DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Iran’s Plan: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss the US/Israeli War Against Iran:• Iran's overriding goal is regime survival amid overwhelming military superiority from the United States and Israel. Rather than seeking outright victory, Tehran aims to impose high costs on President Trump—through American casualties, surging global energy prices, inflation, and economic disruption—to pressure him into declaring victory and withdrawing. Iran pursues asymmetric endurance by expanding the battlefield regionally: targeting oil/gas infrastructure in Gulf neighbors, attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz (disrupting ~20% of world oil/gas flows), limiting air traffic, and depleting expensive missile interceptors with cheap drones. • If war is good for business, what’s going on? The New York Times reported that Iranian operatives have sued for peace to the CIA. U.S. stock index futures edged higher after a major sell-off, but $75/barrel oil fuels worries about global inflation. Financial expert Aquiles Larrea joins us to discuss the economic impact of the war. • The son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei, is the front-runner to rule Iran.Also: • Texas Two-Time? Aggressive Democrat Jasmine Crockett is claiming election cheating—credibly—as her huge 56-44 polling lead evaporated overnight into a 53-46 loss to moderate James Talarico. Why? The Supreme Court against her campaign's request to give voters from Dallas County an extension to sort out confusion about Republican-led changes to polling locations. The GOP side heads to a runoff.MERCH 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

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It's Wednesday, March 4th, 2026. You're watching D-Program with Ted Raul and John Kirooku. Sitting in for John Kyriaku this morning. John has other stuff to do is producer Robbie West. Robbie, thanks for joining us. Of course. It's a good day. I patch McCain got fried.

So this is a, no matter what else happens. We will be talking. about the, well, I don't know about no matter what else happens, considering that we're in day five of the U.S. Israeli war against Iran. So a lot could happen. That's very bad. Some of the economic, so speaking of which, we'll be talking to friend of the show, Achilles Larea. He will be of Larea. Wealth Management, a financial and personal planning expert. He's going to fill us in on the state of the economy and what we can expect as oil prices continue to surge. Stocks bounced back a little bit. This morning, we'll be getting into oil prices and gold, silver, all that jazz. Let's bring us up to date on what's going on just now. Obviously, the lead story is Iran. The Iranian state media is reporting that 1,045 Iranians have been killed so far by the United States and Israel. Iran's accusing the Israelis and the Americans of destroying gold. Palestine Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tehran. That is, by the way, if true, it goes

against international law and U.S. law. We're supposed to be careful not to do that. Air raid sirens currently going over Bahrain. The U.S. is advising all of its citizens to shelter in place or to flee the Middle East if they can, but it's very hard to do that, given the fact that the flights are all closed and all the airports are shut down. The defense secretary, Pete Hegesa, claims that the Iranians were not negotiating in good faith during, right before we launched our sneak attack. Lots going on. Also, basically the main story here is about Iran's strategy for survival. Basically, it's like the TV show survival. They have to basically outlast and out with the United States as long as possible.

Even as the U.S. is trying to mop up their Navy, the U.S. just destroyed an Iranian submarine in the Indian Ocean, or at least they're claiming that they did, probably did. And the Iranians, meanwhile, are going to close the Strait of Hormuz. And the U.S., on the other hand, is promising to escort U.S. vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. I don't know what that would look like. Turkey says that a missile, an Iranian missile headed into its territory was intercepted by NATO defense systems.

So what does that all mean? And finally the, but certainly not last, well, actually, penultimate. And so not last and not least, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini's son, Moshtaba, is the current frontrunner to take over his murdered father's. job as supreme leader of iran meanwhile over in texas we were all watching the results of these texas primaries on the gop side things are a little bit boring it ended up basically being a neck and neck result um between the two republicans but on the democratic side there's some drama jasmine crackett never a stranger to drama uh was going it went into this election heavily favored to win 56 to 44 polls were running in her favor that would be a hard

if not impossible lead to overcome. Yet James Tolariko, who's sort of the centrist here, ended up defeating her 53 to 46. Right before this happened, the Supreme Court ruled against her campaign's request to give Dallas County voters an extension because Republicans at the very last minute decided to move all the Democratic voting precincts

away from the normal place where they were located. used to be that Republicans and Democrats voted side by side in Texas during their primaries. That's what Texans are used to. They basically decided to have it so that a lot of Democratic voters showed up to their customary polling stations only to find that there was no place for them to vote. Obviously, you have to assume that some of them were discouraged and decided, like, screw it, I'm not voting. And so, you know, I mean, Jasmine Crockett, I don't really, I don't care for her or against her, but it does sound like, She has a credible case that she was cheated. Anyway, we have Achilles joining us at 915, Robbie.

We have a big pile of questions in the aha slides. As usual, please like, follow and share the show. Please put your questions into the live chat on YouTube and Rumble. If you're just joining us, John is out today. He'll be back tomorrow. We're here 9 a.m. Eastern time from Monday through Friday. Wow, that's a whole lot of, I get accused of talking too much on the show. but there's a lot of housekeeping.

Okay, let's talk about, I always let John decide where we're going first. So probably you get, as today's John, you get to decide where we go first. Good news first. Okay. I have no problem of good news first. The fact that I patch McCain lost his primary, that gives me the warm tingleys, almost to Jeffrey Tubin level. as an American person.

