DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Hunger Games | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

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: • Israel blocks 37 aid groups from Gaza. How much worse will the misery get? Will the world care? • Trump bombed 7 countries in 2025: Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Venezuela, Syria and Nigeria. • US border agents are searching travelers’ phones and other electronic devices at a record rate. • Zohran Mamdani becomes Mayor of New York tonight.

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...hean... ...hean... ...the... ...the... You know, Happy New Year. It's Wednesday, December 31st, 2025. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Rawl and John Kyriaku.

I'm Ted Raul. That's John Kiriakou. Thank you so much for supporting us, liking us, sharing us throughout this year. And we're really looking forward to sharing 2026 with you, starting on Friday, we will be taking tomorrow off for New Year's Day, but we're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern Time. Today is another one of the special two-hour shows. So what that means is that John and I will be taking your questions and talking about news and current events and anything else that comes up in answering your questions in the Rumble feed and in the

YouTube feed over the next hour from 9-8-9 to 10 Eastern. Then in the second hour, like we'd been doing the last few days. We're going to take your calls through the Discord server, and producer Robbie West is going to come on and explain how that works. But basically, you don't need to get too into the room just yet, because you'll be waiting around for about an hour. But we'll bring in Robbie in a few minutes to explain how that works. Also, we are going to be doing the two-hour show on Friday, same exact format, but we anticipate returning to the usual format. And of a one-hour show, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, January 5th, 2026. The TMI show will be back on the air with me and Minlachan after that. Thank you so much for

your generous support. Our watch hours are higher than ever. Our subscriptions are higher than ever. And that's all thanks to you guys. So it's true that we're not making that much money, but we are moving in the right direction. We'll be getting back to shaking you guys down for help with Robbie on Friday, but you're off the hook for the remainder of the month, which means today, all right, that's a lot of housekeeping. Major stories today, Israel is preventing 37-8 agencies from entering the Gaza Strip, which is, of course, a hellscape after two-plus years of combat there. Donald Trump bombed seven countries this year.

Can you name them all? We can. U.S. Border Patrol is now searching people, travelers' phones into the United States, including those of some American citizens. We'll talk about what, if anything, you can do if a Border Patrol agent asks you to open your phone or unlock your MacBook or anything like that. And finally, tonight at 12 o'clock midnight, in a subway station, Zohan Mamdani will become the new mayor of the city of New York. Let's see if there's any questions to get to, John, before we launch into all that. Waterways, have a happy new year to you as well. The program has been one of the best parts of my year and ours.

Thank you, Ted, Ron, Robbie, and mystery producer. Yes, we'll talk about the mystery producer some other time. Mr. Outstreet, I think Milltown Cemetery in Northern Ireland would be an awesome spot for one of John's books. So much history there, including the attack on an actual funeral by my. Michael Stone. I've been there. It is absolutely wonderful. I went with my buddy, well, I don't want to out him, but he has a relative there, one of the Irish martyrs. And terrific idea for a book. Because, you know, these cemetery books, they're also broader history books. And a history of the conflict, a history of the IRA based on that cemetery, fantastic idea. Yeah, thanks for

that. And lemon curd sandwich? What's going on with Iran? Well, we talked a little bit about it yesterday, but let's keep talking. May I say real quickly about Iran? Um, Ayatollah Khomeini came out yesterday and said that he supported the protesters. Yep. Which was a smart move politically and told President Peschkian to do whatever he could to stabilize the currency. So Pesachan, of course, blamed the parliament that the the the members of parliament for not coming up with a viable economic policy but that tells me not only of course that the problem is legit we know it's legit they have 50% inflation this year they're looking at 62 inflation next year but they're worried that you know there could be

large in the streets not because they were bombed by Israel or bombed by the United States, but because they can't get their economic act together. Well, that's always, always what these, this kind of unrest is about. So, John, it's my impression, correct me, please correct me if I'm wrong, that the presidency is a relatively weak position in Iran's system. It's more symbolic. It is. Ayatollah Khamenei is, his title is supreme leader, which means he is the supreme leader.

You can't do anything at all in the country without his express consent. Now, they play that down. And Iranian friends are going to email me and yell at me that I'm overstating the case. I'm not overstating the case. His title is Supreme Leader for a reason. If you want to run for a president, for example, you have to be cleared by a committee. If they don't like your politics, you don't get to be on the ballot. And even if they do decide you can be on the ballot, the Supreme Leader gets the final say-so.

Well, with the economic policy, you know, he's not in their making policy, but he approves of the policy that's finally made. And the buck has to stop somewhere with 50% inflation. Yeah, so it's probably fair to say, is it fair to say that it's not a centralized, like, dictatorial system. It is a representative system, but that there is a final authority. That is correct. I will say, by all appearances, I told him, and I appears to be popular.

But with that said, the country has serious economic problems. And also, speaking of Iran, before we move on, there was a little bit of elucidation about comments that came out of Iran over the weekend. Basically, kind of like we suspected, when Iran said, oh, we're like basically at war with the West. What their meaning is not that they want to go to war with the U.S., but they're just sort of saying, like, we feel like the war, the West. has declared war on us and we're feeling beleaguered I'm glad you said that yeah there's a big

difference they feel beleaguered they feel that the West mainly meaning the United States and Israel have declared war on them not they're not wrong war and are declaring war and treating the set of war that's not what they said yeah they're and they're not wrong okay so Angela Falalala does the CIA ever hire scientists or engineering firms directly for research and development. Absolutely yes. Absolutely yes. In fact, post 9-11,

there are more contractors at the CIA than there are CIA employees. So yes. If you have the facility to do classified work, yeah, you're in. Sure. RSI 718. Sorry, go ahead.

I was going to say, you'd be surprised at how many little tiny firms around the D.C. area, you go into their offices, and they have a skiff. They have a vaulted space with, you know, CIA-approved safes and everything. It's a real surprise. RSI 718. Is Israel's recognition of Somaliland an attempt to influence maritime traffic in and out of the Red Sea?

Well, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, but it's not like, you know, we don't, can't talk about it again. I mean, yeah, basically, part of it. Yeah. I want to add to something that you said yesterday, too. you alluded to the troubles between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Well, yesterday, the Saudis bombed a shipment of military supplies arriving in South Yemen, the military supplies having been donated by the United Arab Emirates. So the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are actively at war with each other,

like literally at war with each other, despite the fact. fact that they are among the two closest allies in the world. Can you imagine us bombing a shipment of Canadian arms that were sent somewhere? And then the Canadians responding by bombing our base. That's what's happening now. It's crazy. I've never seen anything like it. Does this mean that they're no longer allies effectively? No, because they're working together everywhere else where they have mutual interests. This is just one of those weird pissing matches between the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the crown prince of the UAE, the craziest thing. With their big, swinging dicks.

If you so, thanks for the buck. What was the cannabis culture like in the Middle East? Don't they have killer hash? Non-existent, in my experience. The only thing I remember, I told this story, so it was my father participated in the sale of the AWACs to the Saudis, and he was expected to smoke hash and got a letter from his.

his boss, authorizing him to smoke celebratory hash to close the deal. But that was a long time ago. That was the late 70s. Yeah. You know, what's funny about cannabis culture is even in places where you would think it would be very different, it surprises you. Like in France, basically, it's very hard to get weed. It's like you would think it's such a liberal country and all that.

But, I mean, it's not impossible, but it feels more like in the United States in like, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Just like you have to really know someone. It's not like you can just get it. Langhorne Clemens, do you guys feel like terrorism, namely Islamic extremist terrorism, has kind of fallen out of fashion. It basically dominated the American conversation since 9-11, but quietly seems to have disappeared. Great question. That's a great question. I think the answer is yes.

Yeah, it's not what it used to do. You know, the world has become a more varied and in some ways even more dangerous place. And, you know, yeah, we still pound ISIS at every opportunity. But I don't know. Now we've got cyber threats. Now we've got China. We've got the war between Russia and Ukraine. We have domestic issues.

some Americans believe that immigration is akin to terrorism. So, yeah, it's kind of different now. Yeah. Was ISIS or was, I mean, was the war on terror successful in some ways? Is that why we're not seeing helicopter pilots put in cages and set on fire and people being decapitated on video and stuff like that? I think in many ways it was. Al-Qaeda, for all intents and purposes no longer exists.

ISIS is a minuscule fraction of what it was just 10 years ago. So, yeah, in a lot of ways, we won. So were critics like me wrong? No, I think there was something to be said for the position of people like you and me. You and I have slightly different positions. But just because we're in the state that we're in right now doesn't mean that it's over because it's like a whack a mole we're just in a lull right now i believe where we've we've whacked these moles and right now they have traumatic brain injuries

but when they heal they're going to pop back up again historically islamic terror extremism comes and goes right i mean it's a long game it's been hundreds of years i mean it's not even like so yeah All right. Well, so, yeah, I think we have not seen the last of it, right? I mean, and also, you need charismatic leaders. And like one of them. And they're really long on you right now. Yeah. I mean, there's a posity of charismatic leaders in general, right? I mean, if you think about it, Donald Trump is one of them. But there aren't very many others. Yeah, I agree. John, question from you from Nicholas Frankos, given the recent Saudi bombing of that, you know, Yemen, Emirati shipment in Yemen, can you comment on the relationship of the GCC countries? Do they like each other? You lived there for quite a while. And what's the GCC?

