DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Jordan Is Next | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • The “alternative homeland” – the notion that Jordan should become the Palestinian state – is rocking the Hashemite Kingdom, following Israeli measures to register swaths of the occupied West Bank as sovereign Israeli soil. Mamdouh al-Abbadi, Jordan’s former deputy prime minister, says: The fear in Amman is not just about military invasion, but about making life in the West Bank impossible to force ethnic cleansing into Jordan. • Senate Republicans are under increasing pressure from the hard right to do whatever is necessary to break through a filibuster and ram through the Save America Act on a simple majority vote over Democratic opposition. • Last year, between 200,000 and more than 1 million immigrants in the United States stopped working, according to analyses of Census Bureau data. But as immigrants left, unemployment for native-born Americans jumped to 4.7% in January from 4.1% a year before. That not only exceeds the overall unemployment rate of 4.3%, but also the 4.6% rate for foreign-born workers. Removing people from the country led to fewer workers and fewer people to buy the goods and services those workers produced, argues Stan Veuger, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Plus: tariffs and AI are having a depressing effect, and low-wage employers are refusing to pay more.

Happy Wednesday, 8th, February 18th, 2026, you're watching Deep Program with Ted Rall and John Kiroaku. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. Good to see you. Likewise, welcome back to stateside. No, I'm still in Dubai, buddy. Oh, you're still in Dubai. All right.

Enjoying that 51st, first floor view. Yes, indeed. And Dubai, Starbucks, and get this. The Crown Prince sent over two enormous boxes. of Dubai chocolates. Watch your weight, John. You can you bring that? You can bring that back state-side, right?

Will it travel or will it melt? Most definitely. Oh, yeah. Okay. I don't know how stable it'll stay. Well, it's good to see you. I'm glad things are going well over there. So today we're going to be talking about another big Middle East story.

Jordan is really feeling the heat. Normally a center of stability, almost to the point of being boring, but now they're really freaking out over there. Jordan freaking out is not something. I don't know about you, John. I'm not used to hearing. The Republicans are thinking of pulling a nuclear option

to pass this voter ID law. New unemployment numbers that we may want to talk to Robbie about that are super interesting. Basically, despite deportations, unemployment is continuing to go up, but I think it's a more complicated picture. Just a little follow-up from yesterday. Yesterday, we talked about this situation in France over the 23-year-old guy who was beaten

to death, allegedly by members of the La France and Sumis. We still don't know if they're really party members, but we definitely, they probably are. The police has arrested now 11 suspects in that case. In France, they tend to round up sort of extras. So I think what will happen here, because in the video, it only looks like it's about seven people who were involved in the assault. they probably will arrest the 11, turn the heat up. The French cops are not nice people.

They will beat them up a little bit and then get them to turn on their friends, and then they'll charge the six or seven, I think, is the way this is going to go. And I think we're going to find out they really are all leftists. So that's only going to turn the heat up in France. But I wanted to just provide that follow-up. Just a little business, please like, follow and share the show. producer Trent is asking me to remind everybody that we have the t-shirts available for sale. Everything is up and running.

So there's the URL. Just go to deprogram. That's d-eprogram. Dot live. And you'll see it. It's very self-evident. So easy a cartoonist can do it. Okay, I think that's it, right?

Robbie, do we have an ad? Okay. So, Robbie, if you want to pop that ad up, that would be great. And in the meantime, John, we can maybe answer a question or two. I want to answer a question. Oh, yeah, please. It's a good question. And I'm going to find it here.

And it is from no easy answers. John, big fan, love Dead Drop. Thank you very much. There are comments on all podcasts with former CIA officers that say, there's no such thing as X CIA. What are your thoughts? What are signs of controlled up? position. There are very few things that I hate more than when people say in the comments,

there's no such thing as ex-CIA or once CIA, always CIA, like these mental defectives have any idea how the CIA does its business. First of all, I find that to be incredibly intellectually lazy. They're going to say, I'm CIA. I lost my freedom. I lost my wife. I lost my children. I lost my pension. I lost friends and relatives who walked away from me because I'm secretly still in the CIA.

And the CIA is paying me to go out there and criticize them and call them all war criminals. You're playing the ultra long game, John. I believe there are so many genuinely stupid people out there. But there are. Yeah, I think they think that the CIA is like to say. see them tell Ed Snowden to his face. Once CIA, always CIA.

Or the sons of Philip Agee, who literally had to move around the globe constantly to avoid assassination from the CIA after he left the CIA. Or Ray McGovern, who has devoted his life to issues of peace and freedom after he left the CIA. So anyway, I fucking hate that more than pretty much

anything else that I encounter. Well, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. You by yourself are a perfect, are a shining example of how it doesn't. If you want to see, if you want to see like controlled podcasters, take a look at Sean Ryan.

I mean, you can look at a dozen different podcasts where it's clear they're just sort of spouting the CIA line. But not the anti-CIA people. Sorry. Thanks for that. Let's do this. Add, and then we'll do a... And then we can do that leftover question about the Constitution from yesterday.

Okay, here we go. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech, and now there's Rumble premium. An easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the platform, no pre-rolls, no interruptions, just the content you game for. Plus, premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos, behind-the-scenes drops,

and more from your favorite creators. Right now, Rumble is offering $10 bucks off an annual subscription. Just go to rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout. That's rumble.com slash premium promo code studio. No ads more freedom and content you actually care about. That's the deal. And just weirdly, if you just do the $5 a month thing, John and I get it all. But if you do the $10 a month thing, we share it with like everybody across the platform.