I want to explain exactly who you're referring to and what happened here. Yeah. So Dan Crenshaw was a congressman from Texas from a very conservative part of Texas. And he was elected. And long story short, the guy went full neocon, rowed the gate. I mean, he just got, he just got in bed with the special interests. He called, he said that he would kill Tucker Carlson on a hot. hike because Tucker dared to criticize all of the wars that that Crenshaw supported.

And because Tucker criticized the Israel lobby, that of course pissed off Dan Crenshaw even more because he's a holy owned whore of the of the Zionist lobby. There's no other nice way to put it. the guy was a representative for Israel in Texas, not the Texas people. And seeing him get shown the door is fantastic. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat. It does not matter if you are a Republican. You should be rejoicing today. Let's talk about the Democratic side because we have a lot of ground to cover before Achilles

joins us. Let's talk about Jasmine Crockett's accusations. I know some people might take issue with my characterization of Jasmine Crockett as like sort of, she's sort of a progressive. She's not really a Bernie Sanders, AOC progressive, but she's certainly an aggressive Democrat. The DNC clearly did not want her to be the Democratic nominee in this race. and so they decided to back Tolariko. And, you know, I have to say, I read a lot of polls. I look at a lot of results.

I've been around a long time. I've never seen a lead like this evaporate literally in 48 to 24 hours before. I mean, I smell a rat. It could be a rat. It could be that the polls were wrong. I mean, we have seen that happen before. That wrong? But, oh, yeah.

I mean, look at, I mean, Hillary Clinton was supposed to be, it was supposed to be coronated. And instead she got wrecked. She was expected to win 52 to 48. And that didn't. I mean, that's not, I mean, so she, she didn't. But the point is that's like a two point reversal at most. Here you're talking about like, you know, a, you know, basically a, oh, God,

I'm trying to do the math here, a nine point flip. I don't know. Also, I wonder, you know, if they were just polling very heavy Democratic areas. I wonder if they just were victims of people drinking their own Kool-Aid. Another thing it could be is whoever the pollsters were contacting, there is the possibility that they said, yeah, I'll vote for because if they said they wouldn't, they would be afraid of being called racist. So I wonder if that plays into it.

Maybe, but I mean, you know, these polling organizations are pretty good. I mean, the idea that, I mean, pollsters can be wrong in a tight race, but this wasn't a tight race, Robbie. I mean, and then we'll move on, but I don't know. I mean, she got wrecked. And look, I think, look, you can't ignore the factor that the Republicans literally moved the ballots. I mean, so I mean, logically, if you have two candidates, one's severely, one's really in the lead, you suppress turnout. And the people who hate her, probably there were a lot more emotions against her than for her.

people who supported her probably just weren't that excited about Dalariko, but maybe not that excited about her. I don't know. I mean, we need some Texans to chime in on this. Maybe we can get some into the chat. Robbie, before we move on, well, before we bring in Achilles, who I don't see yet anyway, we're expecting him in a few minutes. Let's talk about Iran. So the basic, well, actually, we should do some questions because Iran is going to require like a further expose. So let's go ahead and get into the haph slides. Well, actually, we have a, this is why we need three people doing this show. Yeah, we really do. Okay. So we have,

there's a super chat in, in today's, in YouTube, where are you? Where are you super chat? I saw, God, I just saw it. It's so. annoying. I'm looking for it too. Oh, there it is. John Kusack, one of my favorite actors. Thanks for the 999. If and when do you think Iran will use sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz, do they have the small boats required? I do think they're going to mine the strait. That is a violation of international law, but this is war. And at this point, I think they're going to do that. Now, the thing is, as Trump threatened, the U.S. is steadily involved in trying to degrade, if not destroy Iran's fleet. Iran's fleet isn't that big a deal.

But they only need a few boats to block the strait, not to mention they can shell and launch missiles from shore. So, you know, they can do this. They can close the strait very easily, even without any naval vessels whatsoever. So I think that is going to happen. And also, reports are breaking out of, this is from Elliott, of NATO shooting down Iranian missiles heading for Turkey. Could this be a false flag intended to get NATO to attack Iran versus Article 5? They're probably just trying to fly over Turkey.

They're probably aiming for, no, Jordan or someplace like that. So going over Iraq, like what they normally do, they're probably just trying to a different trajectory. I did think that, either that or it could be, overshoot also. Yeah, or it could be one of the militias there in northern Iraq that shot the missile, man, who the hell knows? Adam, probability that Iran runs out of rocket launchers for missiles and drones within the

next seven days. Gulf countries have good poker phases regarding stockpiles interested in our takes. Well, I mean, we are obviously targeting those. The U.S. and Israel are targeting those launchers, and obviously they're taking them out as much as possible. the Iranians are going to disguise them and move them. But I think, you know, what happened in the West Bank with Hamas shows that you can continue to launch rockets even in a, from a heavily degraded situation. Yeah.

