DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Japanese Militarism: What Could Go Wrong? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • Japan is threatening China militarily which is "completely unacceptable", Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says, after Chinese jets aimed radar at Japanese aircraft. China has blamed Japan for sending aircraft to repeatedly approach and disrupt the Chinese navy. • Powerful Senate President Hun Sen vowed that Cambodia would carry out a fierce fight against Thailand as a second day of widespread combat drove tens of thousands of people to flee border areas. Is full-scale war at hand? • 200,000 people have fled eastern Congo in recent days, as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels march on the strategic lakeside town of Uvira on the border with Burundi, and battling with Congolese troops and local groups known as Wazalendo. Scores have been killed. Here, too, we’re on the watch for full-fledged war.• A bid by Paramount Skydance Corp. for Warner Bros. Discovery is backed by notable investors like Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and a less known player, Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding Co., founded recently and fully owned by the government. If TikTok is a matter of national security, how about this?

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good morning you're watching deep program with ted roll and john kiriaku it's tuesday december 9th 2025 thanks for joining us please like follow and share the show good morning john good morning ted good to see you good to see you too so uh lots to talk about uh japan and china always uh regional rivals uh historically are each other's throats a little bit um that should scare anyone who knows anything about history like you said in the in the thumbnail what could go wrong japanese militarism when has that ever been a problem i thought the japanese weren't supposed to have a military right wasn't that the thing all through the 70s the 80s the 90s that the japanese didn't have a military because they went so apeshit

crazy during World War II that they were just going to go without a military, lest they invade somebody else? Yep. Well, I mean, that's because they had designs on the entire Pacific Ocean doesn't mean that they were greedy. So maybe we'll see a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere again. But yeah, no, it's terrifying. And Cambodia and Thailand, that skirmish is heating up.

We have nearly 100 people dead, tens of thousands, by some reports, hundreds of thousands of refugees already on the move. Meanwhile, similarly, another conflict that Trump weighed in on between Congo and Rwanda, that's heating up, too. We have 200,000 refugees also scores have been killed there. That seems, I'm worried about a replay of the Rwandan genocide of the 90s. And then I really am dying to hear, and I'm saving this for later, your thoughts about the sort of hidden role of the Qataris and the Saudis and other Middle Eastern players in Hollywood and how they're backing up Paramount's bid for Warner Brothers. So super interesting stuff. And of course, obviously, please go ahead if you're watching live on Rumble or YouTube, Please go ahead and chime in and ask us your questions and comments.

And as always, we will get to as many as we possibly can. By the way, just something that we're doing that's new we wanted to announce. And we're going to bring in producer Robbie West to talk about it in just a few minutes when there's a few more people have a chance to trickle into the show. But basically, we're going to have a live show. We're going to be taking calls, like audio calls. Actual calls. Actual call.

you'll be able to call up and talk to us. That's going to be Friday. So please be watching, and Robbie will fill us in on exactly how you get to do that. All right. What should we talk about first, John? You know, I'm kind of perplexed by this whole Cambodia, Thailand thing. They've long had difficult relations, even during the Vietnam War, as the U.S. was secretly bombing and waging war against Cambodia. They were doing it from Thailand for the most part. We had thousands,

tens of thousands of troops that were based in Thailand. We still have those bases in Thailand. And Cambodia has never recovered, really, from the devastation of the war. They went through the Khmer Rouge and Pulpott and more mainline communist dictatorships. and the Vietnamese invasion. The Vietnamese invasion, that's right. Although that liberated them from the Khmer Rouge. From the Khmer Rouge, which they desperately needed to be liberated. So, listen, I'm just not getting what the problem is.

Is it really just this stupid island and this ruined temple on the island in the middle of the river that separates the two countries? I can't imagine that that's what it is. It's got to be something deeper. When we've spoken in the past about the EMEA crisis between Greece and Turkey, where Bill Clinton had to literally get on a conference call with the prime minister of Greece and the president of Turkey and tell them to back off because they were going to go to war over this little island that had nothing but a herd of goats on it,

is it the same kind of thing where it really is the island or is it deeper than that? I'm just not understanding. I think it's about Thai versus Cambodian national. and two countries, like you said, that have always had piss-poor relations. Terrible relations. And the U.S. has definitely, you know, helped, you know, fuel that by playing them off against each other. So, you know, Cambodia has a desperate inferiority complex due to not just the genocide, but the effect of it. And it's so desperately poor.

Ties have a lot of national pride. They, you know, they feel like they're in an up-and-coming country. but Cambodia is, you know, it's, it's disrespected in the region. But I think, you know, my take on this, John, is that it's typical, it's one of those things where it's about the, you know, it's about the stupid ruined monastery. Yeah. But not really. But, yeah, but it becomes, you know, but after a while, it's also tit for tat, right? Like, you guys killed some of our border guides.

We can't let that pass. And then nobody remembers where it started. And you only think about what the other guy did. And then you're just, I mean, I think that's where we're at. Ted, you and I once talked about the border between Pakistan and India and going to see sort of the changing of the guard. There's a ceremonial border crossing just east of Lahore. And I went with a group of ISI officers when I was stationed there. We had just caught Abu Zabeda.