But you do you. If you do the $10, though, you get to see everything. So that's just, but, you know, that's what's going on. John, there was this question yesterday. Robbie, you have this question. So if you can just maybe about the Constitution. Yeah, is there. Sorry, I caught you while you're in the middle of swallowing.

Swallowing, laughing gunner, you may do that. No, it happens. No, it was a email that we got from a friend of the show. He said, hi, Robbie and Ted. I have a question for you and you, John, and Ted, in the episode titled Shutdown Scramble, in the episode, Ted says the Constitution is outdated and needs to be rewritten from scratch. John agreed. When John responds to Ted's comment, he repeats that he felt the Constitution was outdated.

My question is, why do you feel that way? And could you explain on why you feel that way? Right. John, you want to go first? Yeah. I think I went first last time. There are lots of parts of the Constitution that I think are either OBE, overtaken by events or need to be seriously updated. Do we really need the Third Amendment?

You know, I even saw a political cartoon the other day saying, you know, we've fought for the First Amendment. We've fought for the Second Amendment. Now it's time to fight for the Third Amendment. Well, the Third Amendment is that you can't quarter foreign troops in your home. Like, do we really need that? Although, I don't know, we might have to worry about quartering domestic troops in our homes. Right. I think that Supreme Court decisions over the decades have weakened the Fourth and the Sixth Amendments.

I think that they need to be rewritten and strengthened. I think the Fifth Amendment, frankly, needs to be strengthened. Agreed. And we need an equal rights amendment. A majority of a large majority of the states have an equal rights. rights amendment, almost two-thirds of, almost three-quarters, rather, of the states have their own equal rights amendments in their state constitutions. So, you know, and we've got an amendment. Can we get rid of the electoral college while we're at? Get rid of the electoral college. First

thing you do. Absolutely. Because it's not a democracy to have an electoral college. I would also strengthen the first amendment. Right now, it only covers you if you're targeted by a, by a public institution like the government. But you should be covered. Your employer should not be able to fire you because of something you say not at work. That's right. So you should be covered. The First Amendment needs to be strengthened.

Probably needs to include a federal shield, you know, a federal shield law type constitution. I would, if you're going to keep the second amendment, I would clarify it and define it to so that we know which arms are covered, which arms are not covered, make a distinction if we're going to between military and non-military weapons. But, you know, avoid, like, so we just can make things clear. Yes, I agree with all of that, Ted. I agree with all of it. I think the constantly, I mean, oh, and the most difficult thing is the amendment process is so complicated and so onerous. I mean, it's almost impossible to amend. And I think I would. I would also make impeachment, probably a lower bar.

It's too hard. We've had some really shit presidents. We've never been able to remove and convict a single one in the Senate. I mean, come on. We should, I mean, it should be easier. Let me thank Mike Cantu real quick. He says, John, I'd be happy to buy you a new webcam or WiFexender. Thank you.

It's unnecessary. This is my old laptop. I just grabbed it by accident when I left. to come to Dubai. I'm going to go home. I'm going to arrive home tomorrow morning. And, and frankly, I came into a couple of bucks this week. So I'm going to buy myself a brand new laptop and with a better camera. But thanks for thinking of me. Yeah. So that's good. Robbie, anything on the Constitution before we go? Just, well, I mean, we got to decide what kind of a nation are we going to be are we going to continue pretending that we are a federation of sovereign

states which is what we're currently doing now up until he's told trump decides he's going to get rid of the last power the states have which is voting right law which is voting laws or are we going to become a a traditional country like what you see in europe i mean the whole the whole reason i would prefer to have a parliamentary system um that got if we got rid of the electoral college then we'd be open to have multiple parties. But if you get rid of the electoral college, though, then what you're going to have is that you have three states who are going to decide everything for everybody else. No, no, no, no.

No, no. As it stands today, a candidate can win just 17 states and win the presidency. Sure. No, I believe. If we got rid of the electoral college, it would be by popular vote. Yeah, the population of the rural states is also increasing vis-a-vis the population of the urban States, right? California lost two entire congressional districts in the last census. That's a million and a half people. It's a very different country than the 13 colonies. By the way, just one side

thought I had yesterday that really kind of chilled me. I'd be interested in hearing what both of you guys have to say about it. So, you know, there's been a lot of speculation. We're going to talk about the Save America Act that the Republicans may be flirting with coming up with an excuse to cancel the elections, either this one and or the next one, in order to, because they know the results aren't going to favor them. I was thinking, you know, at first I was very focused. Everyone's focused on 2028, but I actually think if I were going to subvert an election, the one to start with is this one. For the simple reason, like, who's going to riot and mix it up with the cops violently in the streets over a midterm election that most people don't even vote in? Yeah, that's a good

point. Yeah, I don't know. I just, I do agree that the Constitution needs to be replaced. It's, it's outdated. It's for a different, it's for a nation that no longer exists. It's for a nation that hasn't existed, uh, it for over a century and the system of government that it's set up no longer exists either. And if you want to define like that's, Robbie, you always talk about like, are we a confederate of states or are we a, like a European-style centralized representative democracy, right? Again, the Constitution could clarify that, right? I mean, you know, for example, if there's a right to succession, it should be clearly enumerated in a constitution. Well, it is in the 9th and 10th amendments. I mean, here's the part that people miss.