And also the drones, you don't need those big honking launchers. There's that. And just one thing about the point that you brought up, you know, about mining the streets of Hormuz being a war crime. No else is a war crime? Blowing up a girl school. Committing a genocide. We went furl-pearl-harbour Japanese style launching a sneak attack during negotiations. So if there is any country on the face of this earth that has zero business whatsoever clutching as pearls,

I'm pretending he cares about international law when we are the self-proclaimed owners of a rules-based order, sorry, that just doesn't hold the water with me. All right, there's Achilles Larea. He is the CEO of La Rea wealth management and a friend of the show. Good morning, Achilles. How are you? Good morning, guys. How's it going today?

Well, I'm doing better than the stock market. So basically, you know, the cliche, Achilles, is always that war is good business. You know, it always stimulates the economy. That's how World War II got us out of the Great Depression. And yet, almost immediately, as soon as the missile started, flying into, from the U.S. and Israel into Iran, the securities markets around the world started to respond, mostly negatively, overwhelmingly. Stocks tanked about, what, two full percentage points yesterday. And the only exceptions were unsurprisingly, energy and defense sectors.

I was very interested in the fact that gold and silver also fell, tumbled on the news. usually there's a flight to, you know, precious metals in times of instability. But, and then, of course, oil prices are skyrocketing. When I checked before I went on the show, oil futures showed that the per barrel price was already up. Right now, we're at $74.27 a barrel. That's way up. And so, you know, some analysts are predicting $100 a barrel prices. That could, of course, trigger global inflation fears.

break it down for us. Why don't the markets like this war? Let's actually take a step back, okay? And we're going to talk about investor mentality and how decisions are made and what managers are talking about. And there's a lot of misconceptions, okay? Absolutely, you're going to have oil going up.

Absolutely, you're going to have commodities going up. And you could see that in a very short period of time. Yeah, gold and silver went down. That's another thing that could go up very quickly. War is good for business. I've always said that. I always believed that. We as money managers will say to ourselves,

there are striking opportunities in these areas. But the money has already kind of been made. Here's something that not everybody's going to tell you, but I'll tell you, you know, the money was made, I want to say two months ago when certain institutions got into it. You know, you're getting, war doesn't just happen in the moment, although many people believe it does. There's been a significant buildup by the United States heading in this direction for quite some time. Which we've been talking about here on this show. So it's a, it's a coin flip at this point, you know, before that point.

where if you're going into that area, you say to yourself, you know what, I got 50% chance that I'm going to be right on this and I'm going to make some serious short-term money. And a lot of houses do that. And this is how they stay in the business, you know, making money. Now, let's also talk about the defense contractors. The defense, there's always a war going. going on somewhere on the earth.

And that will continue. So your Lockheed Martins, your RTXs of the world, Raytheons, your Honeywells, you know, all the companies that produce this infrastructure of the war machines, per se, are going to benefit greatly. And we saw that. But inversely, what takes a tumble? cyclicals. What are other areas, you know, that are just not, you know, there's a big distraction. Technology is still the best place to be. What does this do, guys? This creates a distraction.

So, you know, yesterday I was going in and buying again, and this is why we always keep a high-cast position at Lorea Wealth, because there's always opportunity here. And you go in and you buy it at a deal, you know, high-quality, stocks, technology stocks, or the like at decent prices. You know, there's going to have to also be a rebuilding of sorts. Who do you think is going to be there when the rebuilding starts? You're going to have companies like John Deere, you're going to have companies like Caterpillar. They're already acting like growth stocks right now. They're very out of character making money, you know, and I'm not just saying this to, you know, talk about those stocks with per se, You know, what I'm really getting at is that positioning yourself into your portfolios to take advantage of world events will enrich you over a long period of time.

But most people are emotional. Most people don't have the savvy to know all this. So people do. I would say less than 10% honestly. But now the talk is, guys, as I said at the beginning, I'm going to go into Kammer. kind of linked to the party. You know, yeah, you might make 2% to 3%, you know, but you're not going to make much there.

If you had been there two months ago, all of a sudden you made 10, 15%. I have a question for you. Absolutely. So, no, you're talking, no, I hear what is what you're saying about the investing class? You know, the people have got money who are invested in the stock market.

But what do you have to say about the people who live paycheck to paycheck? who are not in the stock market. I mean, Trump ran on a strong economy bringing back good paying jobs. He has failed completely totally and utterly with that. Inflation was already creeping up before this all started. So if you're just concerned about how am I going to pay the bills this month, and then we go and we start a war without congressional consent,

without our president even trying to get the approval of the American people, he's not trying to sell it. And now we're seeing energy prices go up. That's going to trickle into everything. How does normal people factor into this? Do they factor in at all? Do people like me factor in at all? Yeah.

Or we just are we just fucked? No, no, no, no. Okay. First, we have to step back, Robbie. We have to talk about mindset. Okay. This is something that a lot of people don't understand. 20% of your pay should go to your 401k if you can pull that off.

Pre-tax is better if you have a regular standard 401K. All right. 20%, why do I say such a high number? Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, it sounds like a lot. And there's not going to be any matching for most employers. Correct. And more importantly, though, why do I say such a high number?

Because then you can start thinking about, you know, there are certain communities in the world who have followed this model for years. It's proven. They live simply. They do not do any extemporaneous wasteful spending and they are able to put money away. So talking about mindset, that's very important. That's the first step. You know, I'll just, I'll take a business owner, for example, right, like myself. A business owner has been struggling for years, and then he changed his mindset. And it said to himself, well, I'm not happy just doing the bare minimum. Have you ever done the bare minimum on something athletic?