The GCC is the Gulf Cooperation Council. It was created in 1982 by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. some of them are very close to one another well first of all the Saudis are sort of the first among equals right they always they always have been because they're the biggest they're the richest so they're the first among equals um the Saudis and the Bahrainis are so close that they're joined at the hip but the Saudis hate the gutteries the Saudis are close to the Emirates although as we said just a minute to go, that's being strained right now. The Omanis are a little more aloof. Everybody

loves the Omanis, but because they're so geographically isolated, they don't really take part in these petty fights between the other ones. And the Kuwaitis, everybody, like, I'll put it this way, everybody doesn't hate the Kuwaitis. The Kuwaitis just sort of do their own thing. They don't involve themselves in these petty arguments. But the real hatred is between the Saudis and the Qataris. So they'll do these summits every year. They'll have the GCC summit every year. And it moves each year, a different country hosts it.

And they all get together and it's all kumbaya and how great it is and they all smile for the cameras. Then they all go home and they're back to hating each other again. Is there any country that's excluded? No. Yemen, um, briefly in the late 80s, like kind of sort of asked if maybe they could be members. And they were just sort of left out of the room. And they never asked again, which is fine because in 1991, the GCC was effectively at war with

Yemen. Okay. Um, let's see what else we got here before we move. move on. We, okay, long time's listener, we, the Americans, we in scare quotes, didn't win the war on ISIS. ISIS was a U.S.-backed countergang, if anything, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia defeated ISIS. That is very overly simplistic.

That's what I was going to say. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, the U.S. certainly, like, had a role in birthing ISIS. But it was a failure of American policy that birthed ISIS. Yeah, I mean, it was the United States was responsible for, for creating ISIS in that there were atrocities taking place in American military prisons in Iraq. This was a reaction against those atrocities. And there was a determination among the initial founders of ISIS that al-Qaeda wasn't radical enough.

and because it wasn't radical enough, it wasn't able to defeat the United States in the Middle East. It's not like there were a bunch of bad guys sitting around a conference room table in Langley or in the White House saying, hey, let's create something and we'll call it ISIS. That's just not real life.

But the U.S. bombed the living shit out of ISIS in Iraq and in Syria. And, yeah, the Russians also bombed ISIS. Others bombed ISIS. that doesn't mean that it was it was a U.S. policy, a U.S. creation, and thank God that the Russians were able to save us from this thing. That's just not the way it was. Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, my take also was that the U.S. had this, and Hillary Clinton had this

unholy role financing and arming the Free Syrian Army and the Al-Nusra Brigade, which partly, part of them, you know, it's actually very analogous to the U.S. role in helping to create al-Qaeda, right? Like, we supported the Mujah Hadin, some of whom morphed. It's like that, right? We supported Exactly, exactly. Some of them morphed into these radicals. That's why I hate when people say, Osama bin Laden was a CIA, a paid CIA agent. No, he wasn't. He came six years after the CIA pulled out of Afghanistan. So let's talk about, let's flip at the script a little bit. How about it we talk about the new boy mayor of New York City? 34 years old.

Zoran Mamdani, self-described democratic socialist, small D, small S, is going to be at 12 midnight tonight. He's going to take the mayor's key to the abandoned subway station at City Hall, which is not used because it's at the end of a subway line that basically they had to close the station because the trains became longer. They're now 10 cars long. Back then, they were four. and so you didn't want to have one end of the train in one station while the other end was in another station

so certain stations throughout the system got closed that was one of them it's a beautiful like stained glass gorgeous place and it's been basically frozen in time for about a hundred years the mayor gets the key to that it's called city hall and so when you take the number six local subway train downtown to its terminus at Brooklyn Bridge if they will tell you, this is the last stop on the train, get off the train, last stop.

But if you ignore them and you stay on the train, the train will then go do a loop and come back around. If you ever saw it taking Appellum 123, the 1970s version, there's a similar loop at the South Ferry Station back then. So it's the loop. So it does a circle and comes back and heads back uptown. And you look out the window,

you will see the City Hall station in the gloom. and it's not vandalized or anything. There's an abandoned station on the west side at 91st Street that is vandalized because people have walked down the tracks and graffitied it. But City Hall is too hard to get to. So it's a temple of transportation. And so anyway, the mayor is going to go down there and take the oath of office. And he's going to live at Gracie,

mention, mainly for security reasons. He and his wife live in Queens, and they were worried that he couldn't get the security that he needed there. Obviously, he's a very controversial guy, more so than most mayors. So I guess there's a lot to talk about here. I mean, here's the thing. I've been watching Fox yesterday on the five. The argument was that AOC is the leading contender.

I laughed to be the Democratic nominee for president in 28. Nothing could be further from the truth. So absurd. But they did say something that is true, which is that Zoran Mamdani has captured the imagination of the Democratic Party, particularly younger voters. You know, he points a way forward, and he's going to be watched very carefully. And if he fails, it's going to be a major setback for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. If he succeeds, it could set the stage for other mayoralties that are similar in other cities, places like San Francisco and L.A. And so, and Washington.

May I ask you a question? How much of a role are quality of life issues going to play in the success or failure of his term? I think it's going to be massive. I worry that his, the people around him, are kind of like overindulging in woke identity politics. For example, his transition team is all-female. And I was like, who are you? Mar-Mar Gaddafi with your like all-female guards?

I mean, it's a little bit ridiculous. We will see. I mean, there's a lot of pressure around him to go in that direction. That would be a huge mistake. New Yorkers are always complaining about quality of life. But these days, things are really bad because you normally there's been like an ebb and flow in new york in the new york economy like for example after the city went bankrupt in the 1970s um the city fell apart right i mean crime went way up

graffiti exploded everything got ugly litter exploded but during the chud days the rent and it was the lou the lew reed days it was cheap you know so there was um so it was exciting there was clubbing There was nightlife. There was the arts exploded. Artists could live in New York. There was that trade-off. Then in the, you know, under Rudy Giuliani, when the economy was expanding because of Wall Street, the city recovered economically. And it became a little more boring.

You know, the chain stores took over. But crime fell off a cliff and it became a much safer city. It became one of the safest cities in the country per capita, which is what matters. So and so the thing is, New Yorkers accepted that. They were like, it's a little boring, but it's safe. It's a little expensive, but it's safe. Now, it's like, it's the worst of both worlds.

It's really expensive. It's scuzzy. It's not as dangerous as the 70s. The statistics bear that out, but it feels disgusting. The subways have never been the squalid. The homeless situation is out of control. It's gross. You're pissed, and they're like, why am I paying rent for this, such high rent?

I go to New York with some frequency. I was there twice last week, two separate days last week. And, well, let me back up. I started going to New York regularly in the early 1980s, right? Before Reagan cut the Amtrak subsidies, I remember the train ticket to New York was $12 bucks, right? 12 bucks up, $12 back. And so my friends and I used to go up on weekends.

We would stay at my friend Tom's house, hang out for the weekend. I would go in the summertime and hang out. Even after I got married, I'd take my wife up there for the weekend. It was a lot of fun. And then Giuliani became mayor. And as you say, there was stop and frisk, and it was more of a right-wing kind of police state sort of idea. But it was clean. he cleaned up the subways he cleaned up the train stations which was really noticeable he cleaned up

time square and i was like hey this is nice now it's filthy again they have a booming rat problem just like washington has this overwhelming freaking rat problem you don't just see a rat you see 500 rats when you go out uh but uh they're used to be, it seems to me, this happy medium where, as you just said, it's a police state, but it's really nice. Or we're totally free, but some homeless guy is going to push in front of a subway train. And there are rats everywhere. So how far do you think Mamdani can go or might be willing to go to, you know, emulate one style or the other? Well, he's got, I mean, he's got a major problem on his hands, which is that he only has popular support.

And I know that's so silly, but the people like him. I mean, he won by an overwhelming landslide and expectations are high. But there's three loci of power in New York City, and he doesn't have any of them. There's the cops, obviously, he doesn't, they don't like him. There's the real estate interests. He doesn't have those. He's pissed them off. And then there's Wall Street.

Also, he doesn't have them. So, you know, look, if the people around him are smart and he takes their advice, what he's going to do is basically realize I'm an outsider. My support comes entirely from the people. And I'm going to communicate directly with the New Yorkers every single day. If I were him, I'd give a morning press conference every single day at 9 o'clock. And, you know, seven days a week, holidays, including. I would just be incredibly transparent.

And I would also declare war on the moneyed interests. You know, I think the sweet, the real problem that the city faces more than anything else is it's broke. The city faced this migrant crisis that the Trump administration and then the governors of Florida and Texas unleashed upon it during the Biden years when they sent all these, you know, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and migrants up to New York City. and New York City processed them and Mayor Eric Adams for all of his legitimate flaws really seriously was stuck with the bill for all that

the city went massively into debt it's carrying a multi-billion dollar a year deficit budget deficit now so you know being broke is why the Giuliani wasn't broke he had the money pouring in there was plenty of Wall Street money coming in he could pave the highways

and he could clean the subways and he could do all that that's what the key is it's about money. If I were, if I were him, I would slap a transaction tax on the New York Stock Exchange so that every time a share is traded on the Stock Exchange, the city of New York gets its peace. A lot of other cities with stock exchanges do this all over the world, and it solves all of their fiscal problems. But he's got to do something like that. He has a very, he's going to have a very friendly city council, and that's going to help him a lot. He seems to be smart enough to be

forging a collegial relationship with Governor Hockel. Governor Hockel holds the purse strings to New York City in many respects. So, you know, he needs to maintain that relationship. Things were very sour between Adams and Hockel. And things got sour between Adams and Biden, too. So, I mean, it's true that Adams was corrupt. It's also true that that corruption, you know, got prosecuted because he pissed off Biden by complaining about the migrant thing.

So, you know, it's complicated. I guess the long, I mean, he's got a lot to do. It's going to be really hard. New Yorkers are in a bad fucking mood. And so, you know, I think the honeymoon is going to be short. New Yorkers will, he has like three to six months at most to come out of the gate with making a big impression. And he'd better have some good ideas.