They wanted to celebrate. So we go to this border crossing. They have bleachers set up on the border. border crossing. And they're wearing these, you know, big hats with big feathers in them and red coats. It looks like the Raj. It looks very much like the Raj. And the ISI Colonel, Colonel Mohammed that I was with gleefully, like a kid said to me, we are so proud of the depth of our hatred of one another that we want to put it on display. And he said it completely seriously. And I've been thinking about the last couple of

days that that's that might be what we're looking at here the depth of their hatred for one another goes so far that they just can't help themselves so yeah i mean so it's like chris hedges right wrote a book called war is a force that gives us meaning it's hatred is a force that gives us meaning i mean look at domestically the democrats and the republicans this morning there was a that's oh god where's he from that senator from maryland Democrat. He was on NPR this morning. You probably heard him. And he was talking about like the problems with the Democratic Party and like we have to be against, you know, for something, not just against Trump. Yeah. But he was illustrating the problem himself just by like just talking about how

bad and lawless Trump was. And like, you know, it's kind of like, but he didn't, you know, put anything forward. But it was like basically it's, we're defined by our hatred in a highly polarized thing. That becomes its own reward after a while. It does make you feel powerful. I mean, you know, like when I jokingly, semi-jokingly talk about the former publisher of the L.A. Times, Austin Butner, and how much I hate him, it's kind of fun to hate him. Some part of me enjoys that, like, my hatred for him. That's how I say about John Brennan.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly how I feel. It's like a sport, right? Yeah, like a sport. Yeah. Keeps me going. It's energizing.

Mine of the Cat says, Thailand used to be a vassal state of the Khmer Empire. Ziam, Thailand later invaded and took down the empire. They have a long history. Thank you for that. See, you learn something new every day. Yeah, we have the best, the best listeners. So let's take some questions. We can keep talking about this.

I love this question. Elliot Covert. Thoughts on Hillary Clinton saying last week that young people have been brainwashed by social media and TikTok over Israel and Gaza. You remember that. Oh, I hate her so much. When is she just going to finally shut her big flap and gums? That's what I always think.

She is irrelevant to anything in America, irrelevant. And always mistaken. Yeah. I mean, you know, she was mistaken. She's always wrong. Yeah. I mean, and I mean, like on an objective standard, it's like, oh, what direction should the country go? Whenever we go the direction she wants, it's a fuck up.

That's an op-ed right there. Maybe we should write that. she's like she's accomplished that always points out you know like my ex-wife was like that you know get out of the subway which way should we go just whatever direction she felt we should go you just always go the opposite you'd probably be right there you go but i mean but yeah my i mean so like what is the story i mean um look it is true that social media got the word out about what the atrocities in gaza uh in a way that mainstream media either was unwilling or unable to do because corporate American media didn't have any correspondence there, right?

The Israelis wouldn't let them in and they didn't have the balls to go and sneak in. You know, like Dan Rather, sneaking into Afghanistan in the 80s, you know, going without a, you know, going without a permit, these people, maybe they can't pull it off. Honestly, I got to tell you, I could have gotten into Gaza. There's always a way, always away. Richard Medhurst. He got into Gaza, right? You're right. These mainstream journalists, they could have gotten into Gaza. They didn't try. They were afraid. They were afraid. They were afraid of the Israelis, too. And they probably were afraid the Israelis would target them. And with good reason, the Israelis would have targeted them. And so anyway, the thing is, the word got out that way. And that's true. But is that brainwashing. I mean, the brainwashing, the implication of that, the implication of that, that is that these things aren't true. The implication is that there is no genocide.

The implication is that Israel isn't committing war crimes. The implication is that Israel wasn't engaged in a basically a one-sided pseudo-war where they're massacring civilians. Yeah. And basically almost nobody's firing back ever. And these Clintons are the same people who turn their backs on Rwanda, who ruined Haiti, who turned their backs on the former Yugoslavia. So, no, we're not taking any human.

rights advice or admonitions from the likes of Hillary Clinton. See, now I'm getting mad. So, I mean, the thing is, I would de-invent social media if I could because it would save, like, journalism. Yes. But that said, social media has done a lot of good. I mean, hell, I never could have gotten the word out about my case. I think social media helped you a lot, John.

Yes. In your situation, you know, you get past the censors. And that's what happened here. It, like, you know, social media meant that these images could not. be denied. No one's ever said, no one's ever credibly asserted that Hamas or any other pro-Palestinian force has been creating fake news or deep fakes from, you know, of Israeli atrocities. These are real. These are these are things the Israelis are really doing. And when they, when they're busted, fair and square, like with the, the murder of, of Shireen Abouacla, then they say,

oh, we'll do an investigation. And then they say, oh, We did the investigation and, yeah, we shouldn't have shot or we'll provide better training. Yeah. For the next time. Or the ambulance, or remember the ambulance crew. Or they just kill all the ambulance drivers. Yeah. And then bury their bodies and say, I wouldn't know what happened to those.

And then they, then it's like, oh, you know, God damn it. Like, we forgot. The guy had his phone running while we were killing him and he was on the phone with his dad. That's right. Like, oh, God, horrible. So, yes. Let's see here. I apologize.

I'm having to read these questions on my phone because my mouse died. I hate these mice that they give us. You have to plug it into the bottom. So when you're charging it, you can't use it. I know, it's really, really dumb. And, you know, the other thing is it doesn't warn you until it's dead. No, exactly. It says mouse battery, very low, connect USB immediately.

It's funny, right? Like the Apple devices are a miracle in so many ways. But like, for example, I love the fact that the iPhone will not tell you. you when your voicemail is full. You just literally people call you like it's 1996 and they say, John, your voicemail's full and you go, oh, I better go empty those out. It's ridiculous. I only save the death threats.