Oh, every day. All right. I was an athlete at one point, and let me tell you, bare minimum gets you nothing. It's the same thing when it comes to your money. You have to treat it with reverence. You have to treat it with significance and the fact that you're going to make money over the long period.

Now, whether you do this within your 401K or whether you do this otherwise is not the most important part. The most important part comes around, and this is really from my karate days, from discipline. You have to discipline yourself. You know, let's just say, I said 20%, but even if you put away 5%, that's better than 0%, you know. Well, what about the concern? Like the first, when you said that, the first thing I thought of is, I know people are watching and thinking, oh, if I put, I know 5%, 10%, 20%, whatever, assuming a habit to do, which is like not most Americans.

Most people are living, you know, hand to mouth for sure. But what if you put that money away, then it all gets wiped out in some stock market crash. Then you're like, well, why did I put that money away when they've been better off? Just, you know, why did I invest it in my 401K? Why didn't I just put it, you know, into my albeit low interest savings account or keep it in the mattress or whatever? Okay. Let's take that apart, right? If you're going to put it in the mattress, you're guaranteed zero.

If you put it in the bank, you're guaranteed to lose money every single year. Inflation is higher than the savings rate that you're going to receive. A lot higher. Yeah. So you need to seriously consider going back into the market while certain prices are low. When these events happen, guys, you have to take advantage of it. You can't sit by idly. You'd have to put more money in and, you know, damn the consequences.

I'm not saying not to pay your rent. I'm not saying not to pay the significant bills that are recurring every single month. I'm saying that the money that you would normally spend to go out eat, you know, you might eat once or twice a month, right? But take one of them, you know, one of those instances, or tighten the belt, all right? This is nothing new. When people tighten their belt and really concentrate on the positivity that comes from putting a significant amount of money away, yes, you must have a cash reserve.

Absolutely. Right. But when that cash reserve. There is a risk, always. There's risk in anything. You walk across the street, there's risk. Right. But the market's risk, reward ratio, the reward is much better than just.

just keeping it under the mattress, then keeping it in a money market account. Money market is great. I'm going to tell you the only time I think it's great, when you're going to go make a significant purchase. That's the only time, all right? So you're putting money aside for like a down payment on a home or something like that?

Right. You know, and then you get your paid 3.7% and the like before you actually purchase the home. All right. So that's one. or you go to buy a car or you're going to buy something. But not long term. Yeah.

It's for the moment. Let's talk about the crisis. I'm sorry, but I do want to get this. I mean, I know that's what our viewers are going to want to know about. I mean, so how do you see things playing out here with this conflict? You know, what kind of timeline, you know, what sectors, how are the various sectors of the market going to respond? And I'm really curious about this gold and silver thing. Why didn't gold and silver go up?

Yeah. Let's take this apart. If we're talking about conflict time, who knows? The talk is one month. It could be six weeks. No one knows. No one knows at this point. However, Iran does not have an unlimited supply of munitions versus the United States.

Neither did Afghanistan, but they kept us bog down for 20 years. Well, you know, there's a lot of ineptitude and, you know, a lot of bloated, wasteful spending that occurred in Afghanistan. We're not going to a ground war yet. Now, if we go to a ground war, then war starts becoming more expensive. If we can, you know, wait this out and keep doing what we're doing particularly, you know, with minimal ground forces, then, you know, I could see this lasting. a very short period of time. And honestly, we don't need to be the policemen of the Middle East on this. So that's one aspect.

Well, it does look like that's the direction that we're heading again, right? Well, yeah, policy aside, let's talk about gold, right? The reason why gold didn't move. Gold has experienced a significant upturn. Gold and silver, actually, have experienced significant upturned. in a very short period of time. The gold bugs, as I call them, whenever there are periods of uncertainty in the stock market,

gold and silver tend to go up, not in tandem, but they tend to go up however that uncertainty is unfolding in the market. And in this particular case, I think that what's happening with gold is that we're seeing a bit of a correction taking place there, which is normal and part of their market. The gold investment per se is still a very good investment.

I don't believe it should be more than a certain percentage, you know, 2 to 3% of any given portfolio at this particular point because it's important to have it, but it's not important to bet the farm on it, Ted. So that's my feeling towards that end. What other sectors are going to benefit from this aerospace? Absolutely. You know, so you're, as I mentioned before, your Honeywells, Raytheons, and Lockheemartons of the world, they're always going to benefit from this.

What people don't think about a lot, I think, is that wars like this are a great, it's a unique opportunity for real world testing of new weapons that are online and new weapons systems that are normally only can be tested theoretically. But here they have actual battlefield applications that can be used to be, you know, marketed to new customers. I think that's one of the, you know, we saw that happen in Ukraine with the first truly widespread drone war. Yeah, I agree with you completely.

There is so much opportunity to test out munitions that have not had the opportunity, absolutely. And this in turn creates that market. for those munitions and this in turn creates another income stream that will come into these companies absolutely right so i have a question just kind of just bring this back to main street and away from wall street because that's that's where i live i'm in a little podunk town in the middle of nowhere in montana and so it's i get to see it a lot of the ranchers who i know they're getting concerned because as the price of oil goes up the price of

getting feed to their cattle is going up. The cost of them selling their product is going up. The cost of everything is going up. And the concern that I have is that I understand that war is great for business. I mean, a famous saying is that war is the health of the state. That's fine. But when it comes to people just trying to figure out how you're going to live month to month, this is a disaster for them.

