DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Jeanine Pirro in Trouble with Trump over Reflecting Pool Cases | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• Trump summons DC’s US Attorney Jeanine Pirro to the White House, saying that she had “choked” when she undermined Trump’s narrative that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the work of vandals, and dropped charges against those charged with “vandalism.” She has not been fired, nor did she offer her resignation—yet.• The world ablaze: Aaron Farinacci, a 37-year-old Spokane resident, is arrested for arson related to the Old Trails Fire, which sprang up on Saturday alongside two other major fires. The fires, which began in the Spokane, Washington, area, have burned more than 8,000 acres and remained 0% contained. 65,000 people were under evacuation orders. Hundreds of structures, including homes and businesses, have been destroyed. Three lions die of heatstroke at Tama, the largest zoo in the Tokyo metropolitan area following a severe heatwave, up to 40 degrees Celsius in recent weeks. In their natural habitat in Africa, the animals are accustomed primarily to dry heat.LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning. It's Election Day in Michigan and several other states. It's Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. You're watching the program with Ted Raul and Jermal Thomas, or you're listening to it either way. Thank you very much for joining us. We're here every Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time. Plus, we do a Q&A show Mondays and Wednesdays at 12 noon. So the next Q&A is tomorrow. Thanks for those to those of you who participated yesterday. As always, please like, like, follow, and share the show so that we can continue to grow. Please put your questions in the live chat if you are watching live on either Rumble or YouTube. And, you know, before we start things out, JT, I've been, I think you probably, I don't know if you had a chance while you were on the air to see the chat, the telegram chat, but I posted the real clear politics latest polls out of Michigan for the Senate race between much watched between Abdul El-Said and Haley Stevens.

Current average, currently has Saeed up by 10.2% on the average over since July 8th. The latest poll, July 28th to 29th, Mitchell Research, up 14, Emerson, up 15, Tavern, whatever that is. They do that

at bars, I guess, up 10 points, adultery and research, up 16 points. The last time that Stevens was in the black here was the Detroit News poll taken July 8th to July 11th. And at the same time, all this happened, I mean, national media is already kind of doing the what happened here in Michigan kind of dance that, you know, they're kind of admitting it already. And the DNC admitted that they kind of hid that missing chapter. It was like their 18 and a half-minute gap for those of you old enough number one. They omitted a chapter from their 2024 autopsy of their defeat to Donald Trump.

And it turns out that what's in there, and I thought this was super interesting, guys, was because I'm fascinated by generational politics. I wrote this book on Generation X called Revenge of the Latch Key Kids back in the 90s. And Gen X is like a big thing for me. But anyway, I was really interested in like one of the big, the main takeaway from the missing chapter was that the Democratic Party's leadership has a generational disconnect because of their generational wealth, as opposed to the younger voters that they need to get to attract into the party. That's all code for basically boomers be loaded and everyone else be poor.

and especially, you know, millennials, and really not so much millennials because they're going to inherit from the boomers, but especially Gen Z. And, you know, Gen X, as usual, is not talked about. But Gen X is the first post-war downwardly mobile generation. So we feel, you know, we feel you guys in the younger generation, we get it. And, you know, if we were in charge of the DNC, none of this shit would have happened. But anyway, I just thought that was super interesting, right? It's like, it's a class analysis out of the DNC. Barely a class analysis, though.

Sort of. I mean, because it, meaning there are implications to it that they seem to be yada yadaing away as opposed to, well, that's just a class divide. Well, that's just a divide because boomers, as you point, boomers be loaded. And they see the world through a particular lens. You know, like when the Trump administration, the people in Congress are like, yeah, everything is going great. For then there's a very specific audience that there's a very specific audience that they're talking to. Other rich people, the world is great. Hell, other people who are, let's say, in the upper Miller class, the world may be absolutely great. But your problem is that many

people who are growing up today don't see that pathway. Like this is not the 60s, this is not the 50s. This is not America where we're at the dominant stage of our economic growth, where, you know, homes have cars and they're going on vacations and this is not that. This is not the classics. This is something else. And, you know, people like Sayyid or people like who call themselves socialist or whatever. They're speaking to that in a way that the upper echelon finds threatening because it sets to, meaning they got rich off of a model, the current model. They don't want that to change. And a younger generation that is saying this doesn't work for us and we're not supporting you because we don't necessarily see how you are supporting us.

This is kind of what I mentioned, would I make the argument like voting for the Democrats are still voting in the wrong direction? Like you may consider the Republicans bad, but it doesn't mean that the Democrats are going to get you to where you want to go? And the younger generation is seeing that. And so, yeah, I mean, they can say it in those terms, but what they're annoying or what they're ignoring in the way that they're making that point is we got rich off of the system in the current system. We function and do things based upon that because that is our not just ideological view, but that is the way we view the world. The younger generation is not growing up in that context. They're growing up poor and vulnerable.

and their vote according to those they view the world. Yeah. So, I know, it's good. I think that there's another part of this because you're right. People are growing up for. We talked about that yesterday. No. But here's the thing, though, because of social media and cell phones and stuff like that,

people are able to see that there is not a dime available for you for health care, for education, for just improving your quality of life, even, even, even, 2% like every two every two every year you're supposed to pay 2% more for whatever it is that you need while your wages either shrink or stay flat if you're lucky yeah meanwhile we are what at war with 11 different countries we are oh and officially israel yeah yeah there you go and so listen me as a right winger a right wing Christian I would have voted for the Muslim guy if I'd lived in Michigan and the single issue The only issue would be the giant welfare state of Israel sucking off the tit of every American taxpayer.

That's what he's been pounding away at. Meanwhile. He's not even talking that much about, you know, the horror of the genocide. He does talk about it. But his main point is why are we spending billions of dollars to finance that at the same time, this horror at the same time that, you know, Michigandans and other people, are suffering. America.

Meanwhile, no, yesterday after the show, I'm not going to just on the front because I want to docks myself. So, Kizzy, she had major surgery back in February.

I got a $5,000 bill. That's all. I was going to say, that's like you've got a discount. Surprise is that cheap? Oh, I fought it like hell. But I mean.

