DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Make America Crazy Again | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • Trump caves in, reversing $2 billion in cuts to mental health and addiction programs after one day, after bipartisan pushback. • 75% of Americans don’t want the US to take control of Greenland. • Josh Hawley (R-MO) wimps out, and joins Todd Young (R-IN) in voting against a War Powers Resolution requiring Congressional approval for Trump’s war against Venezuela that they initially supported. • Elon Musk’s Grok AI will no longer let users virtually “undress” people.

Good morning. You're watching D-Program with Ted Roll and John Kirooku. It is Thursday, January 15th. Thanks for joining us. We have a little bit of housekeeping to do, which we will do in just a few minutes. Please like, follow and share the show. Thank you so much for your support so far. If you have questions, comments, et cetera, please put them in the Rumble or the YouTube chat. John, always good to see you. You're flying tomorrow. So Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune will be sitting in your place, but not filling your shoes. He will be also going to be talking to him about Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams in about two hours at 11 o'clock on the DMZ America podcast. Just breaking as we went on the air, Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in the state of Minnesota, which is a big deal. So shall we talk about that first?

Yeah, let's talk about that first. Great. So, Donald, we all know what's going on. in Minnesota. No need to recap that. I think there's some chance that he's serious here. And this would probably be, from his point of view, kind of a smart move because it just sort of naturally just progresses. And it just takes, you know, escalation is kind of his, he leads a movement, not a political party. And a movement has to move. A movement has to move forward. That's right. This would seem like a next logical step.

That's exactly right. And this is what everybody has been predicting for the past week or so. As soon as things really hit the fan in Minneapolis, people were saying he's going to invoke the Insurrection Act. He's going to invoke the Insurrection Act. And so today he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. So should we talk about what that means? Yeah, that means it gives him the right to send National Guard troops to put down any, well,

what he would call an uprising, what the rest of us would. call a demonstration in the streets. It's been done a handful of times in American history. And as much as we might disagree with it, he's perfectly within his legal rights as president to do it. But what it would do would be to significantly ramp up the level of violence on the street in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is not really known for, you know, it's not Portland, Oregon, for example. No. No, it's really weird. I mean, If I'd had to predict, like, where is the most likely showdown going to happen between federal troops and local, you know, spicy protesters? It would not have been Minnesota in January.

That's right. These are very calm, highly, very polite people to a fault, as we talked about driving skills. They're so polite that they refuse to pass each other on the freeway. Yeah. I mean, but maybe that's kind of what's going on here. mean, I would love to have someone from Minnesota chime in here. But it seems to me, like, my take is, you know, where politeness and courtesy is, you know, a heightened social value, people who are coarse and threatening and bullying really piss people

locals off. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You know, a friend of mine from high school, I mentioned this yesterday on the show, a really good friend of mine from high school lives just four blocks from the epicenter of this thing. And he posted a very long post on Facebook, just describing what it was that he was seeing. And it's, it's hideous, really. Ices out of control. They're beating people. They shot some dude in the leg yesterday. Shot a guy in the leg yesterday. I reposted it. It's been shared more than a hundred times already, just among our high school friends.

And the level of vitriol that this has resulted in, all this was was an eyewitness account. He wasn't making any kind of harsh judgment or anything. He's just saying, look, I live here. This is what I'm seeing. People went completely crazy online, which shows the divide in the country, I think. And it's only going to get worse.

It's not just ice versus versus. residents of Minneapolis now. It's ice versus the residents. The police are kind of on both sides, not really sure what to do. And now we risk the National Guard or even the military coming in. In the end, I mean, I think the police are kind of a crucial linchpin here. I mean, this is a big deal, right? This issue goes to something fundamental about what kind of country we are or what kind of country we want to be. Do you want to be an authoritarian? country with highly centralized authority that doesn't tolerate dissent. Do we want to be one that enshrines dissent? Do we want to be one that respects minority rights or not? This is,

this is, it's fun, it's about the constitutional separation of powers. It's about states versus local versus federal rights. It's about law and order as it's perceived. It's about what are you allowed to do in order to enforce the law? I mean, it's true that, you know, it's illegal to immigrate to the United States without the proper documents. I think the reason this is so, this is exciting such passions is it's so fundamental. It's literally about like our big capital F future. Yes. Yes.

That's right. That's right. And I'll tell you what, Ted, if this goes well for Donald Trump in that he's able to crack heads and the courts tell him, yes, you're able to. crack heads. This is not the end of it. This is just the beginning. We're going to have to have this conversation about Portland. We're going to have a conversation about Chicago. We're going to have a conversation about Memphis. This is going to spread all over the country. It will. I mean, this is going to feel increasingly like 1968. I mean, I was just a little kid, but I remember it

kind of well for a five-year-old just because it's when I learned how to read. My mom taught me how to read from newspapers, which is why I'm kind of screwed up. So anyway, all right, we're going to, let's bring in the production team here of Robbie and Trent. We have not, nobody's met Trent yet, but Trent's one of our behind the scenes people. Hey, Trent. So Trent, why don't you go ahead and you have some housekeeping to tell everyone. Then we'll have Robbie follow that up. Okay, so hello, everyone.