Right now, I'm really scared. Like, for example, the mayor has incredible control over the city schools, and one of the things that we're hearing is that he wants to get rid of the gifted and talented program, which has already been gutted. Well, if you want any white parents, white middle class parents to stay in New York City, you can't do that. It's like the one, I know, it's a completely racially segregated system, and like, you know, the gifted and talented program is pretty much all white. but it's like okay but New York you know New York parents don't stick around because of that back when I had my kid I left New York because of the schools and that situation I was like I didn't want my I was like I put too much working to my kid to have him stabbed so like you know it's it's it's it's hard I mean I wish him all the best I voted for him twice um you know

I hope it works out but I'm I'm a little worried wow wow that's something Shall we talk about, well, the board, okay, so people who are traveling over from and returning to the United States, I'll be doing that over the, in the next couple of weeks, I'll be leaving the country and coming back, just going to Canada. But people are reporting that their phones and their laptops are being searched at a record rate by Border Patrol. The Border Patrol does have sweeping authority to question you and search you. They have a lot more authority to do that if you're not a U.S. citizen. As a U.S. citizen, you can basically say no. But, John, has this happened to you? I'm just curious because, I mean, obviously I could imagine you would be targeted more than the average Joe.

I've expected it to happen multiple times. And for whatever reason, it has never happened. The Washington Post has reported on this several times, too, where they offer up advice to Americans, not ring cardholders, not visitors, but American citizens about what you should do if this happens to you. If you're an American citizen, you can refuse to turn over, I'm sorry, you can refuse to give your password or your biometrics. them to go into your your phone or your laptop without a warrant but they have the right to keep it for a reasonable period of time which could be months it absolutely could be months and so the point of the article was they can make it hard on you or you can just make the whole thing easy by giving it to them so they can download your data and yeah you lose out and yeah

this is a violation of your constitutional rights but you get to take your laptop home or your phone home they were interviewing in this article one one american guy who turned over his phone he was ordered to turn over his phone and would not give them the password and they kept the phone for several days. It was like four days and finally gave it back. They were never able to get into it. Another guy, they kept the phone for six weeks and only gave it back because the guy went to his congressman and the congressman wrote a letter to whatever it was, Department

of Homeland Security, and finally they turned it back over. The bottom line is they can be real dicks about this if they want to be. And there's almost nothing you can do to stop them. so what i'm what i'm going to start doing i i've ordered no i shouldn't say i've ordered i work with a company called ivy cyber ivy cyber dot com it's a privacy software company and they're sending me a cell phone on a proprietary network uh with that with the the push of one button just zaps out everything on the phone so when i travel overseas I'll take this phone with me.

And if ICE says, or whoever, border protection says, give me your phone, I'm going to say, fine. And I zap out everything. And I hand him my phone. And it's like trying to boot up a shoebox. It's like, here you go. You wanted it. That's what's effectively happening, John, is that privacy is becoming a luxury good.

Like if you have no problem. I mean, now with an iPhone could easily cost over a. thousand dollars um so it's a laptop can easily be over three thousand dollars so if you're like sort of like okay well you know i can i can pick up a new phone and a new you know i have everything stored in the cloud anyway i'll just get a new phone and a new and a new laptop fuck you uh each shit or i can go without i can go without my shit for you know six weeks um you know i have i have a laptop at home i'm fine um then you can do that you have the luxury of maintaining your your your purse you your personal privacy rights, but if that's really a gross inconvenience and you're broke and

you're poor and you can't do it, then they eat you alive. I mean, it's really disgusting. They've gotcha. And you know, another thing, too, just a word to the wise. Let's say you travel, you come back, they demand your phone or your laptop, you turn it over. If they find anything that's a violation of the law, anything, even if it's a violation of the law, anything, even if it had nothing to do with your travel or whatever. They can prosecute you. Sure. Yeah, let's say they find out that you buy drugs or let's say that you're talking to your accountant

about how to cheat on your taxes or anything. Exactly. And the thing is, it's like that famous quote attributed to Berea, the NKVD guy, right? You showed me the man, I'll show you the crime. He may have actually said that. I think he probably said it because God knows he believed it. yeah no it definitely if the jackboot fits wear it um robbie please come on and uh i know we're ready for that ad but it's already 937 and we need to make sure that the folks who want to call in

in the 10 o'clock hour know how to do that so uh robbie's feeling a little under the weather so we really appreciate him uh being here for us today uh robbie shoot away please explain how the call in segment's going to work yeah no no problem at all apologize for my voice it's saw like I ate a box of sand, but promise you, I didn't. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to drop the Discord link in the, in the chats. So what y'all will do is that you'll come into the Discord server. You are going up there towards the top of it. You are going to see a spot that says call in office and or call in voice chat.

You're going to see a waiting room. There's already one person there waiting patient. Call in live office, right? That's what it is. Yeah, it's called call in waiting. Yep, it's called the call in waiting. room she just park right there i keep track of who comes in first i then drag you down you will be able to ask your question to john and ted and then i'll put you back in the office and once uh

wants to do that just just just uh just peace out and go someplace else that way i'll pull you in there twice by accident and get surprised with the second question that you may not be ready for you know please pay attention once i bring you over to the live to the live chat please unmute your microphone but make sure that your streaming tab is muted otherwise you're going to get some gnarly feedback it's like someone kicking a drowning cat so just please do that that helps us just keep the show listenable thanks Robbie and we're ready I'm ready for that ad when you're ready to put it up so do you want me to read it or just paste it for you oh in your voice you better paste your current state you better paste it all right yeah with that sore throat

So, yeah, that's a hand here. So anyway, so, yeah, so again, we'll be taking calls starting in 22 minutes at 10 o'clock a.m. Eastern time. And just make sure you control, if on a Mac, you control, click your tab on a PC, right click your tab, right click your tab, and just make sure the tab is muted. Otherwise, you're going to hear yourself talking back like six seconds later. And you're going to be like, wait, what? but wait what what so you don't want that because then that's really boring for us and for the for the listeners all right here we go you've probably noticed rumble is going fast and it's not slowing down they're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech and now there's rumble premium an easy way to upgrade your experience with premium you get ad free viewing across the platform no pre rolls no interruptions just the content you came for plus premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos behind the scenes drops and more from your favorite creators. Right now, Rumble is offering $10 off an annual subscription. Just go to Rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout. That's

rumble.com slash premium promo code studio. No ads, more freedom and content you actually care about. That's the deal. Okay, so, yeah, I've also affiliated with Ivy Cyber, full disclosure, and I'm going to have to hit them up for one of those magic phones, too. Okay, what do you say, John, to people who say, like, if you're not doing anything illegal, you have nothing to worry about and just, you know, cooperate and just open your phone and be on your way? That's exactly what Joseph Goebbels said in 1935. If you haven't done anything wrong, then don't worry about it. But this is all part of the incremental loss of our civil liberties, and we have to stand together

to fight this government overreach. you know if every american tells border protection to go fuck themselves when they say hand over your laptop and your and your cell phone and open them up so we can see what your life is like and see your innermost uh you know personal information fuck you i'm not going to give you my stuff take me to court if you want to look at my stuff go get a warrant and then you can look at it Until then, no, I'm not helping you take away my civil liberties. Amen. Totally.

Another thing I want to add to that, and that I couldn't agree more, is history. So even if you trust the U.S. government and the Trump administration as it currently stands, and everyone in the government, you think they're all great, which I'm not being sarcastic. Let's just say you love them. This will not be the government forever. And so at some point, we could end up with. you know, a government you really don't like and that really doesn't like you. And they're going to inherit all of this data, all of this information.

And that evil government that you don't like as much as this government could use it against you. And I'm reminded of, you know, France in the 1920s and 30s, they had censuses that were very innocuous. And in that census data, they collected stuff like your religion. And when the Nazis invaded and the Vichy regime took over in 1940, they, they, inherited all that census data and they knew where every Jew in France lived. It was all on an index card. And they just literally, one of the first things they did when they started passing anti-Semitic clause was sort through the code, the cards, put all the Jews in one stack so that when it was time for roundups, it was easy to find them. And so like the French did learn that

lesson, which is why they don't collect that data anymore in the census. So the next time the Germans come or whoever else, they can take over the country, but they're not going to have that data. You can still find out who's Jewish, but they're not going to make it easy for you. And that's, but here in the U.S., if you give them that data, you're making it easy for the oppressor government either of now or the oppressor government of the future. I think that's really important to remember. Could I say something real quick, Ted, because you touch on something. Whenever someone says that you should, the government should make a law or something, the

pushback that I always give. and this is something I live by really forever is would I give this power to my worst enemy? If the answer is no, I sure as hell don't want my friends to have it either

because my friends don't be in power forever either. That's it. That's just a great litmus test. And a question for you about New York with the gifted students program. You mentioned it's mostly white kids. I imagine a lot of Asians there too,

weren't there? It wasn't just all white, just pasty white dudes like me. So, I mean, I think that... 100%. Yeah, there's a lot of Asians. too, for sure. Like the, like Bronx science and God, what's the other, it's alluding me, but there's a stuyvesant, which are the very competitive. New York City's weird system for people

who aren't familiar with it, even within the public schools, there's like basically eight to 10 really competitive public schools that you have to take an exam to get into. And it's almost like getting into college. And those two that I mentioned are some of them. And those are very heavily skewed towards Asian students. Okay. So Will Kicker, thanks for the five bucks. Good morning. What news outlets and websites do you use to keep up with daily events? I will, let me go over to my. Okay. I wake up in the morning, I go through the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and New York Times, Los Angeles, Times, Pittsburgh, Post Gazette, CNN, Fox Associated Press,

Politico, The Hill, the New York Post, Kathy Medellini, a Greek reporter, The Guardian, the London, The Times of London, Raw Story, BBC, Dropsite News, Al Jazeera, I'll monitor, electronic interfaida. If I have time, then I go to consortium news, Rookler Politics, Axios, Covert Action Magazine, and then whatever we send each other. The vast majority of those for me, too, I would add, you know, you mentioned the Pittsburgh paper. I read the Dayton paper, and you might be like, well, why do that? But it's actually a good way to, it's not just a way to keep track of your hometown. It's also a way to sort of see what a generic American middle-brow newspaper is covering.