I'm serious. I have a file for those. You know what? Not to get too far up topic. I apologize. I get death threats every once in a while and they're usually just idiots. But I got one, the guy called me at like 3.30 in the morning, 3.25 a.m. And I don't have my ringer on.

So I just got it in the morning. But it was a very specific death threat. And he sounded drunk. So I have a bin verified subscription. I go on bin verified. This freaking idiot used his own cell phone. Oh, God. Right?

Didn't try to mask. So I texted him. And I said, if he ever calls me again, I'm going to rip off his head. I'm going to piss down his neck. And then I'm going to shove his head up his ass. And I said, and I'm going to do it at, you know, three, two, one, Maple Drive. I put his home address, which I found on, he apologized profusely. And I said, do it one more time.

And I'm going straight to the FBI. I'm so sorry. I was drunk. I was watching your videos. I'm so sorry. Like, yeah, fucking idiot. Yeah, you're, you're really brave when you're, yeah, when you're, when you're, calling someone that you don't even know and threatening them exactly yeah people don't realize

that like it's a real person here on the other side of their screen or on the other side of their computer device yes like you know people with just like them you know with it you know and like just like an opinion we might have opinions that they disagree with or vehemently but you know that doesn't give you the right to do that i mean it's just it's it's heinous and it's really it is a form of terrorism it is um it is um i'm not going to play games games with these people. Okay, so Marie, oh, I'm with you on that. Marie Lour, why would Japanese militarism be more concerning than Germany's? Well, that's a good question. It's a very valid question, John. I can go after you. Oh, yeah, that's a good question. In fact, I don't know if you

remember, but it was a very, very big deal when the German army sent a unit to, it was like Kosovo or somewhere in the former Yugoslavia because it was the first time since World War II that German troops had been engaged in combat. And the Clinton administration was like, kudos to the Germans. This is the new Germany. Their freedom fighters. I don't know. I think the Serbs would disagree with that. And she's right. Why should the Japanese be any different from the Germans? Well, I guess that, you know, I mean, okay, so I think the difference is, is that the Germans and the Japanese have acted very differently since World War II. I mean, as Robbie pointed out in the chat before, I mean, Germany's been on a global

apology tour since 1945. They teach their kids in textbooks over and over and over about the Holocaust and the sins of Nazism and fascism. The Japanese, on the other hand, as you know, have whitewashed what they did, for example, the rape of Nanjing. They don't talk about the invasions of eastern China and the entire Pacific Rim. They don't talk about how incredibly sadistic they were to POWs. So the problem is that like Japanese kids now are still not being taught what their country did. So there's no sense of national responsibility. They kind of like felt like, well, we were in a contest and we lost. They don't really feel like we deserve to lose. Like the Germans had their noses rubbed in it. I think that's a huge difference.

And you can see now in the behavior of this new prime minister where, you know, she's fucking with the Chinese over Taiwan. Which is a fool's errand. For sure, a fool's errand. And with no international legitimacy, considering whether it's right or not, the international community is not recognized Taiwan as an independent state, right? So therefore, there's no basis for it. But she's fucking around.

She's saber-raddling. The crowds haven't done that. no you know they haven't done that and you know another thing about the japanese that has always mystified me compared to the germans german um the the major german war criminals uh have no acknowledged graves they were all you know cremated or the graves are unmarked or you know they're they're buried in these obscure places so they can't be venerated right the japanese They have those Shinto shrines, yeah. They have these giant shrines to Class A war criminals.

Yeah. The most heinous of Japan's war criminals. And people go and venerate their graves and place flowers and food and all kinds of stuff. And Japan, to my knowledge, has never banned expressions of Japanese, you know, imperialism. No way. The swastika is banned in Germany. Yes, it is. Holocaust denialism is.

illegal, punishable by a prison term. You know, it's, they've done everything they could to completely erase that legacy and to condemn it. I just think the Germans, look, I'm Catholic. I grew up Catholic. It's like, I believe in penance. The Germans have paid penance. The, you know, the Japanese have not.

I think that's the difference. Yeah, I think you're right. That's right. John, this is from Nicholas Franco. A lot of people distrust the CIA nowadays. Do you think this has an impact on recruitment? No, I don't. There are 2,500 applicants for every one opening.

It's pretty incredible. Yeah, no, I don't think it has any effect at all. Not a problem at all. Okay, so let's see. Okay, so we should bring in Robbie to talk about the call-in show, right? So, Robbie, here goes, here comes Robbie. Robbie West, producer. Tell us what's going on on Friday and with all that.

Okay, so we're doing something new. I'm going to drop a link into y'all's chat, like what Ted was saying. What happened to Robbie? Uh-oh. Am I gone? I see Robbie. I'm here. Oh, John's frozen.

Oh, I don't see him. I'm sorry, Robbie. Oh, John, you were frozen. Okay. Yeah. We're good, don't. Sweet. Hey, listen, this is live.

This is how the sausage is made. this is I mean this is how this is the things I'm dropping a link in the chat right now if y'all want to have a chance this Friday to come on Rush Limbaugh style and talk with John and Ted and I like Rush Limbaugh actually have a meaningful conversation this is your chance a link is going out right now what you have to do you have to join the Discord server because that's where I will be grabbing the phone calls and following them through now here's the important thing this is going to be exclusively on rumble it's not a slight to youtube it's because i cannot control what comes out of your mouth so if someone comes on and if they something that's that youtube's community guidelines finds offensive it would nuke the channel on youtube which would not be ideal so that's why this will be on rumble so it's not shooting porn rumble doesn't care what we do and they damn sure don't care what we say so come on in talk uh Be respectful, be pithy,

when I try to go through as many people as possible. And I will let you all know right now, I will be looking for Rumble channel subscribers first. So if you want to make sure that you 100% get in, come over to Rumble. It's five bucks a month. Every penny of that goes straight to John and Ted. They keep it all.