But it's still a lot of money. Yeah, it is. It definitely is. And so it's just like, I mean, you get, you get,

You get nothing. You're in a country with a $7 minimum wage, right? Yeah, that's some shit. Before taxes. My uncle got sick in Canada. They did the surgery, sent him home, and he never got a bill. Think about that. Like, countries do that.

Yeah. Like, I was in Europe. Look, I'll take this anywhere, everywhere that I traveled for the last year, when I was going from place to place to place. And I would stay in one place for a couple of months, another place for a couple of months, etc., etc. I had to pay for treatments all the way through, meaning every place that I went to, I had to pay for dialysis in each location. And if I was European, I wouldn't have to pay any of that. Like, meaning that stuff would have been covered. You probably didn't pay the inflated,

you know, American rate, right? Probably it's more. Well, I paid their rate. Like meaning, if I was in Malaysia, I had to pay the Malaysian clinic. I think in Malaysia was 80 bucks. By our standards, that would be a bargain. Well, in the sense, States is 400 on the low end for treatment. And that's assuming that you even get it that way, because usually they don't even give you a price. It's, they don't price it in the way that they do in other countries. Like in other countries, I can go and say, okay, I want to pay for treatment. And if I was in Africa, like in Kenya, I could go into a hospital or say, hey, I would like to pay for treatment. And they would set me up for Vietnam. I think it was 60 bucks. It depends on

where you go, the amount that it costs. The point that I'm making, though, is if I was a European, that cost would have been just absorbed. Right. I was sitting, look, I would tell you this. I was sitting in Cairo once in a hospital. And the guy comes in and he was like, hey, would you like a cigarette? So him and I are smoking. And as we're smoking, he turns out to be German.

And he says, how much are you paying for this treatment? And I say, I'm paying $2.50 for it. And he says, oh, God, I don't know why you guys do hospitals like that. He says, you realize my government is covering my costs. of this treatment. Oh, even overseas. Even overseas. Yeah, I mean, in this country, even if you are fully insured. It doesn't matter what gap is overseas. Yeah, like my, okay, so my insurance, for example, you know, is in a different county than I live in because, you know, because there's basically in my county where I do live, I kept my old address, you know, for the medical insurance

because I don't have, because there's literally no plans in my new county and there's no doctors, there's no doctors to see, right? So I, so when I want to see a doctor for anything, you know, I get on a train and I go two and a half hours. And I'm lucky. That's a pretty good plan. That's, that's not bad. And if you leave the state, forget it. Like, I mean, it's ridiculous. It's in the same country. You know, if I happen to be like in New Jersey and I collapse in the mall, sucks to be me. I'm basically uninsured, even though I'm a New Yorker. That's insane. It's insane. I mean, you know, and young people are pissed. I mean, old people have had this beaten into them because, you know, we've lived with this shit our entire lives,

and we don't know that anything ever can or will be done about it. But young people, fortunately, don't feel that way. They think it's fucking stupid, and they're right. And, you know, And so they're, you know, they're pissed. I mean, I think that's the great, I mean, thank God. I mean, for this. By the way, put that in the context of being $40 trillion in debt, like, meaning you don't have these. Look, it's one thing if you're $40 trillion in debt, everyone had health care. It was magnificent.

High speed rail. Free college. Free education. Okay, you look at that $40 trillion and be like, well spent. Yeah, we ran that. Yeah, we went. We have a Mars base. We ran up.

He ran up that bill doing some cool shit, right? Yeah, yeah. That's not what happened. That is the opposite of what happened. Yeah, we ran out. I mean, yeah, we ran up that bill fighting wars, and now we somehow don't even, we can't even fight wars anymore because we're out of,

because we're out of weapons, which, thank God, but still, I mean, what the, it's, I mean, thank you yourself, what did you get out? Like, what did you get out of the Iraq War, Iraq and Afghanistan? Afghanistan took itself back in 20 years, and Iraq hates your guts and wants you out. I mean, what did you get out of it? You can say we've, you know,

we got a certain level of control of the Middle East, but Iran is just showing that that's not really true. Now, Iran currently owns the Middle East. I think that's pretty fair to say. So, yeah, all right, well, let's do some comments, and then we got to talk about get this Janine Piro thing out of the world. Yes, I saw that. All right.

Oh, well, here's it. We'll just get it out of the way because here's the first one, F you so. Why does Jeanine Piro always look like she's about to blow someone in disgust? I'm not going to... What? I don't even know what that means. I can't know if someone in just...

Is that what you're saying? Why did she look like... Okay, well, I won't fuck you, but I'll blow you. But I'm not going to like... Yeah, no, it doesn't sound like... Yeah, it's like, thanks, but no thanks. I mean, I'm as much of a fan of a blowjob as anyone, but still, yeah. I don't know.

I'm curious. Pardon? It makes me my curiosity. Well, I mean, Janine is, she is Italian, and they are spicy. So, okay, so, I mean, all right, let's talk about Janine Piro. So I thought this was an interesting story. Janine Piro is the U.S. district attorney for the district of Columbia, the cop of the country, Washington. She was, which is not really, by the way, a great promotion from where she was.

She was a host on Fox News on the Five and other, and I think she was. she appeared elsewhere on Fox. I don't know really why she took this job, maybe just like, hey, when your president calls, you have a duty, I don't know. Of course. But anyway, I mean, look, I believe that, although, you know, going to work for Trump, it always ends in tears. So she takes that job.

Trump demanded that the, that the city, that the DOJ charge this Olympic dude and three other people with vandalizing the DC Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, which was falling apart and basically, you know, in a rush job for the 250th anniversary, bits and pieces of the blue lining were peeling up, and the algae blooms came up like gangbusters. I'm just going to say the algae bloom,

probably there's not much you can do about, given just the fact that it's D.C. and it's been a hot summer. But obviously the, the contractor that Trump hired was sucked and did a shitty job. And also, while the thing was dry, Trump and his married band of fools drove with their giant SUV Cadillac Escalade over the reflecting pool, on the reflecting pool.

