DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Israel’s Elections Explained | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!• Join Ted and Jamarl for a timely conversation with Prof. Gideon Rahat, leading expert on the Israeli election system. With Israel’s elections days away, Rahat—political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute—brings deep knowledge of how the country’s electoral rules, party dynamics, and voting mechanics actually function. Rahat’s expertise offers a clear look at the mechanics of one of the world’s most closely watched contests.Prof. Gideon Rahat is a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.⁠ He specializes in electoral systems, political reform, parties, candidate selection, and the personalization of politics. He co-edits The Elections in Israel series and co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society. Key books include Democracy Within Parties (with Reuven Hazan) and The Politics of Regime Structure Reform in Democracies.⁠ Rahat is a leading expert on Israel’s proportional, nationwide closed-list system and the politics of reforming it.Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.Today we also discuss:• The Justice Department charges 28 green-card holders in California with voting crimes and races to block the state from counting ballots of alleged noncitizens, intensifying a clash over election integrity.⁠• ICE detains a U.S. citizen in Long Beach; officers find him bleeding and handcuffed after ICE deliberately ran over him and his bike, then rush him to the hospital as his family says agents tased and pinned him.⁠• Saudi Arabia cancels its flagship 2026 “Davos in the Desert” investment summit and shifts it to 2027 as Houthi strikes hammer the kingdom and force Riyadh officials to work from home.⁠00:00 Meet Professor Gideon Rahat, Expert on Israeli Elections 01:39 How Israel Chooses Its Prime Minister Through Coalitions 04:43 Why the Israeli Ballot Looks Nothing Like America's 07:04 Does Trump's Endorsement of Netanyahu Actually Matter? 09:45 Gadi Eisenkot and the Parties Challenging Likud 13:13 The Issues That Could Decide Israel's Election 24:59 Will Netanyahu Escalate With Iran to Sway Voters? 33:40 Hosts Discuss Trump, Saudi Blockade, ICE, and Voting ChargesMERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.comLIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShowLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning. This is Deep Program with Ted Rall and Jamarlem Thomas for Tuesday, October 20th, 20, 26. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning, Jamarle. How are you doing? I'm doing fine. What's going on this morning? We've got a great guest waiting for us in the wings from halfway around, well, a third of the way around the world. So let's go ahead and bring in Professor Gideon Rahat. He is a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. He specializes in electoral systems, political reform, parties, candidate selection, and the personalization of politics. So obviously, you can see why we need to talk to him this week, seven days away from next Tuesday's October 27th elections in the state of Israel.

He co-edits the Elections in Israel series and co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society. Some of his key books include democracy within parties, which he co-wrote, and the politics of regime, structure, reform, and democracies. He's a leading expert on Israel's proportional nationwide closed list system and the politics of reforming. Thanks for joining us here on the program, Professor. Thank you. I should take you with me when I'm introducing myself. Happy, happy to go along, anywhere you want to go. I'm very good at introducing. I don't know if I can do anything else, but. we'll find out. So, Professor Prahat, obviously the electoral system in Israel is a parliamentary

system, which is something that Americans are unfamiliar with. We don't have that. We have a completely different system. And Israel has its own unique take on the parliamentary system. So I was wondering, first and foremost, if you could just sort of explain for an audience that doesn't understand or isn't familiar with the system. How exactly is the prime minister of like what's going to happen next week? And then how is it going to, I think we're not giving anything away by saying there's not going to be a party that's going to get a simple majority needed to, to name a prime minister. So what happens after that? So Israeli elections are like this.

Each person, each citizen is going and vote for a political party. Political party is composed of a list of names, and the political party will win more or less its proportion of the vote. For example, if a party wins 20% of the vote, so it will have 24 seats in the Israeli Knesset. The Knesset is 120 members' parliament. So first we elect the parliament. After we elect the parliament, you look at the parliament, you see the political parties.

Some political parties may win 25 seats, others may win 10 seats, four seats. Now these political parties are going and meet the president of Israel. The president of Israel is not like the president of the United States. He's really totally a symbolic figure. One of the only things that it can have some impact is, when establishing government. So all of these, the political parties sent representatives to the president, and the president meet with them and ask them, what government do you want to have? And then he looks, and according to the law, he let the person with the highest chances of

establishing a government out of all of these collection of political parties to try to establish a government. How does he establish a government? He creates a co-eastern. coalition. He meet with the other parties, he gave them some, he tells them, okay, you take these ministries, you will take these budgets. They come together and if they succeed in creating a majority or even a plurality, but without rejection of some parties, they can establish a government. So the elections are not directly to the prime. minister, not directly to the executive. The elections are to the parliament, and then the parliament established the government. So when you're an Israeli voter, do you, what are you going to see on your ballot? Are you simply going to see the name of parties and you pick one party, or are you finding the names of representatives and you're voting for your local representative, or is it something else. I think that the Israeli ballot is really the opposite of what you will accept for the

people of the Bible, because it's the most simple ballot in the world. What you see is letters that supposed to let people who are not, do not know the language or even do not know how to read it, how to recognize, not know how to read Hebrew, recognize the name of the language. of the party list and then the name of the party. In the last decades, more and more party put the name of their leader with the name of the party. That's what I'm calling the personalization of politics. Once upon the time when we had really leaders like Ben Gurion and Beggy, their names

wasn't on the ballot. These days, any leader, even the most of the smaller, small party or something like this they put their names. But that's it. We don't see the name of the candidates. You have the list of the names of the candidates for each party somewhere. They put it somewhere near the ballot station or something, but nobody really knows who are number three, four, five, or some people know, but very few people know these names. They know these days, they know the name of the leader and hopefully the name of the party. because the names of the parties are also changed all the time.

