DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Healthcare Hijacking | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.Special TWO-HOUR SHOW! Starting 10 AM EST, we’re taking your voice calls. Tune in early for a full explanation for how to talk to Ted and John LIVE.Today we discuss:• Happy New Year! Millions of Americans now have no health insurance, thanks to bipartisan Congressional inaction.• Taking a page from Trump, new NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani hits the ground running with leftie rhetoric and an unapologetically liberal agenda. Gone is the Adams’ Administration’s IHRA’s right-wing definition of anti-Semitism. He will also speed up public and private housing construction.• Swiss ski resort fire kills about 40 people. A “flashfuire” is blamed.• Venezuela’s president says he’s open to a deal. Meanwhile, the Pentagon blew up 3 more “drug boats”—and left survivors floating in the ocean.

Thank you. Thank you. You know, Thank you. You know, I'm going to We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be

a lot of I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm going to I'm a lot of I'm

I'm Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to be the I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to

I'm a bit of I'm Thank you. I'm going to be the I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to

you I'm going to I'm a new I'm a I'm I'm going to be the

I'm going to I'm going to I'm a lot of I'm going to I'm and I'm

a I'm I'm going to be the one of the one you're going to I'm I'm going to

I'm going to I'm and you're I'm I'm Thank you. Thank you. I'm not

I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm the I'm I'm

the I'm and I'm I'm going to do. I'm going to be I'm going to I'm going to

I'm a lot of I'm I'm going to I'm Thank you. Thank you. We're going to be able to do.

Thank you. So, you know, and you're I'm . I'm going to be the

new I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm going to be I'm I'm going

to be I'm I'm going to be I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm I'm going to be

I'm going to be. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Thank you. You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to I'm going to

I'm So, I'm going to be. I'm going to be. We're going to be able to be. You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to I'm

You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. ...how... ...how... ...toe... ...a... ...you know... ...heed...

...hean... ...the... ...the... ...the... ...the... You know, I'm going to be able to Happy New Year. It's January 2nd, 2026. Not one of those weird years that feels weird to say it.

This one seems pretty normal, kind of. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and John Kiriaku. Good morning and happy new year, John. Good morning and happy New Year to you, Ted. It's going to be a good year. I feel it in my bones. And I know that I'm guilty of saying that every single year, including the year in which three weeks later I was arrested and charged with five felonies. But I really do feel like 2026 is going to be a big year for both of us. From your lips to God's ears. And thank you so much for doing this with me going into a second year. I'm really enjoying this show.

I really am. It's one of the things. You know, it's like you want to, honestly, what I used to, I used to have so many jobs where I would, the alarm would go off. and I'd be like, oh, man, I've got to, like, go and do this. And I hated everything about it. That's the opposite. I don't ever set an alarm. I get up normally.

I look forward to it. I hop out of bed. I'm always looking forward to doing this. So thank you for that. You're a huge part of it. And also, Robbie West, thank you for that, too. You're a huge part of it, too. I am gorgeous.

Speaking of which we will have Robbie come on in just a little bit to talk about what we're doing. This is a, the last for the time being. of the two-hour call-in shows. So we are here at 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. this morning. We're going to be talking about the news of the day, and there's quite a bit of news to talk about. There's that fire in Switzerland. Mamdani took office yesterday as mayor of New York.

Very interesting. More interesting than I thought it was going to be. More going on in Venezuela. And unfortunately, millions of Americans have now lost their health insurance as of yesterday. So we'll talk about all that. We will be doing the call-in. show starting in the second hour, 10 a.m. The way that's going to work is there's a discord link on the top of the pinned to the top of the YouTube and the Rumble feeds. Robbie is going to

explain how to do that, but basically you're going to click that and wait. And, you know, no need to do that quite just now. We're not going to be taking any calls for 57 minutes, but you will be able to call in and talk to John and I in real time. Please like and follow and share the show. Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time starting on Monday. So that's all the business. John, did you have a chance to catch anything from Mamdani's inauguration yesterday, which apparently the Mamdani administration doesn't think they need to hire any graphic artists for their banners. But guys, I'm available. And for 10 minutes of my time, I could do better. But anyway, go ahead.

I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely organized it was. I got the symbolism of the different things that he did, the speech with the City Hall stop in the background, very nice, the midnight swearing in. Well done, well done. There was one thing that I was particularly interested in. I ran to the New York Post just to see what their reaction was going to be, because, of course, the New York Post is the right-wing.

it's not so much a right-wing newspaper as it is a right-wing rag. It's a tabloid for New York City. It's a tabloid. And the banner headline last night was that Maldani's, what is she, wife, girlfriend, wife, I guess. Wife. Wife. That she wore $645 shoes. It's like that's what offends you the most, that the woman has an expense of their shoes.

I wanted, yeah, I wanted to send a memo down to South Street where the New York Post is head, sorry, to Sixth Avenue or the New York Post is headquarters and say, so you do realize it's 2026, right? $600 shoes aren't really, isn't really that crazy anymore. I mean, I don't have any, but I have $300 boots. I mean, you know, I don't think I'm that bourgy. Yeah. No, see, nothing better to complain about. Yeah, no, I mean, that, no, I mean. Normally, I wouldn't care one way or the other about, you know, New York politics. I don't live in New York. I visit there, I don't know, eight or ten times a year. But I don't live there. So I generally wouldn't care.

I especially disliked Eric Adams because he was a Turk lover. But, but, but, Mamdani, I really want to succeed only because, if only because they bash him so unfairly. The guy's been mayor for nine hours for God. God's sake, or whatever it is, 36 hours, whatever. Give him a minute, you know? Right. You're bashing it already? Over his wife's shoes.

I mean, look, I agree. I agree with that. I do always think that when someone's been bashed that much, they deserve a chance to succeed, whether they're on the right or on the left. That said also, look, the left doesn't get a lot of shots at the brass ring in this country, politically. And so here you have, I want him to do well because if he fucks up, they're going to say, oh, look, we tried a Democratic socialist and he screwed up. And that's why no, we can never give the left a shot at power ever again.

They don't say that about the right, about like the corporatists, right, ever. They screw up. They get to keep coming back over and over. That's right. But, you know, so all eyes are going to be on him. Look, I thought a couple, a number of things were interesting. First of all, the, you know, let's just talk about the symbolism. He totally owned the fact that he's going to be called Akami by everybody.

Yes. He brought in, he had Bernie Sanders swear him in. He had AOC in the front row. He, I thought it was gracious, by the way, of outgoing Mayor Adams to show up, and it was gracious of him to acknowledge Adams, even though Adams had to sit there and listen to a lot of stuff that basically was an indirect criticism of his own mayoralty. I thought it was nice that he had something nice to say about de Blasio. It was overall a very civilized celebration of New York City. And I also thought it was interesting that he owned, you know, he kept quoting and people, you know, kept quoting very left-wing references.

Jumanjay Williams, by the way, the public advocate who spoke. shortly before the mayor was is definitely a force to be reckoned with and a hard act to follow and will no doubt has a future in city politics in a big way um the other thing is that now taking it i mean i think without a doubt um zoro zoron's been studying trump he's coming out of the gate fast and strong and uh he already passed a flurry of executive orders very trump like um where he First of all, he did one thing that's very Ted Raul-like, which is he's ordered that all public, abandoned public housing and empty lots be examined for possible use

as immediate construction of new housing. That's something I've been pushing for for years. And something that's very anti-TedRoll, which is to basically reduce regulations for private developers to build more housing. Because I don't think we have a housing crisis in New York, city. I think we have a warehousing crisis. We don't need new housing. You've said that all the years that I've known you, that there's plenty of housing. It's just a question of making it all

livable and getting people into it. It's a cartel, John. I mean, there's both, there's empty commercial real estate, you know, storefronts that have been boarded up literally for 25 years. There are entire blocks in the middle of Manhattan, like at 8th Avenue in the 20s, like right in the middle, smack down the million, middle of Chelsea, which is a very upscale neighborhood, which are completely abandoned and empty. There are townhouses on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side of Manhattan that are worth $10 million, empty, vacant, tied up in probate. All of these things should be seized under eminent domain and used for some sort of housing. There's, you know, the 10022 zip code, which is the Upper East Side of Manhattan, very conservative. The occupancy rate in that area is 20%. 80% of the housing, all those buildings, you look up in the sky, they're empty.

People sleep outside, outside of empty buildings. It's very fucked up. So, anyway, the thing is, he did that. And then the other thing he did was he got, he went after the, he basically went after the idea that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are the same. He got rid of the official I-H-R-A designation of anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism and did a bunch of other stuff, basically saying we're going to leave the pro-Gaza, the boycott and divestiture movements alone.

I mean, it's symbolic, but it's kind of stuff that he would. have been accused of doing even if he hadn't done so he might as well do it i thought it was smart i think that's smart too i saw the zionism thing it was virtually the first thing he did as soon as he took the oath of office i thought wow now that is positive people are going to lose their shit for a couple of days maybe a couple of weeks they'll get over it but i i yes they'll get over it exactly and and i hope that they give him the benefit of the doubt on things like um like um like public safety, for example. God knows nobody could have been worse than Eric Adams in terms of public safety.

And this freaking guy was a police captain. So I'm looking forward to giving him I'm done a shot. Well, I think with Adams, what's really weird is he definitely on paper had what it took to be mayor. I mean, you know, he was experience. He was in city government for a long time. Like you said, he had the experience in law enforcement. And he was a reformist cop back in the day.

