DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Meta BS | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • Is Big Tech about to be finally be held accountable for their toxic products? Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified at trial about whether his company designed Instagram to be addictive. Parents who traveled from across the country for the trial brought by a girl who said bullying and addiction turned her suicidal, saying their kids were hurt or died because of social media. The outcome in the “Kaley” trial could put Big Tech on the hook for billions in damages and forced to make changes to platforms that have shaped how we live.• Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the perv formerly known as Prince Andrew, is arrested at his home in Great Britain. • Trump plans to turn eight warehouses into “large-scale detention centers” and 16 facilities into processing sites, according to ICE, with at least 100,000 beds. ICE also intends to buy 10 detention facilities where they already operate. Cost will be about $38 billion, which will be drawn from the billions of dollars Congress for ICE approved last summer. But community opponents include pro-deportation Trump voters. • Bernie wants a Billionaire Tax in California. Gavin does not. • Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was found guilty of leading an insurrection and sentenced to life in prison for his brief imposition of martial law in 2024. • The beating death of Quentin Deranque in Lyon has quickly become a flashpoint between the far right and far left as France prepares for local elections next month and presidential elections next year.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall/id1825379504

Good morning, good morning. You are watching D. Program with Ted Raul and John Kyriaku. It's Thursday, February 19th. Producer Robbie West will be sitting in for John Kyriaku, who I guess the best way to describe his status is he's in taxi mode on his way from the airport to his home studio, where he will be joining us with the program already in progress. Robbie, thank you very much for sitting in for John this morning. Of course. My voice will hold out, but I think we'll be okay. All right, maybe sit a little closer to the mic because you're a little soft. Okay, so obviously another slow news day here to talk with obviously just a few things we're going to have to stretch out the pop, the bubble gum in order to talk about. Totally kidding here.

Just as this morning, the news broke that the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, whom the British authorities are identifying as a man in his mid-60s has been arrested at his home in Great Britain. This is, of course, former Prince Andrew, Andrew, also now known because he's been deprinsed, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. He's been arrested on suspicion of passing classified UK documents on to Jeffrey Epstein. We'll talk about all the political and legal ramifications there. We will also be talking about Mark Zuckerberg's testimony before the,

before the Los Angeles Supreme Court, a place that I'm a little familiar with, in this first ever trial of a major tech company on the question of whether the product is addictive or toxic. Gee, let's all hold our breaths about how that's going to turn out. Donald Trump is basically facing some opposition from some unlikely sources, including Trumpies and people who are pro deportation for the construction of a series of 16 ice gulags that will have at least 100,000 beds meant to process people. And I have some questions about that

that don't really even have much to do with ICE, but have more to do with political dissidents here in the United States. There's a billionaire tax proposal in the state of California. Bernie Sanders is out campaigning for that. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and probable 2028. presidential candidate is very much against that. We'll talk about whether that's viable or not. The former president of South Korea, the guy who briefly declared martial law back in 2024

and who was subsequently arrested, has been sentenced to life in prison. And finally, last but not least, France is still reeling in the aftermath of the death of its own Charlie Kirk, Quentin de Ronk. Also some interesting sidelines to that story because there's a lot of AI like Glop that has basically affixed itself to this story, beginning with the images of him that ended up on T-shirts and stuff. They weren't even of him because there was no public photos. His family ended up releasing a photo. I think they should have stuck with the fake photos because he was a better looking kid.

The fake photos were better looking than the real ones. Not that he was fugly or anything. But anyway, we'll talk about that. He was a guy who was right-winger beaten to death by left-wingers. And we have, of course, always space for your questions and comments in the Rumble Feed and in the live chat. Since it's just Robbie and I, until John gets here, it's going to please, we, I beg your patience to get to your questions because Robbie has to talk as well as, as well as look at the comments as I do, which is a little more involved and complicated than the unusual. when we have the three of us here. So, all right, with that, Robbie, I always give John the choice of what to talk about first.