Or am I wrong? I mean, gas prices going up 30, 40, 50 cents a gallon isn't going to affect somebody who's making a couple of million dollars a year. But if you're making $30,000 or $40,000 a year, that's a crisis. And if you're using credit to buy your groceries, which a lot of people do, unfortunately. It's just our society we have. You can't save because you have to pay on that credit card. And those groceries are more expensive in part because it costs more to ship to your local store. Yeah, I mean, everything goes up.

oil prices, yeah. Yeah, well, everything goes up. And tariffs and the like, you know, there's no dearth of lack of lack of expenses that could come to bear. Now, if you just go back 13, 14 years ago, we had oil prices spiking up. People deal with these issues however they need to. Now, the Wall Street Journal just had an article today saying that there's a record number of people rating their 401. right now. And that is absolutely true. When times of crisis hit, that's one of the first places to go. So, you know, and then as you mentioned, credit cards, with credit cards being, you know,

28 to 33 percent or higher, you know, that's another place people are going to go to. But once again, it's mindset and short-term thinking because you're doing whatever it is that you have to do to survive and not thinking of the long-term damage that you're doing to yourself. And, you know, I would just go back and say to yourself, hey, you know, is this absolutely necessary, or can I hold off and weather the storm to a point? Yeah, I guess we don't know how bad this storm is going to get economically, obviously. Last question, Achilles, where do you see oil?

price is going. I mean, and it's just a, you know, just by the way, the market just opened. And we see some recovery. It looks like the Dow Jones Industrial average is up about 0.13% right now. So there's a little bit of profit taking. Anyway, where do you think, you know, how high will oil spike due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and all that? Well, the question now becomes How is it really closed? You know, is it how affected the straight is? Right. In terms of that.

And is the United States, they say we're going to start escorting tankers through the strait, you know, how effective that ability is. So the question now becomes, if those two factors are occurring, then we could see a very modest move to the upside. Remember, oil, you know, when it goes up, always dramatic at the beginning at the pumps. But do you ever notice that it doesn't come down as dramatically once the emergency is over? Yeah, the downward pressure is always slower. Exactly. Although you can get some settling. We did see it if enough time goes by.

You know, we're looking at probably anywhere between a 10 to 15% move on the upside. However, we see it going, yeah. Well, I mean, we're talking from the start, you know, so we're already into that. Yeah. So, you know, does it have more lengths to go on? Who knows? You know, I can't take my crystal oil ball out and tell you. Well, if you can, give me a call.

Not that I have spare money lying around. I'm going to go play the lottery if that's the case. But, you know, that, all kidding aside, yeah, we're looking at probably another move. you know, three, four percent more. If this gets resolved through diplomacy, you know, I mean, diplomacy has, you know, take a look at the United Nations. The United Nations has stopped. Major wars have occurred on many fronts. But let's just say for argument's sake, diplomacy starts getting a foothold into this, you know, with the different Arab nations involved in the like. Hopefully that takes root and we can come to some sort of agreement.

But if it doesn't, and this becomes prolonged, and the ground troops get into there, then we're going to face some challenges. And it wouldn't be crazy to say, you know, oil being $85 a barrel and the like. But I also want you to remember and consider that oil has been a commodity that has been depressed for quite some time, Ted. So this is nothing that is out of the ordinary. It's just that when these events occur, they are most certainly challenging. As Robbie was saying, hits the pocketbook right away and you feel it. And we're already feeling it at the grocery store.

We're already feeling it at the gas stations. How much more can we take? And this is the time where you really have to say to yourself, as a consumer, do I need this or do I need to be more strategic about my expenses? Because that mindset of being strategic will help you immensely when you're making your day-to-day decisions. Achilles, thanks so much for joining us. Achilles, La Rea is the CEO of Alerea wealth management in New York City.

I will have you back soon, I'm sure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. So, Robbie, if we have an ad, let's go ahead and get that ad when you have a chance. I'm going to do it now. And that's actually a good segue because I had a commenter ask if we have angel investors. I'm going to answer that right now.

I get this pulled up. Our angel investor is you, the viewer. We have no corporate backing. We have got no one with deep pockets backing up this show. And we have, and to be very specific, we have no financial relationship with Achilles whatsoever. None whatsoever. And listen, the fact of the matter is, is that this show.

He just like it. We got to know him on Sputnik. So, you know. Yeah. I mean, 100%. And I mean, you can agree with them. You can disagree with them. Personally, I do disagree with them. I think that this war is going to be a disaster for the, for the worker. But it is important that we all have different views. A lot of you people. Yeah, wealth management always relies on having wealth. Something most Americans don't have. Most Americans don't have savings. I mean, you know, it's like you have to have spare money lying around after. after you pay your bills, most people don't. A lot of y'all hate my guts because of my stance on immigration and nationalism. It's okay to have people on that you disagree with. It's a good thing. That's a good problem to have. And that add is up now, Ted. Yeah, thank you very much.