Right. I mean, who knew that in his heart, it is in the black piece of coal that is his heart, that he was a corrupt fucker. Like you said, you know, not only sympathetic to the Turks, but on their payroll. On their payroll. And like in the most disgusting way, literally saying like,

well, just forget about the fire code. Yeah. And let the Turks build whatever they want. Yeah, yeah. Since when has fire ever killed anyone? We'll be talking about the Swisky resort thing soon. John, shall we take some questions? Do we have more to say about Menzani? No, no, I look forward to the questions. Okay, let's do it. Space Jockey says, Ted, I watched you on Jermal, and I want to opine. Do you really think that Trump would have given a fuck back then of the difference between a 16 and or 17-year-old and an 18- or 20-year-old? So what this is about is, Jamal and I were talking. about the Epstein files. And I said, and, you know, there was, I said, let's just stipulate. I don't think Trump touched any children. But let's just, I said, you know, the real issue is the fact that probably Trump knew about it what Epstein was doing and chose to look the other way. And, and I said people just, you know, people like at that level, they just choose not to care.

So, you know, I'm going to stick by that. I think, I think people, after you get used to it, after a while. You deal with so many scumbags. After a while, you just become insensitive to it. I think that's right. Frasmatas has a question for both of us. Do we expect a potential post-deal Ukraine resistance to spend their energy in capital attacking the West or Russia? So in other words, this would be like analogous to at the end of World War II when the Nazis were expected to have the weirwolf brigades, like of young people, you know, wage resistance attacks against guerrilla attacks against the allies. That didn't happen. And so I don't know. I mean, certainly the Ukrainians have more of a tradition of partisans, but it's also 2026 with drone

technology and everything. I don't know how you would be able to pull that off. You can't just, you know, take to the woods like you're, you know, you're in that. that movie defiance and just hang out and hope nobody finds you. No, I don't see it happening. I really don't. For at least one reason being that the Ukrainians are losing. You have to be blind to not acknowledge that the Ukrainians are losing and to want to keep this war going. Listen, it's laudable that you want to protect your country.

It really is. But this territory is, there are facts that play toward both sides as to who actually owns the territory. Do you really want to lay your life down for the Donbass? No, I mean, and the question is how many people in the Donbass really want to be in Ukraine, right? I mean, first of all, we don't have accurate polling on that, but I suspect it's not 50%, right? I suspect you're right. You know, Ted, there's a little piece of northeastern most Greece called Thrace, Thraki. And then there's Eastern Thrace, which is on the Turkish side of the border.

The people who live up there, for the most part, are what the Greeks call Turkish-speaking Greeks. The truth is, they're ethnic Turks. And when the Treaty of Lusong drew that border, it split the Turkish community. Some are on the east side, some are on the west side. If Greece and Turkey were involved in a war that had dragged on for four or five years and the Turks took this little sliver of Thrace, I would jump up and down and say, oh, war-mongering Turks, you know, they're the worst people in the world. Would I take up arms?

Absolutely not. For a little slice of where everybody is ethnically Turkish anyway, absolutely not. Yeah, it's that thing. There's all these little areas like that that are, I mean, honestly, it's sort of like Al-Zas-Lorin in France. Like if Germany were just to nibble that off, you'd be like, which they have in the past. And the French, kind of like, well, you know, if you've been to Al-Zas-Loran, you're like, those people are basically Germans.

They eat blood sausage and they drink beer instead of wine. and, you know, I mean, that's true. I mean, if the Mexican slipped across the border and Nab del Paso, I'd be like, you know, it's basically a Mexican city. I mean, right, right, right. I mean, it's wrong, but, you know, it's not like they're taking Massachusetts. Right. So, yeah, no, I think that's right.

I mean, look, here's the thing that's the ugly truth about the Ukraine invasion is that this war is kind of resolving an outstanding hangover of the, breakup of the Soviet Union and a poorly drawn international border. Exactly right. Yeah, and it's like Crimea. Crimea only became Ukrainian in 1953. Yeah. Krustov gave Crimea.

Yes, exactly. It was all the same country. It was just a different SSR. That's it. I mean, I mean, it's like, and I think the analogy, Americans don't think about this, right? But like, imagine if the U.S. split up the way that the Soviet Union did. And you had 50 countries where there were 50 states.

I mean, some of the borders would be fine. But like, for example, Newark, really, should Newark be in New Jersey? I mean, Newark is really part of the extended New York City metro area. Should Camden be in New Jersey? Not really. It's kind of part, it's basically eastern Philadelphia. And so, and there's be a lot of places like that. Like, is, you know, where the borders kind of don't make a lot of

a sense. And they might be resolved through conflict. Right. Exactly. C. Morris, has we, wants to know, and thanks for the five bucks and happy New Year. Have you heard about the Trump administration terminating the 50-year-old lease on the three public golf courses in D.C. And as an avid golfer, I'd be furious. Those are the only affordable courses for the average golfer. Yeah, my son golfs at one of them at Haynes Point, quite regular. regularly when he's home from school. And this is the end of golf in the District of Columbia. And there's no rhyme or reason. Because I don't, for those of us who aren't familiar, John, can you explain what's going on?

There are three public golf courses inside the Washington, D.C. city limits, which of course is federal territory. And they're in kind of out of the way places, but they're the only places inside Washington that anybody can golf. The prices are low, and it's to encourage, you know, physical fitness and get out in the beautiful city and, you know, spend time outdoors and breathe fresh air. And over the weekend, over the holiday, for whatever reason, not explained, Donald Trump decided to terminate the city's lease agreements with the federal government for this space. Now, it's all like parkland.

You can't or do anything with it. You can't build on it, nor should anybody want to build on it. But just like that, no more golf in Washington, D.C. And he's a golfer. Why did he do this? I don't know. You know, all I could think of was, well, he's got his own club right outside town in Leesburg, Virginia.

And then I thought, no, this is for normal people, average people who want to golf, right? They can't afford country club memberships to go golf at Donald Trump's golf course. It's terrible. Yeah, no, it is terrible. But you know what, though? Presidents come and go, and this is going to be corrected later. I've hardly ever golfed in my life. I'm actually quite good at it.

I kind of like have a natural affinity. I don't know what it is. I'm good at pool, too. I'm like stuff like that. Oh, yeah. I was a good hitter in baseball. Couldn't catch at all. Could never field.

Unfortunately, that's required in the game. So, anyway. Frasmatast, does a true honorable communist have their photo taken with Alex Choros on election night? I don't know. You commies confuse me. Many are trust fund kids also. Yes, Shoros approved. Well, there's at least two things in there.

First of all, when I first learned about George Shoros, I was so disappointed. to find out that he was just really a Democrat. And he's never, you know, he's never donated money to a socialist organization or a left-wing, like, answer or any coalition or any actual, you know, left-wing activist organization. He's just a big fucking rich Democrat. And so, but anyway, the other thing is, you know, you can be a trust fund kid and be a communist. you know, Carl Marx wasn't from a poor family, you know, and certainly, Engels certainly wasn't. You know, Lennon wasn't. It's like, you know, it's about what's in your heart and what you

want for the future. It's not about your own personal history. You know, I mean, it can't be. I mean, it wouldn't make sense. I don't know. What do you think? I totally agree. Totally agree. You know, George Soros, the father, the book, man, was the founder and benefactor of the Open Society's Foundation. So the man who was the executive director of Open Societies wrote the law that I was convicted of violating. So I went to him and I asked him if he would write a letter of support for my pardon request. He said, absolutely.

He said, when I wrote the law, it was never meant to go after whistleblowers. It was only meant to go after traitors. So he wrote this beautiful letter to the president. And then I thought, well, you know, with his support, I'm going to ask him if he'll go to Soros. And so he went to Soros for me. I asked if Soros would ask the president to pardon me. This was Obama. And Soros said, absolutely not.

He was not even vaguely interested in helping me. And then the head of the open societies told me, look, the bottom line is that Soros is a DNC mainstream Democrat. That's what this comes down to. Oh, breaking news. Tesla was just dethroned as the world. And it's BYD beyond your dreams. You've been talking about BYD a lot, John.

Yeah. It's a gorgeous car. Anyway, we'll get to that in a minute. But the bottom line is that. It's that he is a mainstream DNC Democrat. He's not the lefty. I wish you was too. Yeah, the left needs, you know, its own billionaire.

We just don't have one. Because, I mean, by definition, I guess you kind of can't have that. Full disclosure, I used Open Society Institute. I used to draw cartoons for one entity that's part of the Open Society Institute. Institute called Eurasia Net, which was basically, I don't know if they still exist or not. It was a news site about the Central Asian Republics, and I used to do cartoons for them. And also full disclosure, they never once told me what to draw or what not to draw. So, just saying.

But that was a long time ago. That was in the late 90s and early 2000s. Anyway, so, yeah, so, you know, by the way, also, I don't believe for a minute that Zoran Mamdani is a communist. I think, you know, really truly, these Democratic socialists, small D, small S, there's just basically like 1960s, 70s liberal Democrats. They're Hubert Humphrey, they're George McGovern, they're people like that. That's what they are. Right. that's exactly right that's why i'm calling the liberals it's just that everything's moved so far left

hey hunkumunka thank you so much for becoming monthly supporter over on rumble much appreciated and by the way we probably should bring in robbie to it's already 925 we should talk about how to call in so uh Robbie please come on and use what's left of your voice to explain how the call-in segment work starting in 35 minutes I will do my best job I may have to turn your microphones up because my voice is shot bigger than hell so the way this is going to work is

pretty straightforward I will drop a link to the Discord server I will you're going to see a option down there once you join it's called a call in waiting room right up under the voice chat you'll see it easy to see for red I can find

it I promise you you can because y'all are smarter than me it'll be first come first serve so if you want to make sure to get in go and start joining now i'll keep track of who comes in once we go live i will drag you all down you'll be able to talk to john and ted and by talk i mean ask a question we're not interested in your stories people want to hear theirs so ask a question i'll put you back in the waiting room and just the only rule is is don't be a dick it's pretty straightforward if you are a dick i will ban you Thank you, Robbie.

And if you have an ad for us, please let us know. There's no ads right now. Question. Okay. Craig D. Vance, for you, John, you've been on Fox for various conversations. I'm curious what the vibe is behind the scenes. Do they drink their own Kool-Aid? Yes.