I just kind of run the YouTube channel and help Robbie out on the back end. and I just wanted to say that for the merch, I know we kind of announced that for the past couple days. The part in John merch is having a problem with being listed, so I had to email support for T-Spring, and I'm just going to wait and see how that works up with the original logo shirt that just says deep program with Ted Rall and John Curiacu.

You can still get that in the store, so it'll just be a couple of days too. You can get the part in John Kyriaku shirt. And I also wanted to say that there are two more days left, If you become a tier two member on YouTube, which is $10 a month, double-de-programmed, it's called. You will be credited at the end of every episode. And so if you want to do that, become a tier two member now.

Anything else? That's it. Sounds like it's about it. Okay, thank you very much, Trent. I have a question for you, Trent, real quick before you go, because it's kind of dove's tailed what I will be talking about. So YouTube is doing what they did to us a few months ago. We're trying to say that the paperwork on the back end is wrong,

and so monetization on YouTube is hung up. So long story short, at least as of right now, ad revenue is not coming in, and I'll be working with Ted on the back end. We're not demonetized, no. It's just hung up. Yeah. Gotcha.

So basically, long story short, from the viewer perspective, everything from what is that you're seeing should be fine, just depending on what, happens though. And we'll straighten it out. Please. No, we will.

I mean, it's just, YouTube is just doing YouTube things. And so if I file out a bunch of, or fill out a bunch of forms you got to do and tax stuff. But we already did that. So that's why it's weird. Yeah. Yeah.

They're asking for stuff we already sent. It did the same thing with the shirts. It made 10 different copies of the shirts. And it said, oh, people are buying one of this shirt and one of this shirt. And every single one you click, it would go to the same one. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, it is glitchy.

It's like obviously they don't have good coders, but it's not like they're owned by Google. Of course not. But anyway, long story short, we are working on getting these things resolved. There should not be any kind of a change for what is that you see on the front. This is a good call to action because last time YouTube did this, they did demonetize the channel for a little while. So if you all like to support the show, jump on over to Rumble. Rumble pays a lot better. And also, they don't try and rip our tongues out.

they won the debate. So come on over it. That was fine. And on Rumble, we can also accept Bitcoin if that's easier for you. It's very self-evident. Explain how to do that, Robbie. Yeah, there's actually a little tip button right there above the view screen. You click on it.

If you install the Rumble wallet app on your phone, if you are into crypto, you can then tip the show directly through crypto. And what's nice is that that way it makes it impossible to be demonetized and sanctions. longer hurt you. But please, please, if you're so inclined, don't, don't hesitate to donate on YouTube. We are going to get the money. Yeah, it's just going to take time. A little bit of time. Okay, anyway, all right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Make a little, what would you call this? A thank you. Gregory Badd, CFA, welcome to double D program. Thank you for becoming a tier two member. I will be putting your name in the credits for,

what is it, Friday? Yeah, that's the important thing. If you're a tier two member, you're going to have, you're going to be in the outro as credited as a supporter of the show. One of your, if you're a CFA. Don't do it if they hate you, if they hate us at work. Anyway, all right. Thanks, Trent. All right, Robbie, anything from you before we go get back to the news? No, pretty sure forward.

All right. Thanks, Robbie. All right. So, oops, I screwed that up. That's why producers are better. Okay, so. Can I add something? This is apropos, nothing, but my ex account was hacked.

I've been locked out. I have no idea what it is saying. If anybody, anybody out there knows an actual human being at X that I can reach out to, I would be forever indebted. I had one contact. She's no longer there. It just bounces back to me. And I could really use a helping hand. Thank you.

Yeah. Also, I would recommend that everybody tweet or X at Elon directly. about this, all at the same time. Please, thank you. He does pay attention sometimes. Okay, so, okay, let's do some comments, if that's okay with you.

Yeah. All right, John, this one is for you. Ali, why? We often hear about the need for police reform, does or did the CIA suffer from the same issues as the cops. If not, can ideas from that be implemented? I say that again.

So basically the idea is whatever are the problems with the CIA analogous to those? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure, sure. They can be. They can be. I mean, it's a little bit like apples and oranges, but yes, there's always a need for reform. Every director comes in thinking that he or she is going to be the reformist director. And it's it never works out that way because it's a big, heavy, old lumbering bureaucracy.

Now, I'll tell you where they need reform is following rule of law, which is obvious, but that's never going to happen. But in more day-to-day issues like sexual harassment, for example, which has been going on for decades. And now the worst possible thing that can happen to you if you sexually harass somebody on the job is you get a little slap on the hand in one of those famous strongly worded letters in your personnel file. But, I mean, there are sexual assaults that take place to CIA that are not prosecuted. And we know that because victims of those sexual assaults have actually filed federal suits in the Eastern District of Virginia. And nothing has come of them. We are going to be talking about our lead story, which last night, we always conceive a little bit behind the scenes here. We always conceive of the lead topic the night before so that Trent has the opportunity to create the thumbnail overnight.

