollah. Giving up the guns is not going to do anything to stop Israel's advance when they are implicit in taking Lebanon or the very least aspects of Lebanon piece by piece. I guess my feeling is the same thing for Gaza. Giving up your guns is not going to stop Israel from killing you. It just makes the killing more easy without consequence. And so administer the area, Israel does not care if all of these people starve to death. Let's be very clear. The starvation was used as a weapon. Yeah.

So I don't know what it means. And the Board of Peace, I don't even know where they're getting their money from. They're obviously not getting troops from other countries to go into Gaza. That's not going to happen. This idea of having Muslim killing Muslims is what the U.S. and what Israel wanted. That doesn't seem going to happen.

I was never going to happen. It was always stupid, a fever. But it's what they want it, just like they want the Civil War in Lebanon now, basically making policy saying we need you and making a deal that the government is going to take the weapons of Hezbollah. Good luck with that. Good luck. Never going to happen. Never going to happen. Tom Barack wanted that to happen for years. Never going to happen. Agreed. Yeah. So it's going to be, yeah, I mean, it's super interesting. I mean, I'm writing my column today. It goes out later today about sort of my, you know, what we were talking about yesterday, about my idea that actually Iran, you know, which used to be a ally to the U.S., is a far potentially more valuable ally to the United States than Israel. And if the U.S. could make nice to Iran to the extent that Iran could. could start to maybe trust them a little bit, it would be the right move from our point of view. If I'm the Iranian, I don't trust as far as I can throw us. But, you know, it's like,

if we could make it work, it would be fantastic for us. And I think the Israelis are, like, the thing is, we don't trust the Israelis at Yvore. That trust is broken, right? They tried to assess, you know, by the way, I don't know if I picked this up yesterday and it was like, Holy shit. So Trump started the war in February. Apparently within a couple of weeks, he was actually reaching out to Iran to try to do it to bring it to an end. They already knew right away they had fucked up. He was pushing through Pakistan to get Pakistan to basically, this was reported months ago, where he was basically reaching out to Pakistan to try to get Pakistan to get Iran to be like, hey, chill out. And to make it even worse, to act as if Pakistan

was working on their own, meaning Trump had given Pakistan a document, Pakistan, or somebody leaked the document with all the Trumpian phrases and everything else to make it clear that it was coming from the U.S. And so then the question became, okay, well, is Pakistan being an honest arbiter considering that they're being pushed by the U.S. in order to push these peace negotiations? I've got to be honest with you, though, I don't buy the premise. I'm not certain if I buy, I'm sorry, they've been too many reports that the U.S. and the U.S. and the U. Israel is at odds only to be nonsense, which makes me very skeptical of the new report to come up. You're right, but I mean, and like, look, inertia is an incredibly powerful force,

and usually things will just continue the way they have been. But there's a lot of reasons for them not to be. Unfortunately, this will have to wait till tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's 10 o'clock Eastern Time, which means it's time for TMI. We'll be switching over, we'll be rating over on Rumble over to there. If you're on YouTube, please go over or just Google it. Just go over to TMI and my name and you'll find us.

We'll be back tomorrow, and we also have the Q&A show tomorrow at 12 noon. So please tune into that. Thanks, everyone. Talk to you later. Bye.