Most of the parties these days are not the old parties or they are the old parties, but they wear new costumes, so they have a new name. Interesting. Wow, that's interesting. Because here, they always give the name of the candidate. They may say a Republican, but it's always based on the candidate, like meaning the individual-specific representative, not necessarily ahead of the party per se.

But I guess the parliamentary, the parliamentary, system is going to be different by definition. Recently, my curiosity goes into Trump's relationship in Israel. Trump recently came out and basically said he wanted Netanyahu to win the race. And I guess from our point of view, it was like, okay, how much influence does that have on the race? And do you consider that election interference with the U.S. president, basically making his opinion known in regards to who he wants for Israel? Yeah, first of all, what Trump is doing is out of the norms. You're not supposed to say who you support in other countries,

and he's doing it all the time, not only in Israel. So, you know, that's Trump, and that's how he's, that's what he's doing. I'm not sure that it's going to influence what's going on here in Israel, because the way that Trump is seen in Israel is not, he's also somewhat complex. So the center left doesn't like Trump because it's center left, but I must say that still many people in the center left would say we don't like anything that Trump did,

but we appreciate the fact that he come and help us to take the hostages out of Gaza. Yeah, okay? Because we know that he did it and not Netanyahu. That's how it looks. So people appreciate him for it, whether they, whatever they stand for. Now, the Israeli right was in love with Trump, but I'm not sure that they're in love anymore, because Trump is not representing the Israeli interest. He represents the American interest.

The American interest is also about being in good relationship with Saudi Arabia, with other countries. So the Israeli rights that have ideas about greater Israel doesn't see Trump as its ally anymore. So I'm not sure that he can really influence the elections anymore, like he could in the past. Before, it was clear that he's not working for us, for us Israelis, but he's working for what he's. his interest, the American interest. Well, that's... Professor, so the Knesset is a unicameral legislature, right? There's only one house.

Okay, just wanted to clarify. So the polls currently show Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud Party running second in the polls, right? Tell us about who's most likely to win. According to Opinion Paul's, the largest party is the party headed by Gaddi Eisencoat, the former chief of staff. Now, once again, it's only the largest party. It's unclear. It's a very personal party. It's Gaddi Eisencoat and the people he think that should be in his party.

That's how it looks. That's the party. Now Eisencott is an interesting candidate because in a way he is almost the opposite of Netanyahu. I mean everything that you would say about Netanyahu take, so let's say that he's not tall, he's chubby. He's from a Mizrachia region while Netanyahu is from Ashkenazia region. And Netanyahu have very good English. Eisencote doesn't have very good English, no. Eisencote looks like, he's not looked like cynical

or he's looked much more authentic than Netanyahu. We should remember that Eisencote in this war, in Gaza war, lost his son and his nephew. And at the same time, one of the sons of Netanyahu was in Miami and the other was the other was probably here and even served in the military, but it's not, so everything that you take here and you make the comparison, you say, okay, so we have Netanyahu and we have his, almost his opposite as the main characteristic, the main contenders, but you have to remember we do not elect a president, we do not elect a person.

At the end of the day, we elected parties. So what happened is that each person in Israel, he said, okay, I want Netanyahu. Now I can vote for the ultra-Aorthodox, for the extreme right, for the national religious, or from Likud. I want Eisenkot. I can vote for Eisenkot. But I can also vote for Jail Gholan, who is more to the left, but will go with him to coalition. I can vote for Bennett and Lapid, which are center-center right. I can vote for Liberman, who is right wing.

So we have a menu of different political parties. Now, it might sound very complicated for Americans, but come on, your own parties are big tents, right? You have a big tent of the Democratic Party in which you have, now you have clearly the progressives and the center, and you have the Republicans. I don't know, these days it's highly personal. but with the Republicans, you can clearly say you have the religious forces, the more economic

forces. Now you have also working class. I mean, so the difference is like this, okay? In United States, they come together before the elections. In Israel, they come together after the elections, okay? That's probably it. Where do you think, from the standpoint of the public itself? I mean, What do you think they're moving? Like, what is the thing that's going to move people in this particular election? Like, you know, they may have elections over economy, over war, over, I don't know, you can have shallow elections over, you know, something that somebody said. But what is ultimately going to decide this election, meaning what's the key issue that's

moving the public and to what direction they're moving because of it? I mean, this is the best question that you can ask about the election. But, you know, then we have the politicians, and they know that this. This is the best question. So what they are trying to do is agenda setting. They try to define what is the issue. And Netanyahu is trying to define the issue as I wouldn't enable the creation of a Palestinian state.