And that way, you can have a real conversation, no censorship problems, in a true free speech forum, and have a chance to talk to your favorite cartoonist and whistleblower. And if you have questions for me, that works too. Thank you, Robbie.

Hey, may I ask the chat something? So are these Logitech wireless mice or mouses, are they compatible with Apple? I think mice are mutually, and keyboards are compatible to both iOS. Great, thank you for that, because I'm going to buy one. Okay. question for all three of us, what's on your holiday gift list? Is that for us or buy us is the question, right?

I have an Amazon wish list. People can search for it. How about you, John? You know, I used to hate it when I would ask my parents what they wanted for Christmas. I was a kid, of course, and they would say, all we want is good kids, right? They hate that. Because I wanted to buy them something. I genuinely don't want or need anything. So my son, one of my sons asked me the other day, and he said, and don't say nothing. I said, I really don't need anything. I'm actually downsizing now. And so same with my sister. She asked me what I wanted. I was like, I don't have a list. I don't want anything.

I could use, I could use a pack of like black dress socks. That's it. There are certain political collectibles that I would love. Ah, that's different. It's the, you know, there's the John C. Breckenridge Farrow type, which I'm dying to have. Geez, Ted. Yeah, very deep cut there. I got to say, my real wish, John, and I think you probably share this, is to make, honestly, to make this show financially viable going into the coming year.

We're not there. And it's not making enough money. I mean, it's like for it to support us. But, you know, we can, we got to, we're kind of like right now, sort of a little bit plateaued. And we need to take it to the next level. So I'm really hoping either we get a sponsor or, you know, more subscribers or whatever. But some, that's, I mean, that was always my goal, honestly, you know, as a cartoonist, just to be able to pay my bills drawing cartoons. Now I have that, you know, obviously that's never going to happen drawing cartoons, but because journalism is dead.

But in terms of, you know, doing doing this, that's my goal. Some questions. M.W. Knox 186. Did either of us watch anything from the Doha Forum? Trita Parsi had an interesting panel. I did. I did, actually. I watched Trita Parsi.

He's been very, very active lately. And really, he's one of the leading thinkers on the issue of U.S. Iranian relations. I really enjoy just sitting and listening to the guy. He's so well-informed and so bright. He is wrong sometimes. Aren't we all? He told me when he was on my other podcast that he believed the United States would attack, I'm sorry, that Israel would attack Iran before the end of the year.

I think things have kind of scaled back. But man, if you want to talk to a real expert who is not beholden to anybody, it's Trita Parcy. Sean Martin, who has a question for us. Have you seen the response to immigration by a group in Northern Ireland looks very similar to previous IRA mess? the immigration problem seems to be boiling worldwide. You know, John, I've been predicting this for years that the Ireland thing was not fully settled

because it was never fully settled. That's right. And, you know, it's, I think basically my take is that Sinn Féin got corrupted and bought off and, you know, whether officially, you know, legally corrupted or not, but corrupted from a sense of an independent struggle. I don't know. It's one of those things to watch.

I hope it doesn't start up again. you know, I think there could be a new IRA type movement. I think that's exactly right. You know, I'm banned from the UK, right? We've talked about this. And you're missing out on all that good food. Yeah, right. But I go to the UK often.

In fact, I spent three weeks there earlier this year. So what I do is I just fly to Dublin. And then you catch a connecting flight from Dublin to London. The last time I flew to Dublin, I drove up to Belfast and then flew from Belfast to Manchester. They have not figured out this border crossing situation. They were just hoping for the best that in some cases they treat it like the UK is still an EU country. And in other cases, they treat it like it's not. But this thing they come up with, it doesn't work.

No. It doesn't work. And so you go to Belfast, for example, and all the waitresses in the pubs are Polish, right? Or Slovenian or whatever. It's like, how did you get here? It's crazy. It is. It's crazy.

It doesn't work. Lemon curd sandwich. Venezuela, is Venezuela, is that an effort to flashpoint a terrorist attack in the United States? ICE, hate, hatred, National Guard, Iran and Israel stuff, deciding against Europe and the Allies, the victims of Ukraine as victims, business over morals. I tend not to believe in those kind of. I just don't think that, I just don't think the deep state is that intelligent.

You know, I don't think they're master schemers like that. What do you think? I agree. I agree. There are too many moving parts. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just an unhappy coincidence.

Um, okay, yeah, so you have the, the, the, okay, everyone's for suggesting the logitech. I bought it. I just bought it. He thought that's so funny. Tomorrow. Thanks, thanks, uh, Juneide and Javid. Uh, John copyright that statement. Love it.

I don't know which statement he's talking. I think that was that it was going to rip off his head. Oh, right, right, right, right. Okay, right, right, right. Mania is back. The Japanese were never really properly rehabilitated. A lot of the underlying issues and mindset that led to Japanese and realism, are still there. No doubt, the racism, the arrogance. They think there are chosen people,

basically, and that they should run Asia. The Chinese beg to differ. Village idiot, is that why Germany is committing suicide? No. I don't think so. I don't think so. John, this is a question for you from Eric Carter-Robles. From a U.S. political refugee in Helsinki, what's the difference between Finlandization and the experience of Mexico, Central America and Caribbean countries for the past 125 years. I feel like I'm back in grad. I'm in history of grad school. Anyway, go ahead.