I'll go ahead and do that now. Hey, so still haven't tried 1775 coffee? Well, I know Robbie has because he drinks it every day. Now's your shot. The 1775 starter kid just dropped. Only 1,000 units. You're getting the bold, dark roast that hits hard, the smooth medium roast. and the Vitality Mushroom Coffee for clean energy and laser focus, no crash.

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Spoiler, it is. Go to 1775 coffee.com slash studio and grab your starter kit before they're gone. Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. And seriously, I don't, I will ask John about this, but I'm sure I speak for the both of us to say that if we ever did, hopefully we will get a sponsor at some point. That would be 100% revealed and we would not allow that sponsor to control anything about what we had to say. opinions about anything. John and I and Robbie, one of our major personality flaws is that we will not shut the fuck up about what we think. Yeah. At our detriment. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it happens. And I'm dead serious. Listen to me. Just because you disagree with someone does not

mean that person is your enemy. Your enemy is the person who is in a suit working. at some fancy bank, working at a lobby group, or is a politician in D.C. who is reaching into your pocket, stealing your money, and then wanted to send your sons and your daughters off to go fight a war that we have no say in, that we have no consent in, that bens you over the table and screws you every single day. Just because someone has a different opinion does not mean that that person's your enemy. Talking, Mari, thanks for the $5. Sorry to interrupt.

No, you're good. Robbie. Is China likely to push Iran to negotiate if this lasts past 100 days in order to avoid an energy crisis thoughts? Well, first of all, I do want to, I'm glad that this question came up, Robbie, because there are reports that Iranian intelligence officials reached out through informal back channels to the CIA. I'm going to ask John about this tomorrow. I know this is kind of like, it sounds surprising and sketchy, but I know in the past, past this kind of thing has happened to see if the U.S. might be open to some kind of peace deal. Trump says officially speaking that he's willing to talk to Iran. However, he was talking to Iran before at the same time that he was attacking it. So I don't know how much of that is to be taken seriously.

My feeling is that the Iranians probably would not be wise to engage in serious negotiations at this point. I mean, they did this. They've already been through, you know, this is their third time at the dance. You know, they know, I think that they need to inflict some pain on the Americans and on their Western allies. Otherwise, you know, they're not going to be able to outwit and outplay and outlast the United States. And shout out to Ray over there on Rumble. He dropped two $5 Rumble rants. Celebrating the ouster of I Patch McCain.

So, Ray, right to go with you. Thank you, Ray. Much appreciated. So let's, all right. So, and thanks for the dollar on Soon Heaven. Much appreciated. If you're just joining us, it's 942 Eastern Time. And thanks for the Emirati Diyarams from Umar Shek, 50 of those.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Much, much appreciated. Your generosity is always overwhelming. But if you're just joining us, Robbie West producers filling in for the, I don't say, vacationing. He's working. John Kiriaku. John will be back tomorrow.

Again, just please like, follow and show the show. TMI show coming up at 10 o'clock Eastern time. Let's talk a little bit. Let's take some more questions, Robbie. Yeah, that's just go knock out the questions and the time we got left. All right, let's do it. All right. Good morning and thanks for the steady content info, much appreciated.

What potential paramilitary or military factions in the region might the U.S. try to supply or support if they decide to go that route? Thanks again, guys, and have a good one. Robbie, my take here, and I've been mulling this story over, you know, I'm sure you have, too, over the last five days, I really think the most likely outcome here, and I'm not sure that it's one that the United States would view as an unhappy accident is going to be civil conflict. I mean, Iran is an empire carved together. It's not one unified culture. It's got a dominant culture, but it's got, you know, a Kurdish region, an Azeri region, and a Babuchi region. And a B'auchi

region. And, you know, some of them get pretty spicy. I could really see when central authority starts to weaken in Tehran, which obviously they are now, that armed militia groups, especially if they were supplied through back generals by the U.S. CIA and other outside factions could start to break away and launch a civil war in Iran. I think that's the goal. I mean, we only have two options really to replace the Iranian government. One, Well, I guess three. The first one is just simply bomb them into submission. I don't think that's going to happen.

I mean, it's an ancient culture. It's a, it's a militaristic culture. They understand war. I don't think they're going to be going away. We can't bomb them into submission. Option number two is an American invasion. I cannot think of anything because that would actually cause more unrest here in this country than us deploying ground troops to go fight and die.

or Israel in a ditch in Iran. I just don't see it. So that leaves civil war. And I think I saw what is I were going for. And the question I have to ask myself, and I mean this sincerely, I see a lot of people in the chat say, well, Robbie, why are you supporting the Iranian government? I don't support the Iranian government. But also is not my problem.

My government is my problem. The Iranian government is not my problem. It is entirely possible to say Saddam Hussein was evil and the United States should not have invaded Iraq. It is entirely possible to say, you know, that both the Democrats and the Republicans are evil. It is entirely possible to say that there are no likable characters in this play. The Iranian government is extremely unpopular. I've been to Iran, Robbie. I mean, you know, people have been asking me over the last few days, like, how do Iranians feel? And like, look, there's 92 million people, right? Imagine if you were traveling overseas and someone said,

oh, what do Americans think about this or that? You'd be like, well, it depends who you ask, right? But overall, you know, Iranians, they are more secular and more liberal than their government. And they don't want women behind veils, the majority of them, particularly in the big cities. They want to drink. They don't believe in Sharia law. They definitely would prefer a different government. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they want Reza Pahlavi back in charge. Only 21% of Iranians last year in a poll said they were open to some sort of constitutional monarchy. They didn't even talk about Pahlavi. And it doesn't mean that they want like a U.S. to be a U.S. puppet state.