Yeah, they drove on it, not next to it. They drove through it. And so there's considerable evidence that, you know, It's Occam's Razor, right? Like, almost certainly, because the line of, like, where the line, like, tore, this big 250-foot or yard or whatever it is, gash that broke apart, it lines up perfectly where the president and his motorcade throws, like, a bunch of imbeciles. So, anyway, the point is they probably fucked up their own reflecting pool. This Olympic guy, he saw a piece of plastic. He picked it up, like, you know, he's walking along and it's like, oh, look at that.

And anyway, he was arrested by the, by D.C. Metro cops, charged. I mean, what a fucking embarrassment for the country. He was no question innocent, right? He didn't. Trump accused him of being a terrorist and of slicing open somehow, waiting through hundreds of feet of water lengthwise in like, and wading through the algae bloom to slice open the bottom. I mean, like, okay, that didn't happen. And couldn't. have happened. And anyway, it went all over social media. Three other people who were less notable than this guy who'd won, who'd been in the Olympics, were also arrested. Janine Piro used a media dump last Friday to quietly drop all the charges. And in the filing papers, said, yeah, actually, not only did they not do any of these things, actually, we think it was the contractor who's just sucked and that the thing was falling apart. Trump's furious. And he, he, called Janine Piro on the carpet and said, you know, what the fuck? And he said, this is his favorite thing.

Like, she choked like a dog. He always says that. She choked. The judge was having no part of it. She was going to have her ass ream to her. I mean, she might have been brought up on charges, right? I mean, like, if she hadn't brought in his charges. Yeah.

So, so anyway, she didn't really have any choice. It was all bullshit. Look, kudos to Janine Piro. She's a right wing, right winger. but she's not so right-wing that she's willing to go all the way to the mat for Donald Trump, right? She did the right thing in the end, right? Yeah, she doesn't lose a license. She doesn't lose a license.

Yeah. I mean, look, these people honestly never should have been charged. They're all owed an apology. They are all owed, in my opinion, compensation for having had their reputation smeared by the president of the United States. To me, that's worth millions of dollars. I mean, the rest of their lives, when anybody Googles their names, they'll come up as having been arrested for, like, domestic terrorism during the 250th anniversary of the United States. So it's not cool. And I hope they should sue.

Slander. They should sue for slander and libel. They should. I don't know. You know, that's a hard road. Anyway, the point is, now she, basically she has a target on her back. Trump's pissed. But she did not offer her resignation.

and she has not yet been fired. She may or may not be fired. But I thought it was notable because, you know, it's such a window into the dark soul of the man who is the president of the United States right now. I mean, it's kind of like, how fucking petty are you while you are, as Robbie pointed out, fighting this war, this war that now has 14 countries involved that you started, that, you know, you're you fucked up. global energy markets, six ways till Sunday, you know, the economy is slowing down. You've got a fucking midterm election that's going to be a catastrophe for you. And this is the shit that you're spending time on? And it's insane.

I'm going to do Gene Piro of a solid because I know she watches the show. Everyone in D.C. watches the show. So what you do is that you go, Mr. President, I understand you're upset, but let me explain to you why I'm doing this. reflecting pools are the dumbest thing ever. They are. There's nothing dumber than a reflecting pool. So what you do is that you say, Mr. President, here's my proposal. I've been talking to the Secretary of the Interior.

We're going to set you up two triumphal arcs at either side of where this thing is. We're going to fill it in and we're going to make it a statutory garden. And the first statute that they see would you go in is a golden statue of view in a toga, full Roman style full regalia on a stallion and then you'll be able to have all of your friends and statues behind you looking up at you

in awe since you sir are the God emperor if she did that she'd be fine just saying she'd be fine she'd be fine she did that Trump would be like that's a good idea that's a good idea it's like I like I look at thinking Janine

good thinking out of the box Well, I'm sure you've seen that statue of Constantine, you know, celebrating his day's a victory at Melvian Bridge. Do you use that as your model? Hell, you can't even just go to Italy and just take the statue or the Italian's going to do about it. Just, no, clean it up and just repurpose it and say, here you go. Mr. President, an authentic Roman memorial dedicated to you, sir, the son of prophecy. He's more like Nero's horse. Well, you can't tell him that.

Didn't he marry his horse or something? He married his horse. He didn't marry his horse. He appointed his horse as a consul. So the Roman Republic had two consuls. So he appointed his horse as one of the consuls. Some of the useless information that you learn in libraries. Yeah.

I don't blame him. I bet the horse did a good job. Probably better than Nero, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, too. Look, the Piro thing is fascinating. I mean, I agree with you.

It's not just petty. it's dominance in a way. It's like meaning reality doesn't matter. What I want is the thing that matters, even at the expense of human life. Because if Trump got what he wanted, those people would have been prosecuted for some shit that they clearly didn't do,

that the state knew they didn't do, and yet went for the prosecution anyway. I mean, Janine Piero was in the position, just like the people who Donald Trump was using to create the trials, claiming that the election was stolen, that there was massive fraud, and all of this stuff.

If you remember those people had to go to court and it was thrown out of court over and over again because ultimately they were blind. The catch is if you're in court and you try to push something that is obviously false, then you as a lawyer may pay for that.

Meaning Piro could have been disbarred if Puro is trying to convict people of something that they obviously didn't do just because Donald Trump told her to do it. It would have, like meaning the consequences could have been disastrous for her if she would have pushed it. It's just prosecution, right?

Yeah, militia prosecution. Meaning, the president of the U.S. wants to prosecute Americans for something that those Americans clearly didn't do because he was incompetent. Because he's personal animus. Yeah, it's a racist. And he's trying to distract from his own fuck-up. Yeah, but he's trying to do so by ruining the lives of other people,

which is, again, fucking outrageous. Yeah, there ought to be, I mean, to echo my inner Thomas, I think there should absolutely be a counterfeit. here. You know, there should honestly, it's an impeachable offense by itself. It's, no, is it? I mean, it's number 270 on the list, but it's definitely an impeachable offense to do. It should be a cost. Those people should go with the idea of going after libel and, and, what's the word I'm looking for? Liable and slander. Slander. Yeah, I even wrote it down. Slander. Yeah, they should. I mean, they should sue for it. It may be an uphill climb, but so what. At the

end of that climb, maybe a pot of gold. I mean, the president just basically called you a terrorist. Yeah, no, it's truly disgusting. Yeah, you know. There's got to be, there's got to be some attorney who would do this pro bono, too. There's got to. Yeah, believe in that they're going to get the pot of gold at the end. Yeah, totally, totally.