Last night, our topic got kind of reversed, but that's okay. I can't let go of Make America Crazy Again as a title. I am going to take credit for that title. But anyway, Trump yesterday had announced $2 billion in cuts to mental health and addiction programs, but both Democrats and Republicans went crazy all over the country. So he reversed that overnight, so those cuts are not going to take place. We'll talk about that. And new poll from the AP, 75% of Americans do not want the United States to take control of Greenland, but frighteningly, 50% of Republicans are totally okay with it.

Josh Hawley, you know, has basically pushed out and joined his Indiana colleague Todd Young in voting against that war power's resolution on Venezuela that he supported. And finally, we did, I did, I'm going to take some, I'm going to take a little minor victory dance. on this. Yesterday when we talked about GROC virtually undressing people, and I said this is a code reversal that they can change. Well, it was a code reversal that they could change, and Elon Musk has ordered

that to be ended. So GROC will no longer allow you to make deep-fate nudes of people without their consent. Well, that's good. You know, I will say it seems like it happened quickly. It actually didn't happen

quickly because, as As you noted a couple of days ago on the show, Ted, there are already prosecutions in places like Malaysia and Indonesia and in individual states here in the United States. Yeah, well, it's been months. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, cats out of the bag for sure. Broda, can we talk a little bit about Romania and what's happening there? John, I'm not familiar. You're going to have to help you. I'm not either. I'm sorry to say. Unless you're talking about. the weakness of the government and the fact that they spent insane amounts of money to build the largest Orthodox cathedral on the planet to try to distract people from the weakness of the

government and the economy. That's the only thing I really know that's going on in Romania. It's another, it's another, something to read up on. Okay. So another question for you, John, from Bjorn. Have you ever been to Norway or dealt with the Norwegian slash Scandinavian intel agencies and do you know of the Arn-Treeholt story? Oh yeah, I know all about the Arn Treehold story. I will say that when I was working for, when I was working for the deputy director for operations, he used to brag all the time. I'm not even sure if I should say this.

He used to brag all the time about how Norway was the 51st state. He would come right out and say it, that Norwegians would do literally anything we asked them to do. And that if we were going to add a state to the union, it should be Norway. I had occasion to work at headquarters with Norwegian intelligence. And they were absolutely excellent. They were obsessed with Russia. They didn't care about anything else but Russia. There's good historical reasons for that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are. They border Russia. People don't know that Norway borders Russia at the very top up by the... And they border Finland, right? Which was invaded by Russia.

Yeah. So... Yeah. So, yeah. Although the Russians, I think... They invaded Finland not without cause, but... Yeah, sure. But anyway, all right.

So, let's see. Thanks for the 10 bucks, TNA gem. Have we followed what Candace Owens has uncovered regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination? The official narrative smells really bad. What's the likelihood that the CIA and the FBI is involved? I don't think so. In my own experience, that's just not a thing. Yeah, I don't.

Let's just put it this way. As far as I've read, there's no reason to believe that. I mean, I think that's the best way to put it. Venkatesh, why is Miami becoming an overseas base of Israel? I do not know the reference there. Oh, no, he's right. I'm in Miami right now. And I mean, obviously there's a lot of former New York Jews who live in Miami.

Besides that, something happened day before yesterday. It was in the Miami Herald yesterday where a woman in Miami Beach criticized Israel on Facebook. Nothing, no big deal, just saying, you know, Israel's committing atrocities in Gaza. The freaking cops went to her door to question her about her comment on Facebook. She ended up just slamming the door in their faces, which is what you're supposed to do. But yeah, it is actually, Rhonda, check this out. Check this out. Rhonda Santis signed a bill into law criminalizing criticism of the Israeli government.

He flew to fucking Jerusalem to sign the bill in the presence of Benjamin Netanyan. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's insane. I mean, what I would love to see, honestly, you know, you know those heartwarming stories. about how the, when the, when the, when the, uh, when Jews were ordered to wear the star in Holland and the queen and the king wore the star and encouraged all, you know, all, all, all Dutch people to wear the star. I want to see something like that in Florida. I want to see everybody go online and say, fuck Israel, fuck Israel, fuck Israel. Just like, just because and then send it to

Ron DeSantis. I mean, if every, that's what, you know, that's the kind, that's what resistance is. Yes. I mean, not to mention, you're protected. by the fucking constitution. Yes. All right. Ka Punk, hi Ted and John. Samira Moyadine was interviewed and talked about why are so many Iranians Zionists.

