DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - In the Same Boat | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Filet of Pigs: Four US-based Cuban nationals who entered Cuban waters on a US-registered speedboat have been shot dead by border patrol after the speedboat's armed passengers opened fire on a coast guard vessel. Six additional passengers were wounded. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied the infiltration was a US covert operation. James Uthmeier, Florida's attorney general, said he would direct local law enforcement to investigate the incident. "The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable," he said. • #EpsteinToo: Forced out of Harvard, Lawrence Summers became the latest public figure to be impacted but their implication in the Epstein Files. Others include Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp, longevity expert Peter Attia of CBS News, former Obama counsel Kathy Ruemmler, mind behavior scientist Richard Axel of Columbia, ex-Prince Andrew, UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, as well as Slovak and Norwegian officials. Who’s next? Hillary testifies today at the House, Bill tomorrow. • Senate in Play: With just days until Texas’ primary, Republicans are alarmed that their increasingly vicious intraparty contest could cost them a must-win Senate seat. Sen. John Cornyn appears to be headed to an expensive and nasty 10-week runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, with a strong chance that Paxton wins the nomination even after national Republicans spent months airing his filthy laundry all over the Texas airwaves in an effort to boost Cornyn. If Cornyn loses the primary, Senate Republicans could be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars that could otherwise go toward key battleground races in expensive states like North Carolina, Georgia or Michigan, complicating their path toward holding Senate control.TO ASK A QUESTION FOR TED AND/OR JOHN BEFORE TODAY’S SHOW AIRS LIVE: https://ahaslides.com/ZKWAIMERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall/id1825379504

Oh, good morning. Hey, there's Robbie. Robbie's back. That's a happy accident. Good morning, Robbie. It's good to have you back. It's Thursday, February 26th. You are watching D-Program with Ted Roll and John Kiriaku. And that's our producer, Robbie West. Our viewers will want to know how Kizzy is doing your wife. How is she doing? She is okay. We got home from the hospital late yesterday. There were some complications with their surgery. what was supposed to be a two-hour surgery ended up being over six and um but i mean we got through it she's okay uh she's resting comfortably and i just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you for your prayers and for reaching out it truly helped a lot because i was you can verify this with

john and ted i was worried sick yeah yeah i don't know never that surgery goes four hours late there's no news uh just the worst things start going through your head they're just like no god please don't take my wife. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been through. And then when the doctor walks out to talk to you, right? You're like studying their face to see their expression. Like, oh, she didn't walk out. Is this person just tired or, yeah?

No, she didn't walk out. She just called me on my phone. Oh, by the way, here's what happened. It's just, oh, thanks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I prefer the experience, but that's me.

Yeah. No, the impersonal touch was awesome. I loved it. Well, you know, it is. the doctor that fired you after you got docks. So it's all just warm fuzzies there. Robbie, thank you so much for that update. All right, I'll bring everyone up to speed on what's going on.

By the way, we're trying something new today in terms of the questions, but if you still want to ask questions the old-fashioned way, if you're watching live, please do so on the Rumble or the YouTube stream. Yesterday, one of our viewers asked us to try to get, if there was a way to post questions before we went live. So we have a thing called aha slides. I will promote it again tonight.

I did it last night. Nobody posted all night, John. Nobody. But they did so this morning. So, you know, for people who are watching on the stream and not watching live, which is most of y'all, please come on and check out the aha. And if you want to, you know, we'll answer your question. And then you can see us answer it tomorrow.

So that's, I'll post that link after. today's show. Okay, so obviously the big news of the day is Cuba. You know, Bay of Pigs 2.0? I don't know. We'll talk about that. Looks like it might be. It may be even lamer than the first one. Jeffrey Epstein is claiming more victims from beyond the grave. Lawrence Summers, the person who I have lots of thoughts about, is out at Harvard. He is gone, daddy gone. I don't know if that really is such a big deal to him, considering that he's rich and old. He's rich, yeah, he doesn't care.

He shouldn't care, but I'm sure he's such an egotist. He must care. Big story out of Texas. It looks like the Texas primary between John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton might be leading to what used to be thought of a safe Senate seat going Democratic this fall, which could be kind of a domino

that sort of tipped It's the Senate to the Democratic Party this coming fall. That's still part of the aftermath of the Trump's big speech, the State of the Union on Tuesday. And so we can talk about that. We can talk about anything you guys want, anything you want to talk about. John, what should we do first? Only because I'm totally biased do I want to do Senate races. Let's do it.

I still believe the Republicans are going to. going to hold on to the Senate. And I believe the Republicans will probably hold on to the Senate relatively easily. No Democrats going to get elected in Texas. It's just not going to happen. I think this is kind of like the media trying to gin up some clicks. Yeah. There hasn't been a Democrat elected to the Senate in Texas since what, 1986, 1980 something. It's, it's, it's, not going to happen in Texas. You know, for the last 20 years, Ted, the Democrats have been saying, Texas is going purple. No, it's not. You would like it, you would like for it to go purple, but it's not. Sure. Well, it's definitely, there's more Democrats in Texas than people think.

Yeah, there are. I mean, listen, if you get 45%, 42%, that's a lot of people voting Democratic, but not enough to swing a state. No, no. I mean, I think what this story is more interesting, is, first of all, what's really interesting is that it's about the strength of MAGA, right? Still continuing. I'm sure not they sit at home on election. Paxton's total. Yeah, right. But Ken Paxton, the AG, look, he has a lot of, he has more baggage than a airbus A320, right?