The Constitution is a document of negative rights. It tells the, it's supposed to tell the federal government, this is precisely what you are allowed to do, no more, no less. we are so far beyond that that it's insane. Well, it's also ignored, right? Like while we're at it, let's clarify war powers, which, you know, currently is completely out of control. That's right. Yeah, well, it is.

Well, I mean, for example, the FBI, what does the Constitution give the federal government any jurisdiction whatsoever over law enforcement? I can't find it. Or creating a national police force. Yeah. not there. Those are the purviews of the states. Yeah, but Congress, in the, what is it, the late 19th century, very early 20th century, whenever it was, Congress arbitrarily decided that any right, not given states in the Constitution automatically becomes the purview of the Congress. Which is the mirror image of what

the Constitution actually says. Oh, yeah, I agree with you. I don't think the founding father's intended for for there to be an all-powerful central government. But this is the system we've given ourselves over the decades. No, I agree. And so like, for example, no, I imagine both of you all been to Europe. I never have. I'm a untravelled Philistate. I know nothing.

But I can guarantee you, at least from the commas of stuff, people in Europe, like, why do the states dictate voting laws? That's a national thing. It's because the system of governments are completely different. We were never set. The intention was not for there to be a strong, overriding federal system that dictates its will to the states. It was supposed to be the other way around. There were practical considerations for that, right?

In 1789, the United States was big and rural and hard to get around. And, you know, even France, although it's the size of Texas, still a much smaller country, right? So, you know, it's easier to make it centralized, although that didn't really happen until Napoleon. well also France had had a thousand years of history had a common language had a common culture I mean had a I mean less common than you might think you know cobbled together from a bunch of Dutchies and well sure you know and then you know of course they had the Brittany know and stuff I mean but the core of France though was French like you know you had a continuous history going back whereas no you know the 13 colonies you had this predominantly English you had Irish you had Scottish

people had their all different traditions. But I think geography was really determinative. Oh, of course it was. Yeah. Yeah. But the answer to the question, I think needs to be replaced. Okay. All right.

Thanks, Robbie. And I also think another thing, John, would happen. If we had a constitutional convention, just having the discussion would bring up things that you and I and Robbie and other people may not even think about. But there's considerations that people, you know, needs and desires that the American people should have the ability to err and maybe have enshrined in a new constitution.

Can you imagine, Ted, if there were a new constitutional convention, the overwhelming pressure that the drafters would be under by corporations, special interests. Insane. Israel, because Israel would want, you know, any criticism of Israel

equals anti-Semitism and a felony enshrined in the Constitution. Punishable by death. Yeah. No, it's true. I mean, yeah, the level of, that's part of the problem, right, is that, like, our politicians are so incredibly corruptible and purchasable for, like, low amounts of money.

And there would be so much, they would be overwhelmed. I mean, it would be impossible for anyone except maybe someone like a Rand Paul to resist. Wow. Yeah, no, that's impossible. All right, John. Let's talk about, I guess we're on this topic. Shall we talk about the Save America Act and then we'll get into the questions? So it turns out that the Save America Act currently has no chance of passage in the Senate unless they do the nuclear option and they say, okay, we're going to break through the filibuster, ram it through on a simple majority vote.

John Federman, the trader from your home state, says that he will vote for this. So basically what happens is you have to present a passport when you vote or a passport card, some kind of proof of citizenship, or you have to have your birth certificate, which, by the way, is the easiest to forge document in the world. Yeah, there's no picture on it. Mine's literally a card. You know, it's hilarious. And they're issued by a bunch of jurisdictions.

so no one knows what a proper one looks like. It's ridiculous. But you have to have a birth certificate. That's good enough. Or you have to have, but like for people who've changed their names, like women who got married, trans people, they have to go to court and get a document that says, I'm the same person who's on this birth certificate. Who's going to do that to choose between the crappy Republicans and the crappy Democrats? Nobody. I wouldn't.

It's like, that's not worth it. I'm not going to bother. No, I agree with you. So the point is this is a, this is a, this is a. This is not just simply about identifying yourself with a driver's license and saying, okay, that person is me. This is more than that. It's proof of citizenship, which is an entirely different animal. I think a lot of people who haven't been following this story don't really understand that.

I think if it was just identification, probably most Americans would say that's common sense. Okay, fine. But, you know, this is proof of citizenship. So, which most people just don't have, or many people don't have. Yeah, many don't. Many is a better way to put it. So let me ask you, let me ask you a question then. Go ahead.

In that context, in just about every European country, certainly every Middle Eastern country, I can't speak to Asia because it's not my area of expertise, but everybody's got a national identification card. Yeah. The Greeks, I think, were like the last in the EU because, you know, the church was against it. They said it was the mark of the beast. And then the EU, in all their infinite wisdom, began.

the Greek series with the numbers 666, which just made the whole thing, deleted by a decade. Seriously, I was living in Greece at the time. It was a catastrophe. Hilarious. So the Greeks finally got a national identification card called the Taftotita. Why are Americans so opposed to a national ID card? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think it's cultural, right? I mean, it's one of those things like the idea that you could, you know, like I don't know how it is in I imagine it's the same in France and in most countries.

If a police officer approaches you and demands to see your national ID card, you have to present it. You have to have it on you. You don't forget it when you go out to the store. And if you don't have it, they can detain you indefinitely until they determine your identity. You know, that I disagree with very strongly. And I watch these YouTube and TikTok videos every single day of what are called First Amendment auditors who will just go.