I'm going to give you a choice of three. You want to talk about ice gulags, the pervy prince, or Quentin deronk? Oh, the gulags. Let's do gulags. Let's do gulags for a hundred. All right, gulags, it is. So last year, late last year, a bipartisan group of congressmen is. including in the Senate, including some Democrats, approved $38 billion for ice.

And that's a massive package that plans to turn ice into and already is turning it into one of the largest armed forces on the planet. It's ultimately going to be bigger than the People's Army, the People's Liberation Army in China and the former Red Army in Russia. It's just impossibly big. Let me just ask you the question that I was kind of like saving because I was working on a cartoon about this. And so before we get into the immigration aspect and the community nimbism related to this, what do you think about the following statistics, Robbie?

So there's going to be 100,000 beds, right? I looked up how many criminal illegal aliens there are in the United States. Now, if we take an expansive sweeping view of everybody who's ever committed any offense whatsoever, including traffic violations, you're at about 500,000. So if you sweep up every green card holder, you know, person who you could come up with an excuse to say, this person violated a law, a regulation, cheated on their taxes, killed someone, raped someone, pedophile someone, whatever, anything. You get about 500,000 people. The average detention time, according to ICE, for a deportee, is 60 days, two months. Now, if you do a back of the envelope on that, you get to about nine months to get rid of all the baddies. So, Robbie, what happens when all the baddies are gone?

What's going to happen to all those 100,000 beds? We're just going to shut them down and turn them into Motel Sixes, or are they going to feed into my terror or dream that they're going to come out? after people like me, or, you know, what are they going to be for? Because even if you say you're going to throw out all the illegal immigrants, including those who have not committed any crimes, you're going to burn through all of those beds in short order. And then what? Well, I have no doubt that the Trump administration is going to be benevolent.

What they're going to do is that they're going to open all these beds up to be shelters for the mentally ill, the unhoused. the people who are just down and out and just need a second chance. So I think what they're going to do is that they're going to turn them into schools and they're going to make them in the wonderful rehabilitation centers.

Of course, because that's what our government does. Our government always reaches out to the lowest members of our society to help them up and help them learn a skill, learn a trade, get back up on their feet. Job retraining. Of course. I have no doubt at all that this is what

the Trump administration is going to do. They would never try to. Yoga. class. Yeah, well, perhaps. They would never try to sell these and expand the private prison complex and try and make money off of the misery and self-destruction of the American public population. They would never do that.

No. Our government's not that cynical. And nor would the government ever, you know, anticipate that there might be civil unrest following, let's say, a suspension of an election that might require some judgment. jailing of, you know, awkward, annoying lefties, liberals, progressives, and so on. Oh, yeah. And maybe some patriotic right-winger's, too. Listen, that's going to happen.

I mean, listen, the Trump administration, they have got their ear to the beating heart of the American population. They want to take care of us. Like a loving mother. Of course. And by the way, this is pure sarcasm in case. It's getting lost in the broken voice here. No, I think, well,

what this is is going to be a massive overreach by the federal government. It is disgusting. It's shameful. And I really wish that the, uh, the, the America only right faction of the Republican Party like me and populist leftists. He should all get together arm and arm and just say one great big giant, fuck you to Donald Trump. Uh, well, I agree with that. But you and I both know that's not going to happen. History shows it, uh, people are just scared. Um, you know, and people don't want to end up warming one of those cells. Look, I'll admit it if I feel like they're coming, that one of those beds has my name on it or my number on it, I assume is what it would be. You know, I'm hopping on a plane and I'm out, you know. I mean, you know, if they'll let me out,

I'm leaving. Do you think, I mean, what do you put the odds at? I mean, first of all, you know, the administration has not really targeted the 14% of undocumented workers who are They haven't specifically targeted the 14% of workers who are the worst of the worst, the people who've committed crimes. You know, they've gone after pretty much anyone who's like randomly tope. Before the show, you said that Trump's lost you on immigration. Do you want to elaborate? I want mass deportations, not mass incarceration. There's a difference.