Yeah, that's right. He's got like, I mean, where do we even start, right? There's corruption allegations. There's infidelity allegations. Everything's really credible. he looks like a very bad man. And even so, you know, it looks like he's probably going to beat John Cornyn. He probably will be the nominee.

I think so. And so they keep saying, well, it depends on who the Democrats nominee. Well, does it? I mean, you know, maybe. I mean, what are they going to get to a war or some shit? Yeah, Jasmine Crocket is a clown. She's not a serious person. She'll probably win the nomination over Telerico.

I like Tela RICO better. just because he's not a clown. But I don't think either one of them has a shot in hell of winning that seat. If you want to look at really competitive seats that are not really in the news yet, Iowa, Ohio, and Alaska. And then, of course, we have to watch that crow Susan Collins in Maine. So this has been, but one interesting side note here, too, out of Texas, is how the national GOP is kind of rolling.

they're kind of like acting like the DNC does, where they're putting their thumb on the scales, right? They were trying to sort of delegitimize Ken Paxton by basically spreading the news about, you know, all of the allegations against him. And then, you know, if the guy comes out of the primary as the victor, but bruised sort of the way Jimmy Carter did in 1980 out of the, you know, after a brutal campaign against Ted Kennedy,

you know, it does hurt his chance. And, you know, it's kind of a reminder that really national parties should probably stay out of state and local races and let those things play out. The people really do know best. Yes, that people do know best. But you're right. The RNC is pulling a DNC right now. And it's just not going to work out for them. It's just not.

So, and then they're going to end up with, I mean, I mean, obviously they'll end up with Senator Ken Paxson. I totally agree with you about Ohio and Alaska, by the way, no question about that. You know, the thing about Alaska, too, is Alaska has ranked choice voting. Which I hate, by the way. Yeah, really. Why is that? Well, I mean, basically, like, for example, look at a state like California where they have it. Basically, there's an, even though Republicans are, let's say, I don't know, 35% of the vote there, they will never have a candidate even on the ballot, right?

because basically only the top two choices will go off to the runoff. So to be a Republican in the state of California means you're completely disenfranchised. Right choice voting gave us Eric Adams in New York City. Let's not forget that. So it's not a great, it's not a panacea by any. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're going to have a, you know what I hate, I hate like any attempt to finagle. It's sort of like trying to reform.

capitalism along the edges. Like, it's a capitalist system. It's going to prevail that way. You can't really reform a two-party system by sort of slapping rank-choice voting on top of it. Ranked choice voting might be great without parties, but we have a two-party system. It's like the two things, like, they collide and rub up against each other,

and the machine doesn't work. Yeah, that is true. I still think at the end of the day, the Republicans are going to hang on to the Senate by, you know, a seat or two. By a thread. Yeah. It'll be very, very close.

But the bottom line then is, you know, with the Democrats likely taking the House, the Republicans likely keeping the Senate, nothing gets passed. Nothing. Right. Right. Well, that's, and, you know, I mean, that's even something I'm going to talk about. Well, that's the subject of my column this week, kind of. I was like, well, I mean, if you're Donald Trump,

I'm just going to ask you this because I'm going to talk about this on DMC with Scott later. But John, what do you think about this? I mean, I don't think it's a 100% chance. I'm not even sure it's a 50% chance. But if you're Donald Trump, you kind of have to be thinking, okay, so I still have these felony convictions hanging over my head. When I leave office on January 20th, 20, 29, there's all the chance in the world that at the age of 82, Democratic assholes are going to want to send me to. prison and and sentence me. All of this is just in suspended animation because he's the president,

which, by the way, is not part of our law or anything. It's just our practice, right? It's our residual monarchic leanings. So anyway, so he's got to be thinking about that. He's expecting to live past 82. Yes. So, you know, he's thinking, okay, so the Democrats come in in, they're going to take they're going to get investigatory powers they're going to read they're going to get control of the house oversight committee they're going to be have subpoena power the next two years are going to be i will not pass anything it'll be nothing but lawsuits impeachment trials bullshit committee hearings blah blah blah and and then in 2029 you know they come for me or i can come up with some kind of pretext to cancel the election i've been doing a deep dive on this um if you declare

I mean, first of all, we've had 60 declarations of martial law in U.S. history. It's a lot. And Congress is very clear. I mean, the Constitution is very clear. The federal court system can be closed by the House Republicans. They can decide to close down the entire judiciary, including the Supreme Court. So it wouldn't, is it so hard to imagine like some kind of war? cyber attack, pandemic, whatever, something.

And then House Republicans say, okay, well, with all this going on, we can't have the election, and we're going to keep the courts safe, we're going to shut them down temporarily and we'll have elections later. I can imagine. And then the question is who's going to stop them? Is it going to be our worthless media? Is it going to be our worthless Democratic Party? Is it our non-existent leftists in the street?

I mean, I don't know about you, John, but I don't want to die in the street for the right to vote between a corporate Democrat and a corporate Republican. I'm not. I'm staying at home. I agree with you, but I think the military would step in. I really do. Although, but aren't they just going to follow orders? I don't think so. No. At the end of Donald Trump's first term, there were indications that senior like general officers in the military met secretly at the Pentagon to talk about what to do if Trump refused to leave office. So yeah, I think that the military would step in. Okay, well, you're the optimist.