I mean, I know some attorneys who would do it pro bono. Darkwoods eat. I have clear memories of being in grade school and going home to an empty house. This is about the latchkey kids, letting myself in. and making a snack until my parents come home. Kids say they would not understand this. Yeah, I mean, that was my deal. I was a latchkey kid myself.

Yeah. Yeah, kids, because parents worked until at least five. That's right. And they weren't home until at least six. Yeah. Walk home. Go into the house. Fix yourself of something to eat, do homework.

Fire up Tom and Jerry. Yeah. That's a fire at Tom and Jerry. Well, in my age, it was Power Rangers. Inspector Gadget here. I was thinking of a guy. My mom, my mom got really smart,

and she would come in and feel the TV to see if it was hot because back then TVs got hot because they had tubes in them. And so I was like, so I started a process of keeping a wet washcloth in the freezer.

And the second I'd see her car pull up, I'd throw that thing on the top of the TV, take it up just before she walked in, worked every time. There you go. Success. That is hilarious. So she didn't want you watching TV when you got home work.

No, she was like, you should be studying, you should be working and doing her homework. But I mean, I did my homework, but I also watched TV. Right. Yeah, I was a kid. You leave me alone. I'm going to be watching those Star Trek reruns, those Twilight Zone reruns. I'm going to be, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, here we go. Michael, I've been boycotting all things involving the former co-host, even had to turn off Judge Napolitano last Friday. Yeah, Napolitano is, he's great, actually. I like Napolitano. Yeah. I've liked his work ever since he's left Fox News.

He's been very good. John D. Cackefeller, be quiet, Robbie. Sit down and pay your taxes to Israel like a good guy. Okay. No, no comment there. Yes, sir. I will. I'll bend over and take another.

Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Maybe if you can't be over for those Israelis, Robbie, be a bit rapy. The fact that we don't get insurance unless we're working for a capitalist master. I'm ready. If that isn't wage slavery, what is? Okay, let's see.

By the way, that is a version of wage slavery. I mean, you could, like, you can pick your plantation, but it's still a plantation. True. Yeah, it's like a company store, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, insurance, and that be tethered to jobs. Like, the idea that if I lose my job, I also lose my ability to get health care,

fucking outrageous. Matt, McCaden. What's more of a national embarrassment, not being able to break a country that's been sanctioned

for 47 years or not being able to fix a pool. A little bit of both. Yeah. A little bit of both. And they're related. Competence.

Yeah. It's your competence. One thing, J.T, and I'm curious about y'all's take on this. Because the whole reason why insurance got

wrapped up with jobs is because during World War II, FDR imposed wage caps. Like, you couldn't wage, you couldn't earn anymore. So what companies started doing as a way to kind of recruit talent, say, well, we will start paying for your health insurance in lieu of giving you a higher wage. That's where this all came from. Well, and his successor, Harry Truman, right, tried to push through national health care. And he was very frustrated by Congress. And then in the

end, they were like, well, as a stopgat measure, the compromise will settle on is employer-backed health care, but it's obviously not a workable long-term solution is what he said. And here we are. I mean, it's just not. Like, it's not even fair to employers. Why, why the fuck should employers have to pay for health care? Well, my question is, is it weakens employers. Yeah. It actually weakens employers. It's actually anti-capitalist. Yeah. Yeah, it weakens their capability of confronting other companies. Like, imagine if you're forward or if you're one of these other companies in the United States and you have to cover health care for how many people. Yeah, like, yeah, like, it's a lot of, Okay, other companies don't have to do that because those people are not tether to their health care from the same point of work.

That's why Uber has the pretense of, you know, nobody works for them directly. Well, my question is, is under what, under what authority, what power gives the federal government to tell a company I want to go work for you cannot pay more than this amount. Where do you get that power from? Go fuck yourself. Well, there's a minimum wage. Maybe there should be a maximum wage. Environmental situations. Look, environmental situations sets the context for.

the way a government responds, period. And meaning it doesn't have to be legal for a government to do something if it's necessary for the government to do something. Then that's not going to be consequences if it's deemed legal. I mean, meaning it's not going to be a consequence if it's deemed necessary. Legality be damned. That's always going to be the case. Because look, it's not about laws. Laws are just your guardrails. Those are the things that are trying to help a society function and keep it within a context.

But environmental circumstances are always going to matter more than whatever your laws Speaking of environmental circumstances, I mean, you know from Team Luigi, everybody, everybody hates the healthcare industry. Nobody is satisfied with Obamacare. I guess here's a question, right? Like this morning, you're hearing the corporatists say, well, the voters are going to have to choose between expressing their rage at the system or getting someone who can win in the general election who's more electable. I'm like, that's a bullshit false choice, right? Yeah, that's bullshit. But anyway, but the thing is, let's just say, you know, they're proven wrong, which would not shock me.

And then it's like, you know, DSAers or DSA or left-leaning DSA type people like Saeed sweep this coming fall and maybe in 2028. Will there be, do you think, a renewed push for a real, you know, single-payer health care system like a civilized country would have? It depends on how many people are in the Congress that are pushing for it. Like, meaning if they need a majority, they would need a majority. And they would need random. But there would be enough pressure, right? I mean, like, for Obamacare, there was enough pressure at the time to push that through. You know.

Because it was a presidential agenda, like, meaning Obama came in saying, I'm going to do health care. It's my number one promise. Right. Right. I mean, if you have something like that, maybe. I mean, it's far past too long. I've got to be honest with you. And the whole thing with Obamacare was, okay, we'll do this as a stepping stone.