Also a variety of French sources, Le Monde, Liberation, a bunch of things like that. Anyway, the point is you get the idea, a whole shit ton. It's like, basically, it's like, you know, the days of being able to just read your morning and afternoon paper and watching the evening news and maybe time or news week, those days are over because news has become so unreliable and so spun. that you have to get a lot of sources to sort of develop a matrix in your mind, like an algorithm of like, huh, I noticed certain, you know, things that are, I noticed some things that are different here.

You know, like the Guardian is far more reliable, for example, on American politics than it is reliable on British politics. So, you know, you want to see foreign sources as much as possible. What is Desert Fox? what is your guys' opinions on Austrian business cycle theory and the massive debt crisis in America? It is scary. I don't know enough about it to say.

I apologize. I think it's overstated, to be honest. Although the problem is, to me, it's like a Malthusianism, you know, the theory that the world is overpopulated and it's all going to crash. You're never going to know that it was that it was true. true until after the fact. And so, you know, Malthus was talking about this in the 1790s. And it's like, you know, he said, oh, by 1800, we're fucked. Well, obviously we weren't fucked. He was wrong. But, you know, Malthus could turn out to have been right just by 2035. We just don't know, although that turned out not to be true because it looks like the pop, you know, the population is going to fall, right? It's fascinating. By the year 2100, it's actually going to be a major problem. I mean, Elon Musk is not wrong about that. that's that's good point um matina must says momdani is starting on a bad day and that carries throughout his term bad day to start i predict failure what she means by that or he means by

that but um you know i i like to think that momdani is a very smart guy and so he's going to like he knows what he can successfully implement and what he can't he's not going to, he's not going to just chase Eric Ferry dreams. I, I, I think people aren't given the guy enough credit. And I'm willing to give him two or three years and see what he's going to go. I'll tell you my biggest concern here. He's 34, which means that he's a cusp kid. He's either an old zoomer or a young millennial. Okay, now, so I probably put too much faith into generational, like, stereotypes. However, Gen Z are fully aware. where they know what they don't know. And they tend to be respectful and interested in what older, more experienced people have to say. Millennials don't. Millennials don't know what they don't know. They think that the world began with them, that they're the first generation to

know about the internet. And they don't seek out experienced people. When millennials were running Twitter, it was crazy statistic, but they had like 8,000 employees and not one over the age of 35. This was like 10 years ago, it's a, it's like ridiculous. So if he rolls millennial style, we're really screwed or he's really screwed. But if he like seeks out like keeps Bradlander and people like that close and, you know, and obviously without giving up the energy of youth and the young advisors, but if he has a hodgepodge of people who are experienced, he's going to, he could succeed. I'm worried about that because it's like, you can be smart. Obama was smart

but Obama didn't seem to have like the long view on things I agree with that yeah RSI my fear with Mimdani is that he'll give into the establishment Democrats like other Democratic socialists before him

that's true that's what happened with AOT Republicans seem more enamored by specific personalities yeah totally mt16 wow thanks for the hundred bucks from mike and nottingham your friend john just a comment that what's happening in new york city is happening in big u k cities as well the bins haven't been collected regularly in birmingham since march

happy new year's guys i always think of a festival song uh she was a girl from birmingham she just had an abortion i was just in birmingham in uh February. Man, imagine the rat problem they must be developing. I have the thing with rats. They freak me out. Ever since I was a little kid, I don't know why, but they're just vermin like that. I can't. Well, they're horrifying. Yeah, they are horrible. New York is actually making progress. I want to give outgoing Mayor Adams today's his last day some credit, something I don't normally do, because I think he was a fucking terrible mayor. But he introduced these like, hard garbage cans that all the buildings have to use.

It used to be that, like, New Yorkers, New York buildings just threw all their shit out in garbage bags on the street in giant piles. So the rats, of course, could get right in. And you'd see the rats, like the bags moving as you walk down the street and stuff. But like now with hard, you know, these cans seem to be making a difference. So, you know. Thanks for the $49 from Soden. Thank you.

Good morning. Happy New Year to you and your families. John, Ted, can I respectfully make a request? Can we get an entire show about James Jesus Angleton? I went down the TikTok rabbit hole, and I need some clarification on this shadowy figure. Yeah, that would be a lot of fun, actually. Maybe you can make that a premium episode. That's a great idea. Okay.

You know, he lived walking distance from my house. interestingly enough he was buried in Idaho he was originally from Idaho he hated his middle name you know I never knew whether to call him James Jesus Angleton or James Jesus Angleton because he wasn't Hispanic but his mother it turns out had

such a love of Mexican culture that she gave him the middle name Jesus which he always hated really did he say why because he wasn't Hispanic he was just a white guy yeah I think it's funny

I mean I feel like like not making peace with your name is a young person's game I mean when you get older you're just sort of like whatever are you okay

with your name yeah because I have a very culturally Greek name the first born boy is named after the father's father the second born boy named after the mother's father. And then the first born girl is named

after the father's mother. The second born girl is named after the mother's mother. So I'm John Chris Kiryaku. My father was Chris John Kiryaku. My grandfather was John Chris Kiryaku, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Yeah, that is funny. Okay, we will do that.

So, thanks for the $19. John Ted, the DEA, was seizing currency from American travelers at the airport, and it was under $10,000. The federal judge just ruled against the government and said it was unethical and illegal. It's theft is what it is. They do this every once in a while under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, yeah. I've written about this a number of times. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. But this is one of those ways that everybody from the local cops to the federal government,

can pay for bonuses and perks for their employees. They just steal the money from you. I mean, I always wonder when they do that. Let's say either in that context or like in a drug rate or whatever, how much of that cash really makes its way to the evidence room anyway? Yeah, none. I would think. There was a story in Prison Legal News magazine about a year ago.

I wrote an article about it, about a local sheriff in Alabama who took so much money through civil asset forfeiture, that he built himself a multi-million dollar house on the Gulf of Mexico, just with other people stolen money. Disgusting. And then the Supreme Court of Alabama allowed him to keep it. And there's been documented, many documented cases about police departments. Literally, they're hungry, they're thirsty to have like a fast, like, cool, like, you know, Mustang or whatever car to add to their fleet.

like a like they like the Dodge Chargers and challengers and they wait for them to drive through their districts and they pull people over and steal them and there's not much you can do about it because it'll cost you more than the value of the car in legal fees to recover the car Frazmatas says that he or she is unable to use discord or call in

how much of the Ukraine war is being dragged out by the Azov battalion because they're the guys who will be scapegoated at the end. I don't think that's it anymore. I think this is being dragged out by geopolitical interests, and specifically it's big money behind defense. It's internal Ukrainian politics. It's Zelensky.

It's the Europeans. It's Macron. I mean, I think it's beyond Azov at this point. I would agree with that. Yeah. Oh, thanks Scott Britain for the hundred bucks. Let's keep it going. Happy New Year to you, too. Thank you. Wow. Philip Vecchio, thanks for the five bucks. Do you think the U.S. will see the breakup of the major political parties, maybe a new peace party. Would you talk with New York gubernatorial candidate Larry Sharp? Sure. I would love that. I would love that. I think we should all be advocating for that. For example, the Democrats need to split off into a peace party and to the neoliberal party that. it is today. There are two parties right there. Maga is already split because there are the real

MAGA people and the neocons. Yeah. So yeah. And ironically, then, you know, there could be alliances of convenience between the neocons and the neoliberals and alliances of convenience between the MAGA people and the peace progressive left people. Ironically, it could end up just sort of switching. But the problem is this is kind of like, you know, the prisoner's dilemma, right? Who breaks up their party first and then gives the other party a major electoral advantage? I don't, and that's that's the rub. Yes. Guys, it's four more minutes before we do this. Just a reminder, we're going to be taking your calls in three minutes now at 10 o'clock a.m. Eastern time, John and I will take your calls

and about anything and everything you want. Please, you click the Discord link that Robbie West has put into the chat, both on YouTube and on Rumble. Then you click the call-in waiting room, and then Robbie takes it all from there. Just a reminder, do unmute, most importantly, unmute yourself so we can hear you. Otherwise, we're like, you're on the air. And we're like, you're on the air, you're on the air. and then also undo mute your tab so you don't hear yourself back a few seconds later. Donald Trump bombed seven countries in the last year, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Venezuela, Syria, and Nigeria.

How does that square with his desire to get a Nobel Peace Prize? I think he would argue that... He initiated those bombings in the name of peace. This thing with Nigeria, I think, is a really good example. Donald Trump bombed whatever it was, Boko Haram, or elements of al-Qaeda in the, what do they call it now, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Sahel or something like that. I think that he believes that he did it to save innocent Christians. who are being slaughtered by Muslim extremist groups, which is the case.

I would say that, you know, if I were president, I think I probably would have provided aid to the Nigerian government, military aid to the Nigerian government so that they could do it themselves, although we used drones rather than troops. And so, you know, there were no casualties on our side. But I think that he believes these bombing attacks are in the the name of peace. Is he unique in that respect or did previous presidents think something similar? Yeah, I think he's unique. Political chemotherapy.