Yes, they do. Lots of blondes with big boobs, even off-camera. um i've not really run into any like intellectuals um but it's they're they're very much true believers yeah and that's both in washington and in new york that was my experience too it's been longer for me but i can't imagine it's changed no i used to be a frequent flyer over there a question for both of us from kevin cron what are and how expensive are your favorite footwear. Mine might be Vasqua at over 200 bucks, but got at half price.

For me, the most I've ever spent is about 175 bucks. Yeah. You know, shoes have never been important to me. As a straight men, shoes are not really our motivating thing. I think it's face to safety. Guys don't really care about shoes. I bought those $300 boots I described to go hiking to Lake Sares and Tajikistan. I just didn't want my fucking feet to fall apart because I'm prone to blisters.

And I forget the name of them. But I also lately have become addicted because I have plantar fasciitis to Hokas. And they're the best, they're the best sneakers for people who have plantar. I swear by them. In fact, I just bought my second pair a couple of weeks ago. And then I bought a third pair so that when the second pair, pair wear out, I have the third pair I can step right into. They're basically disposable shoes.

They last like six months and they fall apart, like instantly. But, you know, you have, but while they're lasting, they're great. They are the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned in my life. Me too. Yeah. I'm also for regular shoes, I'm Marshall to Doc Martins. Doc Martins are great too. My sister initially introduced me to Hokas.

We were in Provincetown on Cape Cod, and we went into the store, and she said, oh, you have to try these shoes on. So I try them on. I said, they look like clown shoes, right? You know, those giant shoes that clowns wear at the circus? And she said, I know, I know, but you get used to it, and they're incredibly comfortable. So they were comfortable when I tried them on. I bought them, and then I was sold, man.

And you know, what's funny is, I don't know if you're aware of this, John, but like up until a few years ago they were kind of like cool with the kids like people like before old people started wearing them young people liked them so like it's sort of like you didn't look like a you know they didn't look down on you if they saw you walking in the street with them i don't i bet that's changed now you know it's kind of like how the miata was not a girl car when it first came out and then it became a girl car it was very much a middle-aged men's car yeah and then within like two three years it was like you had to be a girl um yep uh let's see more questions okay um sorry let me just get to all these oh uh racy thank you so much for gifting a subscription to the show

um sir bichelot i can attest to the fact that laredo is on the wrong side of the border How did torture affect morale in the CIA while you couldn't keep with it, I guess, tolerate it? How did your other colleagues look at it at the moment and years later? How does it look in retrospect? It's a good question. That's a very good question. In the beginning, the compartment was so tightly controlled that nobody knew that this tiny band of officers was torturing people. nobody knew until I'm going to say six or eight months after the torture began it affected morale it split morale there there were a lot of guys who were true believers that not only was this something that we should be doing they were enjoying doing it and then and then by 2005 enough people knew about it

and objected to it that George Tenet pulled back. So they were torturing people from August of 2002 until the middle of 2005. But they kept the secret prisons going. And they kept, while there wasn't like active torture in the secret prisons after 2005, there was active torture at Guantanamo. And more and more people objected

as more and more people. became informed. It split morale. It damaged morale. Thanks for the five bucks, P. Vecchio. Mamdani and Trump were third party takeovers of the major parties, third party in scare quotes.

Would you interview libertarian governor candidate Larry Sharp from New York to talk about the challenges of third parties, i.e. legal hurdles? We answered this question before. Yes. If anyone wants to hook us up, please make that happen. We will be happy to have Larry come on the show.

Thanks for the nine bucks. Jacob Decker, $9.99, actually. The CIA is notorious for putting people into power that they want. Do you think they were involved in Mamdani winning in New York? What would be the objective of having a Muslim mayor in New York and London? No. That's just not something that the CIA is involved in. No.

And, you know, the CIA, there's a position in the NYPD, It's deputy police commissioner for intelligence. And that traditionally goes to a person coming out of the CIA, right? The first one was Dave Cohen. He was the deputy director of the CIA for operations. He retired. He became deputy commissioner for intelligence. So the CIA likes things just the way they are.

It doesn't matter who happens to be the mayor, so long as they get their position and can liaise with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, that's all they care about. John, let me ask you a really highly, theoretical question. So if, let's say, we had President Mumdani and red and yellow bunting all over the country and hammer and sickle flags, if the CIA remained in power, would the CIA basically dutifully continue to operate under a new left-wing regime, or would that just be too much for them? I'm going to give you a two-prong, like a forked answer. On the, on the, on

On the one hand, most of the CIA would continue to operate as if nothing happened, because the president is the chief executive, they serve at the pleasure of the president. With that said, I think there would be elements of the CIA's Directorate of Operations that would actively seek to remove a president like that. Wow. I mean, John Kennedy was a Cold War Democratic hawk. anti-communist. World War II hero.

Yeah. And that didn't save him. That's true. Soden, thanks for the 20 bucks. Happy new year, John. We know you've had issues with your former agency. Yeah.

Can you tell us a few? Can you tell us about your coworkers who were awesome who we never really hear about? Like Mike Spann and Bob Bear, same question for Ted. Yeah. Obviously, I never worked at the agency,

but I guess maybe my question would be like L.A. Times or something like that. Anyway. Right. I liked most of the people that I worked with. Most of them were genuinely great guys, women. They were patriots. Most of them actually happened to be Democrats.

And all they wanted to do is serve their country. But it's like the higher up the chain you go, the easier it is to lose your mind and become a person. of this, this activist right-wing group think that makes it all so dangerous. Like, there were, there were two guys in particular who I really, really liked when we were all junior officers together. One of them became deputy, deputy director of counterterrorism and then deputy director of the FBI for counterterrorism.

He became a war criminal. is what it was. He was a great guy. And then all of a sudden, he's, like, murdering people with drones and then bragging about it. The other became head of the Alex station, Osama bin Laden unit. Awesome, fun guy, hilarious sense of humor. And he just became a stone cold killer. besides those two, most of the people that I that I rose through the ranks with were really great, great men and women. I enjoyed their time, you know, our time together. Yeah, my answer is not going to be as interesting because it's not the CIA, it's the LA Times.

I'll just say that, like, look, I really liked almost everybody that I worked with a lot. I didn't actively dislike anyone. Basically, there was an inverse relationship between title and weasel toad. So the higher ranking editors who were more like middle management, like Nick Goldberg, who was like the middle management connection between like the executives, the C-suite and like the editors who actually work for a living, he was a weasel. But even so, you know, he was like a likable charming weasel. And I didn't really have cause to have, you know, butt heads with him until the shit hit the fan with me.

And the people who were out to shiv me never met me, didn't know me, didn't care about me. We never had, you know, I literally hadn't even heard of some of these guys like Austin Butner when they came out for me, came after me. And I think, frankly, it's just easier to shiv someone when you don't know them and you don't interact with them. It doesn't mean you can't do it otherwise, but just easier. But, you know, I really love, one of the things that, one of the great sorrows for me, I don't know if you, you must feel like this, is with what happened to me at the LA Times, and I left involuntarily, was I miss, I miss the people and I miss the job. I miss it.

It was like, I liked it. I was having a good time. I liked those people. I valued them. I valued the job. I loved being identified with the LA Times. I used to think it was a good paper. I mean, that sucks.

Yeah. Yeah, that does. Mountain MT16, thanks for the $20 a lot. Hi, guys. When you were inside, John, did you know any female guards shagging the inmates? A guy my sister is going out with said this happens all the time in UK prisons. Happy New Year. I'm reminded of that mini-series.

escape from Donomara, where that did happen, and it was key to an escape in an upstate New York prison. Yeah, I did know of one case, and it was even uglier than just a female guard shagging a prisoner. It was a female guard married to the lieutenant who was in charge of the special investigative service, the rats, the rat squad in the prison. In fact, they escorted her out, they arrested her, escorted her out in full view of everybody. He was utterly humiliated. And I had to go to an outside, what do you call it, doctor to, I broke my pinky finger. to have my pinky finger reset.

So they shackle you ankles and wrists to a chain around your waist. They put me in the back of the van. We're on our way to the doctor's office. And this lieutenant says to the driver, you know anybody who might be interested in a recently separated guy with a four-inch dick? I remember just shaking my head. Oh, my God. You blow a bastard.

Yeah. Wow. God. So, wait, I'm just curious because you've mentioned previously that the dental care was basically non-existent in prison. Non-existent. But medical care, like, it wasn't the same? Like, you know, you mentioned your finger. They would send you out and have you taken care of?

Only because I raised hell and I mentioned it in an interview with Jake Tapper. So it was six weeks, six weeks before I broke my finger. And I kept saying, you guys, I'm telling you, it's broken, it's broken, it's broken. I'm numb all the way up to my elbow. It's broken, it's broken, it's broken. I kept making written complaints. They kept rejecting them. And then Jake Tapper asked for an interview.

So he came up to the prison and we're sitting in the warden, the assistant warden's office. And he asked me about medical care. And I said, what medical care? They don't care if you die here. I said, I broke my finger six weeks ago. I'm begging them to let me have it set. It was crooked, like benting outward like this. It was ridiculous.

And he says to the assistant warden, is that true? And he's like, blah, blah, blah, blah. You wouldn't answer. Next thing I know, I'm in a van on my way to an orthopedic specialist. It helps to know Jake Tapper. I'll say. Every prisoner should meet Jake Happer. Wow.

Seriously. That's insane. Let's talk about Venezuela. So President Nicolas Maduro says that he's now open to a deal. I don't think that's really a change, right? It's being reported like that's something new. But from what we know. He's been actively seen this for months.

So he's been talking, but apparently I don't know. So what do you make of that? Is this reporting coming out of the White House where basically it's the leak is that like, you know, the signaling is that maybe the truth is that the Trump administration is more serious about making a deal? And if they make a deal, can Maduro, how can Maduro trust that he's not going to be spirited off to Miami and jailed, as we've talked about here on the program? Yeah. You know, and that's question A. then question B is, what is up with the bombing of drugboats leaving survivors in the water and then sending the coast guard out to look for the survivors?