They'll wear masks. So all you can see are their eyes. And they're just standing there with their cameras mounted to a, to a stabilization pole. And they'll just stand like outside of a bank or outside of a police station. And invariably somebody loses their shit and they call the cops and then the cops come. There's some creepy dude taking our pictures. Uh-huh.

In about a third of the cases, the cops say, oh, you're in. on, you know, public property taking photographs. Okay, have a good day and they walk away. But two thirds of the time, the cops are like, let me see some ID. And the photographer will say, am I being detained? Yeah, for what crime? Suspicion. Oh, is suspicion of felony or a misdemeanor?

Well, we're going to see about that. It's like, no, cop. You don't know what a lot. Yeah, you just make stuff up. You cannot demand my ID if I have, not committed a crime, I'm about to commit a crime, or am in the process of committing a crime. Cops, in 17 states they can. In 33 states, the cops cannot demand an ID.

They can see, do you mind if I see your ID, in which case you can say, go fly a kite? But I'm opposed to giving cops the authority to demand ID. With that said, one of the things that never ceases, never, sorry, ceases to shock me is how few people actually carry an ID. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, that's for sure. You know, I mean, the thing is, I think it's a, I think the traditionally it's been the slippery slope argument, John. People are afraid that if the ID is issued, that it wouldn't just be used to make your life easier so that, you know, if you go to the social security office, here I am. If that's what it was, I don't think most people would mind.

It's actually, I mean, I like having my French ID parenthetically. In France charges you for a passport. It charges you for, you know, any travel document like that. It does not charge you for the national ID card. That's considered the French Supreme Court has ruled that it's because the state requires you to have it, it's, you know, they must supply it for free, no fee. And I think, you know, that's part of my argument against the Save America Act. If you're going to require something, it's basically an unfunded mandate, right?

Like if you want someone, if you pass a law and say you have to have something, then, you know, it ought to be free. It ought to be supplied by the, I don't think the government should even charge fees for, you know, any document. I feel very strongly about that. I think all mandated IDs should be free. for everybody. Now they'll say, well, passports not mandated, but I mean, come on. You should have one. So, like, you should. Everybody should have a passport. Everybody should have a passport. Everybody should have one. So, yeah, so I mean, what do you think? Do you think, I mean, the Republicans are obviously what I wanted to sort of get your thoughts about the politics here. It looks to me like the

the Republicans are really, really worried about this fall, like more than even we thought. and that if they're talking about pulling the nuclear option to get this through, you know, that shows their desperation because obviously it means that when the Democrats get back in charge, the filibuster will probably be dead. Yeah, it'll be gone. If the Republicans go to the nuclear option on this, it plays directly into the Democrats' hands. Just like when Harry Reid went to the nuclear option on federal judges. Yep.

the Republicans were like, thank you, Harry Reid, thank you, because we are going to screw you, but good when we're in charge. And that's exactly what happened. So Donald Trump is on record as being strongly, stridently opposed to the filibuster because it handcuffs him. And he's been pressuring Republican senators to go to the nuclear option, do away with the filibuster, because it's going to be great for Donald Trump. But then when Donald Trump's not. president anymore then there's going to be hell to pay for the republicans the democrats will be able to do anything they want anything at all for sure so uh yeah and i would say it's very short-sighted uh you know the party in power always thinks it's going to be like that forever as we've talked about may i add one

thing ted i've mentioned in the past i've got a friend who works in the white house and he told me and i think i've said this in the past this was about four weeks ago he said that internal RNC polls show the Republicans losing 40 house seats, 40 house seats. I had heard 30. In a best case scenario, the Republicans are going to lose 15. There was a piece in the Washington Post yesterday about Abby Spanberger, the new governor of Virginia, the former CIA officer. Abby, on her very first day as governor signed a bill into law calling for a special election to be held in April, that would allow the redrawing of district boundaries in Virginia in response to what the Republicans have done in Texas and Florida and elsewhere, North Carolina, Indiana,

not Indiana, they voted no. But anyway, you get the idea. It's currently six to five Democratic among, you know, congressional representatives in Virginia. Under the new Democratic, bill, it would be 10 to 1 Democrats. Donald Trump did this. He forced state legislatures to redraw boundaries. And the Democrats said, okay, you want to do that? We can do that too. They redrew New York.

They're going to pick up three more seats in New York. They are redrawing California. They can pick up five more seats in California. They can pick up four more seats in Virginia. Like, was it really worth it? Yeah. Once you pull up that string, the whole thing unravels. Exactly.

The whole sweater comes unraveled. Didn't we say ages ago that what the Republicans are doing is they're just re-implementing the 1980s boundaries, right, before Congress decided to redraw everything to make incumbents safe? So instead of having turnovers of 40, 50, 60 seats, which were not unusual, we're going to getting turnovers of three, five, you know, 10 seats. I love the law of unintended consequences. It's one of my favorite things. It drives history. Yeah, so we'll continue to follow that. Do you think the Republicans will do this before we move on, John? Do you think they'll pull, they'll, they'll resort to the nuclear option? I don't. I think John Thune, I think he's a good leader for the

Republican. He's a traditionalist. He's a traditionalist, and I think he's going to stand up here. and just be like, no. Okay, well, I hope you're right there. We shall see. All right, and we still have, you know, the jobs numbers and Jordan to talk about. But we should do some questions. Okay, so thank you for the five Canadian dollars on YouTube. If an electoral college isn't democracy,

what do you think of parliamentary democracies where 34% of the popular vote can form a majority government? well, it's a, it forms a, it forms a, uh, uh, plurality government, right? I think that's a democracy. What do you think, John? Yeah, I do too. Yeah, I do too. Um, you know, because, because I'm so familiar with Greece, I keep coming back to to Greece. Um, and you can do it in so many different ways, right?