Now this is a very good issue for the agenda, but I don't see anyone that tried to create a Palestinian state. Okay? So he creates, no, he creates an issue and it makes people, it moves something within. And then you can see that others are saying we must recruit the ultra-Orodox. You know, all of the Jews in Israel are going to the military age 18 until the men until 21, the women until 20, I think. So we have this and the ultra-Orthodox are not going and are not serving, and it makes many people. mad at them. Why don't they serve? Okay, so it's a big issue. So politicians say, we will make

sure that they are going to be recruited. Okay, you know, I live for 60 years and I hear it for the last 40 years. So what you're asking is a type of, okay, it's a gender setting. You know, and I think that there are issues in these elections. From my point of view, I, I, I, I, I'm a was telling the students yesterday that I think that the most important issue in the election is actually the fate of the state of Israel now when I say this that it's sounds big but at the end of the day a state is just a web of institutions okay I mean there is a state as an idea there is a state as something abstract you know, the flag, the anthem, all of these stuff.

Nice. But at the end of the day, what is a state for good and for bad? It is a web of institutions. And I think that one of the problems with the current government is that it attacked the institutions of the state in a way that on the long run might destroy the state. Now, some people believe there is something like the deal. state, right? You also hear it in the United States, the deep state that wouldn't let you do, what you need to do, et cetera, et cetera. But at the end of the day, let's imagine that you're really successful in destroying the deep state. What do you do? That's what I mean. I mean,

you might have to reform the state to make it more efficient, more democratic, whatever, but the attacks on the state are very problematic because I think it's weakening in the state. Second, there is an attack on the values of the Israeli state. Israel have a nice declaration of independence. And this was written. It's amazing stuff because the people who signed it were right wing and left wing. And when I'm saying right wing and left wing, I mean real right wing. and left-wing communists and extreme right-wingers and highly religious people and totally secular

people they all sign this nice declaration of independence and if you read it everything is in it and so and this current government is one of the people from their set it's it's only a paper okay just imagine somebody saying something like this about the constitution of the united states i mean you can always fight whether you should read the constitutions like this or like that but i don't think that many americans will dare to say that we should give up on this i don't know leftist righteast whatever you know it's it's it's uh it's very important and the third thing and this is really the what really worrying me it's what i call the monopoly on force The state of Israel does not have monopoly on force.

You can see what happened in the territories with the people who are harsh to Palestinians, who were harsh yesterday to these diplomats that went to the only Christian village in the territories. So the police is not there. The police is not inside the Arab towns and villages. There is a lot of crime there. and the police is not there. It means that you lose the monopoly on force to terrorists and to criminals. That's not a good sign for a state.

The state should have a monopoly on force. Anybody who use force other than police or others is either a criminal or a terrorist. Now, I know that in the United States, you are more free. people can carry guns, etc. But the fact that they can carry guns doesn't mean that they're supposed to use it, right, only for self-defense. So that's the point I'm trying to tell you that the only one that can, for example, a policeman can use force up to restraint force, I don't know, to, to protect some things. He has this right, yeah, and he's under scrutiny or whatever, but he have the right nobody else have it so I think that we are losing it and that's

what really worry me so I see these elections I hope that the result of this election would be some type of the state coming to itself more respect to the values of the state more respect to the authorities of the state more respect to everything and then we can sit and think how you we can reform the state so the people who are not happy with how it functions, how we can reform it so it will be better, but not to destroy it. That's how I see it.

And I see it because I'm a political scientist. And in the first day in class, they told me, okay, state is not this abstract thing. And the state is not even the land because people cannot fly, they need to be on the land. The most important thing about the state, is the control of the use of legitimate force. And I think this is true.

And that's the reason why I'm really worried about what's going on here, because I think that's the main issue. But many people do not say it like this. Unfortunately, I'm a political scientist. I know this true. Many people are not really aware of this point. I want to follow up on that. So the perception here in the American media

is that West Bank settlers are basically given a free hand by the IDF, and that they look the other way when these things happen at best. Sometimes they even cooperate. Is the sense, you know, I know that the messaging that comes out of the Israeli government is that these are bugs, especially young men in the West Bank, who are a little bit out of control and that government can't control them. You know, what is the perception in Israel? I mean, is this a failure of the IDF to control the territories, you know, the security and, you know, such the use of force?

Or is this sort of like wink, wink, nudge, we know, oh, boys will be boys, we just let it happen and, you know, and look the other way. I mean, what's really going, I mean, are they getting away with something? or do they kind of have tacit permission? I think that it's very hard for, first, it's very hard for the military to cope with them. Second, the police is supposed to cope with them, and the police is under the current minister who is probably supporting what it's going on there. So the idea is that they hardly do anything to stop, and they always say, oh, these are just a few, these are just a few, but these few are already hundreds.

And I must tell you that when you look at it, first, my heart is to these Palestinians that suffer. These are not terrorists. These are people who really work from their land. These are farmers. It's not the people that you should, you think about when you think about the people who really did harm to Israel. is in here or there. It's really these people. But if you think about it, at the end of the day, the losers from what is going on here would be the settlers themselves. Because the world was quite, okay, the world was saying, okay, Israel ruled the territories. The Palestinians are divided between Hamas and PLO once upon a time, they were divided and you can do nothing. And then the Israeli Supreme Court take care that the Palestinians will have their own,

the rights on private property, which is something very important in the world, in democracies, that you have right for your property, right? So the settlements were always built not on private property. Now it's all about changing this reality. The Supreme Court is they don't care about the Supreme Court. They don't care about it. And then the settlements, the Israeli policy, is exposed, more exposed to the world, and especially when these things happened.