They're too proud for that. I mean, the Iranians, I think most. And then, of course, it's true that the government does have support in rural areas. Well, one thing, people forget about this. Persia was old when Rome was young. Rome no longer exists. Persia does. Still going.

So factor that in. Let's go on to the next question. Yeah, let's do. This one's a great one for you, Robbie. I'm really glad that you're here for this one. The U.S. watchdog, military religious freedom foundation, says it's received email complaints that U.S. service members are being told that the war is meant to cause Armageddon or the biblical end times.

Is this the new crusades? And will it do more to unite Islam against the U.S.? Thanks for your thoughtful insight. I'll try to watch everything you appear on and am much better informed for seeing it. If you're a dispensationalist, yes. What's that? Please explain. So a dispensationalist means that you follow John Nelson Darby

and what he laid up with dispositions. dispositions, which is that God works, he works off of a calendar and there's different dispensations of time. And that before Jesus can come back, there are certain things that must be fulfilled. Like the temple must be rebuilt because that's where the Antichrist is going to rule from. The Jewish state must be recreated. And these are, these are things that dispensationalists teach. And that's one of the reasons why American evangelicals are so much. bed with Israel because they think that for Jesus to come back, this has to happen.

As a Christian, I can tell you right now, Jesus does not need your help. He will come back when he's doggone, good and ready, and he does not need to come back because of a nation that hates him and teaches that he is boiling in semen and crap blows up a mosque. It's retarded. I mean, do you believe these? I mean, I do believe these reports.

I mean, that the military is getting. Oh, they believe it. Yeah. I mean, that's what they want. They want this to happen. And will it, would it unite the Muslim world against the West? I can't think of anything greater than would. Paul is asking, what do we know about a bio-weapons program?

Do they have one? They might, but there's no evidence whatsoever. Let's see. Hearing the two of you talk, let's see. Some suggest that the U.S. backing the Kurds to fight in Iran, how do you think this affects their somewhat autonomous autonomy in Iraq position in Syria and what would Turkey think I think that I think the Kurds are not going to form a unified front the Kurds are divided across the you know these different borders they there is you know obviously they're the same people but they don't they don't have the same internal governance yeah I think that the Kurds are upon that that's what they are there to be moved around and sacrifice I don't think anyone has any interest in helping them set up a state.

Turkey is opposed to it. Iraq is opposed to it. The Iranians are going to give up any of their territory for it. Then, I mean, why would they? Let's see. There's some questions. Okay, sorry. Another question about that.

Earthquake in Iran today, was this a nuclear test? What happens if Iran nukes Israel? It was not a nuclear test. They're not nearly close enough to test a nuclear weapon. And also Iran is very seismicly active. They get a lot of earthquakes. Yeah. Well, it's that.

And also they're kind of getting bombed and they're getting bombed the bunker busters. So, I mean, those can definitely trigger some seismic activity. Yeah, well, that's true. When I was in Afghanistan, I was woken up in the middle of the night and when my window broke, a window that had survived several years of civil war when a bunker buster was used 26 miles away. and the earth shook. So you are right about that. There's a seismic effect at all.

Do we believe the Adrian wants to know, do we believe that the Western world can sustain a protracted Middle Eastern conflict? I don't see anyone, especially in my Gen Z generation, looking at a future in the military. Would a draft be something you could see coming back? Speaking personally, I'd rather be shot or locked in prison than fight BB's war.

Well, it's a good thinking. I don't think a draft is coming. back. I mean, you know, the draft was forced upon the U.S. military. They didn't want it. I mean, sorry, a volunteer army. They did, they wanted to keep the draft. They went out kicking and screaming. Now they would never want the draft back because the volunteer army is great for them. You know, people who they're not having, like people like me aren't having our kids drafted and sent to war as we disapprove of. The only people who are going are volunteers. And so there, there's a higher level of enthusiasm or at least passivity. Well, you're a student of history.

I mean, remind me, Ted, when was the first draft in the United States initiated and which president initiated it and what happened to New York City when he did? That would be Abraham Lincoln, your favorite president and half the city burned down in the draft riot. So was it 1862, I want to say? It was 1863. So, I mean, let's not pretend that the government actually gives a crap about what we want. If this war gets big enough, yeah, there'll be a draft. and our kids will be the ones paying the price for the ineptitude of our government. So what role should India play in this conflict?

Stay out. Always wise. Was Ali Reza-Arafi selected and then killed requiring another selection that yielded Mosthaba Kamenei? Or was Ali Reza Arafi disregarded entirely? Or if so, why would the Assembly of Experts ignore Ali Kameney's wishes against his son being selected? You know, it's impossible to know these deliberations. I mean, the Assembly of Experts building was bombed by the Americans, right?