I think Barack Obama, for example, was a bloodthirsty maniac. I think he bombed other countries, lots and lots of other countries and killed 10 times the number of people that George W. Bush killed. because he was a true believer in neoliberalism, a neoliberal foreign policy, I think Trump is different in that respect. I mean, look at it this way. Trump bombed, what did you just say, seven countries? Yeah. It could have been 17 countries, 27 countries by now. It would have been under Obama. Do you think he's going to do? Do you think he's finally going to cut, maybe not cut loose is probably too strong a word. But do you think he's finally going to distance himself from

Bibi Netanyahu and Israel in the coming year? No. No, I was hoping that he would as recently as two or three days ago. But looking at the reception that Netanyahu got at Mar-a-Lago makes me think, no, nothing's going to change. So we have, so Israel has just blocked all these aid groups from entering Gaza. Why? What's the real reason? I don't think anything's changing because I think the Israelis are still at war and they want to starve everybody out. Just because the Western media is saying, oh, ceasefire, peace is at hand. No ceasefire. Palestinians are being killed every single day.

It's just not being reported. Well, that's 100% true. And I think there's another reason as well. These aid workers come from other countries, including the U.S. and Europe. And there's a danger they would go back and report on what they've witnessed in terms of atrocities, famine, mass graves, and so on. I think the Israelis are now, you know, they're entering the cover-up mode. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. I think that's it. They can't have anyone, they just can't have anyone go in there. Why are there not going to be any, and we're going to start

taking calls last question to you, John. Why is, why are there, why are they, why is there no consequences for Israel's actions here. Why does no one in the international community call it out and say, look, this is outrageous. People are starving to death. People are in desperate need of medical supplies. We need to rebuild. I mean, it's cold as shit right now.

It's raining. People are sleeping outside in the mud in these tents. Like, why does nobody fucking care? Because of the sheer power of the Israel lobby in the United States. And I want to give you a little anecdote. We have a listener who is an official in the Texas State Legislature. He's been very kind to me in that he has asked several members of the Texas Senate to issue a proclamation for like John Kyriaku Day. Nice.

That is not going to happen. because Israeli lobbyists in the Texas state legislature, don't like me. Remember, I was recently called a noted anti-Semite by the Israeli foreign minister's political director, noted anti-Semite. Disgusting. Yeah. So even at the level of a state legislature, the Israeli lobby or the pro-Israel lobby will not allow the passage of a meaningless, you know, act of kindness just because I don't

tow the Israeli government line. I can't believe they still have that much power after what's happened in Gaza. That much power. So it's not just at the federal government level. It's everywhere. It's all across America. It's every state legislature. It's going to be the New York City Council.

it's everywhere so no I don't expect any change fucking cancer all right Robbie West please come on and let's explain everyone as we're now entering

the second hour of D program this is the penultimate two hour call and show we're doing another one on Friday so if you want to get away from the long weekend and come hang out with us

we'll be here from 9 to 11 a.m. Eastern Robbie please come in and explain to people who want to to ask their questions and talk to John and I what the rules are and how they should do it. Sure. Yeah. So we are ready to go. I'm going to start bringing over our first people here in just a moment.

Again, but the rules are simple. Just pay attention. I bring it down to the chat where John and Ted are. Make sure that you unmute yourself. Make sure your streaming tab is muted. Just that way, the call quality is superb. And just one thing, I really want to just kind of just say this real quick. what the two of y'all said, if anything, you're understating it.

I sent you both some links, some videos from a conference that Barry Weiss is involved with, talking about how the Israeli lobby needs to control the flow of information, specifically on social media by using Google and using YouTube's SEO, their search algorithm. If you value free speech, come to rumble. seriously because if there's nowhere else to go if you really care about that kind of thing so i'm going off my soapbox now and lil i am bringing you over first and lil you are live robbie just to make sure they they understand about the link and all that oh yeah you do that yep the link is shared is pinned in the chats over on rumble and youtube and we've got a a nice deep bench

waiting for us already. So just ask a question. Don't pop in the don't pontificate. We don't do your live story. Just ask us your question and we'll go from there. So Lil, please unmute yourself and ask your question. You can hear me? We hear you. Yep. This is Lucas from Denmark. I just want to say

Happy New Year's. Happy New Year. Thank you. John, I just want to ask you if you have any opinion about the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, because I think it's super interesting that they went from like a Marxist-Leninist organization to a more libertarian socialist and becoming like very anti-state. I know you have previously described yourself as a bit more of a libertarian socialist in your orientation. And if you compare it to like a group like Hamas, you can say that like the, Kurds are, you know, resisting the Turks and Hamas is resisting the Israelis.

But then if you look at the PKK, they are way more about like women's liberation, environmentalism, pluralism, which you can really see in Syria and socialism. And I think what they have done is actually quite impressive. If you look at it in Syria, where they are in the northeast, of course. And then their calls, because they're anti-state, they've been calling for, like, decentralization and federalization. And how that has united the West with the Eloyte and Latakia and also in the south with the Druze. And, you know, I just fear that Turkey is going to back some kind of large military operation against northeast Syria. If they don't incorporate into the state structure.

And I just had one other small question about, you said earlier, earlier in the stream that you thought, maybe you said ISIS, but that al-Qaeda was much smaller than what it was. But isn't it also true that they started as a very small group in the mountain of Afghanistan, and now they're like a worldwide organization in the Sahel, in the Middle East, in the Philippines, and the leader of Syria was a former leader of al-Qaeda. So, I mean, I mean, yeah, that's it. Very, very good questions, both. Thank you. First, on your first question and comment about the PKK, I agree with everything you've said. The PKK has undergone this incredible transformation over the last 30 years or so. You know, I remember the first time I ever encountered a group of PKK supporters was in Athens. I had been in Athens for, I don't know, two or three days. And I was stopped at a red light. on my way home from work and there were there were guys at the red lights just going car to car

selling this newspaper so the guy came up to my car and held up the newspaper the first thing I saw was a hammer and sickle and I thought oh that's interesting and then I saw PKK next to it so I rolled down my window and I gave him a thousand drachmas which was like four dollars and I took the newspaper and I brought it into the station with me the next day and I said did you guys know there was a PKK presence here in Athens, and they're actually raising money. And they were like, oh, my God, yes, they're at every, they're at every red light. And so I would start to engage these guys in conversation when I would run into them. They were Marxist, true believers. And it was all about killing Turks and overthrowing the Turkish government. The Greeks, the Greeks, like,

unofficially tolerated them. They didn't support them, but they didn't throw them out either. The PKK today is an utterly completely different organization. It's all about, of course, Kurdish rights and the rights to speak the Kurdish language, the rights to teach your children Kurdish and have Kurdish spoken in schools. But it's about universal health care. It's about women's rights. It's about the environment. It's a completely different organization.

And so I've come to respect the PKK. not only did Abdallah Ochelan who was the founder of the PKK and who was captured by Turkish forces in I think it was in Kenya back in 99 or 2000

but but he called for the PKK to lay down its weapons it finally did lay down its weapons at least in Turkey and it's transformed into what I think the Turks should consider to be

a legitimate, peaceful, political organization. So I like what the PKK has become. And I hope that, you know, I've said a million times in the past, there's a special place in my heart for the Kurdish people, whether they're Iraqi Kurds, Syrian Kurds, Turkish Kurds, you know, Armenian, Iranian Kurds, whatever they are. I think that they have taken it on the chin from countries in the region for many, many years and they deserve a break. but I like what the PKK has become.

John, I can ask you a quick PKK follow-up. Aren't they still an officially U.S. State Department designated terrorist organization? Yes, that's an important point. I'm glad you said that. Yes. You know, and this is, this goes to the politicization of the State Department's list of terrorist groups. I mentioned a few weeks ago in the show that there were two new Greek groups that were added. And, you know, I read the Greek papers every single day.

day. And I never heard these groups. So when I saw in the Washington Post that they had been added to the list of international terrorist groups, I googled them. And it's just two meaningless anarchist groups where people got caught throwing stones at a police bus during a riot in Athens. That's not an international terrorist organization. So that state departmentalist is very, very political. It really depends on who happens to be in the White House. The PKK was put on the list of states, not state sponsors, but the international terrorism list during the Reagan administration, I believe. And even though they've laid down their arms and they're a legitimate political organization,

nobody's ever taken them off. I mean, we didn't take revolutionary organization 17 November off the list until years after it was destroyed. It no longer existed. and it was still on the list. So getting to al-Qaeda, really what I was talking about was core al-Qaeda, that Afghanistan-based core that was led by Osama bin Laden and Imanazawahiri, you know, we kept, we, they kept replacing leaders as we were killing them to the point where the last number I saw was that there were

25 al-Qaeda fighters left in Afghanistan. And they're more worried about where their next meal is going to come from than they are waging international terrorist attacks. But yes, you're right. There is still a viable al-Qaeda presence in Yemen. It's being bombarded from all sides. There is a significant al-Qaeda presence in the Sahel that is a serious problem. And then there are ISIS-Afghan.

affiliated groups everywhere from Afghanistan to Pakistan to India to Indonesia to the Philippines that are increasing in size and lethality that we should be worried about. All right. Thank you so much for that question. Yeah. All right. So next up is Gregory Battis. You are live.

Welcome to the show. Good morning. I hope you can hear me. Yeah, we hear you good. Sure can. Okay. So I have two quick questions. The first is, will the Democrats get their shit together before 2026? And how is that going to happen if they do indeed get their shit together? The second question is, John, have you seen the article from the Wall Street Journal? I think it was about five days ago now called Inside the New Fast Tractor Presidential Pardon and how it costs a million dollars. get Trump to pardon people. So those are my questions, and thank you. I actually don't think that the Democrats will get their shit together.