I mean, why bomb them in the first place? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I think because the administration's taken it on the chin for bombing survivors in the past, which is a war crime, that now they're doing like the least amount of work necessary to not be accused of a war crime by just sending a Coast Guard cutter to look for them. But then what do you do with them? If you find them.

I mean, it's like it's a, I mean, it's a, I mean, it's a, it's needles in a haystack. So what's going to happen here? I mean, is, is the administration interested in bringing this in for us? soft landing. Will they spirit Maduro off to the French Riviera? What will they do or Havana or whatever they're going to do? I think if Maduro can get out on his own, if I remember Maduro, I wouldn't trust the U.S. government to, you know, arrange my exile. So if he can get out on his own, I think the Trump administration will declare victory, install a new leader, at least temporarily and live happily ever after.

Could this be arranged like a Cuban, could the Cubans send a jet to retrieve him? Would that be good enough? Oh, I think so. Yeah. And might they? Would they be interested in taking him for any, I mean, what, I mean, there's an alliance.

Yeah, but I think the Cubans are actively encouraging him to stay in fight. Because that's where Cuba gets its oil from. you know and things are bad enough in cuba can you imagine having a right-wing pro-american leader in in venezuela what that means for cuba oh my god yeah they don't they don't want him to jump on a plane and run to havana right so that's a that's a bad situation for both maduro and for trump because there's no easy solution here see now in that case too i would be I would be worried about people taking up arms and refusing to accept the change in government.

Remember, like we said last week, Venezuela is the size of France, Germany, and Austria combined, and most of it is thick jungle. We can't fight a war like that. Yes? And also the Venezuelan government has been training sort of Fedellín type personnel to conduct that kind of street level and and guerrilla warfare. So, I mean, basically, I think the government

would fall quickly, but then the resistance would begin. It would be like Iraq. Yeah, I think so, too. Pivetio, what keeps Sicily poor? It's on shipping routes. Very fertile farmland. Is it organized crime, government policy, Mediterranean

culture? Thanks for the two bucks. Yes, yes, and yes. I think so. I mean, it's, yeah, I don't know what else to say. Corruption is rife, right? I mean, basically, the money all gets skimmed off the top. Corruption has always, always been a problem. Yes.

Always been a problem. I visited, I was, last time I went, it was like, It was like 10 years ago. There were, it was amazing how many checkpoints there were with Carboneri, with Uzi's. And then, and then also, God, like, you just get, I mean, it's pretty. It's gorgeous. But then, like, for example, you go to the bank, and just to go to inside the bank, you walk in, there's a door, it slides shut behind you before the next door. That's how they are in Greece.

Yes, sir. So if you rob the bank, you'd be stuck there like a lot of the bank, you'd be stuck there like a a bug between the two doors. Yeah, you can't get out. It's in Greece. Don't forget, too, that Sicily is where the mafia was founded, where it was

created, Castellamare del Gulfo. And it's it still runs the show in Sicily. And Naples. And that's also partly because, right, the mafia made a deal with the U.S. and the allies that when

they landed in Sicily, in exchange for information about the landing site and Intel, they would be allowed to remain in power after the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. That's right. And so they have. In fact, Vito Genovese famously had been expelled from the United States in, I think it was 1939.

He was expelled back to Sicily, used a fake name, and became a translator for the U.S. Army when it landed in Sicily in 1944 and immediately began running the black market in Sicily made millions of dollars, which he smuggled back to the United States, and then he came back to the United States, bought everybody off so that he could legalize himself and head the mafia family that still bears his name. Brilliant and crazy. But yeah, I one time, when I went to Sicily, I parked at a parking deck, outdoor parking lot, like near a beach.

And, you know, it was just a parking garage, a parking lot. And I noticed all the pockmarks on the wall. And the parking lot attendant said, this is where the Allies landed. Like, so it's still fucked up all these years later. It was a show on, I think it was A&E or H. No, it was on HGTV. And it was about these one-year-oh houses that you can be. buy. It was Lorraine Braco, who played Dr. Melfi on the Sopranos and Karen Hill and Goodfellas.

She bought one of these houses in Sicily for one euro. And the series was like six episodes. And it followed her renovations on this house. She ended up spending like, I'm going to say like 250,000 to renovate the house. She made it absolutely fabulous. And so that's her. That's a whole thing, right? Like the young people. are doing this too, right? Basically, you move to Sicily. There's other places. Does the Greek government do that, too, anywhere? There's talk of it. They're paying people to move to some of the islands that have been depopulated because of the economic collapse 15 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever it is, 15 years ago. And so, yeah, there's some of the islands where they'll pay you up to 30,000 euros if you move. And it was especially successful during COVID because there

were so many, what do you call them, COVID nomads or internet nomads or whatever they call them? Yeah. So people actually did move to these islands. So as long as you have an internet signal, you know, you can work from anywhere. Your biggest problem in those situations in those places is there might not be a grocery store nearby or, you know, there's certainly no cafe, not yet, but there probably will be if enough people do this. Oh, yeah, I agree. It's like basically it's homesteading. It's homesteading, yeah, that's right.

Tara McCulley, Jiao, this question for you, John, what's the, do you have any history at Fort, I hope I'm not butchering this, Huachuca, or know what kind of operations happen there? No, I never had to work at Fort Huachuca. Never, I've never even visited. I went to, of course, where's Fort Huachuca? Is it in California?

Let me Google it. Let's see. Fort, Arizona. It's in Arizona. Never had to go. I went to Fort Bragg, did a bunch of cool stuff at Fort Polk, because they created an Afghan village right there on the grounds of the fort. And they practiced back in the day. would practice like guerrilla warfare and stuff.

What other, well, for me, of course, I was a regular. And that was about it. We didn't do a whole lot of stuff. A question for me from Ms.land to Scott. Thanks for the five bucks. Am I still going to write a book about the LA Times experience? Books written. I started writing a proposal and I just basically went on a, it was in a frenzy.

And it's written. It's just sitting on the hard drive of my computer. I haven't sent it to my agent or my publisher at all. To be honest, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know if I'm going to publish it or not. If I got a sense that there would be – to be honest, I'm worried about two things. I'm worried about the LA Times or people there who are powerful and corrupt, suing me and dragging me and dragging my ass through the courts. And then I'm also worried.

about just having to relive a very traumatic experience. Let's say the book does well, which is what you would want, but then you're giving countless interviews about it. John, I might ask you that question, right? I mean, surely it's crossed your mind a bunch of times. Like, maybe I should just, like, not talk about my experience as a whistleblower. Maybe I should just move on, and psychologically, it would just be, like, receded in the past. I always worry, I mean, like,

Like, if I do, if I started talking, if the LA Times thing became a thing like Austin Butner, the guy who fucked me over, he wants to run for governor next year. And if he does, I'm publishing that fucking book because I'm not letting him becoming governor of California if I can help it. But the point is, I don't want to have to fucking still think about all this. I mean, for you, it's even worse. I mean, how do you handle it? It's totally over and over again. Yeah. Re-traumatizing.

Yeah. To the point where now when, you know, I, if I said yes to every request, I would do five or six podcasts every single day. And so I've started saying no to every podcast that just wants me to retell my story. I'm not doing it anymore. I've had enough. Just had enough. And it doesn't, first of all, I don't get anything out of it personally. Right.

And secondly, it doesn't add to the body of knowledge out there for John. just to keep repeating the same story about himself over and over and over again. So, no, the answer is no. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's a good metric, right? Like, does it help John? Venkatesh, by the way, it's just a reminder. Everybody, we are going to start taking calls from you guys in six minutes.

Please like follow and share the show, but please, if you want to talk to us, starting in six minutes. Well, we'll stack up all the calls. We'll take the calls in the order that they are received. Just do what Robbie said. Go click the Discord link in the chat, either in YouTube or Rumble if you're watching this show live. And then go down to the area that says call in voice chat, call in waiting room. Robbie will take it from there.

Please mute your tab so that you don't hear yourself on Echo. but unmute yourself talking. People haven't mastered this yet. Here's the ad that we need to talk to say. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee now is your shot. In fact, Robbie's drinking it right now. The 1775 starter kit just dropped. Only 1,000 units.

You're getting the bold, dark roast that hits hard. The smooth, medium roast and the vitality mushroom coffee for clean energy and local and laser-focused, no crash. All single origin, small batch, toxin. free and mold-free. Plus, you're also getting a gold spoon clip because freedom isn't scooped with plastic. A frother strong enough to stir up your coffee and your mother-in-law's opinions and a black 1775 tumbler. $170 bucks worth of coffee and gears. Yours for 99. This is for the ones who've been watching 1775 blow up on rumble, wondering if it's actually worth it. Spoiler it is.

Go to 1775.75.com slash studio. You'd think I'd have this down by now. And grab your starter kit before they're gone. Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. Okay, so Hisham, a question for you, John, thanks for the five bucks. Can you please speak a little about the role of clinical psychologists in operations and in other capacities at the CIA? I love that question. That's a terrific question.