He said that in 1948. I mean, come on. Yeah. It's been 80 fucking years. Truman's been, Truman died when I was nine years old in 1972. I mean, Jesus. And it damages our companies.

I mean, it makes our companies less competitive because they have this extra burden that they have to take care of as opposed to the state. And what's wild about it, you don't hear them bitch and moan about it as much as you would think they would considering, you know, as I used an example,

four versus a Chinese company. The Chinese company doesn't have to pay for health care. No. Well, I mean, I think honestly, this is one of the things that ordinary people have and workers have in common with corporate CEOs. There are certain things that you just have to live with that you don't expect will ever change or improve. And like for businesses, they have things like endless paperwork, ridiculous forms they have to fill out, you know, stupid regulations they have to deal with. And this is one of them, right? We have to pay for fucking health care for some unknown reason.

but here we are. But it doesn't work. Look, I'll tell you the situation I was in. I was working in New York, in Poughkeepsie, New York, at Cupid. I don't think Cupid still exists. I lost the job. I got to say, what's Cupid? That was the name of the company.

It was a software company that built a app kind of like matchmaker. But it was a version of it. Yeah, it was fun. It was a dating app. It was a dating app. Yeah. Okay. All right.

It was an interesting job. It was very interesting job. But I was a software engineer working at the company. And I got sick. I got very sick at the time. I forget what was going on. But I needed to go. I needed hospital stay.

Oh, I know what it was. My transplant failed. The transplant failed. At the time with the transplant failed, I had, it was three years, I think with Medicare. I think it's something like that. Where Medicare gives you a certain amount of time where they would allow you to remain on Medicare with a transplant. And then after the period of time is over with, they stop. meaning you no longer get Medicare.

And at the exact same time, I just so happened to lost a job. So you effectively have a transplant that is failing, no longer have a job, so you no longer have health care to other to the job. And the government's regulations comes into play, which means you no longer have Medicare. And so it's like, okay, you have a failing transplant with no healthcare insurance. Like, that shouldn't happen, right? Like that is an outrageous proposition. Yeah, we're like, oh, but don't worry, you can always get Cobra. Right.

$500 a month when you have no job. If you're lucky. Yeah. I mean, it just makes no sense. Well, yeah, or like, I mean, speaking of losing your job, right? I mean, I recently wrote about this, but in the United States, the most that you can get is as on, if you lose your job and your unemployed is about $500 a change a week. And you can get it for up to 26 weeks.

Right. So basically back of the envelope, you're. going to get about 30 grand at most, right? Probably less. I mean, really? I mean, most people are losing jobs that pay like 70, 150. I mean, it's ridiculous. What are you supposed to do after six months? I mean, oh, well, don't worry, you will surely have found a job by then. But what if you don't? You know, they just, I mean, they just don't care. DC was that way, too. When we lost a job that the network and DC was like, well, we'll give up to $400, I think, a week. And it's like, so, okay, that's $1,600. Okay, we were making more like, well more than that.

Right. Like it wasn't even, like it, it's like a small percentage of what you were making. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like people say, well, it's better than nothing. Sure. A dollar is better than nothing, but yeah, it doesn't, you know, has to pay bills. But it's like rent is more than what they are giving you for the money. By the way, like, again, I always look at France because I know more about it because I'm a dual citizen and my family's from there. But during the pandemic, one of the reasons that France was able to recover very quickly afterwards was because when they told everyone to stay home, they literally told all French citizens, like even if you were an independent contractor, even if you were a part-time waiter, whatever you did. They were like, just stay home. and we will continue to send you your full salary.

And people receive their full salaries from the government because the government knows how much you earn. What? So everybody just stayed home and collected their checks. And the French didn't even consider that to be like, oh my God, that's so great. They're like, obviously, that's what a government does in a rich country. Right.

That's the point. Duh, that's why we're, yeah, we're not in, that's why we're not in fucking Vanuatu, right? So it's like, yeah. And like, of course, you know, we're like, I mean, I guess some parts of the U.S. government are like, well, French are profligate and they're wasting money on their people. Okay, perhaps. But the whole French economy was able to turn on a dime and turn back on just like that.

And be like, they got the call. Like, all right, guys, work starts Thursday. Okay. See you there. And that's it. You know, so as opposed to here where you still have stores and business. businesses going under, we're still dealing with the repercussions five days, five years later. Yeah. I mean, those PPP loans effectively went to the richest people, not the people who they

were intended for. Yeah, that was all grift. Yeah, it was all griffed. They didn't have to pay those loans back. And yet for regular people, of course, it's, you know. Where the gopher tortoise Rome, the gopher tortoise Rome. I'm a biblical free market guy. I have no idea what that means. Capitalism is a Marxist word. That's true. capitalism is a Marxist insult. It's not like, and it's so funny that people, that like business people, I'm a capitalist. I mean, Marx would laugh. It's like, it's, but I mean, I guess it's sort of like, you know, lesbians being like, I'm a dyke. I mean. MC calling, the historical structural problems of the reflecting pool are tied to the swamp it's built on, literally how hard it is to drain the swamp in D.C. And, right like if memory serves didn't george washington like buy that marshland and sell it to the federal government like oh i don't know and so i think like george was like grifter it was donated by the state of

virginia oh was it okay okay but george washington by some standards would be the richest person who's ever you know like richer than bezos today like yeah he was he was a grifter like he surveyed what was then the western frontier then would send in you know botland and then sent in troops later to clear out the Indians bye and then like property values went up um Daniel bt s Obama said he was going to do a public option not Obamacare that's true he even he even mocked Hillary about forcing people to buy insurance yes he did I mean because I think they were in the debate and he was making the point of saying how are you going to force people to do so and so. I'm not going to do that. People can choose their doctors.

And of course, the moment that he gets in office, it's like you basically have Hillary's. And by the way, let's not forget, like the origins, right? Like Obamacare was Hillary clear in 1993 when Bill Clinton had his wife, you know, try to spearhead this move. But then it failed in Congress, especially after the 1994 Republican Revolution. And then before that, it was Romney Care, the Republican governor of Massachusetts. And before that, it was Heritage Foundation care because they came up with it. So it's always been a right-wing thing.