One is keeping a promise. You hear illegally, you get to go back home and help make the place from which you came a better place. That's not what Trump is doing. What he is doing is that he is expanding the power of the executive. We already have an imperial presidency. It's getting worse. And building these massive prisons. And we talked about this with ICE. I support the ICE's mission to comes to deportation. You've got to enforce immigration law. But that doesn't mean that you're, that you're an army, that you're able to just to go and there's just, just, just, just, do whatever the hell it is that you want to do,

especially if you're so much of a coward that you've got to cover your mask. I'm on mask right here. You see who I am. Right. No, I mean, and by the way, I just wonder, you know,

if there's any actual law enforcement officers watching, and I'm sure there are past, present and future, you know, or people who've served in the U.S. military. I know there are. I mean, does,

my question for you guys would be, and please, you know, put this in the comments. do you feel like ICE has a special need to be protected from doxing by being masked more than a local police officer, a state trooper, an FBI agent, ATF agent, DEA, any of these other people who are all unmasked? I mean, I would think I would think that was ridiculous. I mean, you know, judges have been shot in their own homes. They're not masked. You know, I mean, you take a chance when you come up here and you express a political opinion that some people might not like. You know, you take your chances and obviously, you know, nothing bad should happen to you as a result of you just doing your job.

But it could. And, you know, it's like if you're running around just like that, everyone's going to view you as a terrorizing goon. And you could say I'm not, but you are. No, I get it. And there's a couple of questions here, which I think that need to be, that should be answered. Like a Star Runner 2020 said, how do you have vast deportations, not having a place to hold them?

Well, fine. You round them up. You hold them for a week. You stick them on a plane and back to where they came from. Goodbye. Go with God. I mean, that's what you do. And the way that I would do this personally, if I was president,

it would be under my purview, is that the immigration law of, that I would use to enforce. force you would be the immigration law of the country of which you came. For example, illegal immigration in Mexico is a felony. Here's a misdemeanor. You're Mexican. I behold you under the standard that Mexico holds illegals to go into its country. And I would just, I would send you home. You don't need to hold someone for nine months or for a year. That's insane. Well, I mean, one thing I don't even understand is, look, there used to be, there's a lot of ways to handle this that don't involve pouring money into the prison industrial complex that you alluded to, Robbie.

I mean, basically, we live in an era of, we live in a surveillance state. You know, we can go, we know where people live, we know what cars they drive, we know what faces they have, because it's all in a, it's all in a national database. You know, if they want to apprehend someone and say, we're going to deport you, wouldn't the smart method simply be seriously for a minimum to make things easier on everyone, including the deportees who've been here in many cases for years? Why not just say, drive up, knock on the door, don't be altruary, and just say, listen, six months from now, you've got to be gone. Your deportation date is so-and-so.

If you have a reason that you need to go to court and prove that you need to stay longer, go with God and bring your case. But we're going to slap an ankle bracelet on you. We know where you are. You can run, but you can't hide. And if you're not on the plane within six months, we will come and we'll force you. subject you. Why not just do it that way? You could, but that's not, but this is all a show. Well, it's state terror is what it is.

Well, it is. And the thing is, I've made this, I've made this illustration before. This is kind of like, you know, Augustus after the Roman Civil War. The Republic was dead, but he kept the trappings of it to keep the, to keep the Roman population, though, believing the lie. Yeah. You know, they said elections. They said consuls. They did all the things.

They went through the motions. Didn't mean anything. That's where we are right now. And I think that what this is is that this is a horse and pony show to try and convince people that voting still matters. I'll tell you right now it doesn't. If you think that our elected officials run our government, you're not paying attention. We're controlled by an oligarchy that we don't get to see. And that's what this is.