You can have a parliamentary democracy that looks, that looks so different from, others. The way the Greeks did it was after decades of weak coalition governments, because there are so many viable political parties, you know, six, seven, eight viable political parties. What they did is they passed a new electoral law, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago, where whichever party is first past the poll, right, whatever party comes in first gets an extra 50 seats. So they can form a a majority. And they don't have to ask, you know, the conservatives are asking the communists to join with them to fight the socialist. And it's, you just end up with meaningless, powerless governments. But there are different ways of doing it. You know, and in the American context where, let's be

honest, just about every American is a capitalist. You can be sort of a social Democrat or a conservative Republican or whatever. But most of us are capitalists. So you're, you're a, you're a, you're a not going to get these extremes that we've seen in other countries. Like the Greek Communist Party consistently wins between three and five percent. And that's just enough to be a splinter in the butt of whatever party happens to have the working majority. That wouldn't be the case in the United States because we don't have a viable communist party or even a viable socialist party. Not yet and probably not ever. But yeah. firmware thanks for the two for harry reed a giant of the senate what i think john was being sarcastic

i was i was sarcastic i know i know i'll tell you what that literally the only thing i ever liked about harry reed is every single time i would go to a pete seger concert and i followed pete all over the east coast harry reed was in the audience that's bizarre he loved pete seger as much as i do or did. There are a lot of good questions today, you guys. There are. Let's get, let's get, let's let's, let's, let's, let's bang them out, John. Okay.

John, you know where that came from? Putin once since there's no such thing as a former KGB man. That's where these Dumbo's get that. That is absolutely correct. Yes. Uh, if you so, Kira, thanks for the $2. All, Kyriaku is really replaced by a cyborg like in future world.

I don't know what that reference is. I mean, I know what future world is. Three birds, one stone. Thanks for the $2. Interesting to know if you guys believe in divine justice and how all the bullying and killing the U.S. is doing and backing all over the world will come back on us one day, maybe soon. Well, that's called blowback, right?

Yeah. It happens sometimes, not most of the time. I would love to believe in divine justice, but I don't. That's exactly how I feel. I want to believe that karma is out there. But I don't know. Don't body doubles exist?

Wouldn't Mark Epstein, Jeff Epstein, right? Have incentives to go along with Mark Epstein? Mark Epstein. Have you seen the earprint of Epstein's body? No, I have avoided the earprint. I've not seen the earprint, but I talked to Mark Epstein about two weeks ago. And he's, I mean, he identified his brother's body. He said, Jeffrey Epstein's dead.

But his position is. is that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered. Oh. Yeah. That's my position, too. Daddy of Triplets, thanks for the 10 bucks. I live in Tampa. There's been a large and loud increase of activity in the skies coming from McGill Air Force.

It sounds like the military action is not too far away. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the Pentagon is preparing for the worst in Iran. I think that we should take these. pronouncements by the Pentagon and the White House very seriously. God knows they are out here in the goal. Are they going to handle that at the same time as Cuba collapses? Yeah. Be careful what you wish for. Yeah, seriously. James Kane, would a conflict between Israel and Turkey be the end of NATO?

Yeah. That's a good question. That is a very good question. An attack on one is an attack on all. We should give that thought. That's a good thought. worth writing about. Yeah, let's think about that. Let's come, let's come back to that like later in the week. All right. All right. We'll we'll cogitate on that. That's one of those things you have to have running in the background. There's also a question from Amman. He says that there's that there's fear in Amman about this concept of the greater Israel. Well, let's talk about that then. I'm worried about this. So basically, Israel is moving to fully formally annexed the West Bank. I you know, it's pretty much all but done, but now they're going to sell the colonists,

you know, Palestinian Arab land. And so I don't know, again, how that works legally when you don't have the original deeds to that land in the first place. I guess you just make it up and you stamp a star and give it on the top of the deed and call it a day, right? But so that means the Jordanians currently kind of like, if you look at the map, they have the West Bank as kind of a buffer zone between them and Israel proper. that will no longer be true. They'll have the Zionists right up on their ass right on the banks of the Jordan

on the river, right, like right up there on the Allen B Bridge. And, you know, that's making the Jordanians nervous. They think that basically the intent of the Israelis is to make life so miserable for the West Bank residents that they're going to, many of them, be pushed out and there'll be a migrant flow into Jordan. And we see anybody who watches Zionist propaganda online knows that that's the dream. The Zionists always argue there is a Palestinian state. It's called Jordan.

And they should take all the Palestinians. And we want all of historical Israel, as they call it in Samaria and Judea, for themselves. They don't want to share with the Palestinians. So normally a stable Jordan has been a. cornerstone of American foreign policy. And now it looks like the Trump administration isn't paying a lot of attention to the kingdom, right? And the Jordanians are getting fucking nervous as shit.

And if Jordan goes, I mean, that's a, I mean, that's a stalwart. I mean, that would be a real problem. It's hard to even know what would happen as a result. I'm genuinely worried about this. You know, there's somebody at my door. I apologize. Okay. Okay.

I will hold that thought. Let me see if there's like a, here, I'll bring in Robbie. So I have company here. Hey, Robbie. So, Robbie, let's talk about immigration. I know you have thoughts about that. No, never. No.