And I'll tell you something, too, this is going to be shame, shame, shame on the Democrats. I have a friend at the Republican National Committee, and he told me, I'm going to say, like, three weeks ago, He told me that the RNC's internal polls shows what could be an anti-Republican bloodbath, his word, bloodbath in the 2026 midterm elections. It may not be a bloodbath because the Democrats have their heads up their asses. I've said this a thousand million times. You can't win election by saying, vote for me because I'm not the other guy. you have to have an idea you know a friend of mine and i were talking just last night about the contract for america or contract with america 1994 what did the republicans win like 64 seats

yeah i think that's what it was 62 64 it's in that it's in that range yeah you've got to have an idea you can't just say donald trump is bad vote for me that worked one time in our recent memory it worked in 2020 um it's not and there were there was a unique set of circumstances that i don't need to enumerate and that's it's but it's it's like the exception proves the rule the fact that it's you can only point really to one example one one time yeah but yeah the you know i was i was momentarily momentarily heartened for the democrats when when uh heim jeffreys was elected um the democratic House leader. Because I thought, oh, okay. Oh, my God. He's Nancy Pelosi

in a black man's skin. That's it. He's a corporate Democrat. No different at all from Nancy Pelosi or any of the other 80-plus-year-old. Worst thing to ever come out of Brooklyn. Say again? He's the worst thing that ever came out of Brooklyn. Seriously.

So, no, I mean, I don't think that I agree with you. The Democrats aren't going to get their shit together. I think Democrats will pick up, more likely than not, will pick up seats. They probably will take control of the House. The Senate is far from, it's far from obvious what's going to happen. Yeah, not going to happen in the Senate. Let me answer the second question. The million dollar pardon.

Rudy Giuliani tried to shake me down for $2 million. It made the front page of the New York Times, as a matter of fact. And I went on record. I was quoted by name. saying that he tried to shake me down. And funny thing, Noel Dunphy, who was Giuliani's business development director at the time,

said that the day that the New York Times article came out, Giuliani told her that fucking Kyriaku guy is going to be the death of me. He later told the New York Times, I never met this man. I never heard of this man. This meeting never took place. so the Times reporter Mike Schmidt called me back he says Giuliani is denying that he ever met you

that he ever had a conversation with you and that the meeting ever took place and I said he forgot that we took a picture together so I emailed the picture to the New York Times and then they printed Giuliani's denial and then they said the New York Times has seen documentary evidence that the meeting took place yeah so too bad they didn't

publish it a good friend of mine um applied for a pardon as well and um and somebody very close to the president called him and said that he would need to cut a check for a million dollars and he said i i'm not doing it and so he hasn't been pardoned so that appears to be accurate no with that said alice johnson didn't have a million dollars and rod blagojevich didn't have a million dollars and a whole bunch of other people the january six people didn't have a million dollars so i'm hoping i'm hoping that you know i fall into the the category of um righteous pardons we'll see oh speaking of that john i did share all the contact information on the chats on youtube and rome to contact the pardon office thank you so thank you very much thank you so next up we'll be

the mobile guy the mobile guy you are live with john and ted please unmute yourself and ask your question hi there you are you're alive uh john i just wanted to ask you how do you see the current love-hage relationship between india and china and how it is affecting the current position in Asia. Yeah, thank you for that. I think I see it mostly as a as a hate-hate-hate relationship. It's it's great when countries that are that are usually at odds try to try to create a relationship where they can at least work together. But I got to say, I'm on the side of the Indians on this thing because the Chinese, for whatever reason, appear to not respect the border. And we see more border flare-ups now as time passes than we ever saw in the past. I think the Chinese legitimately see the Indians as their biggest economic challenge in Asia.

China obviously wants to be the economic superpower of the world. The Indians have a serious claim to that, not today or tomorrow or 10 years from now, but maybe 20 years from now. The population of India has surpassed that of China. The Indian economy is growing more quickly than the Chinese economy. And I think that we're going to see more difficulty in the Chinese Indian relationship than we've seen in the near term past. I just hope they can keep from firing at each other over the border because that can spin out of control rather quickly. What do you think, Ted? Yeah. No, I totally agree. I mean, I think there's a little bit more love than maybe you think, John. I mean, I think both of these countries kind of know, I think they respect each other's power and proximity, right? I mean, I think the real issue is really like India, I mean, India really wants to be the South Asian hegemon. And China wants to be a global, maybe.

not hegemon, but maybe hegemon. They want to be financial hegemon anyway. So they're going to be at odds with each other. And the question is, can they partner up and kind of avoid making the mistakes that the U.S. made with the Soviet Union, for example? And, you know, blowing up the World War II alliance and ending up in the Cold War, I mean, obviously, India and China have come to blows a little bit somewhat. You know, and I think they both understand the, I think they're both big boys and they understand that they they that peace is at least in their and cooperation is more in their interest than war but okay uh-oh do we lose ted i'm still here ted's there hello guys how's we going hi how are you hi benish your love on the air thank you um i'm afraid i'm an

unnoted anti-Semite, unlike you, John. So I hope you'll accept my question. Furthering what you were talking about earlier with the Customs and Border Patrol becoming a lot more strict recently. I read an article recently that says that the U.S. Border Patrol is introducing some kind of legislation

towards visa waiver countries, which includes my country, Britain, where we'd have to give five years of social media information, the past decade of email addresses, names, day of birth, family, all that sort of stuff. And really, I'm against it specifically because of Anglo-American philosophy. It's so counter to the formation of your country that it's surprising to me. I guess I'm just wondering,

I think this will really impact the tourism to the country, long term? What are your guys thoughts on that? Well, so we've already seen it. I mean, you know, the, the U.S., our tourism is way down, especially from countries that we've personally offended in the last year, like Canada. You know, we just saw economic impact. It's not a tourist impact, but the Canadians drink a lot of spirits. And Jim Beam, which is a major bourbon producer, just had to stop producing bourbon. all of next year, because, primarily because of the drop-off, the reduction of Canadian demand due to a boycott of American liquor there, look, if I were a tourist in, say, Germany,

at the country I always think of as the people who travel all over the world, right? Like if you go to Mars, you'll find a German backpacker. You know, those people, they look at the world, it's like, okay, well, it's a big planet. And there's a lot of really fascinating, interesting countries I can go and visit. Some of them are easy. Some of them are hard. The U.S. used to be easy. Now it's hard.

And so I think people, a lot of people will decide it's not even political. They'll just be like, it's a pain in the ass. I don't want to be arrested. I don't want to be harassed. I don't want to have them going through my social media shit. I don't want to go there and be turned away and have to go back on a plane. I don't want to be treated rudely. Travel is expensive.

You only have a few weeks a year to do it in most cases. So I think, yeah, I mean, this is, I think this is intentionally designed to repel people from visiting the United States. It's isolating the U.S. It's isolating Americans. That's the effect of it. And there's no way the administration doesn't know that this will be the effect of it. But does the administration care, do you think? Let's say, let's say we see it.

A drop in tourism of 10, 20%. Does anybody care in the administration? I don't think they do. I mean, they probably don't think. And with some justification, you know, it's not, there's a lot of countries where tourism is a huge economic driver, right? The U.S. isn't one of them. I mean, you know, it's a major industry, but we have plenty more. I think they basically figure we can do without it.

I think that, you know, look, I don't think they're doing this in order to isolate us. but they're willing to, and they don't care. And they figure most Americans won't care. Basically, they view it as America-first policies. I think it's really unfortunate. I mean, I don't like turning this kind of face to the world. I like the U.S. to be a welcoming country, at least to visit, you know, as a tourist, at least to visit. Yeah, I don't see any reason at all to ask for anybody's social media history, none, none

whatsoever unless you're advocating you know armed attacks against the united states but uh but no i it just seems like a like an irrational and unnecessary uh intrusion for sure right so next up will be Vincatesh. Vincatesh, you are live with John and Ted. Please unmute yourself. Hello, Vincadesh. Hello, am I audible? You are.

Yes. You are. Yeah, to me again. Sorry for that. Happy New Year, John. Happy New Year, Ted. Happy New Year. Thank you.

And particularly Robbie, I love your accent, by the way. I don't have an accent. Very sweet. Even the surge in interest of UAP and you have a revelation in the United States Parliament, you guys call it the Congress, what's your thought on how the government is handling this particular issue?

And during your CIA days, have you ever come across a secret UFO file you're now open to share with this and i hope you get the part in this year 2006 thank you thank you thank you um is there anything that i that i saw that well you know the entire torture program not the entire most of what we know now about the torture program has been we know because it has been declassified. And I'm proud to say in part that was because of me, because

I went public with it. Yeah, there were other things. I remember sitting going through the files when they were still paper files back in the day. And I remember coming across a file on one of my college professors.

And I was like, you have got to be kidding me and there was talk about installing him as as um the leader of a middle eastern country what i remember sitting there like this just looking at it like and so i went through the whole file and we had been in touch with him since the 50s he was in his, I'm going to say he was in his 70s when I studied under him. But I had, I mean, I had studied under him two years before I went to the CIA. And they were talking about, you know, hey, he would be pretty good. We could install him.

You know, if there's a coup, we could do this and we could do that. I'm like, are you kidding me? And then the last cable just said, upon further reflection, he's probably too old. so that that was like a stunning thing he's dead now so those cables would be unclassified um yeah forgive me what was the first part of the question

uh did you know anything about uh UFOs or what do you think about what do you think about us all the UFOs my first question on my first day where are the UFO files and my new boss laughed and said that is the first question from all of us on all of our first days. He said, we don't have any of that stuff. It's all over at the Pentagon. And that

has turned out to be true. Are y'all ready for your next caller? All right. So next up is Schmobbs. Smobbs, you are live with John and Ted. Please unmute and ask your question. All right. Good morning. everyone.