They're trying to hold, they're just trying to hold this illusion together just a little bit longer. Robbie, let me just run through a few little housekeeping things. First of all, if you're just joining us, Robbie's sitting in for John Kariaku, who's in a car on away from the D.C. airport to his home where he's going to be joining us sooner rather than later, probably around half past, but I'm not sure exactly. Everything depends on the traffic gods. Also, TMI show coming up at 10 a.m. Eastern with me in Manila Chan. At 11 a.m., it's Thursday, which means it's the DMZ America podcast with me and Scott Stantis.

Guest is Mike Luckovich, the two-time-winning editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Not a guy you see in interviews a lot anymore, but he's very good and very entertaining and interesting. So I'm looking forward to that conversation. And getting to a couple of just quick comments. Finn the Dober, Colley, is asking, if I ever have heard of or read Private Eye, the UK-based satirical cartoon and news fortnightly magazine yeah yeah no i have um it's very similar to uh either well i guess it's something something called the canal en cheney in france or also charlie ebdo which everyone's familiar with um yeah no it's very english obviously as you'd expect um i love it i mean you know

i i would love to go and work there and maybe in exile i'll show up in london and be like hey guys uh you know i could i could speak the king's english no i couldn't um but Anyway, I could maybe draw the King's English. No, yeah, I have heard of it. Thank you very much. Also, $1.99 to Thiz Marley for that donation. Much appreciated. And, John, I mean, Robbie, do we have any ads?

We do. Hold on just one second. I'll throw it up for you. Okay, cool. Thank you. While you're doing that, I'll work on, I'll look at a few of the comments that you posted. Costa Rica has excellent, excellent dentist. My girlfriend goes there for dental implants.

plays less for airfare, hotel, and dental work than just having dental work done up here. And it's basically like getting a free vacation, medical tourism. Okay, here's our ads. I think people probably know what it's coming. Here we go. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee. Now is your shot. The 1775 starter kit dropped just only a thousand units.

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This is for the ones you've been watching 1775 blow up on Rumble, wondering if it's actually worth it. Spoiler, it is. Go to 1775 coffee.com slash studio and grab your starter kit before they're gone. bold beans, cleaning fuels, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. Okay. The other thing I want to ask you, before we move on, Robbie, on this ICE Gulag story, is there's a lot of community opposition that's come as the New York Times is reporting to these warehouses, which are appearing mostly because any place where you need big warehouses

tend to be in states that are less populous because it's cheaper, and that means you're probably in a red state. So a lot of the opposition is Republican. It's pro-Trump, pro-deportation. But people are like, by all means, deport people. Just don't warehouse them in my backyard. My favorite was the quote from the mom who had a three-year-old and said, she didn't want to see her three-year-old to see people in shackles

if there was a detention facility nearby. You know, if you're into shackling and deporting illegal immigrants, do you really should you really avert your children's eyes from it it's kind of like if you eat meat you should be willing to look at slaughterhouse videos yeah i mean i think that that's just peak hypocrisy on her part it's just like um like you know me personally i i've have no problem with with yep for example i eat a lot of meat you've you've been here my son has worked on a ranch he knows where meat comes from. He knows what the process is. And if you've voted for a guy and for the record, I did not vote for Trump. I voted for Dr. Shiva. That's probably the only person in Montana who did.

And my wife just says, he voted for Trump. I did not. She's just over you're trolling me. And while you're on the air. Yeah, of course. I mean, that's just Pete Kizzy right there. But I mean, no, if if, if, if you eat meat, um, you need to know, um, you need to know, where it comes from, just grew up on your plate. If you support deportations, then you have to understand that government is police, government is authority, government is force, and if you defy government authority, there's typically a price that's going to be paid. And it's just a matter of how it's done. I support deportations. I want hundreds of thousands of them, but I want it to be done in the right way. And Trump is doing this in a way that enriches his donors and enriches

the prison complex. That's what everything he does is about. I mean, we're not even going to talk about this Bitcoin thing that's going on with his family and Don Jr. and Eric. But so, by the way, thank you very much

for an extremely generous donation from Dinky 33, who was just gifted us 1,800 dirhams, which are the United Arab Emirates currency, and that works out to back of the envelope about $400 and some dollars. So thank you very much for that.