So new jobs numbers are out. last year between 200,000 and a million immigrants, that's a big range. So it's funny that that range is so big. But basically stopped working, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Either they got fired, they quit their jobs, or they were deported, right? But they left, but unemployment for, you know, people like you and I who were born here in the U.S. jumped from 4.1 a year ago to 4.7% this last month in January. That's not only higher than the overall unemployment rate of 4.3, but even higher than the 4.6 for foreign-born workers, we thought, and you and I have argued this at your side.

Oh, let me put John back on here. John, we're talking about the jobs numbers. And basically the idea is that removing, we would think that getting rid of illegal immigrants would open jobs for native-born immigrants. Americans and that their unemployment rate should at least stay stable. And anyway, it's the American Enterprise Institute, which is right wing, says that basically the deportations cause a reduction in demand. And since consumerism drives two-thirds of the economy, that has caused a surprising increase in unemployment among those of us who are, you know, native-born U.S. citizens.

Now, there are other explanations for all this, but what do you guys think? Well, I think there's something to that. Go ahead, Robbie. I think it just comes. I think that the big canary in the room is wages. Just because these jobs come open, if they don't pay enough, you actually be able to pay your bills, why would you do that? I mean, that ultimately is the issue is until labor is recalibrated to actually have real value. people are not going to take these jobs because frankly they can't afford to yeah i mean you i mean why would yeah but rob me the the same republicans who say what you say are the ones who were were bitching about inflation during the biden administration

and essentially threw all the democrats out nobody wants to pay $20 a pound for chicken but if you fire all of the ecuadorians who work in the chicken uh plants or whatever they call the chicken places, the chicken processing processing plants. And you replace them with Americans and you have to pay them wages that Americans will take that terrible work for. Nobody's going to be able to buy chicken. But how do we know? We haven't tried.

Biden tried in that he allowed prices to rise. If you raise, if you raise wages in order to attract Native-born Americans into those jobs that immigrants have right now, nobody's going to be able to afford anything. Yeah, but here's a difference though. I think here's probably the conflation, and this probably needs to be essentially its own episode,

maybe with Achilles. Inflation is the expansion of the money supply. It's not rising prices. Rising prices are a symptom of it. What inflation does is that it destroys the purchasing power of every dollar that's in existence because you're creating more dollars. So what do you do to combat rising prices then? the only thing that you can do is that you have to push wages up.

And that's the one thing. Pushing wages up doesn't reduce inflation. No, it'll increase inflation. It increases inflation. No, my argument is that it doesn't matter, that as long as inflation doesn't get out of control, as long as people's wages are increasing faster than prices, it's fine. Yeah, but that's the problem right now is that wages are stagnated. They've been stagnated for 20 years.

And immigration, is a key factor of that. There's a reason why both political parties want immigration. Guys, I agree that there's something else going on. I think that, like, this one-year-long experiment in mass deportations is, it's too early to tell, as Joen-Lai would say. I mean, you know, so if you're an employer who has a bunch of low-wage jobs that are going wanting because there's no one to fill them right now, Yeah, maybe right now you can hold tight, but eventually you're going to have to come to Jesus and you're going to have to pay more and hire someone.

Yeah, you have to. I mean, it's sort of like the housing market when the housing market starts to go down and then, but people who own houses don't want to drop their housing price. They don't want to sell at a loss and they just hold those prices and then no nothing's being sold until eventually people have to move and they have to sell. And then they just, but it takes a while. And not to mention also, generally speak, the tariffs and AI are having pushing, are pushing unemployment higher. I mean, I think we're slowly sliding into a very slow moving recession. I think we've been in a recession out for a long time. It's just the government's lying about it.

Well, we had a stagnant economy, but we have two economies. But there's a specific definition of inflation. It's consecutive quarters with negative economic growth. But you can't falsify those numbers. Well, I mean, for example, depending on where in the country is that you live, you could definitely be in a local recession. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I grew up. John and I grew up in local recessions. I mean, still in recession since the 70s. Yeah. I mean, go to Ohio. It's dead. Montana's toast. I mean, we're screwed.

Talk about those Californians who are leaving California. Yeah, I know. Those fuckers are coming here and they need to stay away. Yeah, if you would, and if you own a Dow index fund, you're a happy man. Yes, exactly right. Hey, Pam Bondi's happy. Look at the Dow. Look at the Dow.

Screw Main Street. Right. Seriously. I mean, is that the kind of government we want? I don't. Well, I think, again, politically falls coming. That's not going to help with those 40 seats, is it? Right.

I mean, the economy is not. I don't see any signs of improvement in the pipeline. the next few months. No. And it's not like the Democrats have any new ideas. No. No. They're just going to benefit because in a two-party system, when you're pissed, you vote for the party out of power. That's all. It doesn't mean we like the party out of power. It just means we're trying to express our anger here. That's it. But there is other we're mad. They just all care. Hey, I want to thank Sodon for his, for another $20. Sodan, you're so incredibly generous to us. Thank you.