It's a little bit sensitive. So there are, as you might guess, there are a lot of psychologists. at the CIA. A lot. A small number of them, just a few little, are assigned to the Office of Medical Services, OMS. And they are there to make sure that the people the CIA sends overseas are not crazy. A lot of them are. You'd be surprised. And then they're put on a travel ban until they're less crazy. But most of the clinical psychologists at the CIA are split into intelligence and operations. The intelligence ones work with the analyst to do psychological evaluations on foreign leaders, right? How we can then use the psychology of foreign leaders

to get a leg up, whether it's in, you know, trade negotiations or, you know, issues of war and peace or whatever. The other ones are in operations. I worked very closely with the CIA's team of operational psychologists because let's say I'm recruiting a terrorist I want to make sure that the guy's not nuts that we're not going to use him in an operation then he's going to turn around and kill me in the middle of the operation or make sure that he didn't make the whole thing up and when he volunteered to us that he was a member of XYZ terrorist group I did I did one operation. I've told the story a couple of times. It was with a psychologist and a hypnotist who was a psychiatrist, and they hypnotized this guy. I won't get into the story here, but

oh my God, I've never seen anything like it in my life, and I've spoken about it a number of times. But sometimes you need the psychologist to advise you as to just how far you can push a guy before he cracks. Maybe you want him to crack. Maybe you want him to crack. Maybe you want want to ruin his life because he's an asshole or he's a double agent or he's a plant or whatever or maybe you want to push him so he gives you as much information as he can but you don't want him to crack you don't want him to ruin his life so it's you you find yourself becoming very close to the psychologist there were a couple who are my go-to two psychologists who are my go-to partners on these operations a man and a woman and I still think about them

all these years later. I don't even know if they're still alive. They probably aren't. But yeah, you end up becoming very close to the psychologists. Kevin Cronin asking me how my op-ed is coming along concerning consumers. It's up online. Just go to roll.com. So it's right there.

Click columns. Let's see. Let me ask. So we have two quick, there's the, a flash fire at the Swiss ski resort, we need to touch upon, and also the health insurance issue. So there's this, at least 40 people have died in Switzerland at the ski at this ski resort. This was a New Year's Eve celebration. And there's images from online suggesting that they were having flaming champagne bottles.

This reminds me a little bit of that crazy fire in Rhode Island during the heavy metal. concert a while ago. And apparently, according to fire experts, this was what they call a flash fire, where basically if there's a lot of combustibles in enclosed space, a fire can start in one place, but then simultaneously basically take up the entire room all at once. So no one has a chance. And within seconds, the temperatures can exceed 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And basically no one has a fucking chance.

They say even a firefighter in full protective gear would not see. survive. It's just horrible. I mean, John and I were talking before we came on. I mean, surely this has something to do with building standards, John, you were saying, like, the Swiss have it really together. They're a very organized society, famously, to the point of boredom. Famously, I was shocked by this. Yeah.

Yeah. I was shocked by it. I was shocked not just by the fact that it happened, which really was. jarring, but by the fact that so many people were killed and injured so quickly, you know, the first thing I thought of, like you, Ted, was this fire in Rhode Island. It was at a nightclub been in Rhode Island, how many years ago. And, you know, you're dealing with corruption. You're dealing with people kind of asleep at the switch. I don't know. I always kind of had in my mind that the Swiss were

beyond that? Mm-hmm. I guess not. No. You know, rock and roll lore says that that Deep Purple song, Smoke on the Water, is also based on some disco fire

that happened in northern Europe, I guess, back in the 70s. So, yeah, these things just happen from time to time. It's horrible, and you kind of like wish that we could develop fire codes that address these things. And finally, John, we have lots and lots of people who are either coming into the new

year with higher health insurance rates from the Affordable Care Act. I got to know politically, right? So people are either paying much higher rates or they're just going to drop their coverage. I've got to think that this is going to percolate politically and it's going to make a difference this year and going forward. I can't think that's just going to like, I don't know who's going to pay the higher price. I suspect the Republicans just because they're the incumbent party. But I would imagine there's some hard feelings towards Democrats because, you know, they treasonously signed on to, they backed away during the government shutdown for no reason, really, whatsoever. And they could have stood their ground and the party leadership

didn't punish them, didn't take away their committee assignments, nothing happened. it's kind of like a bipartisan active malfeasance. I'll tell you, man, I am just as angry today as I was when those, whatever it was, four Democrats just collapsed under the weight of the government shut down. Like you, my terrible Obamacare plan went up 20% overnight, just like that. to the point where I can't, I can't afford it. Thanks to my, Obama, it is illegal to not have health insurance. So I'm stuck.

Now, thank God, first of February, I'm going to get health insurance through the media company that I do my TV show with. So I have one more month of this gouging, and then I'll have some insurance. But listen, I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of these Democrats. They didn't have the guts. They didn't have the belly to stand up to the Republicans and demand a continuation of subsidies. And the thing is, my minority leader, Chuck Schumer, let them do it, right? He didn't say, you guys crossed the line.

We'll fuck you. He didn't do that. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll strip you of your committee assignments. We'll put you on the select committee on aging. How about that? We'll reassign you to an office. office facing an air shaft.

Exactly. Yeah, they didn't do it. There was no punishment. He gave them permission. He gave them permission. So therefore, it's like it's not just those four or five. It's effectively the entire party. All right, guys, we are entering the second hour here of the show.

And as promised, this is the call-in segment of the show. Robbie West, please come on and explain everyone to the rules for people who are just joining us. It's 10.04 Eastern Time. We're taking your calls until 11 o'clock Eastern Time, Robbie. We love you, Robby. Please unmute yourself, mobile guy, and then start to, and make sure your tab is muted, but unmute your voice. We see you are muted right now. Three, two, one. Tammy, please unmute yourself.

Nice to hear from you. Tammy, you are muted. There you are. Okay, sorry. I can't hear you're cutting in and out. We hear you, Tammy. We hear you, Tammy. you're on the air.

I was wondering if you all are able or know something. First off, nobody seems to pay attention to slippery William Barr. And he just seems to go unchecked wherever he goes and now nobody talks about him. And I just find that very disturbing. Do either one of you care to comment on that? John? I think I know what you're referring to. a couple of people have asked me about it.

I have to agree with you. I think Bill Barr is a dark figure in contemporary American politics and history. His father had a role in the CIA or in the creation of the CIA. I don't know. I've heard a lot of accusations. I haven't really seen much in the way of proof.

But I think we would all be better off and safer if Bill Barr, we're never again anywhere near government. I don't know if we have solid enough evidence to prosecute him for anything. But I do agree with you that he's a very bad guy. Thanks, Tammy. You're welcome. Thank you.

Shmobbs, please unmute yourself. This is a, for everybody who's waiting to talk, please unmute yourself really before, like, as soon as we bring you in. That way we can keep the show moving and get as many people to come on as possible. Breaking news on that twist fire, by the way, the fire did start by sparklers that were set up at these champagne bottles. That's Washington Post. Shmoms, go ahead. Yes, cool. Hello.

I guess my question, first of all, John, really hoping to get the pardon. Richard as always. I guess my question with chief would be involved. I know, the review of Australia's sister cycle, or a big hypothesis. But I just wanted to get you guys opinion on the recent, like, Marcus, I don't know if you guys been, and I saw it, John, he didn't episode on gold.

I don't know. What do you guys make of the closing $4 trillion deficit and how I don't know? Shmams, you're a little hard to hear, but John, I think he's asking about the $40, the $40 trillion, well, really $37 trillion, but who's counting deficit and how that, and how scary that is or not scary? I'm genuinely worried about it, worried about it for, you know, the few. of my children. But my friends who subscribe to MMT, modern monetary theory, say it makes no difference. They're just numbers that don't have any impact. I'd love to believe that that's true, but I'm not a smart enough person in economics to just dismiss the idea that

the national debt is just a number that doesn't mean anything. I think it does mean something. We are very, very rapidly getting to the point where the interest that we pay on the national debt is the largest expenditure in government. Okay, well, when you couple that with a bigger defense budget than the next eight largest countries combined, it's unsustainable. Besides, it's the Russians who own not most, but a plurality of our national debt. in the form of long-term government bonds. So it's like they have us by the neck. Between the debt and Chinese ownership of the debt, I think it's very, very dangerous.

We have to encourage economic growth by slashing defense spending and try to pay down the debt. Our debt currently stands at a number greater than our GDP. I just saw this day before yesterday. Greater than our GDP. So I think we're in for a period of economic stagnancy. Is that right?

Stagnance. Stagnation. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm so embarrassed. Stagnosity. Yeah, of economic stagnation like the Japanese experience through the 1980s. It took them 20 years to break out.

What do you think, Ted? Yeah, I mean, look, I agree with you. We've been, how many times have we been told that, like, you know, a big, scary number doesn't matter, right? Like, like all the debt leading into the 2007, 2008 subprime mortgage meltdown. It doesn't matter that we're lending all this money to people who can't afford to pay back their loans. It doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter that debt to asset ratios are off. It doesn't matter that, you know, price to earnings ratios are off.

before the 1987 stock market crash. These numbers don't matter, and they don't matter until they do. So I agree with you. You have to pay attention. I mean, John, it made huge news in headlines when Ronald Reagan was president, when the deficit, the national debt hit a trillion dollars. We're now 37 times higher than that. It took the better part of a century to hit one.

and now, four decades later, we're at 37 times that. That's a terrifying rate of acceleration. The only, you know, when you mentioned, like, the Russians owning our debt, I did want to quote this, John Maynard Keynes famously said, right? Like, if you owe the, if you owe the, I saw this quote recently, but it's like if you owe the bank a hundred bucks, that's your problem. if you owe the bank a million bucks

that's their problem so you know there is something to that too um so we hear you I don't know if the world can hear you no I can't even

no I just pet the fix that. So basically what my question is, is my understanding is that inflation from the classical definition is the expansion of money supply. So think about a balloon. If you push air into a balloon, the balloon expands. And then what will happen is that, that's how you have inflation or deflation. Prices don't explain. They go up or they go down. My understanding is that as the money supply goes, as it grows, it destroys the purchasing power of every dollar currently in circulation? Is that correct? And if it is, then isn't the rising prices isn't inflation. That's a symptom of a failed monetary policy. Well, it's a simplified.

It's a radically simplified version of the truth. It is true that it is true that increasing printing more money has an inflationary effect. That's for sure. It's also true that you could have inflation without increasing the money supply. So, but the two, there's a relationship, but it's not like a straightforward one that way. Now the thing is that the way that the system is currently set up is it's a two, this economy is based on consumer spending. So the system wants to motivate us to buy more goods and services all the time, right? So inflation is part of that feature.