And more than this, this thing happens. For example, it happens to the only, you know, only Christian village in the territories. It also happened there. So the Christian world is irritated also specifically because it sees these things happen. And any person who see these things is irritated. So at the end of the day, the end result is that let's say that if that it might be a lose situation for these specific people that want to live in the territory, and have the idea and dream about greater Israel, because they're exposed to more and more criticism. Our producer, Robbie, has a question.

Sorry, you get the next one for sure. He wants to know if the ruling coalition, under Likud, would currently, under Likud, would currently maybe do what we would call in the United States a wag-the-dog scenario and resume fighting with Iran, prior in the next week in order to sort of try to maybe get a rally the flag effect around Prime Minister Netanyahu's government

to try to manipulate the election results. Or postpone him. That's a very good idea that is all over the press also. It can happen. They're talking about it. And I must tell you, I'm not sure if it will happen. Probably there should be what we call Kazusbedi.

Some things that Iran should do in order to, now let's imagine that Iran wants also to play with Israeli elections. So they will do some type of, so I cannot give you an answer, but I think it would be hard for Netanyahu to do it by himself. But if United States will join, it would be easier if the Iranians would give a very good reason to do it. And I don't know what is the good reason, but I mean, they can always shoot a rocket toward Israel. That's a possibility. So there can be such a scenario.

I think that because people are aware of it, it's, in a way, you think about it, it's maybe it's too cynical to happen. on the other hand, it can happen. So, I mean, all of the scenarios are open right now. Wow, that's scary. All of the scenario are open. Yeah, it is. But, you know, we are actually, we're used to do it.

And, I mean, I must tell you, I'm not scared of my neighbors. I'm more scared about these days from my government than for my neighbors. That's my personal feeling because in terms of defense, Israel has very good defense. We have safe rooms in our houses or shelters. We have, I think you'd call it Ireland. We have all of these things. So as a citizen, you can cope with it. It's not so scary.

I mean, it looks scary from outside, but it's not so scary from here. But what will happen within Israel, I'm more worried about it than what will happen with our, with the neighbor, with our bad neighbors. Okay, we have also good neighbors, but what will happen with our bad neighbors? One last question on the election. Is this election a referendum on Anyahu from your point of view? Oh, Netanyahu. that it's clearly it is. I mean, we had so many elections. And you know, your question is so true in a sense that when you ask people, what are the elections are about, not about these elections, but even the last five former elections, many people say it's a referendum about Netanyahu. So, you know, when we started, you said Israel is a different system, it's parliamentary system, etc.

But somehow we end up with almost, you know, the fact, almost the presidential system, right? These elections are, you can ask in the United States a question about an incumbent, right? You could ask for the 20, for previous election, is it a referendum about Trump, right? You could ask this question naturally, but that's okay. presidential elections. But in Israel, it doesn't make any sense. We don't vote for the prime minister, but still, your question is to the point. It's a referendum about Netanyahu, much of it. That makes sense. How do Israelis, so, okay, so in the United States, I think it's been four times that the

president who lost the popular vote ended up becoming president because of the electoral college. I guess the analogous scenario in Israel is that the party that doesn't get the most number of votes can form a successful coalition without necessarily getting the highest number of votes. If and when that happens, do Israelis feel upset about it? Americans don't like it. It sort of causes, you know, like George W. Bush, that happened to him, and he was viewed widely by many Americans as illegitimate as a result, even though, you know, technically, according to the Supreme Court, he won. Do you, is it like that in Israel?

Like if a party gets... It's not exactly. I'll tell you why. In 2009, Netanyahu won 27 seats. And Kadima, another party that existed then, won 28 seats. Netanyahu become the prime minister because he had the coalition. solid coalition of 65 seats. So the question is not the big party,

the question is the big bloc, the big coalition. However, people were quite frustrated because we had the one government in 2021 of Bennett and Lapid. Bennett was a prime minister with a party with only six seats, five percent, and people were really frustrated about it. Now, because of the size of the party. On the other hand, if you think about it,

Bennett was the most extreme right within this coalition. He was what we called the median. The median, so it makes sense to put him as a prime minister in a way. So I think that at the end of the day, Israelis can live with a prime minister from one of the largest parties. I'm not sure that he, must be from the largest party because we already had prime ministers from smaller parties but

a really small party looks like it looks spooky let's put it this way what do you think's going to happen next week what's your prediction yeah that's the problem that people want me to be a profit and you know political scientist got to ask we forecast we forecast the past and we still debate on it. So, but if you look at opinion polls, we're going to, we'll have elections and after the election, things will be as interesting as before the elections because now, remember what we talked before, you take these 10 political parties and you see how they come together to create a coalition.

This is even more complicated and maybe more interesting than the elections because you have to build some type of coalition. And now people promised I'll go with him and I wouldn't go with the other party, et cetera. And now they have to see whether they should keep the word or not. And it's going to be a mess. So if you think that the elections are the last word, that's not. it's going to be a long story after the election day. Well, we hope that when that happened, you'll come back and talk to us and help us break it down. Okay, thank you. I really enjoyed it and it's really always fun to try to explain to Americans

the other way, the politics that really look like it runs the other way and then we end up with the whole idea that it's all about Netanyahu. It's all about Thank you. Yeah, yeah. No, that's why I wanted to have you on. I was very excited to have you on, and it was a great conversation. Thank you very much, Professor Rahat. Okay, thank you.