I agree with you that there are very few differences between these corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans. Oh, for sure. I mean, yeah, no, I mean, that's why our lives don't fundamentally change. On that point, Joe Biden was very correct. Okay, so shall we answer some questions? Yeah, let me answer one real quickly or two. real quickly. Did John get in touch with Jamarle Thomas? I called Jamarle yesterday. It went to

voicemail and the voicemail was that his mailbox was full and was not accepting any new voicemails. So I'll try again today. Maybe text him. Yeah. And then University of Pittsburgh. I'm going to speak at the University of Pittsburgh on March 12th. I still do not know any of the details, but I will let you know. Okay, I'm going to go to the aha slides first, because Those of those questions came in before the show. So I'm going to be fair and take them in order. All right, John, how do you manage to lose so much weight? I had my stomach removed.

Not gastric bypass surgery or sleeve or whatever these things are called. I had it physically removed. I had surgery on November 20, I'm sorry, September 22nd, 2022. This was an experimental surgery to combat diabetes, which was out of control. and like magic as soon as my stomach came out my pancreas began producing insulin again and I lost 115 pounds in nine months that's insane were there any like negative ramifications from there are a couple of negative ramifications um one is that I have chronically low iron so I have to get an iron infusion every three months and another

one is that, and I hate to say this, but I throw up a lot, a lot, like almost every day. So it's really hard. What little food I can eat, it's hard to keep it down. You're living the life of a supermodel, John. Tammy, thanks at my fellow Daytonian. There's significant overlap between the Nobel Peace Prize and the Epstein stuff. We had a Norwegian diplomat who'd been hurt by the scandal. By the way, That is something. Just to go through a list of people who've been impacted by the Epstein files, there's the chairman of the huge New York white shoe law firm, Paul Weiss, Brad Karp, he's gone. The longevity expert Peter Attea from CBS News, gone.

Former Obama White House counsel Kathy Rumler, gone. Mind behavioral scientist, Richard Axel, a professor at Columbia, Prince Andrew, Peter Mandelson, U.A.K. ambassador to the U.S., and, of course, a bunch of Slovaks and Norwegians. So reaction to a sacred prize being correct. I don't think there's any thing. There's been anything sacred about the Nobel Peace Prize since Henry Kissinger won it. God, you can say that again, man.

When they give it to Henry fucking Kissinger. In the middle of the war. In the middle of the war. I mean, at that point, you know, it's like, I forget who it was, some famous comedian said, like, comedy is dead. Like, you know, it's like, that's it. Bad stuff.

KG, thanks for the connection on LinkedIn. John, sometimes your heroes show up right when you need them. John, what are your thoughts on Sean Ryan? If you were invited to do an interview on his show, would you consider it? Oh, yeah, I did a show. I did one of Sean's shows, oh, like three years ago. I've been told it's no longer on the, on the, website. I don't know why. Sure, I would do Sean's show again. He and I probably are going to

disagree on a lot of stuff. I find him to be pro-CIA to the point of being kind of knee-jerk CIA. And that's fine. I have a friend who swears that he's that he takes money from the CIA. I doubt that. I have no idea if it's true, but I doubt it. But I, sure, I would do it. show. For both of us, what do we make of the rumors of personnel on the USS Gerald R. 4? It's purposely sabotaging their sewage system so as to steam back to Norfolk. I mean, it's certainly a real possibility that's what's going on. It's a rumor.

It's a rumor at this point. But, yeah, it's absolutely a possibility. And interestingly enough, I think we talked about this yesterday in the Washington Post. It said that these plumbing problems are so severe that, that the only way to take care of them is to go back to Norfolk. That's crazy. I have to turn around and go back to Norfolk. Yeah, I mean, I guess the question is, is, you know, why would sailors not want to go to Iran?

Would they be against the war? Would they be against Trump? Would they be afraid? Something else? Yes, yes, yes. You know, a friend of mine sent me a chart today about, about assets in the Gulf. And it compared the 2003 Iraq War,

Desert Storm, Desert Shield, you know, this one, that one. And the troop strength, not just troop strength, but naval strength and Air Force strength is sixth in all those conflicts. We're not equipped to launch war against Iran. We could launch isolated strike. certainly. But we are not militarily prepared to go to war with Iran.

Wow. Let's do some more. Why do you think Trump should pardon you, John? You can't donate millions to him or you're not bootlicking him enough. You don't have to answer. I'm not trying my best. All right. Do you guys think the growing Israeli alliance with India is, God, that makes me sick, is the start of Israel destroying America? We can think so it can, can't defend itself from the India-Israel access after forcing the U.S. to burn through its financial and soft power, not to mention all our bombs. It'll be too broken internally to do anything about it. I don't, John, go ahead and I'll go ahead and answer that. I think that the, I think the Israelis are happy to take support and money and everything else

from anywhere they can find it, whether that's the United States or India or Somaliland. I don't think it's an either or prospect. I think that they're happy to take our money and our weapons and they're happy to take the Indians money and weapons. Yeah, I think that's exactly how it is. Let me put this way, I don't think the Israelis are stupid enough to think this is a huge game changer and it won't be. John, what do you think about going viral on social media

with millions of clips going viral because of comedic timing and history telling there is one half exception. I have to say, I am absolutely tickled that this has happened. It has changed my life in the last couple of weeks in that. I was just telling Ted right before we started the show. You know, I would normally get, say, five or six LinkedIn invitations a day. I'm getting 2,000 a day now.