That's a great question. It's something that I have never thought of. It just hasn't occurred to me. But what is the difference? I think that in practical terms, there is no difference between Finlandization. Do you explain what that is? Finlandization was this agreement that Finland had with the Soviet Union, that it would maintain a, an independent, not really independent, a not anti-Soviet foreign policy in exchange for

the Soviet Union not, you know, invading and occupying it. And so at the United Nations, the West could never count on Finland because they essentially had to do what the Soviets told them to do in international affairs. Well, yeah, I mean, just this, wasn't it just yesterday that the Trump administration, official openly said that they now revived the Monroe Doctrine, which basically was, you know, President Monroe saying the U.S. dominates, basically nothing happens in the Western Hemisphere, North Central or South America, without us being okay with it. And we, that was abandoned, you know, I mean, although school kids aren't really taught that it was abandoned, but it was abandoned.

For all intents and purposes. And now Trump is saying, well, actually, that's back. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I want. I mean, I don't want it back. I believe, I have to say, I kind of believe in, if I were the president, I believe in sort of a NAFTA type, you know, doctrine. Like, Canada, Mexico, that's like, you guys have to be our friends. It's philentization. You're not allowed to not be our friends. But, you know, can I be concerned about what happens in Chile? I don't want to be that worried about it. It's so far away. Yeah. It's further away than Europe. I agree. I mean, people, you know, it always blows my mind that you can fly from New York City to Buenos Aires, and it takes 12 hours, but you're still pretty much in the same time zone. It's one hour difference. Well, and look at it this way. If the Chinese build an oil refinery in the Caribbean, which they're doing, is that an act of war against the United States?

How can we legitimately invoke the Monroe doctrine when there's not been an act of war? It's just the Chinese announced that they're going to build an oil refinery. Yeah. Well, I mean, everything's an act of war, John. Drug trafficking is an active war. Illegal immigration is an active war. Everyone's invading. Everyone's attacking.

Yep. You know, pretty soon when someone posts, you know, an annoying, you know, X post about you, that'll be an active war. Yeah. It's an active war. Mani of the cat, the Chinese are kind of similar to the Japanese and the world will find out. Soon, their doctrine for thousands of years was Han people are civilized. everyone else are savages. Okay, I beg to differ, having spent a lot of time in both countries.

They're different. And like, you can tell, for example, I mean, Japan is such a homogenous society. Oh, yeah. They don't like anybody from the outside. And they're not exposed to them. And they don't, but like, you know, you look at, for example, the Chinese currency and it has writing in numerous languages and different alphabets, right? because China is an empire, and they have these, you know, they're incredibly diverse, you know,

ethnically and culturally and linguistically. And they acknowledge it in their, you know, yes, the Han or the dominant ethnic group in China. But it's, they know there's others and they, you know, it's like, I knew a guy, he was Han, he was married to a Uyghur. That couldn't happen in Japan. That's right. It could not happen. period um so all right so we should talk about Congo but you know before we talk about Congo can I just add did you happen to see the push notification last night that that that that Looney Tunes democratic congresswoman from Texas what's her name she's running for the

Senate now um the one that didn't know that Jeffrey Epstein was dead in the hearings the other day. Crockett. Yeah, yeah. Jasmine Crockett. Yeah. She's running for the Senate. She's the MTG of the Democratic Party.

Yeah. She announced yesterday that she's going to run for the U.S. Senate, which just shakes up the entire race. I'm going to go on a limb and say she did this without saying anything to the party leadership. She just announced it. Now, on the one hand, this is good news because she's going to lose and she's not going to be in Congress anymore. And so we don't have to listen to her stupid pronouncements that are just based on unless you watch MS now, which is where she'll land. That's right.

That is where she'll land. That's exactly right. And at the same time, you know, the Democrats had kind of this their go-to guy, this former former football player and former representative, Colin Allred. he's the guy. And this year, it's going to be tough because it looks like the incumbent Republican senator is going to lose. And so maybe the Democrats actually have a chance. Now she's going to force the Democrats to spend money in the primary, thus falling behind in the general. I just don't understand what her point is.

You know, over the years, I've seen some really stupid members of Congress. There's kind of a famous clip from 20 years ago when a Democratic congressman from, I think it was Atlanta, was questioning the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about Guam. Do you remember this, Ted? He was asking about...

This is the best thing in the world. And he was asking how we could send so many troops to Guam with all those pieces of equipment and heavy tanks. Isn't it going to make Guam sink? Or tip over. Tip over. Tip over is what it was. And the general is like, no.

I thought, yeah, when I first watched the clip, I'm like, the dude's joking. Oh, he wasn't joking. No. No, he wasn't. He was afraid the island would tip over because we put too many people on it. I mean. That's Jasmine Crockett at the same time. That's the kind of person she is.

She's an idiot. Dumb. Just plain dumb. Yeah. I really wish there was some like, 25th Amendment kind of way to remove people like that. Forget about the politics, just on the grounds of you be dumb. Yeah.

I mean, this person, yeah. Yeah, just. No, I'm going to, I totally agree. No way. No way she checked in with Schumer, right? No way. Not a chance. Not a chance.