Bye-bye. So that was Professor Gideon Rahat. He's a political scientist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, who specializes in electoral systems, political reform, parties, candidate selection, and the personalization of politics. So yeah, that was super interesting. And I'm, you know, I feel like I learned some things.

And I think we're not going to really have a, it sounds like we're not going to have a very decisive result on Wednesday morning. No, I mean, but they've had elections over and over and over and over again. Like their system has been all over the place. Yeah, we're probably not going to know. I'm fascinated with the Trump question. Because like when you're looking at, from external. you're thinking to yourself, how much influences Trump actually have? And by the way, I'll tell you two stories on this. They sent me to, was it Brazil? It might have been Brazil. And it's late one night.

I had just finished work for the radio station. I go out at like 12 o'clock to get something to eat. And by the time, I think it's like two in the morning when I'm on my way back, or one or two in the morning. And the cab driver is an Israeli. And he says, says, Netanyahu is great. He's a Nanjali is great for Israel. That's what we need in that country. And him and I were getting this back and forth in the cab over Israel, right?

And over Netanyahu specifically in Israel. And even when I was in Israel at the time, they were like, we love Trump. And their thing was Donald Trump, and they would say, which was wow, they was like, I don't like his domestic policies, but I like his policies was Israel. And they were full on board for the Trump terrain.

So if that's, changed where now it's like he's not giving us enough which is just because when he was like yeah the right winger's feel like Donald Trump is doing is making allegiances with allies it's like dude he he didn't use air defense for Saudi Arabia he used it for Israel right you can name all of these other countries and you can say whatever you want Trump did any and everything in his past with the level of subservience, I've never seen another American president for Israel.

So if they can't, like, meaning the idea, I always say, just because you feel something, doesn't mean it's true. This is one of those cases. If they're looking at this, this is like,

Trump is not loyal enough. Okay. I don't know how much, yeah, I don't know how much more they could get, right? Yeah, but the old David Bowie and TV from the 80s, too much is never enough. Yeah.

Robbie. That's well, like, it was shocking when he was like, yeah, some right wingers are like Trump is not doing enough. Like, really? Yeah. I mean, for me, the biggest takeaway is it's like, they feel like he's doing too much for the Americans and not enough for the Israelis. Yeah. It's just like, I mean, I'm the first person to say that. Well, obviously, he is the vice president of Israel as far as the right wingers are over there in Israel are concerned.

So what is it? Well, or the right. right of the United States too apparently not the elites not the voters i mean are they are they that mad that he's not sending in the 101st airborne to carve out the uh just uh drive everybody out of jordan occupy Libya take over northern iraq they would love that i mean if if you if you if you want your empire maybe it's something to stop being a welfare queen pick up your rifle and go take it i mean that's my message to the right wingers it's it's not the job of the job of the American taxpayer or the American soldier to go and fight your war for you like a

visitate mercenary. To the point, it's not the desire of the American voters. The polls are very clear on that from left to right. If we should move on. If there is one question I would have been able to have asked, it would have been this. Do you think that Netanyahu made a strategic error by getting on by getting on the internet and then lecturing the American people about gas prices. How does that play on the Israeli street? Was it not sequitur? Look, oh, yeah. Well, it didn't help, right?

I don't think, I think fortunately for Netanyahu, maybe not a lot of Americans saw that. Yeah, that's what you know. Why would Israelis care about American gas prices or the Nanyahu's lecturing Americans? he got the American president to come out and endorse either way. No, I get that. But I think the concern in Israel is obviously like it's kind of like in Ukraine for Zelensky, America is big MacDady with the deep pockets and you don't want him to cut your allowance, right? Well, no, that.

But I mean, let's be completely honest here. Netanyahu all but admitted that Israel cannot finish the job on Iran on its own. He needs. He needs the American military. The West can't finish the job either, unless it's willing to use noots. Well, I mean, who says we're not? But the point that I'm trying to make is that the fact that you have a foreign leader, and you already have this backlash here in the United States between Democrats, Republicans,

like basically the populace, just to call it that way, against American involvement in this war, then you have a foreign leader who's coming in and then criticizing you. that's just a bad luck. Not to your case, J.T., maybe most Americas are just so checked out. But for Israel, they kind of live here because they just have to put their country in a very bad spot. Yeah. Guys, one bit of housekeeping we have to do, and Robbie, you can explain this a little better than I can.

But if you're on Rumble and you're watching the show, we appreciate you. We are low on unique chatters this month. And Rumble will screw us financially if we don't get more. of you guys to pipe in and say something so if you're on rumble and you haven't said anything today please pop in and just say so and we would really appreciate you even if you're on youtube and if you have a if you have a rumble account just pop over and say howdy basically we're still in the rumble creator program here on d program even though they only pay us like a tenth of what they used to pay us that's we still want that 10th yeah oh yeah yeah no it's bad so

If y'all would, just between now and Halloween, whenever y'all see us live on a live stream, just come drop in emoji, say hi. We have a plan that might fix that, right? Yeah, I'm testing that. Yeah, I'm testing that right now on my gaming channel. Don't explain it here because it'll publicize it. Okay. So, yeah, I have high hopes for that. All right.