I just can't keep up with it. It's just not possible. I have. Crazy. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of emails every single day. And every one of them is asking me for something. something. But on the other hand, something really, really great happened that I can't tell you about until they issue the press release, which I'm told is going to be in the next couple of days.

And yeah, I mean, I am enjoying it. It's going to be temporary. You know, I'm going to ride that wave. And then we're going to get to the point where people are going to say, oh, I saw that video. Oh, I saw that video. And they're going to move on to the next person, which is cool. But it's opened up a lot, a lot of doors for me. And I'm excited about it. Robbie, I'll take that ad when you're ready. Okay, so let's, okay, let me see what else I have here from the same people. Sorry.

It is, oh yeah, here we go. Gentlemen, how do we interpret the recent Cuba, Cuban speedboat shooting, which is a main topic today. Is there any indication that this incident aligns with a broader U.S. strategy aimed at destabilizing the Cuban government? Hold that thought, John, while I go, while I inform people about Rumble. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing 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. 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 rumbl.com slash premium promo code studio. No ads, more freedom, and content you actually care about.

That's the deal. And just, you know, just so you know how it works. It 10 bucks at you everything on Rumble, but we only get a tiny slice of that probably, you know, a few cents because it's going across everyone in the Rumble universe. Whereas if you do the $5 deal, we get it all. They don't even take a single penny out. So it's pretty, it's kind of funny. Anyway, Cuba. Yeah, so, John, I took great interest in this story and I've been following it overnight.

Love it. obviously I'm not going to anyone watching this show is smart enough to know with the Bay of Pigs incident is so I'm not going to recount it. But I had these thoughts. The first question was when this first happened, we know that

the speedboat was, my first thought was, well, now the Cubans are blowing up boats in the Caribbean, just like we do off the coast of Venezuela. But this is different. But this is different. This is a gun fight, right? So basically a boat appeared, we got to about a mile off the Cuban coast.

Oh, yeah. Way inside Cuban waters. Basically, it's in Cuba. It's just on a little island right off the coast, right? You could swim a mile, right? No problem. I can't. And anyway, so they got within a, there's 10 people aboard.

Cuban, the Cuban Coast Guard approached, said, hey, who the fuck are you? Four guys, according to the Cubans, opened fire. on the Cubans. Six did not. They were all armed, however, and the Cubans opened fire killed. Oh, I don't know what happened to Ted. The Cubans opened fire. They killed four people and called it an invasion. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened, Ted. That was that, that swipe thing that the, you know, that the stupid iOS stuff. Anyway, so the Cubans, so, yeah, so six injured captured by the Cubans. Four killed.

All Cuban nationals, right? So these are obviously all, you know they're Florida-based, anti-Castro Cubans, obvious. Oh, yes. That has not been revealed, but that's certainly going to be true. Yes, indeed.

And so let's speculate, John. I mean, I think that these are wankers who thought, like, Cuba's on the brink, they're about to fall. We're going to go do something. The question, you know, because they're not getting any benefit of Venezuelan oil, they're in deep shit, schools are closed, power grid is,

they're having, they have brownouts every day. You know, I mean, the question is, what did they think they were going to do? Yeah. Ten guys. Ten guys. You know, but this, this happens all the time. This happened with Venezuela,

where a bunch of former, you know, special forces guys, uh, come up on shore in Venezuela, uh, in rafts and are immediate. captured and then held as part of a prisoner trade for six months. But how people can get it into their heads that they could just arrive in some country with a gun and think they're going to overthrow the government. Ten guys.

What are you thinking? I mean, even Bay of Pigs, at least they had thousands. Yeah, that's right. And they still got. And they had CIA air support sort of. Yes. Ish. Yes.

Yeah. So, you know, and you're right, John. There's also been these incidents where. where, you know, wankers, Cuban-based maniacs from Florida, have flown over and dropped leaflets over Cuba. Yeah. Like, overthrow your communist oppressors. Sean, you and I have both been to Cuba.

The government may not be viewed as, like, awesome, but at least under Castro, it was viewed as a much better alternative to being dominated by the U.S. Yeah, totally agree. Listen, I've been to Cuba. You've been to Cuba. All my friends have been to Cuba. Yes, the government is not the most popular government in the world.

But most Cubans are okay with their government. What they're not okay with is the American embargo. I think I've told you before. When I went to Cuba, it was squash, squash, squash every day, three meals a day. I'm like, and I'm not a big squash fan. I'll eat it if it's put in front of it. I hate fucking squash. But I finally said,

I said to somebody, one of the Cubans, I was like squash again, three meals a day. He said to me, the American embargo even includes food. So we eat what we grow and this is squash season. Yeah, no, that's right. Cuba doesn't know it was squash, rice, beans, and if you were lucky, a little bit of pork or a little bit of fish. And that was it. Yeah, US transcans are inhumane. They, you know, I mean, I remember in Afghanistan being told by a doctor during,

in the 90s, that under Bill Clinton's trade sanctions, Afghanistan wasn't even getting a Band-Aid for their hospitals. There was nothing coming out. Literally nothing. So, all right. Well, I mean, so I guess we'll continue to watch this story. I got to tell you, I was favorably impressed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, something I don't normally say in that he is an anti-Castro militant, I would say, is fair to say.