She said it's because of Khomeini and Arifat were close. And that's why Iranians hate Palestinians. Is that true? Well, but that used to be true. I remember when there were first bits of intelligence coming into headquarters saying that the Iranians were financing Hamas. we all said absolutely not possible. The Iranians and the Palestinians hate each other so much

that it's just not possible that Iran is financing Hamas. And then it turned out that, well, they both hate the Israelis more. And so, yeah, they've been financing Hamas ever since. Yeah, I think the solidarity between Iran and Palestine is pretty good. Let's see. Oh, this is a great comment. regarding Minnesota, Dr. Douglas Hower says,

Minneapolis has long been an activist hotbed. It's the home of the AIM, the American Indian movement. And let's not forget 2020, Black Lives Matter. It's one of the most inequitable states of the United States, which is saying a lot. And there's a lot of quiet tension. Well, of course, it's Minneapolis. Any tension must be quiet.

No, but that is super interesting. Let's see. $5 donation from Ray, thank you very much. At least you get 80% from Rumble. Screw YouTube. Thank you very much. Frasmataz is asking if either of us have seen one battle after another, Leo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, excellent director, it's Paul Thomas Anderson,

basically about ICE Gestapo, sort of like that Civil War movie, predictive. I have seen it. I saw it two nights ago. How about you, John? I have not seen it. So I'm going to disagree with the director thing. In fact, I even commented on how I don't like Paul Thomas Anderson, but it's totally true that it's a very timely film. I mean, it's, okay, so it's based on a Thomas Pynchon book.

So it is a, and it's kind of a sloppy director. So it's a big, sprawling, initially hard to follow mess. That said, you know, if you stick with it for about 20, 30 minutes, you'll end up being hooked. So try to get past the first annoying 20 minutes or so, and it's worth seeing. And it does do a great job predicting the militarization, the insurrection act, the brutality. It's a frustrating film. But, you know, if you have HBO Max, it's free. It's worth watching.

The acting is great. And it's also great to see Leo playing a role where he's a mess. he's completely out of control can't doesn't you know he's he he's fucked up beyond belief he's funny as shit and you don't normally see him that way he's normally very composed um even in the worst possible situations so there he is just running around uh you know running around in his bathrobe the entire movie um so it's it's kind of great uh in that way i know i don't know if i were on the rotten tomato meter i don't know what i would give it maybe seven 70, 65.

Can we get a, I don't talk to fucking cops from John K. I guess that's about a T-shirt. That's a good idea. I like that. Trent, take note. Okay. Tia Kiki, what are the chances ICE would be recalled off the streets of these sanctuary cities and states starting abiding,

but with federal law issuing detainers for the undocumented? removing them from jail is so much safer. I'm not understanding the detainers. Do you? No, I don't. I mean, I got to say, honestly, there's not going to be any real resistance until there's real resistance.

And until you have some state or city authority of some note willing to say, we are going to actively interfere with ice, like we are going to block roads, we're going to shut bridges, I mean, there's a lot of things they could do. They could kill the power to the city. They could interfere.

They could really throw down. I'm not saying anyone should shoot at anyone, but they could throw a lot of wrenches into the machinery. They could, you know, they could turn, they could say you don't have any access to our jail system anymore. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff they could do. Until that happens, this is just going to keep going on.

I suspect it's going to keep going on. The federal government is, you know, they have supremacy in the Constitution. I know Robbie just agrees with that, but they do. And they're going to be able to run roughshod over state and local government. You know, I don't think this stops until the American people rise up. I agree with you. I agree with you. And there's, you know, there's justifiable fear in doing something like that.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, these fuckers will shoot you. All right. F.E.O. How many days do we have before Israel or the U.S. attacks Iran? this weekend? You know, it could be, but if it is, it's going to be just pin pinprick attacks

because, like I say, all the time, we don't have naval assets anywhere in the area. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like it would be like the Israelis, for sure, like you said, John. Jones Jameson, thanks for the Fiver. What's your take on Abu Ghreb and the weirdly sexual sadomasticistic couple

that ran it? The photos feel like a BD. ESM dungeon. Yeah, they do. Yeah. It was the Stanford Prison Experiment, like, in real life. Yes, it was. You put these inbred, like, privates in charge of, you know, in charge of a prison section, and they just

fucking, they were bored and sadistic and horny, and they just went wild. I mean, the sexualization is kind of like not much talked about, right? Was it at Guantanamo where there were like menstrual blood was sprayed on on inmates and stuff. I hadn't heard that. Because obviously for Muslims, that's extremely distressing, as it would be for anyone, but more so for them.

And there were incidents where female guards allegedly kind of like basically were rubbing up against, you know, detainees and stuff like that. So there's a sexual, I mean, it's one of the side effects of having a co-ed military force. I mean, the women in the IDF are apparently very sadistic, and they also use sexualized forms of aggression and torture against male detainees in Israel. Yeah, that I have heard, yes. It's just psychology.

People, that's why you need controls. people are always just like, if they can get out of control, they will get out of control. I mean, you put them in charge. So, Teflon Money, Dan, why do we think that the second, Don, sorry, why do we think that the second largest U.S. Embassy is located in Lebanon? We'd love to hear your thoughts about this region. Thank you. It's my understanding that that is not the second largest embassy.

And we have embassies that are far bigger in Athens, in Kyrgy, in Baghdad all over the place. They're just enormous. The one in Athens takes an entire city block. All right. Well, so sometimes that's the best way to answer a question like that. Let's see. Thanks for the fiber from one Kyle.