Yes, a free market, quote-a-quote, free market plan for health care. It was never a government option. It was never those things. Comment from maybe Bluth Funk, they pay you just enough not to drown, never enough to be comfortable. A lot of CEOs were pissed at COVID payments because now this generation doesn't want to work.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, there were a lot of people who were getting $600 a month for the first time a week for the first time in their lives. I knew some of them, and they were able to pay down some of their credit card debt that they were like paying just the, you know, the minimum payment every month. And people literally climbed out of debt. It was probably one of the biggest, thank you Donald Trump for a term, one of the biggest anti-poverty programs in American history in the last hundred years. It was great. I mean, and it's like, young people don't want to work. There's no fucking jobs.

Jamal, did you notice we're going to be talking about this with Mila and I are going to be talking about it on TMI, on TMI. But, you know, we can talk about anything we want. For the first time in American history, there are more women than men in the workforce. I saw something like that. I did see that. I saw that. It's not because women are doing great. It's because men are doing badly.

Yeah. What did change. I mean, yeah, this is, this is, I guess the question would be why. Yeah. I guess that's the question. So my feminism professor, Barbara Tishler at Barnard, I didn't go to Barnard because I'm a girl. I'm not a girl, but I took classes at Barnard because I went to Columbia. She, she had a really interesting take.

This was back in the early 90s. She said that, you know, one of the things about feminism is that it took, you know, you basically, this would be a Robbie point. It doubled the number of people in the workforce, which was a huge boon to employers because suddenly the balance of labor management shifted radically. And it depressed wages for the foreseeable future because now, I mean, obviously, if both members of every couple are now eligible workers, you know, obviously everybody's wages are going to go down. that weakened unions. It really led to, it helped contribute in a major way to this downward spiral that we've seen. I mean, look, employment is a zero-sum game. If a woman gets a job that I applied for, then I don't get that job, right?

And I sit at home on my ass. And I mean, so it has all sorts of social repercussions too, because, like, women are still socialized to think that, like, men should earn more than them. But obviously if they're ambitious too and they're working in the workforce, that's not realistic. I mean, over time. But things change. I mean, but it is realistic over time. Yeah, but your society has accommodated the fact that the world changes.

Like what are women supposed to do? Just stay in a household and I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that. Which means by definition, they're going to be in a workforce. Right. No, I mean, and I don't think, you know, Professor Tishler was arguing that, that women shouldn't be, shouldn't work. I mean, there she was working.

Right. So, and, you know, writing books and stuff. I think the argument was more of it like this change, this emancipation of women, this liberation of like divorced women to go and work. That it creates, it has economic and social consequences that. society probably needs to consider and think through and like maybe address and do nips and touch and that we didn't do that and so you know men are downwardly mobile and and they're giving up hope and you know and they're basically sitting sitting at home playing video games and and drinking cheap beer and while and you know getting addicted to you know to drugs and

and basically waiting to die. I would be curious about the jobs that the women are predominant in in that study, like meaning of a high-payment job. Women still earn less than men, right? So that's also part of the downward spiral. Women are cheaper to hire. Like, for example, in my industry, in print journalism, you know, one of the big things that happened as print journalism,

you know, started circling the drain was that editors would fire old white guys who were making, you know, in their 60s, who were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in some cases, and replacing them with, you know, 26-year-old, you know, recent graduates who often female, sometimes people of color, and they were like, oh, this is fantastic. I can pay this person $35,000 or $50,000 a year. I mean, that's literally their thing.

When I sued the LA Times, my lawyer told me about this age discrimination, lawsuit that he was currently, that he was doing. And he was representing a guy who I'll call T.J. Symers, because his name was T.J. Seimers. And he was a sports writer for the LA Times. He was in his 60s. He was probably like my age now, like 62. And that dude was probably pulling down close to $300,000 or $400,000 a year as a senior sports writer who'd been there since he was like 25 years old. And he was a really revered sports writer. Anyway, they decided like budget cuts like, hey, let's get, we're going to reply, we're going to fire TJ, and then we're going to bring in a cheap guy. They found some, they decided to replace him

with like a 30 or 35 year old, like Latino dude. And when they did discovery, they found internal communications within the LA Times where one person, when they were like, okay, are you ready to fire, you know, are you ready to fire TJ? And one of the editors said like, hey, you know, about the replacement, do you have your spick ready? Oh, that's gross. That's literally how they are. So literally a lot of the change, a lot of the quote unquote improvements that we see

of like, you know, making history, like first woman this, first black that, a lot of it is evil capitalists. It's just basically like lining their pockets. They're not hiring these people for the same salaries as the people that they're kicking out. They're not, they're just fucking greedy and they're operating under them under the cloak of woke.

If they were, if they were woke, they'd be paying them the same, but they're not. I know, but all companies function on the basis of how to maximize their profits. Sure. Like, I mean, it's, let's say that the person was 20 in white. They still would have paid them 30,000. Like, meaning they still would have cut costs by saying, we're going to get rid of the guy who's paying 100,000 to, in order to bring in the person we could pay 30,000 to. It sucks because you would think that that, that. 60 or 70 year old person who's been doing that job for all of that time, that there will be some

relationship created, some level of trust between the two. But I don't think capitalists think that way. At least I don't think they do. I mean, I think that they look at it, how can we maximize our profit? Totally. And we can do this without hiring a person. We will. The moment that you can get a AI to write a sports rundown, then they're going to hire the computer to do it. 100%. They're going to totally do it. They're just like, hey, we're going to buy this product. This product is going to be the sports writer.

And that's what we're going to use. Yeah, it's like in my, okay, so like the model that I came up of age as a cartoonist, right, was a typical cartoonist working out a job at a paper where he got like, say, $80,000 a year plus benefits. And then he syndicated his cartoons. We used to call that beer money. Like you'd sell, you know, they would syndicate them out for 20 bucks a week to per paper, all over the country. Then papers are like, well, why am I, you know, I can get cartoons for like $9 each, right,

or $20 each. Why the fuck am I paying Ted Rawl, you know, $80,000 a year plus benefits? I'll just, I'll fire him and buy his cartoon. Okay, and everyone did that. But of course, then nobody's paying the cartoonists anymore. And so the cartoonists have to decide, can I work for $20, just the beer money? and then the whole model falls apart because everybody's thinking, well, someone else will pay Ted Raw a full-time salary, and nobody does. And I mean, this is just one example of how they do things in the workforce.