but he said we're going to we're relying on the human government for the facts we're going to wait for the facts to come out and we're investigating this great like no no rush to judgment wish you guys had done that with Renee good yeah seriously and then but so i mean i always believe in being fair and giving credit words to do i personally can't stand marco rubio but i think he did the right thing here also but on the other hand the ag of the state of florida whose name i'm never going to be able to pronounce james utmire um he said the Cuban government cannot be trusted. We will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable. I should give it a rest, guys. I mean, really, seriously. I mean,

these 10 assholes invaded Cuba. They're lucky that six of them survived. Seriously. Should anybody in America be surprised that this is happening with a secretary of state Marco Rubio? I'm not surprised. I'm surprised. I'm surprised it took. this long. That's about my only surprise. No, that's, that's a good point. By the way, thanks for subscribing Matthew Parker and Finn Doberkali. So, let's see, I want to make sure I get this other question. Okay, so good morning, guys. This, I have what may be a dumb question, was Gaddafi really as bad as the media portrayed him. Also, how do you think Africa would look like today if he had succeeded in his plan for the one African dinar currency.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Of course not. He was not as bad as the Western media made him look. One thing about Gaddafi, when he realized, see, most Middle Eastern leaders considered him to be a nut, that he was just an irrational nut. And so for a period, he was expelled from the Arab League.

But what he did was very smart. He instead focused solely on Africa. the African continent. And he was very generous in the sharing of Libya's oil wealth. It was a dangerous prospect for the West for him to propose this unified African currency. Yeah. Very dangerous. And I'll add one thing.

When I was at the CIA, the deputy director, the associate deputy director for operation, Steve Capus, who became the deputy director, the CIA. Steve, when I was his executive assistant, Steve went to Libya to have a meeting with Gaddafi. And he told Gaddafi, we are going to overthrow Saddam Hussein because of these weapons of mass destruction. If you want to survive, you're going to turn over all of your WMD to the United States.

And he did it like that. And we overthrew him anyway. Yeah. So what kind of message? is that to the rest of the world? Yeah, well, the message is, right? Like, he made the deal with the Bush administration. And by the way, again, giving credit where it's due to someone who I can't stand,

good for George W. Bush for making that deal. Yes. And avoiding another war in the Middle East. But then Obama and under the influence of Hillary Clinton, who never saw a war she didn't like. You could say that again. She, you know, he decided to, he's like, renege on this deal, right? I mean, like, when you, when your predecessor makes a deal with a foreign

country, you're honor bound to keep it, whether you like it or not. And, you know, I mean, they just didn't, Obama and Clinton didn't feel that way. Yeah, that's right. They didn't feel that way. It's pretty poor, as they say in Kentucky. That's poor. I love that term. All right. Let's do, we have more questions. Questions for both of us. Applies to John Moore. How has relationship cheating and the transfer created affected your current relationships and how do you guys view people wow that second question is a big one um go ahead john i've been burned twice the first time you know that i got married too young it was a mistake both realized it was a mistake the the cheating wasn't

what did us in i mean it pushed us over the edge but the second one was a serious blow. And, you know, because of my training, I was always taught to not trust anyone. And I allowed myself to trust one person. And it was that one person who betrayed me. And so I tend to be very, with personal relationships, I always take a step back. And I hate to be like that. But, you know, burn me once. What's the phrase? Pull me once. Shamed on you.

Full me twice shame on me. Right. I'm not going through that again. Yeah, I mean, for me, I don't trust easy. You know, and I'm like Mulder in X-Files with his poster that says, I want to believe. I really want to believe in people. And I like people. Me too.

It's our nature, both of us. But I have found that people are often very disappointing and will betray you often. And so you have to be really careful. And, you know, one of the things that I take note of is that often people who want you to reveal and wear your heart on your sleeve and tell you everything, don't tell you much about themselves at all. And then, you know, it's like, well, wait a minute. I don't know anything about this dude.

I don't know, you know, what he's on about or, you know, this girl. So, you know, I feel like never been in, never had the training. I didn't need the training. But I've always felt that, you know, like in the CIA, all information is on a need-to-know basis. And most people don't need to know. Yeah. You know, I was talking to a friend last night and he was telling me that another good friend of ours is getting a divorce. I was surprised that our good friend is getting a divorce because.

He's been married for more than 25 years. He's a father of five. He's a grandfather. And he's getting divorced. I was like, what? Now? He's getting divorced now at this age. He's a grandfather.

And my buddy said, yeah, he's been stepping out on his wife. And I was like, you have got to be getting me. So is he going to move in with the girlfriend? No. The girlfriend is the age of his third child. And the girlfriend thought, oh, this is. might be fun. You know, she has daddy issues of some sort, but that relationship has gone literally nowhere. So now he's in some little apartment. His wife took half of his shit and his kids won't

speak to him. Like, buddy, was it really worth it? Seriously? Oh, my God. People. John, you brought up yesterday the snowball fight in Washington. Oh, I saw the video last night, Ted. finally. Yeah. What did you think before I tell you about the breaking news? Well, I'll tell you the breaking news. A man's just been arrested in conjunction with the snowball fight. Okay, go ahead, John.

You saw the video. What did you think? I thought, oh, these cops are such big babies. I mean, there were a couple of people that, all right, you know, threw the snowballs hard. And you should. And you shouldn't. I want to be really clear. You shouldn't throw anything at a cop.

They didn't have it coming. it's not their business. It's inappropriate. Yeah, the cops were just walking down the street. And they're cops. Don't do that. Don't do that. But at the same time, now, arresting people, come on.