I saw Abu Zabdaa got a settlement from the UK. Will that help with getting him released? Or will the scales remain as is with the U.S.? That's a great question. What do you think? I don't think it'll make any fucking difference. I don't think the U.S. I mean, it's a little bit of political pressure,

and I think another administration might take it into consideration, that it's a bad look. I don't think the Trump administration cares about bad looks. Yeah, I think that's probably right. I don't think they do care about bad looks. If they cared about bad looks, we wouldn't have some of these issues that we're so worried about today. And quite true. Before we take a few more comments, what do you think about this poll that says 75% of Americans do not want to take? It's very bifurcated, but 75% of the population does not want the U.S. to go into Greenland. 50% of Republicans are okay with it. 94% of Democrats are against it.

You know, first of all, why on earth would 50% of Republicans be okay with this? I don't even understand. But then on the other hand, 50% are not okay with it. Trump reads polls. We know he does that. You know, I mean... Yeah, he does. Is he going to listen? No.

I think that he's going to do whatever it is he wants to do, just like he says. All right. All right. Let's take more questions. Brunette's girl. John, when is your diary of a CEO interview? coming out. How does Barlett compare as an interviewer compared to others like Joe Julian, etc. Did you share any brand new stories there? Yeah, I had a brand new story at the very,

very end. He's a good interviewer. You know, I did my due diligence before I went on that show. He's a terrific interviewer. But much of the criticism of him and of the podcast is that he tends to interrupt. I didn't see it as interrupting. I saw it as engaging in a conversation. The conversation was very heavy on things like ethics and psychology, which was a little unusual. But it was good because I didn't have to just repeat the same stories over and over and over again. I enjoyed it. When I asked, I asked them in an email when it would come out and they said to be determined. So I kind of thought it would be out by now. But I don't know. I would. I would think in the coming couple of days.

Okay. Daddy of Triplets, thanks for the tenor. John, I ran back Zero Dark 30 last night. Were you involved directly or indirectly of anything of what was depicted? No, it was after my time. One of the reasons why I was so angry about that movie was that it perpetuated the lie that torture had something to do with finding Osama bin Laden. it didn't plain and simple it just didn't yeah that's i mean aside from the fact that it seems

it validates torture yeah it also is it's just a historical lie that pisses me off because these movies become the historical record most people don't read the books so i mean that's most people that will be their their their their their knowledge quote unquote about this incident yes frasmatas says to stanza that twice Randy Fine and Laura Lumer hired neo-Nazi groups to march and cause a hate crime ruckus helping find get elected. Laura shags them. Laura Lumer is a dangerous figure in present day politics. This is a woman who's been banned from Lyft, banned from Uber, banned from Target,

because she advances hate speech. she is not just one of the most Islamophobic people out there she she wears it on her sleeve and does not care I have nothing to add to that and I agree with every word

Tim Dylan two bucks thanks sorry if you so thanks for the two bucks Tim Dylan joked that these ice were backyard wrestlers yesterday now they get to wear a mask living out there, Lucha Libre fantasies, body slamming immigrants. I wish it was that cute. Yeah.

I mean, the thing is like, yeah, these are eight, you have to only be 18 years old. In some cases, they don't have, they don't pass a literacy test. They can't read or write in the English language. That'll be interesting when they have to fill out reports. Right. You know, they can't read memos. I don't know. I mean, these are unprofessional people.

and they're behaving unprofessionally. And that's, I think that's a, you know, it reminds me of the essay in the rise of Nazism. They were, you know, they were former criminals. They were thugs. They were street scum. And that wasn't like, oh, that's because that's all we can get. That's because, I mean, just think about it, John. If you hire someone and you give them, say, $120,000 a year and they're 19 years old,

and they're, what are you going to be if you get to be? if you get paid, if you're 19 years old and you're being paid $120,000 a year, grateful. And you do not want to lose that job. And you're going to love the people who hired you. And you're going to listen to anything they say. And not to mention, you probably aren't quite old enough to really start questioning, like, hey, no, I don't really have to listen to every order.

You know, you're going to be impressionable, young, and very grateful and loyal. That's, I mean, they're not going to hire 50-year-olds because they think for themselves. Yes. Agreed. Longtime listener, Southern Pride dictates that the states have supremacy over the federal government, including states' rights to white supremacy. Funny. Ray 2020, thanks for the buck.

Hold Jamal had a stroke, but he's okay and back in the States, glad he's okay. He posted a video yesterday. For real? That's what Ray says. All right, we'll have to reach out, obviously, after the show. If that's true, that's really, God, what is it with former Sputnik people? That's like, you know, that happened to someone else too. Wow.

Hope we're not next. Frasmataz, I forgot what I wanted to ask yes today. Did you all see the Rococo Fashion Dog Mask furry Ballroom Dance Party at Mar-A-Lago? No, I don't know what he's talking about. No, I didn't see. All right, more details, please. Fur-Fur. Hey, John, you once said that many presidents are sociopaths.