All quote unquote healthy, you know, late 20th century, early 21st century economies basically have inflation built into it because the actual. idea is if I buy now, it's cheaper than buying later because prices are going up. So it encourages me to buy now. Deflation has the opposite. The reason deflation is terrifying under the current system is because if I know that something that costs $100 now is going to be $60 later, why would I buy now? The answer is I wouldn't. And if I have my money sitting, so basically people stop spending, then there's no consumerism. And then, of course, if there's no one's buying goods and services, no one's employed anymore. No one's selling anything anymore. Inventory piles up in warehouses. Then eventually the whole thing comes crashing down because there's inventory that nobody can afford to buy because nobody's employed anymore. So you go into a doom cycle. But, you know, there's a relationship for sure, like we saw in Weimar, Germany at an extreme. But it's also the nature of this.

system a system that by the way i don't approve of but this is the system that we have gotcha yeah i couldn't add anything to do that gotcha well thank you all thank you all very much for that so next up is uh pezois pezois you are live i apologize for butchering your name please unmute and ask your question hey good morning Is that me? That's you. It is you. Sure is.

Awesome. Good morning, John and Ted. And good morning, Robbie as well. Thank you guys so much for doing this call-in show. I love it. My question today was inspired by something that I heard the great Scott Horton say, talking about the neocons and Warhawks in general, is he was wondering. He goes, you know, are any of these people even, did they believe in God even just a little bit enough?

to sway them in the direction of thinking maybe blowing up little kids 10,000 miles away, is that idea? And so I guess my question to you is just that is, what is the tradition of faith and religion look like in these agencies? And do people have a religious grounding? Great question. Oh, that's a great question. Well, I've said many times that both the CIA and the FBI have unusually large numbers of Mormons. And the reason is quite simple. It is because Mormons tend to come into these positions already having very difficult languages.

Because Brigham Young University, where many of them went, has one of the greatest language programs in America, maybe anywhere in the world. And these people go out on their Mormon missions for a year, usually, to these very difficult countries speaking very difficult languages and then seek to enter government. The government doesn't have to send them to school to learn how to speak Uzbek or Tajik or Mandarin or whatever. They already have the language, number one.

Number two, they don't do anything bad. They don't swear, they don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't do drugs, they don't steal, and they just blow right through the polygraph exam. So they are just the perfect applicants, number one. Number two, I found the CIA to be, on the whole, far more religious. I found CIA employees to be far more religious than the, you know, public at large. they really believe they're doing God's work and they really believe that God's work includes murdering civilians

all around the world because we're the good guys they're the bad guys and this is the way God wants it there are affinity groups that the agency the agency actively encourages employees

to socialize and spend time only with other employees Right? You want to play sports? No problem. We've got a softball league, a flag football league, a hockey league. You name it. You can do it. There's a quilting club. There's an LGBT organization. Anything that you would want to do in your spare time, the CIA has got a club. And you meet in the CIA auditorium or you meet in a CIA conference room or whatever you do your thing. that includes Christian organizations they have evangelical organizations they have Catholic organizations they have Mormon organizations and you can do all of it inside the building so yeah it's much more religious in my own scare quotes than the general public is which I never understood I have no obviously experience with those kinds of government agencies have never worked in one. The only insight that I have to offer is just

that, you know, in banking and other places where I, and in journalism, where I witnessed people who were powerful politicians, people who are in, they're able to justify themselves, you know, any kind of action, no matter how violent and brutal psychologically by, like John, the way you said, like, you know, I'm a good person. And basically, sometimes, as Napoleon said, to break to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. And that's how people justify it to themselves. I don't think it's unusual. I think most of us could end up doing that. I could easily see myself, you know, sitting in a revolutionary committee one day, you know, signing off on some counter-revolutionary, you know, fascist to be executed. My grandfather did. My grandfather

supervised the execution of French collaborators at the end of World War II. You know, I I never thought he was a bad man, even though, you know, he basically murdered these people extrajudicially. I think it's pretty easy for people to do it. It takes, it's very rare to find a human being who's able sometimes in their life to just sort of say, I know this is like, I think I'm a good person, but what if I'm not? Or what if, even if I'm a good person, maybe being a good person means I don't take this extra step. I don't do this. It's unusual.

That's why people like John are rare, right? I mean, there's, I mean, it was like the question, like when I wrote the book about Ed Snowden, my question was, I had, you know, I didn't know how to really get into the, you know, I always look for a way into a book, like what's a message, what's the big question I'm seeking to answer? And I read that like hundreds of thousands of people had had access to some or all of the same information that he leaked. And then my question became like, why's just him, right?

Like they all knew it was illegal or should have known. Why was he literally one in a million? And so the fact is he was one in a million. You're one in a million. That's John. I mean, that's, it's just the way we're wired as human beings. No, I agree with that. All right. So next up, Alex, you are live with John and Ted. Please unmute yourself and ask your question. Thank you.

Alex, please unmute yourself and come on. You're on the air. Oh, so next up. Hello. I've been thinking about a lot about the torture program and I am thinking. how exactly all those illegal programs are authorized? It can be that president can authorize whatever he wants, same with those who follow his orders. Or does president say, relax, say the director, if it goes out, I will pardon you all. Say, now go and kill, but get the results.

I guess the Sicario move gave me that image, but I don't see like a lot of presidents doing time, being an electric chair or seems like excommunicado from all possible places they're all just going to hiding after their term and you don't see it like Clinton

and political rallies either yeah usually it comes from the bottom up usually it is somebody at the CIA coming up with an idea that is then pitched to the president. I'll give you an example, the one I know the best, the torture program. So the torture program, the idea was hatched by two contract psychologists before they had the contract,

two psychologists by the name of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. In October of 2001, they approached a friend of theirs, who was a high-ranking, official in the CIA's counterterrorism center. And he was at a dinner party, and George Tenet was there. And he went up to George and said, George, listen, I have these two friends who are psychologists, and they've reverse engineered the serial program. They're calling it enhanced interrogation techniques. We can beat the shit out of these prisoners and torture them and make them give us information

so we can disrupt the next attack. George loved the idea. So here's the way it works out bureaucratically. You have this idea. You write it up in a memo and you send it to an office called Cass, the covert action staff. Cass formats it so it's in the right format, the right heading, the right font, all that stuff. And they send it to the CIA's general counsel, the head lawyer for the CIA. He has to read it.

and decide if it's legal or if it's illegal. He doesn't know if it's legal or it's illegal. So he sends it to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, OLC. They read it. This was John U. and J. Bybee. They read it and they said, we can make the law stand on its head. So we'll write a memo called the U.S. memo that will argue that it is legal, even though we have laws that specifically prohibit it,

we're going to say, you know, extenuating circumstances, we're going to say it's legal. Then it goes to the Attorney General. And the Attorney General says, well, if my people say it's legal, then it must be legal. So he signs it. Then it goes to the National Security Council's General Counsel. And he says, well, if the attorney general says it's legal and OLC says it's legal and CIA General Counsel thinks it's legal, otherwise they wouldn't have sent it forward, it must be legal. So the NSD General Counsel signs off on it.

Then it goes to the National Security Advisor. And Connie Rice said, well, my God, this whole parade of attorneys who are far smarter than I am, they all say it's legal. It must be legal. So she signs it. then it goes to the president and they make three copies the president signs each one of the three copies one goes into the safe in the CIA's operations center one goes into the safe in the national security council and one goes to the executive office of the president and then it's legal it's

secret but it's legal that's how one of these crazy programs is implemented It starts off as an idea at a dinner party, and then it takes November, December, January, February, March, when it's signed by the president, five months, and it becomes the law of the land, even if almost no Americans know about it. John, I read, is this true? I read that at one point, even Vice President Dick Cheney at some point was read in. to some of the specific techniques that were being used in the torture program and that at least he verbally approved of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Actually, there's even more, there's even more to that story. George Tenet said in his memoir that he went to the White House with the final version of, of the torture, covert action program. And Cheney walked into the office. George was waiting in the ante room of the Oval Office. And Cheney walked and he said, George, what are you doing here? And George said, I've got the memo for the enhanced interrogation program

for the president to sign. And Cheney said, oh, give it to me. I'll have the president sign it. And George said, well, I have to have the president sign it because it's going back to the agency. to go into the vault. And Cheney insisted that he would get the president to sign it. And he physically took it from George.

And George said, years later, thinking about it, he wasn't sure that the president had ever signed it. He was thinking maybe Cheney auto-pended it. And that when the president said that we do not torture, which is how I got involved, involved, that he was actually telling the truth because he didn't know that there was a torture program. Cheney knew and kept it from him.

What do you think? Well, with what I know about George W. Bush now, compared to what I believed I knew in 2002, I think Bush actually did not know that we were torturing prisoners. Do you think this was an effort, do you think Cheney was trying to avoid Bush seeing something that he would have vetoed or disapproved of, or do you think he was just trying to protect the president by providing him with plausible deniability in the event that things went tits up? I think that Cheney thought, if the president knew about this program, he would have gone to his father for advice and his father would have said run screaming from the room this is wrong

it's illegal and it's going to all fall on you and i think chenny didn't want that to happen and he just wanted the torture to happen and he didn't and he was willing to do whatever it took to make it happen so it's possible that it was auto penned i mean look uh that would be possible to ascertain if we ever saw and if there was ever we ever got a copy of that signature yeah I think so I'd love to see it I'd love to see it

yeah yeah yeah for your next yeah yeah yeah just a quick reminder please click on the discord link if you are would like to talk to John and myself and that discord link is in the Rumble chat and in the

YouTube chat thanks everyone for playing and for We're doing this for another 29 minutes here. Then we're back to our regularly scheduled program next week. So not to say we won't ever do this again because we do like doing it. But we're just taking advantage of the fact that the TMI show is off the air for this week. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead, Robbie.