I mean, I have to admit, a part of me wanted to hear that this is going to be like the Christmas truce and that the cops got into a big snowball fight with the kids and how fun that would have been for, that would have been a great moment, honestly. Yeah, yeah. But that's not going to happen. Anyway, John, what? do you think is happening in Cuba with the CIA? What would they be trying to do inside or is it impossible for them to operate inside anymore? It is virtually impossible for them to operate. I have no

idea. If there's a CIA presence there, I assume there is. Well, there's an embassy. Yeah, there's an embassy. I think it's just a consulate now. It's been downgraded. But I assume they're there. I will say that the Cuban intelligence service is one of the best in the world. John, I thought I'm, so I'm, I want to clarity here. So I thought an embassy was just any, was, if it's in the capital and a consulate was if it's not, is that not true? So what's the deal? If you have full diplomatic relations with a country, it's an embassy. If you don't, but you have a presence there and the presence issues visas, that's a consulate.

Or you can also have consulates in various cities. Like there's a Greek consulate in Chicago. There's one in New York. in LA, there's one in New Orleans, wherever that happened to be. So the Greek embassy is only in D.C. It's only in D.C. All right. It's a little complicated.

Okay. Okay. So are we familiar with University of Chicago academic Robert Pape and his book, bombing to win? He argues that air wars are futile and wars are won with ground troops relevant to Iran. I mean, that's mostly true. Yeah. I think that is.

true, yeah. I mean, I guess two notable exceptions would be Serbia. And I mean, you could say the World War II in the Pacific, because it did involve, I mean, in the final analysis, it was nuclear weapons, which are aerial bombardment. Yeah, right. You know, when when we announced in 1991 that we were bombing Iraq back into the Stone Age, those are powerful words, but it's just simply not true. You can destroy a civilian infrastructure. which is a war crime, by the way. But aerial bombardment, and I don't care how sustained it is, that's not going to win a war.

Pink lady, who's always shaking us down for hot pictures of ourselves, wants to ask a question for you, John. She wants to know, you said you don't experience fear like other people, but do you ever get anxious or embarrassed? I'm sorry, but your mind fascinates me. Yeah, I do get anxious. I'm not like I'm not medicated or anything for anxiety but but but I was for a little while not related I'll tell you guys a secret about myself and I'm I'm going to bear my soul here. When my second wife and I split up I went to see a psychiatrist who specializes solely in fucked up former CIA people her entire practice.

is just CIA people. And she's cleared so you can talk about, you know, stuff that gave you PTSD or whatever. I only saw her once, but she said to me as I was leaving, I find something fascinating about you. She said, you have no PTSD from Pakistan. You have no PTSD from prison, but you have crippling PTSD from your wife.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. to what did do you attribute that i allowed myself to trust one person and that one person fucked you yeah that's super interesting you know my my therapist since we're putting stuff out there said that in 35 years of practice i was the most uh PTSDed person uh person she'd ever had that she diagnosed me with eight discrete cases of PTSD. Oh, my God. And, yeah, but my wife and my mom were way, you know, high on the list.

I did get fucked up from what I saw in Afghanistan. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think Rick Shesh, do you think American conservative, I assume the magazine, still exists particularly amongst the young, or if it become nothing but a cult of Red Hat, wearing folks uneducated on even the basic function of government. I mean, American conservative was capitalized here, so I assumed it was the magazine, but I think he means the magazine.

The movement, right, okay. Yeah, the magazine is strong. I like the magazine a lot. I do, too. I write for it occasionally. I was in it. They interviewed me last week. The movement, see, this is really important, I think, this question, because the movement

really is split. and you've got, like, real thinking conservatives, and then you have sort of the knee-jerk conservatives, and then you have the MAGA people. And the movement cannot continue as a cohesive movement if there are very fundamental differences in beliefs. Should we invade Iran? Should we not invade Iran?

Is it America first? Is it Israel first? I mean, there are a whole bunch of questions that the movement has to come up with answers to if it hopes to survive. Right. Well, I think, I think, and, you know, look, I think the conservatism in the United States has the same problem that liberalism has in the United States, which is it's attached to a political party. Yes. And that political party isn't true to its conservative principles anymore than the Democratic Party is true to liberal principles. And therefore, they're attached.

You can be team politics and you're loyal to your president and to your leader, no matter what they do, or you can be loyal to ideas. But you can't do both. And that's the crisis that, you know, the split. It's the incongruity that has to be resolved. Yes. Yes. Agreed. WGK.

John, what do you think is in the missing Epstein files regarding 9-11? You know, there was something that was absolutely freaking fascinating to me that somebody pointed out to me in the Epstein files. And that was an email, Ted, from a guy named, who was his name, Ed Epstein, no relation to Jeffrey Epstein, emailing Galane Maxwell saying, do you want to be a member of the Shadow 9-11 commission? The membership is secret. let me know your thoughts.

And then she wrote back, not interested in being a member of the Shadow 9-11 Commission. Like, what the fuck is the Shadow 9-11 Commission? And who's on it? And what authorities did they have? And what were they talking about? Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. Jase, I still can't try them how Democrats ever got 60 seats in 2008 in the Senate. They're not even competitive in Indiana, Missouri. Montana, etc. Well, I remember why, but... Yeah, they had 59, actually. Yeah. And then Arlen Specter switched parties.