Many? You didn't say all? You have to be a sociopath. And rise to the top by climbing on the backs of others. Who do you think are the last presidents who really cared? Who really cared? I'm going to say maybe FDR or Harry Truman, maybe possibly John Kennedy? Yeah.

I mean, I don't think Eisenhower, I wouldn't call Eisenhower a sociopath. I don't think, I think he appointed a lot of sociopaths, surrounded himself with sociopath. He was a reasonable man. Yeah. I'm going to say, like, I mean, FDR, I mean, these are all flawed guys, but cared in some respect. I mean, like, FDR literally, you know, legally, diplomatically recognized Vichy France and not the free French. I mean, he's whackadoodle. But yeah, he did care. about the country, about the Constitution, all that. I mean, Jimmy Carter maybe in some respects cared, I'd say, about civility. Well, Middle East, he cared about the plight of the Palestinians to some extent. You know, I mean, after the fact, George W. Bush cared about AIDS in Africa a bit.

But like, yeah, really, truly care. You know what? I'm going to have to go for true. caring. I'm going to go to Teddy Roosevelt. I mean, I think Teddy Roosevelt genuinely was, in many respects, a humane person who cared about the plight of most people. I mean, I think that's right. Yeah, kind of go back a whole century. And this is the guy who started American imperialism. So, you know, it's all relative. Okay, good question. The logger jogger, not a lot of seasonal workers in Minnesota in January makes for a pretty high success rate for ice. There are other reasons why

Minnesota, Somali fraud among them, but I think this issue is underreported. So wait, so if there's not a lot of seasonal workers, wait, how does that work? Right. Like, I guess they're harder to find, but you get a higher percentage of the ones you do find. Is that, that's how I read that. I have no idea. I mean, okay. I mean, okay. So it's a, I don't know. Dark works. Guys, what's your honest solution to the illegal alien issue? Law wasn't enforced. True.

Millions are here. Also true. We don't know who they are. Also true or what they're doing. DHS and ICE is the great Satan. What is the solution? I can take this one if you, you know, John, if you want. Please.

Okay. Literally, control your borders. I mean, I'm not against a wall in certain places. We should guard her, but we should, we should, we should, we should, we can and should make sure that nobody crosses that border illegally. We should have a, we should have a border policy that most people can get behind. Now, for me, and I've talked about this elsewhere, if the unemployment rate in the United States is over 0.01%, then we shouldn't be importing foreign workers at all. We should be a welcoming country to tourists and people like that, or temporary

work when needed possibly, probably not. But I think, you know, we control our borders. We build walls where need be. If we need to have, you know, it's not really that complicated. I think if people who are already, I mean, I know that a lot of people like Robbie are concerned that if we don't, you know, use this opportunity to deport while we can when we have the political will, it's never going to happen, I would say once you're already here, and if you haven't been committing any crimes, you get to stay. But there needs to be some kind of assurance to people like Robbie that, you know, in law, encoded in law, like this is it. No more, no more amnesties like under Reagan, where it's like, oh, everybody who came in until before 1986 is now good. That's my take.

How about you, John? Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. Okay. It's not a coincidence, says Tia Kiki, that ICE is deployed to certain states and cities. Why? Because they refuse to follow federal law. Local law enforcement officers are required to issue detainers for undocumented people so ICE can remove them from jail. By the way, I have no problem with if you're here illegally and you end up in jail and they deport you, great. Why are we paying for you to be in jail or prison? I have no problem with that. You know, I've said this a thousand times. During the George W. Bush presidency, he negotiated a deal with Mexico where we would offer this temporary work visa to anybody who turned themselves in, right? You get a temporary nine-month work visa.

You have to pay taxes. And then you go back to your country for three months. And you have to just keep re-upping. You pay for this visa. you pay the taxes. And then it all went to hell when 9-11 took place. This is something I think we should have revisited years ago. And that way, you can crack down on truly illegal immigration and, you know, have the support

of the country. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing, right? I don't, I mean, basically, we've had a hodgepodge, you know, immigration policy where we go from basically making it almost impossible. to get in. And then suddenly we throw open the gates for years at a time and everybody just flows in. And we all know what this is about. This is about cutting wages for American workers. And it's like, and the American people, they know it. And that's what Trump has tapped into. Trump is really good at identifying things that bug the American people and that have been ignored by both political parties. What he's bad at is addressing it, fixing these problems in a civilized way. but but he's really good he's like the doctor who's like you know Ted you're fat you smoke too much

you got to cut the shit but then it's like oh what should I do and I just take a Zumpig get the fuck out of here exactly speaking of Ozentic I don't want to get too far off course but did you see this study that came out the other day that when people stop Ozempic they put all the weight back on in 18 months yeah all of it and you end up with all sorts of heart problems yes so I mean I got to say I wouldn't touch that shit. I mean, this is, this was a meta study, which means it's a study of studies. And like, to me, I buy it. I don't believe it.