Schumer would have told her absolutely not. Well, yeah. No question. Hey, so we have a little bit of breaking news. A federal judge says that, the DOJ can publicly release investigative materials from the case against Ghislane Maxwell. The judge ruled after the DOJ asked two judges to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits. So, you know, there's going to be some more info coming out.

Good. Okay. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church is asking people to dig deep into their pockets to pay $300,000. million dollars to settle the pedophile priest up i mean i gotta say i mean if you're a catholic and that collection tray comes around and i've been in church since this started this this thing you know broke and it's like you see that thing come around and you're just like i know where this is money is going it's just going to to pay these settlements to for these perverts like i'm not paying for that i mean i they deserve money but just not for me i mean it's like that's not why people go to

mass right i mean i just don't get it i don't get it either i yeah now i was going to say something and i think it's probably better on left unsaid okay um quick question for you john texen 2021 do you have any experience with intelligence services from the i like this question from the european microstates monaco san marino and lichtenstein uh luxembourg i have yeah they were they were good fellas Um, but, uh, the other ones, uh, no, with Luxembourg, I would imagine a lot of it had to do with financial transactions. It was all finances. Yeah. Yeah, because Luxembourg has a much, um, stronger secrecy laws than to protect clients than Switzerland. Yeah, Switzerland caved after 9-11 to the treasurer department and Luxembourg said, no, we like things just the way they are. But even back in the

80s, Switzerland was not what we think of as Switzerland, you know, like the numbered account, you know, like in Bourne and stuff like that. Like that's right. It's not right. It's not. Luxembourg was more like that. Yeah. In the old days, you know, but no, you're right.

Not in our adult like that. Where they literally didn't even know who you were. You know, we don't want to know who you are. Just come in with your money. Your money's good. We're fine. Okay. So, Congo?

Congo. I thought this was all over. And apparently it's nowhere near over. And how can a country as big as Congo keep getting its ass kicked from a country as little as Rwanda? And it's really not the whole of the Congo. It's eastern Congo, which is where all the rare earth metals are. That's what makes this all so important. Yeah, Congo, I mean, the thing is, though, but Congo is vast, right?

I mean, if memory serves, I mean, because of the Mercator, projection when you look at the map it doesn't look as big as it but i think it's like the entire united states east of the mississippi river and right and then the effect of it being the fact that the roads aren't great to say the least makes it like the distances are bigger effectively right yes to get around so we're just talking about a vast very wealthy very fucked up historically territory still reeling from the belgian experience um so the so the so we're Rwanda's M23 rebels are about to capture a, what they call a strategic lakeside town. I always like that idea that some towns are strategic and some or not, but I kind of understand

it. I mean, I would see symbolic, maybe more importantly, but sometimes, but certainly, yeah, if you control the side of a lake, you can imagine the reason how that could be useful for resupplying and stuff. So, you know, Trump, to his credit, has been attempting to put out the, these brush fires in places like Cambodia and now Congo, but obviously, you know, even a really talented dealmaker or diplomat and or diplomat, it's going to have trouble with all this. At a certain point, is he going to be just, do you think he's just going to say, well, you know,

I tried with these guys and, you know, I knocked their heads together and they can't make peace. They won't get with the program. Yes. Remember, Donald Trump is not a detail guy. Right. He's the big picture guy. That's why we again have Jared Kushner running all over the Middle East and rush on Ukraine. But yeah, I think Trump gets easily frustrated. And if these two countries want to continue fighting, I think he's willing to just walk away and let them continue fighting. However, the rare earths are so important to big tech companies. So from a business perspective, he's got to be thinking, you know, every chance I have to get access to those rare earths, We've seen this in Ukraine, is something that he wants to do. Yeah.

Yeah, I remember reading once that we got almost all of our chromium from Congo. And chromium's not just, you know, for, you know, chrome bumpers, which don't exist anymore. It's for cell phones and missile guidance systems and all kinds of sophisticated things. So, huh. 200,000 people. That's just incredible. Yeah, that's a massive movement of people. and they must be absolutely terrified because these are not, you know, these are people who live

in a dangerous neighborhood and they're not going to just hit the road every time some asshole with an AK-47 rides through town on a technical, right? I mean, these are, you know, so it must be very, very ugly there. I mean, John, where the fuck is the UN in all this? Exactly, right? Isn't that their job? That's right. The UN should have peacekeeping forces there to keep the two sides apart.

and there should be a UN negotiator there to negotiate this peace that we can't seem to negotiate. Do they just not do that anymore? Who knows? I wonder if the rules are that both sides have to ask for it. I don't know. I'm just making that up.

I don't know if that's the case, but maybe it is. I don't think it is. Well, I guess there weren't, I guess maybe. Like in Rwanda, though, the government didn't ask for UN peacekeepers, but they came anyway. Yeah, they did. So we're number 10 on Rumble.

Hey, great. So that's good. Question for me, in Tibet, I'll make this short. I've never been to Tibet. I've been to China. I've never been to Tibet, which is, I know, in China. Where the signs in Tibetan and Han both did the people say, Tashi, delect to you.