So they're in chaos over there. It's maybe one day we'll find out. Yeah. Do we think this bad war could eventually cause Democrats or Republicans to finally grow some balls and stand up to Israel in the future? Yes. I hope so. Gavin Newsom of all people just yesterday made some news by saying that he could see cutting off all aid and financial assistance to Israel under a Newsom presidency. I would vote for him just for that.

And I just, and you know my politics, Ted. You know my politics. I would vote, listen, I would vote for anyone on the promise of telling Israel to piss off. That's enough for me at this point. That's enough. Here's a good question from Jimmy. How closely do the decisions of Netanyahu and his administration represent the Israeli population? Closer than it should, right?

I mean, like, when I went to Israel the first time in the 90s, it was a country that was like a good half of the population or a little more. They were, you know, they were liberals. They wanted to live side by side in peace with the Palestinians in their own Palestinian state. Those people are gone now. They've been radicalized or they've left the country. They're like 5% of the country. Everybody else, they're all, I mean, if you can even see the anti-war protests,

the anti- Netanyahu protests, they were complaining that. Netanyahu wasn't doing enough to get the hostages back, they were not complaining about the way the Palestinians were being treated in the apartheid state. The Israeli people are highly Netanyahu tolerant, or I would say, if not fully in agreement with him these days. I have a question for you, Ted, because you've been there. I haven't. I just don't know. Has the right-wing shift in Israeli politics, has that largely been influenced

by all of the Russians and Ukrainians who went to Israel back in the 90s and the early 2000s? Did they push Israeli politics to the right through demographic change? And I mean, is that what happened? I think that's part of it, but maybe not all of it. I mean, I think what really happened was that the right wingers kind of won the argument by building the security wall, right? Once they built that wall, sort of there used to be like in the 90s, to board a bus in Jerusalem was to take your life into your own hands.

You never knew if it was going to arrive without being blown up. You wanted to pop into a cafe in Tel Aviv to get a latte. You didn't know if you were coming out. They built that fucking wall, and they basically created the apartheid state full on, and it really greatly reduced the number of PLO attacks in Israel. I hate that it worked, not to say that I'm approaching. terrorism. But the point is, this proved effective in terms of the right said, you know,

the right was like, we kept you safer, let us do our thing. And people love safety, I think, more than anything else. They care about their own personal safety more than they care about justice for other people, especially people from a different ethnic group. Yeah, I could see it. And just reply to a comment that Robbie is gay. Listen, I am the gayest person you're ever going to meet. I am happy. I am one of the. the happiest people you're ever going to find in your life. So that's not an insult. I am, I am as gay as you could possibly be in the old school traditional definition of that word. Very happy. Three minutes left. Let's do a few more questions. And Robbie, thanks for filling in for John.

Clay Dalinger, to young Americans who feel like they're starting to wake up to the complexities of foreign affairs and the corruption at home, is their specific advice you would give external news sources seem like a start. A hundred percent. Yeah. External news sources are definitely a good start. Yeah. Question everything. Verify, verify, verify. And if you're, especially if you're on question your heroes. Like when we had Alquile's Laria on earlier and people were like, wait, do you guys have any financial ties with him? That's a good fucking question. And you should be asking questions like that. A hundred percent. And that's not a bad thing.

Questions are not bad. one thing that I would that I would recommend that you look for is if you're seeing all the big influencers and they are all saying the same thing they're getting talking points from someone so it's a good idea to balance things out with people who you agree with and people who you disagree with

that way you don't fall victim to your own confirmation bias. I'm a right winger. It'd be very easy for me to just surround myself with right-wing influencers. Conversely, two of my best friends are lefties. It's a very good thing to have your feet firmly in both camps. And don't be afraid to ask questions and learn and admit that you're wrong. 100%. Goon 7956, was the Iranian girls school really hit?

Yes, it was. And you're going to say, Ted, how do you know? The reason I know is because there's no question about there's the people who are best situated to oppose it to say that this was a false flag, that the Iranians did it themselves, or that it didn't happen, aren't saying that. There's no denials coming from the U.S. or Israel's Israeli government saying that this didn't happen. Those denials wouldn't mean that it didn't happen. But when there's no denials, everybody's on the same page. Yeah, it happened. Yeah. How long do you think the U.A.E, Saudis, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman will keep accepting

and getting attacked by Iran and getting their economies hurt. There's back channel calls happening right now between the Trump administration and those countries. And they're trying to decide, like, you know, whether they should or can get involved. Those countries have a problem. They oppose Iran on behalf of Israel, but their people don't.

And so that's the needle they have to thread. Yeah, I agree with that. And monarchies, contrary to popular belief, even the monarchies, dictatorships. They care about public opinion. Well, because if they don't, their heads end up on spikes. That's happened to the French. Even Nazi Germany, they used to have,

Hitler had spies in cafes and bars all over Germany to find out what people were really thinking. If Adolf Hitler had to care, everybody's got to care. Everyone, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for watching the program with Ted Raul and John Kiriaku. 9 a.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. John was out today. Robbie West was feeling.

and thank you so much. Thank you, Achilles Larea. Thanks, everyone, for your support. Please stay tuned. We'll be back tomorrow. John will be back. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with me and Milo Chan, and Robbie will be there too. Take care all. And, oh, and let's see, how are we going to do this? Oh, yeah, here we go.