Yeah, and then... But then, that was only briefly lived, right? Because Paul Wellstone had a convenient plane crash, which got rid of the Democratic supermajority. That's right. That Obama squandered. He had it for a year and a half, during which he said that enshrining abortion rights

was not a priority, not important, important, and that's why Roe v. Wade took abortion rights with it when it went away. And it kind of rightly went away. It was a terrible court decision. But abortion rights is like one of the many things Democrats didn't do and they had the chance. But I remember why the 60 seats was it was 2008, right? It was a perfect storm. The Republicans had a terrible candidate at the top of the ticket. John McCain was way past his expiration date. It was in the middle of the global financial crisis, which had been going on for well over a year, and people were losing their homes to rapacious banks and everything. People were really pissed off. It was after eight years of George W. Bush,

who was a wildly unpopular president by then, the invasion of Iraq had gone tits up, the invasion of Afghanistan wasn't looking good anymore. People were, so the whole Republican brand was wildly discredit. And Obama was an incredibly charismatic, exciting leader, I mean, candidate, Let's put it that way. Not later. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely true. I agree with all of that.

Space jockeys, one of my favorite movies, actually. In a full-scale war, wouldn't you want to assassinate as much of the important political and military leadership as possible? That's conventional wisdom. Yeah, but that's what the Israelis have done in Iran. They wiped out the military leadership and the entire nuclear program leadership. John, I don't know if I necessarily believe that that's so. incredibly important to do as like the Israelis think.

I mean, it's conventional wisdom. It's a temporary boost. So you get this temporary boost in the command and control structure. But you're right, Ted. These people are going to be replaced quickly. And so maybe you buy yourself a few days. I mean, the question is, I guess if you can do it at little cost and it's not hard, why not?

But it doesn't seem to be, you know, I don't think it's a game changer. Every Americans always, the West always think they can just like, the decapitation strike. I mean, look at Nazi Germany. They went on for a month after Hitler blew his brains out, right? I mean, and it's like, well, you can say only a month. But it had nothing, Hitler was going to, you know, Nazi Germany was defeated no matter what. Yeah.

I mean, it had nothing to do with that. And that was the most totalitarian regime of all time. Yeah, I agree. Let's see. Ted, what do we think about Mike? What do you think about Mike Benz? I don't know who that is. Yeah, I like Mike Benz.

as a former State Department officer. You know, it's funny to me about Mike. I asked him to come on my show, The Whistleblowers, and he said, no, that he does not do Russian media. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, that's a shame because I was just going to sit back and let you tell your story to this gigantic global audience that I have. So he wasn't interested.

But then he asked me to be on his podcast. And my initial response was to my, myself was to, you know, no, screw you. And then I thought, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not that kind of guy. So I went in his podcast. And then I asked him to come on deep focus, my other podcast, and he did. And now we've been on a couple of panels together. We were on Pierce Morgan together last week. He's a good guy. And, uh, and he's a, he's a legit, bona fide whistleblower. Uh, he doesn't have the, he doesn't have the reach really in the whistleblower community that others have. But, but, but yeah, he's a good guy. And he's, he's for real. What did he,

What did he blow the whistle on? You know, I think it was on Gaza. I can't remember now. Let me see. And I will tell you, Mike Benz. Rogue bot. Trump can't pardon himself or leave office early and have the VP pardoned Trump? Well, that is something.

But only on federal charges, right? That's right. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Communications and Information Policy. And I forget now. Here it is. Mike Benz. Well,

I don't know. I have to look it up. We'll look him up later. So, yeah, the sticky wiki for Trump is that he's got these state charges pending over him.

Yeah. He can't pardon himself out of that. I mean, no, that he's powerless to help himself. He can't do it. John, can you talk about

while the Arabs love Saddam so much? Did you ever analyze that the CIA. His pictures are all over at Jordan and many see him as a hero through romantic eyes. Yeah, they loved him for different reasons. Until the invasion of Kuwait, they loved him because he protected them from the Iranians. It was as simple as that. That changed in the in the GCC countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahra and Qaeda, Bahraint, or Oman in the UAE. But they still love him in Yemen. You see his pictures up in Yemen. They still love him in Jordan because he stood up to the West. He stood up to the United States. He was willing to

to go to war with the United States. And they have... And he died well. Yeah, he did. I mean, they view his death as a martyrdom. Well, I would agree with that. John, if you been checked for parasites, coconut oil might help with your throwing up issue.

Oh, you know, you know what it is? It's the removal of my stomach. I was checked for parasites, actually, you know, once I stopped this crazy travel. travel to crazy places, although Ted and I are planning some crazy travel now. True. But yeah, it's just fall out from the surgery. Five percent of people who have the surgery have some kind of, you know, complication.

So I just happen to be in that five percent. It's minor in the greater scheme of things. And as I've said to Ted privately, I'd rather be skinny. and nauseous, then fat and sated. Gotcha. John, how do you not die from stress when undercover in a war-torn country? Do you always feel like someone is on to you? You know what?

People have asked me that over the years. I thrive on the stress. I loved it. It energized me. It was like a game. And perhaps I'm so arrogant enough that I'm not afraid when I should be afraid. but I just loved the stress. It was a game to me.

Got a question for Robbie. Cosmo Retro Gaming. I have a Twitch of five years, and his Rumble is just like an alternative to YouTube. Should I start Rumble? Now, I'll have Robbie answer that. The answer is yes. I am on Rumble.