And he's got a question as to where we think Epstein would rank as an intelligence asset. Was he better placed than the Cambridge Five, Ames and other foreign assets? And did he do more damage than Kim Filby? I'm going to take a first chop at that. I'm going to say the Cambridge Five were better placed because they were literally at the top of MI6. Ames was so incredibly well placed that it did lasting damage. Ames was the head of counterintelligence at the CIA for the Soviet branch, which later became the Russia branch, and 12 CIA assets were executed because of his treachery. And, you know, Filby, I mean, Philby was recruited in college and directed to join MI6.

and he became the deputy director of MI6. I think that Epstein has been damaging, but not like those guys. Those guys were damaging at historic levels. There is absolutely nothing I could add to that. And so I'm not going to try. Demwell, here in Cyprus, there are hundreds of aircraft using Andreas Papandrew,

Papandrew, Air Base. Appendrew, yeah, Air Base in Cyprus. Could this be the, Big preparation for the invasion of Iran, also a huge U.S. contingent in RAF Akrotiri. Yeah, the RAF, the British have just sort of lopped off this giant chunk of Cyprus and just won't give it back. But we wouldn't do a ground invasion. We would do, it would be an aerial bombardment campaign. And those are airbases in Cyprus.

Yeah, Akritiri is the British air base. The Americans also have an air base. Cyprus is also used as a site for evacuations. So if Americans need to be evacuated from Lebanon or from Israel or even Jordan, they're normally flown to Cyprus. You know, take that with the information that we just heard a moment ago about increased air activity over Tampa coming out of McDill Air Force Base with the second aircraft carrier battle group. steaming to the Persian Gulf. This is bad. You know, I'm watching CNN International all day long,

and they're saying that the U.S. and Iran came out of the second round of talks in Geneva yesterday and both said positive things. That's fine for today. But when the aircraft carrier battle group, the second one, gets to the region in the next 10 days or so, shit's going to get ugly. I hate to say it. Agreed.

And let's see. Okay, so Ish Mustafa, follow up from Amman. Are you hopeful of a peaceful integration of different Middle Eastern cultures? I've seen a vicious cycle of hatred here, which really perpetuates the regional issues. I agree with that completely. This is something that... Well, the question is, is there going to be a... Are we hopeful of a peaceful integration?

I would say. I'm not. I'm not hopeful of a peaceful. I mean, sure. Yes, I hope there could be a peaceful integration. I think there won't be. Yeah. And you know, part of the reason why no other countries want Palestinians

is not just because they've got this bias against Palestinians, which they do. But it's also because it gives the Israelis an out. And the Israelis say, oh, you're willing. to take Palestinians. Here, take more. And next thing you know, there are no Palestinians in Palestine anymore. Well, let's talk about that. You had to go answer the door when we were just starting to talk about Jordan. I thought this was a really big fucking deal. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I agree. This is a very big deal. Oh, and thank you for raising that.

There was a point I wanted to make when the Israelis and the Jordanians were negotiating their peace treaty decades ago. And they finally agreed. And they finally agreed. And they signed. The Israelis went to the Jordanians and said, listen, in the spirit of honesty and peace, we want you to know we've been incrementally stealing your land for decades. And what the Israelis were doing was at night, in the dark of night, they would move the border fence, like a foot at a time, just a foot, so that the Jordanians never noticed. But you do this over the course of decades. And they had taken something like 150 meters of Jordanian land that was now inside the Israeli border. That's fucking hilarious. And moved to the fence back. Yeah, it's nuts. It's like,

it's sort of like in the suburbs where, you know, there's no, there's no fence and your neighbor, you can sort of tell where the property line is because it's where people cut their lawn and they cut it a slightly different level. And then, you know, you notice one, one, one, one dude, he kind of goes six inches over the next time he cuts his lawn. And he's like encroaching. The next thing you know, he's up against the wall of the next house. Yes, it's true. That is fucking hilarious.

So they were working Zeno's paradox? Yes. All the way to Amon, they were hoping. Next year in Amman. Next year in Akamai. Exactly. They're just awful. Are the Jordanians raising cane behind the scenes?

Are they, you know, are they yelling at, you know, Rubio and saying, like, cut the shit? What are they doing? It's not in the Jordanian character to sort of fly off the handle. It's not. The Jordanians are very diplomatic. Yeah. They're very behind the scenes. They don't raise their voices.

They're the fancy ones. Yeah. If I were a Jordanian government official, especially one involved in foreign affairs or defense, I would be very nervous right now. very nervous because none of this is good news i mean they had they used to have a you know sort they used to have a uh what's the word i'm looking for kind of a working relationship with israel oh yeah what happened before peace yeah it's the israeli nature just to push and push and push until somebody finally pushes back hard they just never they just never never leave well enough alone.

Yeah, it does, that is their national character. John, the first time I went to Israel, I guess it was like they were trying to, you know, encourage Israel to become more of an international, like, tech country. And there were these billboards and TV ads that were encouraging Israelis to stop being so rude on the phone. And so they would be like, when you pick up the phone,

don't just say what. like say hello you know what can I how can I help you you know you see that in traffic in Israel too I have driven I've told you before I've been to 72 countries I've driven in almost all of them and I have I've encountered certainly worse traffic than I've encountered in Israel

I've never encountered rudder drivers like just driving with one finger out the window right or beeping literally the nanosecond that the light turns green, screaming at each other. It's like, what are you doing? Yeah, they're fucking maniacs. You're going to stroke out, relax.

Yeah, they're maniacs, totally. Yeah, and I've driven in some pretty wild fucking places like India and Pakistan. Yeah. Afghanistan. I love driving overseas. I feel like it's not to be missed any opportunity to get a rental car and, you know, get some strange Bulgarian rental car that you don't. know where all the, you know, where the horn is or anything. Yeah. It's like, I will not miss that.