Thanks, Robbie. Okay, we have, all right, so if you're just joining us, we just had Israeli professor Gideon Rahat, talk, just break down the Israeli election. I would recommend that you go to the beginning of the show and watch it. It's really enlightening next week. The election results are going to come in in Israel. And he really helps explain exactly the lay of the land and how their system works. So you'll be the smartest person in the room on Wednesday morning around the office cooler if you listen to it. Now, as for the remainder of the show, we've got TMI coming on in 18 minutes. We have three main stories we wanted to touch upon, plus whatever you guys want to talk about. DOJ is launching, has charged 28 green card holders in the state of California with voting illegally. ICE has decided to, there was that video of ICE running over a guy who on purpose, who is running away. Well, now, apparently this has become their new tactic. Now they're running over bicyclists. They ran over a bicyclist on purpose in Long Beach, California.

We'll get into that. He was a U.S. citizen to boot. And in Saudi Arabia, and I know, Jamal, you're probably going to have thoughts about this. They decided to cancel their so-called Davos in the Desert Investment Summit. My tickets have been canceled. I'm very sad. I wonder why. Yeah, something going on.

I don't know. We'll get into all that. A bunch of rich people don't want to have missiles falling on their heads. It's like, oh, my God. I'm too rich to die. It'll mess up my hair. Okay, so, yeah, what do you want to talk about first? Well, let's talk about that since we already got to stop the doing.

Since we're already laughing about it. Yeah, I guess I'm laughing about it. Maybe I shouldn't because they're, I mean, it is a war. And I got to laugh. There's humor in war. Are you kidding? There's humor in that. I mean, it's like the idea of all these rich people are like,

oh, I don't know if I want to accept that risk to talk to other rich people about how we're going to fuck over the world. I would do that in a more safe location. God, man, how humiliating that is. And just to be clear, Saudi Arabia, the irony is just breathtaking. Saudi Arabia had the blockade on Yemen for years. And now Yemen, answer a lot specifically, has put a blockade on Saudi Arabia.

This is definitely the mouse that roared, right? Yes, yeah, it really is. And it's also funny, I mean, yeah, I mean, the thing is, right? The, you know, Ansarala is poor as shit, underarmed as shit, outgunned as shit, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't seem to matter. Saudi Arabia is most expensive military in the world or something, like fourth of it. So to me, what's notable about this is, look, who gives a shit about this summit that, like, most people have never even heard of, right?

But what matters is this is the big, this is like, this is the new reality for Saudi Arabia. They're not, they can't do boo. They can't export their oil. They can't, they can't, they can't have the airport open. Tourists can't fly in and out of real. By the way, what's going to happen? What's going to happen with the haj? Right.

I mean, they host the haj. I mean, if the airport's fucking closed, how could you host the haj? So there's just like a lot of implications to all this. You know, they have the holiest sites in Mecca. I mean, in Islam, in Mecca. I mean, and Medina. I mean, it's crazy. And I mean, look, the Saudis, they're going to have to get real and come to Jesus

and bring in the, and bring their conflict with the Yemenis, you know, under control. They're going to have to pull out of Yemen. They're going to have to. Mohammed on this one. He will have to come to Muhammad. Yeah, Jesus will have. Jesus will sit this one out. As long as Saudi Arabia continues being Israel's lap dog,

even if they pled of Yemen, I don't think the Houthis are going to let go of that ankle. They're going to keep it on. Antirala has even made the point of saying, maybe you shouldn't have Mecca. Right. I should a country with a Jewish supremacist colony that's committed to genocide against other Muslims,

have the responsibility of holding on to this. holy Muslim sight. However, it is in their country. You can't really move Mecca. Yeah, but you can take your... Borders are fungible. Yeah, borders are fungible. Borders are fungible.

Mecca stays where it is, is my point. Mecca stays where it is, but it doesn't have to be, quote, Saudi Arabia, unquote. Can you imagine, like, oh, we decided to... It's like Jewish homeland, which should have been after World War II in Germany. It's like, oh, we're going to move Mecca to, I don't know, like Vanuatu. It's like where it's safe.

It's like, everyone... Okay, all Muslims, you're going to have to, all right, let's pivot. 38 degrees. Like, you know, we have to pray at a different angle. Put a place of anywhere, you should punish the country that did the genocide. Like, this argument that Israelis make all the time is like, well, I mean, we had to go somewhere. No, I didn't. That doesn't give you the right to steal somebody else's land.

Like, then you just... Not to mention, you already lived right in or right next door to the people who fucked you. They are the people who should give up the land. Yes, that's where you take your land. That's where you make your Jerusalem. Listen, at the end of the day, Islam has something that Christianity does not have. We have their traditions that Jesus was crucified Jerusalem on Galgatha. The Muslims have the rock.

So you can pick the rock up and you can move it someplace else. I mean, where the rock is. Take the Kawha. Take the Kaan. That's not true. That's not true. The rock just marks the spot. It's the you are here.

That's what the rock is. Just moving. It's not about the rock. The rock is incidental. The rock is where the tent was. That's the point. Listen, I'm kind of kidding. Just a little.