This is the new fen-fen. We're going to find out in like, we're going to find out in a few years. Like, we're going to be seeing these ads like, killing people. Did you take GLP1 inhibitor drugs? Call 1-800 abogato. We will, you know, we'll sue the shit out of them. And you'll be like attached to a respirator. You're like, call that guy, call that lawyer.

It's like so bad. Yeah. Let's see. Okay. KDOT. John, for you, a little outdated, but do you have any thoughts on the Matt Bissonette interview on the SRS, specifically his lawsuit with the government over his book? Can you speak about your clearance process? Matt Bissanette is one of the three people who claimed to have killed Osama bin Laden.

The guy, the other guy, one of the other two guys, O'Neill. He was sealed Team 6, right? Yeah. Yeah. One of the other guys, O'Neill, Eric O'Neill, maybe, I forget his name.

He's making a living. All he, his living is he just signs shit and sells it. Like pictures of Osama bin Laden, wanted poster of Osama bin Laden, Time magazines with bin Laden on the cover. He just signs him.

Like he'll sign, hold my beer, and then he signs his name and sells him for $50 to $100. That's how he makes his living. Matt Bissonette wrote, book. But his problem was that he didn't get it cleared. And so they took him down. Like, you can't just write about a classified operation and then just send it to the publisher. There's a

process and he didn't go through the process. And his colleagues all hate him for fucking doing this, right? Because they say not only did he not shoot bin Laden, he was two guys back. You're also not supposed to talk about this shit. Ever. Yeah, you take this to your grave. That's the code, right? Yeah. Um, uh, Pupil. John, I'm thinking of learning Greek. Any tips? Yeah. I want to know why. I mean, are you moving to Greece? Like, you know, or is it just for fun or anyway? Any tips? Um, don't make jokes about it's Greek to me. No, I mean, go for it. It's a wonderful language. You're going to see a lot of similarities between, between, between, between Greek and English. Really? Yeah, a lot. Something like a third of English words

come from Greek origins. Really? Yeah, well, I guess that's true, right? I always say that about French. It's 60% commonality, especially with the nouns. Okay, well, Desert Fox, what's our take on the recent economic turmoil? That's a good question. and there is.

You know, well, I mean, look, going after the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank is not like a great way for it to preserve economic stability. Yeah. In my opinion, the administration, I mean, look, the president should be able to do 75 million things at once. That's their job. I mean, it's always funny when they say, oh, he's too, so busy with this, you didn't have time for that. I'm like, that's not how the presidency works, not to mention they have hundreds of thousands, millions of people work. for them. But the point is, this administration really clearly has lost the thread. They do not seem focused on economic issues at all. I'm not saying that they would even have good solutions.

You know, as a leftist, I would be likely to probably disagree with the vast majority. John, the one thing I really did like is yesterday, we didn't talk about this. The president was calling for credit card interest to be capped at 10% for the next year. I would disagree at capping it for a time period. And I think 10% is too low. But considering that people are, you know, paying upwards of 30% sometimes up to 30%. It seems like a nice start. You know, as a former banker, I can tell you that if banks were charging 5% on your credit cards, they still be making billions of dollars in profits. What they're making is purely, is really obscene. They're paying out 0.4% on $7.4% on.

savings and raping you with like 19% on your interest rate on your on your credit card and so on um even car loans are like 11 12% now that used to be free money i remember getting zero percent car loans so um and you know used to be like even if you could afford to pay for the car you know cash you had it was better it was smarter to take the money and just you know invest the invest the money and borrow it uh what do you think i mean of what's going I think this is, I mean, this is always in American politics the big issue, right? It's what people, it's what people live with every day. I don't understand why any politician would get it into the White House and not just make the economy their number one focus all the time.

I agree. Listen, this is why Bill Clinton won election twice. Bill Clinton was not popular, but it was the economy, student. And that's what people wanted to focus on. And it's, it's always the economy. Always. Always. Because if the economy's rocking like it was during Bill Clinton's second term, well, you're concerned that it might stop rocking.

You know, like. Yeah. So you're all, the economy is always a concern. Hey, I apologize. I'm in a hotel in Miami and they're vacuuming the floor just immediately. We don't hear it. Oh, good. Okay.

Because it's, it's, it's. Your mic is doing a good job. at filtering. Thanks for the 20 Canadian dollars from Afro Accelerator. Jamal is truly very emotional video he posted. All right. Well, I'll text Jamal. Effie, so were you impressed by Don Bonino's Hong Kong

Hong Kong Foui moves he displayed recently? I actually didn't notice any difference. All right. in Dan Bonino. Fluidic Polly. What are y'all thoughts on the human rights organizations on the U.S. Warhawk policies?

Basically, every U.S. intervention was justified with the help of them. Thank you for that. I was literally just thinking about that in terms of, you know, the Venezuelan lady Machado. And I decided to let you last yesterday to do a deeper dive

than I had previously done into her past. She's a terrible person. I mean, she's, and she's so far right. that when she was in the right-wing coalition, the right-wing parties in Venezuela, which are very far right, almost fascist, threw her out because she was too far right.