But it's the opposite of the Henry Ford thing, right? Like, I want people who, you know, build Henry Ford, who will, who buy, you know, build Ford motor vehicles to be able to buy Ford Motor Vehicles. Exactly. He's thinking of himself as being part of a broader economy. They're not. They're just like, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, doom loop. Yeah, it's a spiral downward. No, I agree with you. Yeah, we, I mean, France has laws in place that you can't just fire people randomly, right? No, no, no, no. Every, there's no such thing

as employment at will in France. Everyone has an employment contract. And if you're fired, if you're fired, you have to be fired for cause and you have all sorts of redress to prove that you shouldn't be fired for a crop for cause. You are, you're entitled to all sorts of hearings in front of various government entities. And it's actually, employers say, I mean, I have to be fair here, right, and say the, and mention the other side, employers complain about it and they say it makes them very reluctant to hire because if they hire someone and they don't work out, it's hard to get rid of them. And that, you know, unemployment is persistent long-term unemployment is always a problem.

And if you're in your 20s and 30s in France, it's hard to find work. So that's the, you know, that's the trade. Yeah, the side of it. Yeah. Maybe blue funk, interesting on that point, economist Acamaglu, I don't know, Asimaglu, estimated that men's wages went down by 10% when women entered the workforce. So not devastating, but still not good. It's probably true.

Yeah, I can see that. I think it's an ongoing trend. And what Tishler told me, told us was that men's wages just, I mean, women's wages did not really go up so much as men's wages came down to match them. Interesting. Well, think about this. Immigration. By the fact, by the way.

Of course it is. Totally. I mean, I think about this. And this is me making this stuff up. Go look at the census data. In the 50s and the early 60s off of a single income, you have a working guy working just as a mechanic, working a dairy, whatever, able to get married, have a crap ton of kids, have two cars and a house off of one salary.

Now you can't buy a house with two people working full time. And people just take their kids to like Yale. And so people need to take a big step back and see why. It's because wages have been decimated. Doubling the workforce was great for the corporates. it was not good for the American people. It was not good for the American family. It's not good for the birth rate. Western Europe is going to that right now. Japan is on a doom spiral. South Korea is basically in suicide. The Chinese are figuring this out right now. Their birth rate's going down. Too much. This is the Ron Rand Paul thing about inflation too. Yeah. I mean, you know, stuff used to be like 10 cent for I don't know, groceries. Well, it's because we destroyed our currency and that destroys the currency. And that destroys the. a purchase of power of everybody. Yes.

And then to take it a step further, just because someone's able to dangle this big old carrot in front of you saying, you don't have to be dependent on this other person to provide you a home. You can go get your own money. The question has to come down at the end of the day, though, is my life objectively better with all of this freedom to build to earn my own money that ultimately buys less than whenever I got married and was able to have kids? Is life better now than was before?

I don't think so. Well, it depends on who you're talking to. If I need to be dependent on... As somebody with... Who is prone to issues of independence. I mean, you talk about myself. I could be neurotic in regards to issues of independence. I don't want to be dependent on anybody.

If I'm being bluntly honest with you, I would like a cabin in the woods where I can be left to my own devices to do what I need to do, meaning I don't want dependence. And I would imagine if I was a woman, I would feel the... exact same way. Look, my mom was, my mom was absolutely like a case study. Like she, you know,

she, an immigrant from France, came in 1961 to marry my dad. And then they got divorced. You know, she was divorced by the time I was five years old in 1968, right? So I remember her growing up, right? She, she, when she went, she told me that when she went to her lawyer to talk about getting, you know, divorced, he had to do the dutiful thing. Like, you should just know, you know, you're going to be poor. You know, this is going to be, you're not going to be able. You won't be able to get a credit card. You'll be able to get a house loan. It'll be very hard to find a job. You know, are you up for this, right? Like, this is a good lawyer, you know, kind of warning you. So it's like, just so you know what you're in for. And she obviously

pressed forward. The point is, because society was changing and she was able to, you know, this was an era when, you know, Levi's didn't make women's jeans. You know, my mom bought men's jeans when she wanted white hip hop or augers to look like Jackie O, right? This was like, you know, she was able to go back to college, get her college, get her degree, get a job, and then within three years, went to her landlord and said, I want to buy this house, I don't want to rent it. They said, okay, she'd be the first person in the neighborhood to own her own home. She was able to, you know, she bought her own car. She was independent. I don't think that would have been possible in the 20s, 30s, 40s, in the same way. I mean, obviously,

people got divorced back then and some people made it. But it was much harder. She was living in a period where, you know, women's liberation was real. And that emancipation is really important. We do have to talk about climate change stories. Let me just say this, and I'll go away. As a whole, corporately, there's always going to be exceptions to the rule, granted. I'm one of them. But can anyone objectively say that society as a whole is better now in 26 than it was in 1960? I think it's possible to have added women to the workplace. Well, for many, you're asking a black guy, by the way. Yeah, you answered a black person. Hey, you think life was better in the 60. No, I don't think life

was better in the 60s. I think the United States was a aparthex state in the 60s. If you're white, fair enough, just kind of like, you know, South Africans, white, South Africans. Africans say, yeah, life was much better when Africans were, you know, in the heel. No, I don't think it was better. I don't think it was black homeownership higher. Was black homeownership higher more at the height of the high of the jury pro that is now? You asked me a question. I'm answering.

Yeah. I don't think it was better for women. I don't think it was better for gays. I don't think it was better for blacks. No, I don't. As a fact. Was black homeownership higher in 1920 than it is now? You believe ownership is the end all be all of all things in a society?