It's funny. Either way. It's hilarious. But A lot brings up a valid point. No, seriously. No, the fact that the fact of Saudi Arabia wants to put together a Islamic Defense League to defend Islam against Muslims who are opposing. you being who oppose the genocide of other Muslims. That is the ultimate irony.

So if you're able to do that, it's treasonous. It's ridiculous. So if you're not going to do that, maybe you don't have the rock anymore. And then we'll make sermons for Mecca about answer Allah. Like that's amazing. That's just amazing. Like the is call up the bin, call up the bin Laden construction group and Seriously. Just. Just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, that rock to either Gaza or to Tehran.

You could make, you could make Mecca an international city of its own, like Vatican City, and make it its own jurisdiction outside of, outside of Saudi jurisdiction. Oh, that's interesting. Which, by the way, would elevate Islam, I think. I think it really would. He has a damn good point. I mean, honestly, that's what I would push for if I were. Muslim. I'd say like this should be an international city administered by a coalition of

Muslim governments, both Shia and Sunni. It should be administered like an international city. People can come and go. It's just for religious devotees. You know, it's just for pilgrims. Let me let me let me say this real quick. I can push for that. This is real quick. Well, I'm up here. A lot of people are not looking good for the Saudis at all. I would not bet on them at all. When he lose the war. Yeah, it's a win. A lot of people on YouTube are complaining about the ads. I'm going to do y'all solid right now. So if you don't want the ads on YouTube,

there's two things you can do. One, that you can describe to YouTube premium, then there's no ads. It's like $10 a month. Or if you watch on Rumble, there's never an ad during a live stream. So please don't thumb down the video because you don't like the ads.

A lot of people doing that. That's not what you tell them for that. Suck it up. I'm sorry. That's how we can pay, right? Well, if you have YouTube premium, you get profit sharing. So then we still get paid and we also get paid on the other things. And I'm working with them.

Seriously, look, look, you guys who are. Don't thumb down the video because of the ads. If you guys are bitching about the ads and look, I hate ads too, then like you got to do, this is like NPR. You want it. You got to pay for it. If we start seeing like a shit ton of donos coming in every day or a lot more subscriptions, we will turn off the ad.

We can do that. But we need the money. I mean, you know, the donations have been way down and you know, the subscriptions are up, but they're not where they need to be. So I don't know what you say. I mean, we live under capitalism, sadly, not my vote. You know, I don't understand anything of a free show. They used to tell psychics that all the time, right? They would be like, are you taking money? And it's like, yeah, why are you taking money? Because it's my job, right? Like it's not doing something for the money or something like that they shouldn't be paid for the whatever the hell they're doing if they're doing anything, right? I guess I'm saying with this is more material. We're doing the show.

We love doing the show. I know we both look forward to it. I do. It's like, I know you do too. And it's like, and we want to keep doing it. But, you know, we're scraping by here. You know, I mean, we're barely able to make it. We're not even able to make it.

The show is not making money. It's not making enough money. I mean, seriously. Yeah. Seriously. I mean, whatever you do, for the love of God, don't thumbs down a video because of an ad. That is the gayest, dumbest thing that you can. It's gay.

It's like when people, it's like when people, when I look at restaurant reviews, like on Google or whatever, and people will be like, I'm giving you, the food was really great. The atmosphere was fantastic. The drinks were great. But I'm giving it one star because I couldn't find parking. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Or because my waiter came over and didn't introduce herself and say, Hi, my name's Bonnie and I'll be your waiter tonight. Really?

I thought you were going to be my fucking co-captain of my plane. Of course you're my fucking waiter. You don't have to introduce yourself. You know, like, it's stupid. One star. One star. Like if the food's good, like you're at four stars just with good food, right? I mean, it's a restaurant.

You know, and look, I know, look, with the ads, it is irritating because they come on while we're in the middle of talking, right? That sucks. You know, I'm familiar with the experience. We don't have power of it. I mean, no. We don't. We don't throw them, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And with Rumble, the way that it works is that if you click on, if you're watching a video, I'll bet you're off. You're only getting at every eight minutes to say you're all just like you do on YouTube. But with the live stream, you'll have two. ads at the beginning of the stream, but never an ad during the stream. So that's the difference. So, oh, let's hear of poison. Yeah. Okay. On Rumble. That's how they do it. Okay. That's interesting to know. All right. So you're saying if you watch the two ads at the beginning, probably, then that's it. You don't get more, they don't feed you more ads. Nope. During a live stream, if you, if you're watching a live stream,

it doesn't matter if it's a 30-minute stream or four-hour stream. If you had two ads at the beginning, when you first click onto it, but during the duration of that live stream, there's no ads. Now, if you become a channel subscriber on Rumble, you never get ads at all for five bucks a month. Or if you subscribe to YouTube premium, then you'll get ads on YouTube either. And then the creator gets profit sharing. So that's one of the things that people will do for me since I'm not taking a paycheck or I'll do program anymore. Because that people will jump over on YouTube, pull up a playlist, let it run. and I collect that the pennies from the ad revenue.