Sorry to interrupt. No, you are good. So next up is Vin Kattesh. Vin Ketesh, you are live with John and Ted. You are live. Go ahead, Ben Katash. Yeah, I have three small questions, this being the last day of the fall episode.

John, you've been on multiple podcasts, which one was your favorite? And have you guys heard of a documentary in Errol Morris, who made a documentary on Robert McNamara, who was former Secretary of Defense? That document was prolific, was brilliant. And I thought with him, and you, it could be a perfect parent,

you could easily take your word to millions of people. And lastly, I have a personal touch, but I was watching 4K footage of, a 4K drone footage of Chenjin and Shanghai this morning. And for some reason, I started to cry. Me being an Indian, I thought, will India as a country, will ever get to that stage or something like.

So do you ever see India as a global player as China is today. Thank you. Thank you. Good questions, man. So I'll start with my favorite podcast. It's got to be Tucker Carlson. Tucker's just such a genuinely sweet guy

that you almost forget you're on a podcast that millions of people are going to watch. It really does feel that it's just, you and a friend sitting across the table from one another having a nice conversation. It just doesn't feel like a podcast.

There are no nerves. You know, it's just a very sweet guy. So that's my favorite. I've been on big ones. You know, another guy who is just really

genuinely sweet like that is is a guy named Teigen Broadwater. I've been on his podcast two or three times. And he's just a genuinely good guy. To the point where I've stayed in touch with him and I consider him to be a friend. Like I said yesterday on this other issue, I genuinely worry about China.

I don't believe that the Chinese are... are all over the world engaged in the construction of, you know, bridges and highways and hospitals and airports out of the goodness that are hearts. I think that they are a lot smarter than we are when it comes to these issues. And I think that they recognize the value of soft power far better than the United States does. So I'm worried about what China's going to look like in the next 20 years. What other issue am I missing, Ted? Oh, can India become rival China as a global supercala?

Absolutely yes. Absolutely yes. For a number of reasons. Number one, because China is a more easily functioning government because it's democracy. I think that the Indians have a long way to go. But I think that the Chinese citizens. system is such that in the end, the bureaucracy is going to hold it back. It's funny that I would argue with you about that.

I mean, I agree with you about the government. I think China's political system holds it back. No question. It doesn't unleash the full power and creativity of the Chinese economy and the people and their ingenuity and all that. I think the Indians are held back by something we've talked about, which is the gross inequality and mass. scale poverty. Yes, yes, yes. I agree 100%. Their human potential is locked up. So many

fucking hundreds of millions of Indians who are basically so worried about like whether they can eat today. These are all startups that are not happening, businesses that are not getting started, degrees that are not being earned, ideas that are not being conceived. They're held back by that. Their human potential that's hurting their GDP, it's going to, drag them down and they're not going to have the money that they need to expand globally. Agreed. Yeah. You said it.

It's kind of a race. And I said it. Yeah. There's going to have to be, there's going to have to be a lot of change in, in the way that, that India runs its society, that the Indian government runs Indian society. Like we said, this caste system is just so fucked up. that it's got to change like right now.

And, you know, I dated an Indian woman for a while after my second divorce. And she asked me if I had ever been to India and I said, yeah, I have been three times. She said, oh, did you love it? And I said, actually, no, I didn't love it. And it's

unusual for me to go to a place and not find something to really love. Right? I love travel. I love going all around the world. Even in the worst shitholes in the world, I find something that I really enjoy. I didn't like India. She said, really? Why? And I said, I had never been to a country where people were so mean to one another. Not mean to me. Everybody was perfectly nice to me. Mean to one another. And it's this caste system. I agree with you, Ted. That's what's going to

hold the Indian economy back. Plus, I think it's easier to pivot. I think it's easier to pivot a political system than a than an economic system yeah yeah the chinese can they could the chinese could just have democracy you know next year if they wanted yeah india can't just turn on to you know uh you know a more equitable distribution of wealth that is right i have a question for both y'all because y'all both have traveled a lot which country's economic system is it easier for someone just to legitimately pull themselves up from nothing and build a future for yourself. The United States or China? Oh, that's a tough one. I would have, I would have said until very recently the United States, until maybe 20 years ago, now I think it might be China. If you're, it's more of a

meritocracy. If you're gifted, if you're talented in something, the government in its educational system has a massive interest in elevating you. I mean, you know, I saw I, Tanya, right about Tanya Harding, the figure skater. And I was struck by the fact that, like, you know, she was poor and she couldn't afford, like, to make her outfits. She had to make her own outfits. She couldn't, like, buy the proper ones. And there was this whole class caste system in figure skating, right?

That would not happen in a country like Russia or China. I mean, her talent would have been picked up immediately, and she would have been sent to a state school where she her talent and she wouldn't have had to worry for anything except just practice that's more like I think if your talent if you have an innate talent that is of a kind that can be

recognized by the state and by business someone in China is going to fucking lift you up where you belong I don't think that's necessarily true here you could be brilliant as shit and stuck working in a 7-Eleven the rest of your life absolutely true

I agree that's sad thank you all so I'm going to go ahead and bring in Ray now Ray you are live with John and Ted please unmute and we await your question sir

Ray please unmute Ray you're alive Ray please unmute yourself there you are good morning guys how are you doing Mr

all. Anyway, John, I I... You mute it. Oh, you mute it again. There you go. Go ahead, Ray. Okay, I don't need it myself.

I'm muted again. No, you're good. No, you're good. You're good. Okay. I understand. understand what I did, Ted. I mess up all the time with the mute and the tab there. Anyway, my question, last night I was watching Tori Maris and John, she is the woman that worked for John Brennan at Global Strategies. And I brought up about you getting a pardon. And what she said, she would like to reach out and speak to you because you guys work in the same fields, you know, but she was saying it would be strategically smart if you were pardoned for a number of reasons. But, you know, she actually wanted a, um, She gave an open invitation if you wanted to speak to her, you know. And I sent Robbie like a clip of it. I love it.

Robbie, can you, um... She's also a Greek American, John. It's from Corinth. Her family hails. Yes, she is Greek. And she would love to speak to you. She also said about other men, you know, but basically there was something else someone brought up in the chat there, and it was saying maybe some of the strategic

strikes against Venezuela or basically expatriation cleaning up messes around the world for the agency. I've never heard of that before, but could you elaborate on that? And also, like she does, she's also on Twitter as a chaos coordinator, if you needed to get a hold of her. I'm going to look. Yeah, she doesn't exist, if you know what I mean, than private contractors. Yeah. Right. But I was basically asking about the expatriation, you know, what that means, basically.

Something about also it would usher in AI infrastructure down there and across the world. Excreation, I think the word. Okay, thank you, Ted. That's a hard operation to pull off. It's absolutely possible, but that would be tough to pull off. pull off. Um, but it's, yeah, I, I could see that happening where, you know, the CIA goes around the world blowing shit up to cover up things that they've done or that they intend to do. There are a lot of moving parts with an operation like that. And so they're, so they're very

difficult to, uh, to pull off, like I said. And I'm, I'm pausing as I'm saying this because I'm trying to think back on on whether i can recall any um any such operations and i i can't to tell you the truth not while i was there anyway i just wanted to know what it was about and hey mr raw i'm going to see the subhumans in april man some good old punk there excellent enjoy I'm jealous. Hey, can I ask you to, can I ask you if you can give Robbie whatever contact information you might have for her? And, uh, and I'll, uh, I've did that already. I, I've did that for Robbie.

So I also, uh, the clip last night, I gave a time frame. Unfortunately, I couldn't, YouTube doesn't allow you the clip anymore. So I gave Robbie the time frame where she discussed about you if you want to send that to you. So. But she would love to see. speak to you, John. Thank you. Yeah, she wants your perspective on things, too.

Yeah, and it's not going to be the same old, same old, same old. Hey, John, tell your story 15 million times, man. Yeah, thank God. No, I don't want to do that anymore. Yes. All right. Hey, guys, have a happy new year, man. Good to see you, Ted.

Thank you. Thank you, John. That's a good one, Rob. I hope you feel better, brother. Oh, thank you. Enjoy the show. Thank you. All right.

Just one second. I think we just had a. Crash, boys and girls. Really? Yep. I think OBS just shit the bed in a spectacular manner. I think people can still hear us. Are we off the air? No, we're still in the air.

It's just I can't see anything anymore. So, but that's fine. We can muddle this on through just one second, and I will bring over. We're prettier when you don't see us. Yeah, no, for sure. Let me see here. y'all so i'm going to have to alt tab out y'all may see some stuff here on the screen it's nothing bad it's just not going to look very good while i try to fix this so let me see here

let me see you know we always talk about the i always talk about the jeffrey tube and thing i wonder about like have there been any any major screen share mishaps in business Or people share their screen and then there's open tabs for, you know, whatever. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. No, it does happen. Oh, listen. Now, my computer is completely locked up. So let me see.

I worked for a guy. I worked for a guy who projected his screen up on a big, you know, pull down screen. Yeah. And he had a tab, he had a tab that was called sexy Russian bitches. That was open. Well, if you've got to have a tab, I mean, that's the one I would go with personally. No, my wife is black, so I've probably had sexy black bitches, but still just the same. Great.

Same, same idea. Yeah, it's the same thing. So let me see. Nope. So we are, I am completely locked up. So, Ted, you've got to do some producer work now. So if you could bring down, so if you can bring down yellow banana into the Discord chat. And I assume people can still hear us.

All right. I cannot promise it. I hear you come. All right. I think I can do this. Let's see. We're going to find out. I'm not able to drag yellow banana.