I've been on Rumble now for a couple of years. John and Ted are obviously on Rumble. John's official channel. is on Rumble because they'll throttle you. It really depends on what you want to do, right? If you want to be able to speak freely and get paid for what you do, come to Rumble. If you just want to talk to the algorithm and sacrifice a lamb, a goat and a sheep and hope that you get noticed, stick on YouTube and Twitch.

Or your firstborn son. Thanks, Robbie. You know, and Robbie sent us a note. We want to say thanks to a couple of people. Dem Will, thank you very much for the 20 euros. Dem Will says, local news is. Local news sources in Cyprus say that dozens of Russians have bought up properties just outside RAF Akrotiri, the British air base in Cyprus.

Any thoughts on this? And should the British be worried? Yes, the British should be worried. The Russians do this all over the world. When I first joined the CIA, you know, it's funny, if you're looking at the entrance to the CIA, immediately behind you is this wonderful mansion worth millions of dollars. And the Russians bought it just so that they could take pictures of every. license plate driving into the CIA's headquarters. Presumably, then they, you know, recruit somebody in the

Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to run the plates and then you can identify undercover officers. Being outside Akrotiri like that, they're not looking for license plates. They're looking for activity if the British are being, are getting prepared, for example, to help the Americans attack Iran. Demwell also is, thanks for the 10 euros. The U.S. used to, you know, to condemn extremism abroad, why does it seem to some that similar tendencies are emerging domestically? Yeah. Is it just me or the Trump administration kind of extreme?

Thoughts, 100% there. You know, I mean, I think, look, the French government just accused the Trump administration of either being part of the far right, alt-right, whatever you want to call them, international movement. I don't really think they're wrong. I mean, they have... have some, you know, yeah, they're kind of, they're extreme, I think. I think so too. And Sodon has a great question here. Guys, am I the only one who feels ashamed

when my friends come from overseas and fly into JFK and talk about how shitty it looks? I'm for one of the largest and well-known airports and it looks like shit. P.S. the world has gone to shit. Man, Sodan, I say that all the time. You know, I, I've tried to travel constantly. You go to Dubai or Riyadh or Singapore or Beijing or Beijing or Hong Kong and these these airports are like paradises. And then you fly into JFK. It is an utter embarrassment. And thank you for the $50. Yes. Thank you. In defense of my city, New York City does now, is in the middle of a massive renovation of JFK airport. which is part of the reason it looks so insanely shitty right now.

And the traffic is a disaster because there's construction everywhere. But LaGuardia was just fixed. One of the few things Joe Biden never said that was correct was that it looked like a third world nation airport. It did. LaGuardia has been, you know, it's not great, but it's been vastly improved. And JFK will have been vastly improved when it's all done. But the point is broadly made. you know, for sure, we could put a better fit forward.

That said, John, I remember flying into JFK in the 80s. And in the 80s, and you'd get out of the airport onto the Van Wic Expressway, which is the main, the only way you can get out. And there were cars burning on the side of the road, like, you know, like in a John Carpenter movie. You know, it was like there were roving gangs. It was crazy. That is crazy.

So it's, you know, it's improved. Good grief. As bad as it is. Let's see. John, this is very quick. Let's do as many, let's do a rapid fire one, although we always do. John, have you been to Armenia? What do you think about Armenians?

I have not been, but I love Armenians. And I've been on a ton of Armenian podcast. The Armenians are the brothers of the Greeks. Not only do we have a common enemy, of course, but we have a similar faith and a similar outlook. And even my DNA test shows that I have some sort of caucuses back. What do we think of the Epstein class being called anti-Semitism? I'm not understanding that one.

I think it's basically like, you know, if you criticize people who were involved with Epstein, then you're an anti-Semite. Yeah, another, that's another ridiculous trope. Yeah, forget it. asking from Iran, is there at least, considering that there's at least a minority supporting Pallavi here and the U.S. Israel support him, would you assess the, how would you assess the Middle East situation if he were to be put into power, which obviously is not going to happen? No, it's not, I'm going to repeat what I've been saying for weeks. If Reza Pahlavi lands in Iran, he will not survive the walk from the plane to the terminal. nobody wants him okay so

question for both of us what is our perspective on the state of England at the moment I'm traveling there later today and I'm a tad anxious given the circumstances I think it's highly analogous to the United States agreed it's a fucking disaster agreed yeah don't say anything about Israel

they'll arrest you and put you in jail and charge you with violating the terrorism act seriously indeed this was a shitty bay of pigs Dund, Winscott would not be impressed. Best from Poland, 10. Amateur hour.

Big time amateur hour. P.S. the world needs more Cuban cigars. Yes, we do. I love the pleasure that it gives my cigar smoking friends, even though I can't stand being around anything being smoked. I can't. I can't smoke.

I have asthma. It's gross. There's no fucking way. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. John and I'll be back tomorrow Friday, February 27th at 9 a.m. I will post that link to, the aha thing. So you can post your, you can ask questions and we will have them all stacked

up in advance of the show tomorrow and we'll get to all or as many as we possibly can. Thanks for tuning in. Stay tuned for DMI with me and Manila Chan. At 11 o'clock, an hour from now, DMC America with me and Scott Stantis. Our guest is Charles Lipson. Political analysts will be talking about the chances that Trump might try to cancel the midterm elections. Thanks, everyone, and talk to you later. Bye, everybody.