Anything. Praying for your pardon. Thank you. Incredible. I guess my big question today would be I'll keep this one. How do you think

about this whole the Epstein story specifically, how that's being handled? It feels like I mean, in addition to, I don't know if you heard about Marjorie T'sia Green Con for a tax strike in addition to all this other stuff, you know, economics, gold, silver.

I guess, to be brief, what about the Marjorie Taylor Green thing, to focus on one thing? I think the Marjorie Taylor Green thing is, I think it's always interesting when people have a very strident point of view that they then end up reversing or backing away from. I think this is more interesting than like what Liz Cheney did. I don't think, you know, I think Liz Cheney ended up that that's more transparent. The Cheney family never got along with Donald Trump and basically they just continued not getting along with Donald Trump. Marjorie Taylor Green hasn't changed her politics. She's still a right-wing conservative. But she has a different tone. She says that she regrets adding to the toxic atmosphere of politics. I take her at her word. I believe her that she feels that way. I don't think

it's opportunistic. I don't think she's jonesing for a job at MS now. I think this is like, I think this is genuine and that's always interesting in politics because we don't see much of that. I think we're, you know, I think privately there's a lot more of that behind the scenes. There's people who really regret, you know, they don't like the way things are going and the rhetoric and the fact that people are so fucking rude, crude and socially unacceptable to each other in Washington and sort of that whole, that trickling out into the, into the world. I think, you know, as for the Epstein stuff, you know, that has driven a wedge. And clearly what's going on here is that the powers that be, as allegedly Donald Trump told MTG,

are, you know, feeling hurt and threatened by these releases. So they're slow walking the release. And they're trying to basically hope that they can drag this out as long as they're, as possible until we all fucking forget or something else knocks it off the headlines and we just, you know, just suffer national amnesia. I don't know if it's going to work. It's sort of right now, it feels like it might be kind of starting to set in that there might be exhaustion. But on the other hand, social media is a different beast and it has a way of just like, remember that, remember the Epstein files. And it like tends to feed into itself. And the

obsession just gets even bigger. I don't think the cover-up will last. I think it's, you know, that's where I'm at. I think the one thing that really is really kind of tapping into the electorate on both sides of the aisle is just how the government is so willing to lie to the voters. And we know they're being lied to to protect the donors. That's the big thing there. That's huge. But I'm going to bring over a pezois. Pezoyce, you are live. Well, Paizios. Ayes, Paizios.

Oh, well, thank you for For you to say. Yep, for sure. I mean, listen, y'all, y'all pick the hit from. He's his newest saint. Gotcha. But please unmute yourself and ask your question. Is that me?

Paecius? Yes, sir. Okay, fantastic. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted, and Robbie as well. I'm sure. you guys have seen me in the chat asking similar questions to this, but I've been really interested in Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to the Director of National Intelligence, and I've also just

been very interested in the establishing of that position and the possibility that it has for transparency between the FBI and CIA. I mean, I was born in 97, so I barely even remember this stuff, but I've always been very optimistic that if the right person got to that position, that they could be read in on the things that we all want to know about and that they could make a real difference. And I was, I was just so excited for Tulsi Gabbard. And it's looking like she's just going to be another company man. And we're not going to get anything interesting out of this. And I was just wondering, other than your take on Tulsi Gabbard, if you just think that there's any, any hope for the existence of the position of DNI director anymore, and

thank you guys praying for your pardon thank you thank you that that's such a great question i was i too was very very excited about tulsie gabbert's appointment and i'm i'm still hoping that we see something substantive i fear that she's been absorbed into uh what ray mcgoverin calls the mickey mat um with that said it's it this is easier said than done right for for a DNI to make a real difference. And I'll tell you why. The office of the DNI was created toward the end of the George W. Bush administration, frankly, because George Tenet was out of control at the CIA.

And the Bush people decided that George had too much power. George had to go. And we needed some sort of adult in the room that was going to be more responsible. to the president and to the national security advisor on these big overarching intelligence community issues. So ODNI was created. Now, in the beginning, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had 15 employees, and they were housed over here at the Navy annexed across the street from the State Department. Now, ODNI has 20,000 employees. And so all we did, in the end, was just create another intelligence agency.

That's it. And so now the PDB, the president's daily brief. It was to say Doge didn't have an impact there. What a joke. What a joke. But now the president's daily brief is run out of ODNI, not out of CIA anymore. Russia House operations are out of O'DNI. Persia House, out of O'DNI.

Everything that was like the most important tier zero or tier one issues has been transferred to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. So the fact of the matter is we essentially have two CIAs now. One is called CIA and the other is called DNI. And they're competing against each other, just like CIA competes with, you know, DIA or NSA or DHS or whatever. We just made it worse? John, was the job of the DNI supposed to be to cure what was perceived as a lack of

cooperation between these agencies leading up to 9-11? Was that person supposed to sort of be the interlocutor between these agencies? Yeah, that's exactly what it was supposed to be. And it just didn't work out that way. I mean, my ex-wife and I had spirited debates over this. She was a senior CIA officer as well. Spirited debates when this was first the case, I thought it was a good idea because I let my dislike and distrust of George Tenet get the better of me. She thought this was a terrible idea because it was just going to expand the intelligence footprint.

And she was right in the end. She had the longer-term view than I did. So, yes, the bureaucracy is always self-present. perpetuating. So basically, do you think Tulsi behind the scenes is frustrated and just like not? I think she's frustrated. I think she went into that job really wanting to do the right thing. And she realized that this bureaucracy is so onerous and so octopus-like that it's just impossible to train in. It's too big. It's, I mean, what would, is there a possible cure to that to that lack of interagency cooperation um or is it just the competition is just

inherent to the system i think it is inherent to the system yeah like i said last week almost every country in the world has two services they've got a foreign intelligence service and a domestic intelligence or domestic national law enforcement organization like m5 and m i 6 right we have 18 separate intelligence agencies in government 18 when did that start john i mean like were there i mean so like in 1949 right the nsa was chartered uh the CIA had already uh had a pre-war predecessor the OSS that goes back longer so yeah at that point were there other agencies uh like the DIA did those exist prior to Is this all like creatures of the Cold War?

Yeah, they're all creatures of the Cold War. So the CIA was created in 47 and the NSC, created in 47 with passage of the National Security Act of 1947. Then NSA was chartered. Did you know that the Pentagon never even bothered to inform Congress at the time, that they were creating something called NSA? No, I did not. Read about it in the Washington Post? That's awesome. how are they supposed to get funded then i know right it was just part of that gigantic pentagon

budget um so they created nsa they created d ia they created um the uniform services intelligence intelligence so there's army intelligence navy intelligence air force intelligence marine corps intelligence coast guard intelligence you know i remember and now and now local police departments have their own intelligence units like the NYPD and the LAP? The NYPD's first deputy commissioner for intelligence was the CIA's former deputy director for operations. Why did everyone want to get in on this game? I mean, what do you think the thinking was originally?

I think the thinking was there was a lot of money going around and maybe they should grab their piece of it. Yeah. Yeah. But let me ask you a rhetorical question. Beyond intelligence, there are even more... Oh, sorry, John, hold that thought. I've got to read this ad.

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Okay, sorry, John. Go ahead. No, that's okay. The other thing that Americans aren't focused on is why do we have so many security offices in government? You know, we've got the FBI. Does the Department of Education need an armed security office? Does the Environmental Protection Agency need an armed security office? Does the post office need an armed security force?

They have their own police force. They have their own police force. The CIA has its own police. force called Special Protective Organization. The Department of Education has done armed raids on people's homes. I've written about this. Why? For what? Because they thought that one of their employees was stealing.

So with guns drawn, they bust down the door at 6 a.m. with a warrant and they take everybody's electronics. And they can't just call. They can't just call Bethlehem. They can't just call Bethesda PD and say one of our employees has been stealing. Exactly. Yeah, right. That makes, that's insane.

It's nuts. I remember when I was still in the Directorate of Intelligence, I was an analyst at the agency. And it came time for people to start applying for the analyst overseas position. You could apply for a position in, you know, Bahrain or Jerusalem or Delhi or whatever and do this rotation to the State Department. But other positions that were open for more. senior analysts were CIA representative at the Commerce Department, at the Treasury Department, at the Labor Department, at the Agriculture Department. Why do labor and agriculture need in-house CIA officers? What that is going on over there? They need in-house CIA officers.

So this is that octopus that the intelligence community has become. They are everywhere. And it paralyzes whoever happens to be the DNI. And if that DNI wants to do something to rein it in, it's virtually impossible. I mean, there's an analogy here, John, that just jumped into my brain. I have a friend who lectured at NSA. And he said that this was a while ago, he said that one of the biggest problems that NSA had was that they were a wash in more data than they knew what to do with. And therefore, it was like,

basically a tsunami, an avalanche. Just think about the zillions of photos that Americans and foreigners take and put on the internet, right, every single day, like the zillions of terabytes, right? So it's too much for them to process, even with their 20,000 employees or whatever. So, I mean, they do the best they can. But isn't that kind of like the same problem, right? Let's say someone in CIA or someone in intelligence, discovers something that's actually of genuine concern. How do they get that to the attention of someone who can actually do something about it? If it's a genuine threat to national security,

if there's a zillion things like, oh, we're worried about, you know, the Chinese, you know, doing something to our crops over at the, you know, and our ag person over there is telling us this. And we've got that. We've got the cyber. We've got this. We got that. I mean, isn't there danger? of, like, important shit getting lost?