Okay. So, no, we are. I am not dragable. you are not dragable such as life okay so hold on i'm trying to rebuild this all right hold on i think we're back i think we're alive rebuilding y'all this is live tv i mean it is what it is so you just have to deal with it all right yellow banana you are live with john and ted i think i think you're live we can hear you guys yeah yep there's all right there you is uh good to be on again uh quick question for y'all and one for john too i just wanted to get your thoughts on

andrew yang and ubi and then for john just wanted to hear more about that texas speaking tour you have yeah great real quick let me talk about texas so i had a commitment from a very wealthy friend of mine to put up two hundred fifty thousand dollars to get my speaking tour back on track he told me on October the 12th he was going to transfer the money i'm still waiting it's long beyond october the 12th and every time i i text him or call him he has some excuse so i went out looking for other investors i found one over the weekend who sent me a hundred thousand dollars which is very helpful but i need another hundred thousand to get this thing planned so the initial plan and i have a meeting about this at two o'clock this afternoon we're going to start the

speaking tour at the end of February in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's going to likely be co-hosted by the World Affairs Council of Santa Fe. Then we're going to Branson, Missouri, then Charleston, South Carolina, and then in the first couple of weeks of March, it's going to be Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston. So I'm going to like cover like a blanket with emails all of this as soon as it's really pinned down. I need to find another hundred grand. I'm working on it this coming week. But as soon as we get that second hundred grand and I can rent the facilities, we're going to get moving. So thanks for asking. It's going to happen. I'm optimistic. I just, I don't have a speakers bureau behind me this time so i have to do it all myself which is a huge challenge but

the end of the day frees me up to do all kinds of things that i otherwise couldn't do when i was in the uk in ireland um so andrew yang yeah andrew yang yeah i never loved basic income go ahead i like that idea but i don't like andrew yang i don't trust him i don't either why don't you i just i feel like he's a uh He's a neoliberal in progressive clothing. Yeah, he is. He's a weasel. He tries to basically, yeah, that's the best way to put it.

I don't trust him either, and his politics are soft and squishy. Also, his version of UBI would just sort of be a subsidy. It wouldn't really be enough for anybody to even subsist. But the thing is, look, from the, as a lefty, I think a UBI is just, is just basically like a, it's a band-aid to a capitalist system. But that said, okay, this is the system we have until we have a revolution. So look, from the capitalist's own point of view, they need this as much as we do. We have lower voter, lower worker participation rate year after year after year

because technology keeps improving productivity. AI is just the latest example, but automation, so on. So basically, they don't need as many of us working as many hours as we used to. That's not bad news. That's good news. But what they've got to do is, like, now that the – so the money's still pouring into the system, and what we've got to do is take some of that money to pay people to sit at home. And that's – I know very against the Protestant work ethic.

It seems very anti-American. but take heart in the following. Some of those people will be bored and will start their own businesses and start the businesses of the future and come up with crazy new ideas. And the others, instead of coming out and killing people or causing revolution or burning things down or causing crimes, they will sit at home on their computers and watch TV and they'll be out of the way. That's the purpose of a UBI, is to basically pay people to not,

end up like India. We will end up like fucking India if we don't have a UBI. So that's my... It's like a phone subsidy. It's like a farm subsidy. We get paid not to grow, you know,

wheat or corn because it's going to flood the market. It's going to force the price down. Then everybody's going to be unhappy. The same idea. I told you I had this friend at the CIA. Yeah, exactly. He still want to have farmers. I used to have this friend at the CIA who he had,

some money. So he bought 100,000 acres in North Dakota, 100,000 acres. And he just bought it to hunt on it. He wanted his own private hunting ground. He said as soon as he settled a lot, as soon as he's as he settled on the property, settled on the property, he gets a letter from the Department of Agriculture saying that they'll pay him to not grant. grow wheat. He said he never had any intention of growing anything, let alone wheat. He's not a farmer. He's a full-time CIA officer. He just would go up there to hunt. And so he took the subsidy not to grow the wheat. He said that the subsidy paid the mortgage on the property every year. And after 30 years, he owned it free and clear, never paid one red cent out of his

own pocket. Now, would you consider that to be a fucked up system or? Yeah, it's one of those quirks in the system that we've given ourselves. But how do you correct for something like that? You would have to rely on the honesty of people to say, hey, listen, I wasn't going to grow wheat anyway. So I won't take your millions and millions of dollars in subsidies. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I could talk. I guess in a, if, if we, If we weren't wasting so much money on defense and Israel and Ukraine, I guess I would be more upset about it. I could tell you how you get the right wingers to sign up on it like me, because the people

like me, we're suspicious of government programs, specifically if the government gives you money to try to buy you off, what's to prevent them from, then use that to put a chain around your neck. The way that you would get around it is that you would sell it as a way where you actually get dividends like a shareholder does. in a corporation. So if the government is turning up, not a profit, they don't make money, at least not legally. But, well, they could back in the day. But they could. But no, for example, though, what you could do is if you have a budget surplus, then all taxpayers get a percentage

as a dividend, your UBI for that surplus. That's how you be able to shrink government spending. And then that actually gives you an incentive to make government lean and efficient, not just more bloated. What do you all think? Well, I mean, I definitely see the appeal of it. You know, that it's self-explanatory. For me, the hesitation is that the main purpose of government really isn't to make a profit. The purpose of government is to provide for things collectively that people can't do individually or in small groups. And I don't see how you get there from that. Well, the government's taxing us already. So, I mean, if you're $37 trillion in debt, if you're then able to, cut your spending and you balance the books and then the government is actually bringing more

revenue than expenditure. I mean, you have a surplus. This is the definition. So then either, A, you cut taxes or B, you actually start paying dividends to taxpayers. And that's the thing. You have to be a taxpayer. If you don't pay into the system, you get nothing. Then it incentivizes you to, like if you're an illegal migrant who's living under the, who's sucking off the tit and working under the table, that then incentivizes you to become legal and get involved with the system. Well, that would literally be treating government like a business. Correct. You know, something that politicians always talk about.

But if you, but businesses need to, like you say, cut spending and increase revenue. So there would be an incentive for the government to increase their tax collections and raise everyone's taxes a lot and then provide fewer services than they're even providing now, which I can't think is, I mean, my problem with the government. the U.S. government is that they're not providing, they're providing too many stupid services and not enough good ones. I mean, we don't, we really need more services, right? I mean, we need free college. We need, we need, you know, we need healthcare. I agree, but inflation is a tax. And that's why people don't really want to ever talk about. It literally is. It's a tax.

And so it's a tax that's a separate issue. But fiscal policy is different, though. But it's related, though, because the more that things, the more the things cost, the more than that especially states and stuff are able to charge with sales tax and that kind of thing. So there is a correlation. See what I mean? Sure. Sure, there's a correlation. And so I guess that's how you would be able to win people on my side of the aisles. You're getting a rebate off of money that you've already spent and then it incentivizes government voters to then punish politicians like Trump who outspend Obama, which is, I didn't think it was possible, but yet here we are.

Oh, just you wait. We will look back. Every, you know, the American system is a steady in entropy. We will look back at Donald Trump as a fiscally responsible, calm, methodical, responsible president. We will, we will miss him. He's a moron. I promise you. Oh, I know.

So was Bush. But you're right, though, because we used to say, the same stuff about Ronald Reagan. He was a nut. He was an extremist. He's going to lead to the demise of the country. And now people are like, oh, my God, do I pine for the days of Ronald Reagan?

Totally. Oh, my God. I'll tell you what I'd like to see. And the reason I'm going on like this is because we have time for another caller. We have two minutes to kill. So you all said to just put up with my crappy voice. You know what I think would really just set the stage. And I'm going to get y'all's opinion on this for an actual reform from the grassroots.

what would happen if 120 Americans just said fuck it, we're not a pair of credit cards anymore. What would happen? The banking system would drop to its knees and the usury would finally come to an end. Not a chance. But that's not going to happen. Yeah, I mean, think about the level.

This is like when leftists, I mean, that would be a left-wing thing too. 100%. But this is like when leftists, when left-wingers talk about, like, we need a national strike, you know, like, we'll, like, during Occupy Wall Street, or now they'll say, like, oh, we need to, like, instead of no kings, everyone needs a national strike. The level of left-wing grassroots organization required to pull off something like that is inconceivable at the present point in time. I mean, this country doesn't have the, we don't have the ability to get, well, remember the Million Man March? I mean, Louis Ford, Farrakhan,

couldn't get a million guys to show up for the million-man march. And you want 120 million people to all agree to put up in the face of all the threats of having their homes taken away and their finances and their credit ratings ruined. You want them to hold firm? We couldn't get fucking five Democrats in the Senate to fucking hold firm, you know, to defend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. It's just that, I mean, it's a great idea. but you know the level of solidarity that you need to have an organization

it's stratospheric I mean it's like it's like and it's like Alpha Centauri like there's no fucking way yeah but I didn't come up with ideas but this idea and probably surprised both you and John about who did it was Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson said that this would said if you want to bring you know he knows what I just said is true 100% But, I mean, my whole thing is, if you keep going to the people in Washington, D.C., and they're the ones who are screwing you, to ask them to please use at least a little bit of lube, they're not going to. Do you have to push back? Yeah.

Oh, I agree. But, you know, the thing is, like, you can have revolutionary impulses, but you're not going to have a revolution without the organization. They'll just have collapsed. we have revolutionary impulses we don't have the organization we're going to collapse anyway and seriously i think we're going to just completely collapse anyway how can we not it's so top-heavy and bloated my concern is what happens next i just want i don't want that to happen i have kids no i'm that's my concern too what do you think john i don't want collapse is ugly am i off the reservation here or no no collapse we're headed that direction i really believe yeah we've got to do something

It's got to start with defense spending. We're killing ourselves. We're implementing the path to our own collapse. 100%. That's where most of the money is going. And I mean, there's other shit too, but that's right. Start is the right way to put it. Well, thank you so much, Robbie.

Thank you so much, John. Happy New Year to you and to everybody else. We will be back Monday at 9 a.m. Eastern time for a regular one-hour show, Monday through Friday, all of next week, 9 o'clock a.m. Keep it, mark it down. And please like, follow, and share the show as much as possible. And have a great weekend. Right. Thank you all. Bye, everybody. Bye.

Robbie.