So China doesn't, I will say, I imagine the signs are probably in both. Because in Xinjiang, the signs are both in Uyghur and in Han Chinese. sometimes in English, too. So, I don't know. Someone who's been, but yeah. John, from John Smith, 161, how did the CIA feel when the DGSE, you should say what that is,

committed a terrorist attack and sank the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand? I remember that. I remember that. They didn't care. That's the French. The DGSE is the French intelligence service. There's this odd,

there's this odd view. I have to be very careful what I say here. The CIA and the DGSE have proper relations. They're not close, but they're proper and formal. And they work together pretty well. But the DGSE is kind of known for being out there just whacking people, whether they're al-Qaeda operatives in the Sahel, or Rainbow Warrior, you know, environmental activists in the South Pacific.

If the French government sees someone as a problem, they're going to get whacked. And the DGSE is very happy to go out and do it. I mean, the Rainbow Warrior thing, it didn't go away. It was extremely bad PR. Very, very bad PR. I mean, it would go assassinate unarmed environmental. Environmental activists? Yeah.

And bombed their boat? Yeah. I mean, it was serious gangster behavior. I could say that again. Kind of what the Israelis do to boats. Yeah. Well, and now us in the Southern Caribbean. MT16N7, thank you very much for the $20 generous donation on Rumble.

Much appreciated. Is military procurement the most fraudulent thing in government. In the UK, we've spent billions on a small tank called Ajax that can't be used because it's so badly designed, it falls to bits. Kind of sounds like the F-35. I would say that the answer to that question is yes. We were talking yesterday, for example, about Fat Leonard. We only talked about it for a minute. But yeah, there is so much money, more than a trillion dollars every year in defense, defense spending, most of which goes to contractors. So, yeah, there's people are swimming in money and it's very corrupt.

I really wish we did our own, you know, that we built our own. We have a U.S. government plane builder and designer, U.S. government missile. Yes. I would do that if I were the president because this is an inherently corrupt practice. John, my father told me something that blew my mind about the way that these contracts were awarded. You no doubt know this. But like, so like normal corporations when, let's say like you and I form like John Ted Corp. And we want to buy like, you know, we want to buy some 10 fighter jets.

What would we do? We'd call Boeing and Northrop Grumman and we'd say, hey, we'd like this particular jet. What's the cheapest you can sell them to us for? right? That's what a normal person would do and what a normal company would do. But the Pentagon doesn't do it that way at all. They call up Boeing and they're like, we'd like to give you a $200 million contract. What can you build for us? And they're like, would you like maybe a car or a small car? I mean, literally, I mean, just the inherent nature of that is, I mean, if someone told me, Ted, we're going to hire you for $100,000 a year to produce cartoons.

How many cartoons can you do? I'd be like, one? I mean, it's like black and white, simple, one panel. I mean, because I'm going to do as little as possible to get as much of that money as possible. It's just the structure is inherently corrupt. That's literally, that's how you get the $800 toilet seat. That's right. That's exactly how it happens.

In the meantime, everybody makes a million dollars a year or gets a million dollar bonus and buys a giant mansion out in Great Falls. It's insane. It makes no sense at all. It's just, you know, I mean, and, you know, so obviously it's, yeah, I could go on. Okay, so let's, John, should we move over to, well, what, so what do we think about this Congo situation? It's just going to be like, sucks to be you in, in Southern Africa. Oh, well?

I think so. I hate to say that. But, yeah, I think that a whole. lot of people are going to lose their lives unnecessarily yeah yeah i'm not optimistic and obviously um you know i don't think either country can fight this to a to a victory right i mean agreed neither country's invading and taking over the other one agreed congo is bigger rwanda's richer so or more better organized we're better organized but it right um okay so i do want I'm dying to talk about this.

So Warner Brothers is in play. Netflix pretty much had a deal, had a bid accepted. The number keeps moving around, but somewhere between $72 and $82 billion for Netflix buying Warner Brothers. Then Paramount Skydance stepped in with an over $100 billion hostile takeover bid that I think it's going to be hard for major shareholders to ignore. I mean, that is a lot more. more money. But now it's coming out that the investors behind who are supporting, who are putting

up the cash for Paramount include the public investment fund, that's the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, the Qatar Investment Authority, and a new Abu Dhabi, also sovereign wealth Fund called the L. I hope I'm pronouncing this right, the L-apostrophe, LeMod Holding Company. And so I'm thinking, okay, so if the U.S. government is incredibly on a bipartisan basis, concerned and terrified of the cultural and technological impact of TikTok gathering private user data and propagandizing America's youth with silly dances, but, you know, because of, you know, being the fact that they have an ownership that is Chinese-based, isn't this the same or maybe bigger? I mean, you're talking about like these Middle Eastern entities that have very different cultural and political values from Americans coming in and potentially owning this giant conglomerate that will determine what movies and,

TV shows we see. And you and I both know those things have a tremendous impact, not to mention they spent a lot of time gathering user data just like TikTok does. And that's what Netflix did. I mean, Netflix's first big show was House of Cards, right? The US version of the UK show. But the way that that should, the reason that was the first show was because their data from streaming showed that, showed Netflix that people liked dark, noir like political. comedies and they liked Kevin Spacey. So they just smushed it all together, Insta hit, right? So we know that it's about the data gathering as much as it is about just getting the clicks.

Maybe more so. I mean, is there a national security interest here? I think probably not. You know, it reminds me, too, and I'm sure that you'll remember this, Ted. when Hillary Clinton first became Secretary of State, the U.S. aimed to sell AWAC's radar planes to the United Arab Emirates. My father was involved in that negotiation. And the UAE is one of our closest allies in the world. But then people started shouting, we're going to sell these sophisticated planes to those ARABs.