Always, every day. But the idea is that the computers are so sophisticated that it's the computers that are going to tell you, hey, something's up over here. A human needs to take a look at it. Yeah, and now that we have AI, I don't have any idea how things work in the intelligence community now as they're implementing AI.

The technology is so advanced. that it's something that my P-Brain just can't even comprehend. Yeah, I'm not, forgive me if I'm not super trusting that, you know, computers are always the answer here. Robbie says that we've got two more callers on the line as well. Okay, let's talk to them. And just a reminder, if you'd like to join us, we still have 13 minutes left in this call-in show.

Please join us by clicking the Discord server link and then go to the waiting room and Robbie will take it from there. Okay, Robbie, who else do we have? Perfect. So next up is going to be white wallpaper. Yeah, can you hear me? We hear you. Sure can. Okay, yeah, this is the first time I've gotten on here. But anyway, happy early new years. And I've got a question for you, John. I've been listening to your stuff. How do you know if something is declassified or not? Because you talk about stuff. that's formerly top secret. How do you know if you can talk about something now?

So most of that information is released to the media. And usually the foreign policy stuff is released to the National Security Archives, which are housed at George Washington University. In my own case, the only reason I'm able to tell these stories is because I've written them, usually in the form of a book, I send them to the CIA's Publications Review Board and they send me back authorization to say them publicly. But it's most definitely a process.

And in many cases, it can become a lengthy process. If I write an op-ed, for example, that mentions the CIA intelligence policy, foreign policy, or something like that, I send it to the CIA, and they'll usually clear it in an hour or two. If I send him a book, the fastest they've turned around a book is two weeks. One of my books, I mean, is two weeks.

My first book, it took 22 months to clear because the whole book was about the torture program, basically. But I was writing, George Tenet was writing, Jose Rodriguez was writing, Bob Gramier was writing, everybody was writing. We all wanted to tell these stories or our own versions of these stories. And so finally, they just declassified the information. So it's a process and it can be a cumbersome one. John, what stops them from just, you know, saying like, look, this guy, we hate John Kariaku. He, you know, he's a person in a known grata at the agency. Why don't we just like tell him to fuck off and ignore his emails?

And they did. Well, they have to respond. That's what the law says, the declassification law. But what they did is they just said, screw you, the entire book is classified. And so I had the first time I wrote back, I said, received your denial letter. But it is not classified that I went to George Washington University and that I was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania. And they said, okay, the first chapter is classified or unclassified. The rest of the book is classified.

So then I wrote back. And I said, it is not classified that my first wife spoke Greek. And they said, okay, the first two chapters are unclassified. The rest of the book is classified. I had to fight them for 22 months. And then at the end of the 22 months, that happened to fall in January of 2009. They just said, no, you can't publish the book. Mine was the first 9-11 memoir that was published.

So they said, you can't publish the book. So I called an old boss of mine who had risen to be an incredibly senior CIA officer. And I said, what do I do here? I said, 22 months I'm fighting these guys. and he's like wait two more weeks until Barack Obama becomes president and then I'll be able to get it cleared for you and so I waited patiently for two more weeks Obama takes the oath of office I didn't know that they're preparing to prosecute me but the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing my my buddy called um whoever it was that he called at the white house they called the CIA and said let this book through and I got to the book published. I will say in the end, they took out 90 pages, which is a lot. It is a lot. But much of those 90 pages I'm now able to talk about because Tenet published his and Rodriguez published his and this guy and that guy.

What about something runs in a newspaper? Do you feel like that's something that you could then talk about? No. They're very specific when you're first hired in telling you that if something runs in the paper, that does not declassify it. That's a leak. And so I'll give you another example. When I was working for the IPS Institute for Policy Studies, the oldest think tank in Washington, I wrote something, I wrote an op-ed about something that appeared on the front page to the Washington Post. And I sent it to this. CIA for clearance and they said nope you can't can't say this i said it was on the front page of the washington post and they said and this is the term that they use they said it is currently and

properly classified just because somebody leaked it to the post doesn't mean that any former cia officer can talk about it is there any valid reason for that in your mind no no because the CIA leaks all the time. The CIA will call the post and the Times in the journal and say, hey, listen, we've got a story for you. And they'll leak classified information. The White House leaks like a sieve. The Pentagon is like a fire hose. But those people don't get prosecuted because those are official leaks. So is the justification that like, okay, maybe it leaked into one source, but like if we now treat it as unclassified, then it would get out even more? Is that basically it?

It would become even easier to find? Yeah, in part. And in part, if they were to confirm it, that would legitimize the leak. Oh, like you, I see. It would be rewarding the leaker. Is that basically what you mean? Yeah, in part. Or it would be like the CIA.

It would verify it. Yeah, or like saying, having the CIA say, there's no torture. program. There's no torture program. There's no torture program. And then John leaks it. And they're like, okay, there's a torture program. Right. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. That's a great question. Y'all ready for our last caller? I thought it was funny when I worked at, just very quickly. So for my senior thesis in college, I did research at the National Archives and also at the FDR library, a bunch of other places. But it was really fun. And the process was really interesting.

Like, they told me at the archives that they bring me bankers boxes full of files. And they were like, basically, nothing's been looked at to see if it's classified or not. Everything's just there. And you could look at it like me, little Ted, from Dayton, Ohio. And then if I want a copy of it, a Xerox of it, I have to put a sticky on it. And then they send it down the hall to a CIA agent who rifles through. it and then what come and then some things come back like with you know like okay unclassified stamped you can copy this it's fine and the other things just don't come back and presumably those things

have now been classified and so it becomes a game because you're like oh well I'll just ask for more things that I really want and I'm not really sure this particular CIA agent might know a lot about like the politics of Azerbaijan or whatever. And so we'll just sort of ask for more than you need. And then you get things back that you're really surprised came back. And they keep things that you're also surprised that they keep. You know, it's very strange process. Anyway, yes, Robbie.

One last thing. I remember sitting in a briefing when I first started at the CIA. It was an NSA briefing. And the first thing out of the guy's mouth was the word ZARP when standing a is unclassified. I was like, what the fuck is that supposed to me? And one of the guys I was in there with turned to me and said, ZARF is a control that NSA used in the 50s.

So something is classified, top secret ZARF. So you had to be read into the ZARF compartment. But ZARF no longer exists. And all that shit is so old that all of it's unclassified. I was told, John, I'm sure you've heard this. I don't think it's true anymore. But I was told by the archivist, and this was in 1991 or 1990, when I returned to college, that up until very recently, there were still classified Civil War battle plans in the National Archives.

Just in case the South rises again. A friend of mine at the CIA was assigned for a year to the Holocaust Task Force, because there was World War II era information related to the Holocaust that was still classified. Yeah, how's not even possible? It makes no sense. I mean, there should definitely be a time frame, right? I mean, I think there should just, I don't know what that time frame should be. It is.

There is a time frame. It's 35 years. Mandatory declassification. But there are enough human beings to actually read through all the information and to stamp unclassified on the top and the bottom. Sorry, I'm taking time from our final caller. Go ahead, yeah, please, go ahead. Let's have that collar. All righty, so yellow banana.

Love the name. You are live with John and Ted, and ask your question. Good morning, gentlemen. Can you all hear me okay? Here you good. Yes, perfect. Welcome. Sound good.

I'll keep my question brief because I know we don't have much time left. But what are both of y'all's thoughts on Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore's role in a multipolar world? yeah i you know tough tough tough guy tough leader but by all accounts a really good leader you know i think that well singapore's always going to punch above its weight right because it's it's so teeny tiny it's a little city state but my god they're important economically and i i think that that they will despite the fact that they're so tiny they will continue to be one of the major uh countries, one of the major economic powers in Europe, regardless of how important, how rich and how powerful the Chinese become. I've only been to Singapore once, and I marveled at the place.

Like, as soon as I arrived, I was like, oh, I could totally live here. This is really, really nice. Have you been to Singapore, Ted? I have not been to Singapore. I've often wanted to. I guess it'll happen at some point. Yeah, I mean, it's a model, right? Like the highly competent dictatorship. Yes. You know, it's like, like, that's a, that seems to be like, there's not a lot of them. They never really were. It's, it's always, they are kind of a fascinating thing.

It's sort of this sort of like, yeah, maybe freedom's not that important. You know, like, maybe it's okay. You know, I don't think that Singapore will ever be, you know, a major player. But I think these, like, micro-states, right? like Lichtenstein and, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, whole thing, their whole schick is basically, it's an old model. It's like, it's all about the, their trading zones, their nexuses between, like, in this case, east and west, you know, money is safe there. That's, that's, that's what this is about. It's kind of like a, an air to, like,

the old Silk Road cities and, like, sort of like, a lot of commerce goes on here. And what happens here, stays here? And like, but we run a tight ship, we don't let any, you know, we don't, it's like, it's like, you know, Dubai or someplace like that. Yes. Agreed. Agreed. You've got to check the place out. And bring, bring your wallet, because it ain't cheap.

Oh, really? God, it's nice. A lot of, yeah, those places, everything's imported, right? Everything. Yeah. Yeah. All right, guys. really appreciate you for being so supportive of our show here.

You know, we're not even a year old, and it's much appreciated. John, it's been a great year working with you, looking forward to working with you in the next year. It is, of course, I wish everyone out there a happy new year. And Robbie, please rest up and get better, enjoy the day off. We will be back Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. We're going to do another two-hour show on Friday, January. 2nd. We're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. But again, I'll reiterate, Friday will be here from 9 to 11. We'll be back on the regular 9 to 10 a.m. schedule on Monday, January 5th. Please like, follow,

and share the show. Take care. Happy New Year. Have fun. Drive safe. Happy New Year, everybody. Don't really stay off the roads if you can tonight. Bye. Bye, y'all.