And to drive a stick, it's the only way to stay in practice driving a stick. I learned on one. And, you know, now I don't have one and I miss it. Um, Ahmed by 9HU is asking if you're paid by cutter. Uh, no, but I would very much, uh, like to be paid by cutter. They have lots of money. If you know somebody you can introduce me to, I'm all ears. Yeah. And if there's any money left over after John, I'll take some to it. Okay. Great. John and Ted, have you heard anything about how Jermal Thomas is doing?

I've texted Jermal. Oh, good. I'll do this same. He seems to be, he's promising to be back on the air soon. He's doing better. He's recovering. I think it was, you know, basically he doesn't seem to think he's in great shape, but I think he's in better shape than he thinks he is.

I think he sounds better than he thinks he sounds. I think there's been like a loss of confidence since. is mini-stroke, but I think he's going to be okay. You know, I'm not a doctor, but he's on the mend, I think is the right way to put it. Do you know where he is, Ted? I think he's back home. He's stateside. He's back. He's near you. Oh, good, good, good. I'll give him a call when I get home. Cool, cool. Getting back to better, too, in all seriousness, I want to do this speaking tour of the golf in October, I would love it if gutter airways would agree to be one of my sponsors. So if anybody knows anybody out there, before I start calling in some chips, let me know.

Question for you, John. Have you ever been stopped by the Tuftiche in Kuwait? No. What is the tough? No. You know, when I'm in Kuwait, I'm always accompanied by somebody from the Kuwaiti government. I've never had any, I've never had any issues at all. What is the tough tish?

Is that the secret police? What is it? Yeah, it's kind of like the government police, yeah. Okay. So, okay. All right, let's see. What other? Oh, so let's see.

I guess, yeah, so I guess we, all right, let's see what other questions there are here. Oh, question from Ahmad. Why do you hate Riza Palavi? Because he's a clown and a pretender. And he, there's nothing Iranian about him. And he's from a family of thieves. And he's not very intelligent. And I can come up with a half a dozen other reasons why I don't like him.

You know, another, I'll tell you another reason. He fucked his brother's wife. And his brother was so upset that he committed suicide. And, uh, Don't kill yourself over a woman, never again. I can't. I can't. Let's talk.

God is asking, what do you think America's biggest strength is? Great work. Hope you get that pardon, John. That's a great question. It's a great question. I think it's our multiculturalism. It makes us a stronger country. Yeah, it brings in a lot of ideas.

And I agree with that. Ideas and concepts and industries from all over the world, different cultures. Monocultures tend to be weaker, I would say. But also, man, that geographic positioning is to die. You know, I mean, we have, you know, there's all these theories about like, you want north-south, big north-south rivers, not big east-west rivers like China has, because you can trade through different climactic zones. You want, you know, we're protected by two giant oceans to the east and west,

to allied states to the north and south. We're separated by thousands of miles of water. We have incredibly rich natural resources. Also, we haven't been sucking nutrients out of the land for thousands of years the way the Chinese have or the Europeans have. Yes. So the fact that it's a new, big, well-situated country counts for a lot. Yes.

Yes, I agree. Let's see here. Oh, sorry, I see that there's new comment up. Let me get it. Okay. I'm just spitballing here. Laughing Gunnar says, but you two should do a comic book release. Okay.

Okay. If only there was someone here who knew how to draw cartoons. I know, right? I sent you some pictures, by the way. Yes, thank you. I'm going to be drawing. Thank you. I will be drawing that.

Okay. All right. So I think we are pretty much. ready to wrap it up here. If we have one minute, I want to call your attention, Ted, to this Randy Fine, Representative Randy Fine, the newest member of Congress from Florida, Republican of Florida won a special election. He really stepped in it yesterday when he tweeted that if he had to choose between Muslims

and dogs, he would choose dogs. God. And then he doubled down on it. refuse to retract the statement. Democrats are just apoplectic about this. There's talk of censuring him, of impeaching him. He just refuses to back down. One of the more sickening aspects of this kerfuffle is that literally not one single House Republican said publicly that he shouldn't have said that. Quite a few chimed in on X. I've been following this all day yesterday. Sort of a lot of a lot of quote unquote mainstream Republicans agreed and like basically

they tried to spin it like don't fuck with our dogs man as if as if there was nobody should be allowed to own a dog or he was criticizing people who said that we shouldn't know it's not what he said no one ever said that we shouldn't have dogs yeah

yeah loser you know who else hated who hated dogs that was Thomas Jefferson and it is funny too like there were some Muslims on my feed who were like, you know, they are objectively unclean. I'm like, yeah, they eat their own shit. So yeah.

They do. But they are. But they're cute as shit. Anyway, so that's all that really matters. Oh, Dem will. Really quickly, Dem will. I'm going to be in Cyprus for 10 days in May. I'm going to speak in both Nicosia and wherever the Cypriot diaspora convention is being held.

10 days. Hope to see you. All right, guys. That's it for us here today. We'll be back tomorrow Thursday, 9 a.m. Eastern time for this show. Please stay tuned for a TMI with me and Manila Chan coming right up right now. If you're on Rumble, we'll just rate you and see you on the other side. If you're on YouTube, you've got to go look for us.

Thanks a lot. See you tomorrow, John. Ted, I'm flying in tomorrow. Okay, so are you, are you indisposed? I'm going to email you. I think I'm going to get back just in time for the second half. Okay, well, yeah, email me. All right, or text or whatever.

Okay, bye.