They wear cheats. they wear robes right and racism took over and so the senate blocked the sale of the a wax to uh to the united arab emirates now we ended up sending them a year later anyway but um you know people love to hate and uh i i don't think that the gutteries the saudis or anybody else that has trillions of dollars to invest are going to have any impact on our programming. I really don't. Just like I don't think that Chinese have any impact on our youth or on programming through TikTok. I think this is all a tempest in a teapot. It's made up a made-up problem on Capitol Hill. And I think that that Paramount or whomever happens to be involved should

just take the money and smile. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I just wonder if anyone on Capitol Hill would decide to try to make hay out of it. You know, sort of, you know, I wouldn't be surprised. Post-9-11. Sure. I mean, it would seem to me to be more of a genuine, if there's a threat, there's more of a threat here

than there is from China and TikTok. The Chinese government doesn't own TikTok. No. But these are Middle Eastern governments. These are governments. Yes. But they're sovereign wealth funds. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, that's government. Yeah. That's government money. let's or government control in highly government influenced money let's put it that way let me read an ad if that's okay um still haven't tried 1775 coffee now is your shot the 1775 starter kit just dropped only a thousand units although i think it's 999 because i think robbie has one you're getting

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stands for something, just like Rumble does. I'm still laughing about the complaint yesterday, John, about my reading the ads too fast. I noticed that you were markedly slower. Thank you for that. Yeah, I aim to please. So, yeah, so, I mean, what do you, I mean, so should we just, I guess we'll watch that.

I mean, one question, I mean, obviously we're not business reporters. But, I mean, I think that the paramount deal has the offer has to be taken really from a fiduciary standpoint responsibility standpoint the board pretty much should sell to the hostile takeover bid right i mean it's like you the money's so much richer they they owe it to their shareholders yeah i agree they owe it to their shareholders that's really what the bottom line is going to be yeah at the end i think it's going to be whoever ponies up the most money is going to get paramount plus Yeah. Well, we will see what happens here. We have a question from Gavin Breen.

Were the IRA ever on the CIA's radar? Well, that's a question for you, John. Not really. They were far more on the ATF's radar and the FBI because there were so many Irish Americans or Irish nationals in America that were involved in crime like drug trafficking. so that they could use that money to buy weapons and ship the weapons back to Northern Ireland. So it wasn't so much a CIA issue as it was FBI and ATF. You know, John, I remember in the 1980s when I was in college in New York City going to Irish bars in like the village. And literally they had a sign behind the, that said, behind the bar that would say 10% of all proceeds go to the IRA. way. Wow. And it was a state department designated terrorist organization at that time. There was a bar called Ireland's 32 in San Francisco. That was the same way. And they had

like giant posters of Bobby Sands and all the hunger strikers behind the bar. And they made very clear like, you know, we're all, you know, we're not just sympathetic to this cause. We finance it and we do whatever we can. You kind of got the sense. there might be some hard men serving behind the bar. Wow. Yeah. Wow. It's different now.

It's so different. My local bar, my local bar until fairly recently was owned by a guy from, this is not the IRA, but he was owned by a weather underground guy who had been on the lamb for years. And it was the same sort of thing. Like, he was one of those guys. He was very quiet, you know the kind of person who gives you that look like if you were a problem you would you would be suffering physical pain in a big way very soon i got a call day before yesterday from a guy who is on the run he is he's a former um navy enlisted man and um he was charged with multiple felonies for threatening his commanding officer and threatening the commanding officer's wife like very

specific threats who he was going to kill what he was going to do to them before he killed them that kind of thing so he was charged and then released on bond and just took off so he called me somehow got my number which i guess is out there on the internet someplace and asked for advice i was like dude turn yourself in making a terroristic threat big deal you do a year maybe two big deal going on the run is not get it over with it over with just be done with it yeah i was gonna hide the rest of your life yeah i used to be friends with uh the the woman who uh was the who wrote the book that became uh orange is the new black and oh yeah yeah yeah this was before so she had got to follow each other on twitter she had gotten

in a piper she'd gotten in trouble uh you know years earlier like at least eight years earlier um and uh with drugs and she'd been swept up in the sort of this money laundering thing. Long story short, I remember she was just like, the feds haven't told me when I have to report. She was in touch. She wasn't doing anything wrong. But it was just sort of like she kept hoping to stay out of it. But in the end, the best thing was ultimately when they were like, it's time, come in and do your 18 months or whatever and get it, just get it out of the way. And that's when, you know, she wrote the book based on her experiences. She did, she ended up doing less than a year or less around a year because of good behavior and stuff in a minimum security camp.

Connecticut. Look what she turned it into in Connecticut. Yeah. Yeah. No, I knew she was going to do that. She's a very smart woman. Okay, very quick question. What do we think about Bronzes, designated the council on Arab Islamic relations as a terrorist group?

We've got a minute. Yeah, he doesn't get a vote in what, what's a terrorist. group. I have friends who happily contribute large sums of money to care every year. He's irrelevant now. He hates being irrelevant. And so he's trying to get himself in the news again. All right, guys, we're out of time. And I totally agree with that, John. We'll be back tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with me and Manila Chan, except Robbie West will be filling in, so things might be a little spicy if we talk about pedophile priests and stuff like that. Who knows? Thank you to Star Runner for gifting a subscription

to the D2D program and becoming a monthly supporter at the same time. We'll talk more tomorrow about how you can call in on Friday. See you later. Bye John. See you tomorrow. Go-bye. Thank you.