Oh, my God. And this is the lady that they gave a fucking Nobel Peace Prize to, more like a piece of shit. And like, honestly, good on Donald Trump for excluding her. He's right. It would have been a catastrophe to install her as the new president of Venezuela. And, you know, I mean, yeah,

there is this role. Like there's the fake ones, but even the real ones, they're all involved in regime change. You know, it's like, I don't even know. Is it like, is it infiltration by, you know, bright wing forces? Is it just like they can't help themselves? I was listening to, God, who was I here listening to yesterday?

It was, oh, yeah, Dexter Filkins was interviewed yesterday. And from the New York Times, you know, the Forever. Wars guy. And he was just like so like pro-Ukraine, pro Zelensky. It's just so establishmentarian. And I'm like, you've been to these conflict zones. You should know better. And I don't know. It's just like if you are on the right side of these things, you can't get any oxygen. It feels like the fix is in. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, do, I mean, Do you think it's just a coincidence or do you think there's like CIA infiltration? There has to be CIA infiltration.

There has to be. One of the things that the CIA has always been bad at is, is sort of reading the room when there are these regime change operations going on. And they always go with the farthest right-wing nut who they know is going to be pro-CIA and they don't give a shit about these people's views of their own, you know, fellow citizens. And then we end up with situations like Iran, 1953. Let me, Robbie, do we have an ad?

No. Okay. Thanks. So sometimes it's just easier to do it that way. Okay, so more questions. What happens if to Svalbard, if Trump takes Greenland? I don't think anything's going to happen to Spelbar. Spalbard. The U.S. has been there for a long, long time working with the, well, working, everybody,

everybody from NATO takes a rotation going there. I don't think anything is going to happen. Furfer, do we believe diplomats and spies need to be fluent in foreign languages other than English in the age of AI to be able to do their work properly? I would think so. Yeah. I mean, I would think a lot, like very fluent, ideally as many languages as possible. You tell me. Yeah. I think I think every CIA case officer should be fluent in a foreign language. I mean, did you meet any serious polyglots? Like my mom was one. My mom was fluent in six languages. And like really truly, and you know, people say that. but I'd see her like meet like a Russian lady and she just be like

and you know she was just like that. You know, did you know anyone like that at the agency? Yeah, I knew one guy. There was one guy, Scott. I traveled with him a couple of times. He was fluent in Arabic and in Hebrew. And then when he joined the director of operations, he picked up like this, Farsi.

And yeah, he had a real gift. That's a cool language. Yeah. A question for both of us, Psychonaut. Sorry if you already mentioned this, and I forgot, I'm sick right now. Sorry, I hope you get better soon. But did you guys see Ken Clippenstein's reporting the morale at Department of Homeland Security ever since the shooting of Renee?

Good. I have not. No, I love Ken. And his reporting is always first class. I'll check it out. Yeah, I agree with that, too. Thanks for the 20 bucks from Sneaker Dad, 1020. Thank you.

Much appreciated. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Venezuela. Josh Hawley has been a voice of principled opposition to many Trump policies in the Senate. Until yesterday. Until yesterday. And he and Todd Young backed out on this war powers resolution, which would have asked the administration to get congressional approval for military action against Venezuela. Why? What happened here? You know, it's Congress has to declare war for us to send troops overseas.

And they just ignored that part of the Constitution since 1941. And so in the 1970s, Congress passed the war powers out, which essentially said that, okay, we're not going to declare war. But if you want to send troops overseas, you have to have congressional approval. Well, presidents just ignored that. And so in the Senate, who was it? Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, they sponsored this war powers resolution, not even a law, a resolution just saying, hey, by the way, if we're doing these operations in Venezuela, you're going to have to get congressional authority. Josh Hawley and Young of Indiana voted yes on the preliminary. text and then when it came down for an actual vote last night, they flipped and they voted no against their own bill. The tie was broken 5150 by Vice President Vance. So it's just, it's a congressional concession of authority to the executive again. It's the weakest Congress in

my lifetime. I mean, voluntarily gave up their, their, how do you think they got to Holly? What do they tell them? I mean, you can threaten people with anything with a primary is probably how they got them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, ultimately you have to just say bring it on whenever you get something like that happens. Otherwise, you just get rolled. Yeah.

Meanwhile, well, at least Trump caved in. Yeah. Lots of caving in going around. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. You've been watching Deep Program with Ted Roll and John Kiriaku tomorrow. John will be traveling. Scott Stantis will be sitting in for John. John's back Monday at 9 o'clock Eastern time a.m. I will be back with Scott Stantis at 9 a.m. Eastern time tomorrow.

Stay tuned for the TMI show with me and Manila Chan coming up right now. And at 11 a.m. Eastern time right after TMI show, Scott and I will be doing the DMZ America podcast and we'll be talking about Scott Adams. If you want the behind the scenes look at this kind of of interesting, complicated, weird dude, who I knew pretty well, tune in. Thanks, everyone. Bye, everybody. Happy travels, John. Thanks, Ted. See you soon. Bye.