It's not a lot to ask if you enjoy the content that you're currently consuming. No, exactly. I mean, God, I mean, we've got two more stories to do in six minutes, so I've got to rush this along. But totally what Robbie said. I mean, look, back in the 90s, everybody subscribed to print newspapers, like two, probably two or three a day, at least one. Everybody got, like, subscribed to several magazines. It all costs money, right? It's like you want content you get to pay for it.

It's just that the model has changed. Now you pay for a la carte. You pay specifically for the things that you personally care about, and you don't pay for the things you don't watch. And I don't know, I kind of think in some ways that's better. Okay. Well, the thing is, it's crowd. It's like a billion channels.

Yeah. And so if you're subscribing, it's like, okay, which of the billion do I subscribe to, even with it in context of like specific content? Only the ones you should only really financially support. really financially support the ones you really care about. Ice is, they deliberately ran over a dude on his e-bike. The guy's arm was shattered in a million pieces.

Then the ICE guys got out of their unmarked car, sounds familiar, got out and tased him and pinned him down when he complained that he was an American citizen. Obviously, he was just, you know, tote-colored. So they decided like, yeah, he fits the profile. The California. And Long Island police are not pleased. Well, not pleased. Law Beach police.

Right. Well, they may prosecute. I mean, in the Houston cops are looking to prosecute ice. Well, that's what I mean. They need to prosecute. Like, it needs to be this thing of impunity stops. If the officers or these ICE agents, these goons are breaking the law, they should be prosecuted like anybody else. If I ran somebody over my

with my bike, I'm being prosecuted. They fucking handcuffed the guy with the fucking broken arm. And he's American. Which means you even hit the wrong target. Yeah, you had and you had no just cause. And I don't care if the guy had like he had all the illegal

illegalities in the world. You don't fucking run a guy down on his bike. I'm just putting out even that they got wrong. Like you you had one job. one job right and you're getting that job wrong and you are no good at it and you're no good at and there's and there's no governed armed police force in america that has more money or more

goons than you do and you still don't know what the fuck you're doing i mean i mean for god's sake like this shouldn't keep happening right no and again they really shouldn't be prosecuted yeah like 100% and again as i can it will not stop unless the prosecution do not stop. Yeah, you broke the wrong guy's arm, at least from there, what they were aiming for. I mean, that's horrendous. Whether he was American, whether he was otherwise, that's not the way to do the job. It's outrageous.

Speaking of retards in the minutes, in a couple, few minutes that we have left, so the Justice Department has charged 28 Californians. They're all permanent residents, green card holders. They all appeared on a list of 20,000 names that the DOJ handed over to California. we have no idea how the United States government compiled this list. But apparently, so they've all been charged with voting illegally. Okay, here's the funny part, right. Many of them don't appear to have actually ever voted.

They may have been registered, you know, accidentally, like when they got naturalized. And, you know, we're talking about it could have been a bureaucratic glitch, like in New Jersey, where 6,000 people, who didn't even know ended up getting registered to vote. But, you know, basically, they criminally charged them

and they're also trying to get the courts to say that all ballots of alleged non-citizens should be invalidated before next the elections in two weeks. I mean, this is just... Talk about election interference.

They use... They could, you know, they could say, Todd Thomas. Okay, well, we have four Todd Thomas. Okay. is obviously they're voting more than once. And it's like there could be multiple people with the name of Todd Thomas.

They sure, sure could. My grandfather and my uncle, McCoy Thomas, McCoy Thomas Jr., there were times where they came looking for my grandfather and picked up my uncle. And the cops were too dumb than that. How many John Smith Juniors are there in the country, right? That's the most common name for a long time.

I mean, I know there's other Ted Rawls. I've heard about him. Yeah, and that's not even the most common name. multiple Ted Rawls voting. Ted Rawls is obviously breaking the law. He voted five times. I mean, basically, this whole approach, I know what they're figuring is like, okay,

so we're just going to throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks prosecutorially, right? That shit's so wrong. It's so wrong. There should be consequences for doing that. Like, they should, you know, like if the authorities really do a good job and they charge you and it turns out that you walk,

that's a different thing. But whether it's just like overcharge, and we'll just charge everyone. And anybody who is innocent, they'll have to hire a lawyer and get out of it and it'll be inconvenienced and spend tens of thousands of dollars and this will become their stressed out life

for the next few years. That's insane. They should be, the government should have to compensate these people. Well, not just compensate. It should be consequences for the government in general for doing some nonsense like that.

I mean, it's not in good faith. It's not like, hey, we actually found this person and you find out after the fact there was a bureaucratic itched glitch that did blah we fucked up it's not that it's not that the trump administration has been going with this idea just as context the trump administration going us with this idea that that there was an election fraud hence they're doing all of the stuff they try to make the case of saying see see look at the fraud we were telling you about when i won the

election but was stolen it's that nonsense exactly and that's it for today's show um so tomorrow We'll be back for the full two hours from 9 to 11 a.m. TMI show coming up right now. Robbie, what's up? Effuso, thank you for the dollar. Movie idea. Hexeth out of Saudi Arabia, send that drunk lunatic to unite the tribes. The Israelis make the humiliation ritual consistent to deny Christ

by removing their cross first. Did the rooster crow. Thank you, Afuso. Okay, goodbye, everyone. Tomorrow, see you tomorrow. Robbie, stay tuned. TMI. Bye.