If you're generational wealth, absolutely. Because you're going to have an asset to pass down. I don't think that the fact that Black Wall Street existed and it no longer exists, the fact that you had a huge amount of African Americans who were pushing for liberation and some level of freedom to be considered to be a human being and a man. Yeah, I think it was worse, if you're asking me. I don't think the fact that, quote, black ownership of homes is the end all be all of all things. I mean, the fact of the matter is that your society has slid in a particular direction

that might have nothing to do with civil rights and may have nothing to do with women's liberation. As you pointed out, the currency has been depreciated and devalued. That's a true thing. That makes homeownership difficult in general. That has nothing to do with black people owning homes in the 60s, which means the 60s were better for blacks. By the way, white homeownership is lower now too, right?

Yeah, it's a slide in a particular direction that has nothing to do with this emancipation of blacks or for this manner, the emancipation of women. I submit to you and I'll go away. And I encourage you all to think about this. The welfare state did what slavery was not able to do. The welfare state did what Jim Crow was not able to do, which is to completely destroy the black family.

So many women, white, black, purple, I still don't subscribe to that. They marry the government, and the government is a horrible father. The whole conservative. Dependency theory. And they steal your money in the form of taxes, blow it on everything else. You get nothing. The corporate barons get everything they want.

Meanwhile, families fall apart. And you're told you don't need no man at home. That's what they were told. It's a societal pathogen. That's where I stand on it. Yeah, I think that's absurd. But okay. Listen, we should talk.

We should debate that when we have more than five minutes left in a show. I do think the whole, look, it's a widespread chivaleth, right, on the right, that like, you know, the welfare state created, you know, dependency, especially among people of color, although most people on welfare are white. So I don't know how that really squares. I don't believe that at all. I think it's done more to lift people out of poverty than anything else. But, I mean, look at COVID. As we were pointing out, the COVID thing and the money that was sent to the people for COVID. Okay, you can make an argument that that's a welfare state.

that welfare state helped get people out of poverty. And you can look at Europe. Europe is all sorts of welfare states. Yeah. They're not. You know, it's like the father. At least you have a fucking chance. You know, Colin Powell came out of those housing projects.

I mean, you know, okay, if you so, men can still earn profits for the state by going to prison. Thanks for the dollar. Maybe blue funk. Guys, let's just say women added an additional one time, one X to the labor force. AI will be 100x. So women are an issue, but tech will replace all. We had decks coming, decks in consulting with replacement by function. True.

Okay, listen, we have four minutes left. I do want to talk about, like, climate change related stories. We have these wildfires in Western Europe. Tacoma, Washington, which is usually a very, like, moist place, right, the Pacific Northwest. I'm sorry, have you seen the photos from Spokane? I have. It's, like, cleared out. Terrifying.

65,000 people currently evacuated, hundreds of homes and, and, you know, businesses and other buildings destroyed. Robbie out there in Montana, he's seeing the, he has the orange skies coming from those Washington State fires. They've arrested a dude. I never believe these arrest stories. They almost always turn out to be bullshit.

But they've arrested a dude for arson. But I thought the weirdest story about all this like Earth on Fire shit was in Tokyo where they've been burning up, right? the thermostat's been pushing 108 degrees. They had four lions at the zoo in Tokyo die of heat stroke. I mean, lions are from Africa, okay? Obviously. Those lines weren't socialized in Africa.

Those lines were air-dress. Yeah, those are Japanese lions now. They fucking died of heat stroke. They had to close down the exhibit. The others are in distress. There's eight more. Yeah, they said it's the humidity. They literally, the zookeepers literally said, well, you know, it's the humid.

They have dry heat in Africa. They're not used to humidity, too. Spray them with water. Put them in an AC. Like, why are they leaving them out there? Like, this is like people leaving their dogs outside. Bring them inside. You're right.

Bring them inside. Yeah. What do you do it? It's like, all their lines, they can handle it. And then they fucking die. Yeah, let's keep it, make, let's keep it spicy. Bring them into the metro. Oh, that'll be.

That'll be interesting. Japan has one of the best metros I've ever been in. Oh, yeah, it's gorgeous. Yeah, they're fantastic. It makes sense. It's intuitive, all that stuff. Hell of a walk, but it's intuitive. No trash can.

I mean, when, so is there ever, TTV, I think we'll ever get to a point where we're going to take climate change seriously? Or is it just going to be like, huh, that's on fire. Oh, look, that's on fire. Oh, look, that died. I don't think we will. If I'm being honest with you, I don't. No, like, in order to take climate change seriously.

seriously, people, you need to deal with people's material conditions first. Like, meaning my life needs to be set. I need to be less stress. I need to be able to take care of my kid. I need to be able to do this stuff comfortably. And then I start caring about other things. Like then you start looking around saying, hey, we're going to be here a while. The world is on fire.

Maybe we should do something about it. Yeah, maybe. At that point, I don't think people care. This is like West Virginia. What time is, I'm sorry. This is like West Virginia, where West Virginia initially voted Democrats, but then they started going after the coal industry. and obviously you're going after people's jobs.

And what did people say? We don't care about the stuff. I need to get my job. Yeah, that's right. It's the same way for everybody else. You deal with people's material conditions that you can do with climate change. But you can't do with climate change first when people are poor.

So tomorrow, you and I, I'll see you at 5 o'clock to pre-do our taper. And as for everyone else, we will see you guys back 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. That's Eastern Time on Wednesday. We're here Monday through Friday. TMI show with me and Manila coming up right now. For the mischats, who we did not get to, we will get to them tomorrow. There's a couple of them out there. Our apologies for that.

I take the blame for all of that. No, that's my fault. I straight up went into the racial culture wars, being a white man, daring to lecture a black man about the ills of the welfare state. Don't tell a black guy. Everything was awesome in 1960. I'm not saying that it was awesome. I'm saying that society as a whole, if you care about generational wealth

and being able to provide for your fucking kids, better back then. That's the argument that I'm making. All right. We'll talk. I'm sure it'll come up again. Bye, guys. Jay T's like, I was crazy. He's crazy. He's down at his mind. Bye, guys. See later.