That's incredibly nice. All right. So as we wait for John to arrive from the airport, let's continue here with some of the comments. And then we'll... Okay, question for you, Robbie, from John D. Cackefeller. Do you play Arma Reforger? If not, join us on the USSR team.

I do not, but it is a game that I am looking at picking up. And when I do, I will 100% Putin-Bot gaming. Yours truly will join you happily. lead to charge across the bloodstained battlefield of pixels. Let's do it. Pink Lady Apples is asking for me, Teddy Bear, did you see the bizarre RFK and Kid Rock Make America Healthy again? Videos so strange.

I did. I did. You know, it's funny to me that Kid Rock is still a hero of the right. Years after Mike Judge's episode one, season one of Silicon Valley, which is a great show has shows Kid Rock as a joke. I mean, it's been 20 years or something like that since

that show came out and he was already back then considered a joke. I mean, I just think he's musically untalented. But, you know, yeah, I saw the video. The thing is, I agree with RFK on the whole protein thing and on the no preservatives thing.

And I mean, I'm living proof of it. It's, I mean, I just, you know, when you start eating, eating natural food with fewer preservatives, you lose weight. You just do because preservatives make you bloated and they make you put on weight. I mean, it's not that, I mean, I know most Americans I know who are overweight are not like chowing down a gallon of ice cream every night. They're hardly eating anything. And like they're and, you know, they look at food and they get fat. Our food is poison. That's why. Our food is poison.

Yeah, for sure. So let's see what else we got. If you think social media is addictive, you should see how addictive 1775 coffee is. Yeah, but coffee, it looks like, probably prevents you from getting Alzheimer's. So, you know, think about that. Frasmetaus, comment for both you and I, Robbie, I've been trying to tell people that right-wingers in Germany, often Russia aligned. No antifa-styled groups will kill them in their homes. This isn't new. Yeah, well, the thing is, their antifa isn't our antifa, right?

like Europeans don't play. Europeans are real. You know, when they bring it in a serious way. John, I see you trying to come into the room, but your device is not connected. So maybe hit refresh or something. I'm just not able to add you yet. Okay, there you are.

Let me. There is John. There we are. Sorry. I look like hell. I admit it. I made it. I can't help it though.

I made it. Well, welcome. Welcome. I'm glad you're shaken, not stirred after international travel, which I can't sleep on planes. Me neither. And the flight was 15 and a half hours long. I watched seven movies. A lot of movies. I was just going to say that. I can't even name them. Is there even one that you remember? I remember watching F1. And I only watched F1, extraordinarily predictable. Racing one, right? Yeah, racing. The only reason I watched F1 was because it was the only movie that's been nominated for a Saga Award that I haven't watched. And I have to vote by next week.

And so just to make sure I give everybody a fair shake, because I'm taking this voting thing very seriously. Yeah, you're the only one as far as I know. I know. I know. Everybody else just blows it off and votes for their friends. Yeah, exactly. I hate that. Well, but I've watched every movie.

And there were. at least three that I thought, shame on them for even being nominated. These movies are terrible. Well, John, I mean, it's funny that you should, I just had this conversation recently with a few people. It feels like since 2018 or so, so it's a little bit pre-p pandemic. Yes. It feels like Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies.

Ted, well, we should say, you and I have talked about this privately. COVID, like, did something. where it made everybody in Hollywood turn stupid. Yeah. Because they're just unable to make a decent movie. There have been a couple of exceptions. I told you that Bougonia was absolutely freaking brilliant. Companion is my favorite recent movie.

Terrific movie. And Frankenstein, oh my God. I almost didn't want to watch it because I was like, oh my God, not another Frankenstein remake. And Guillermo del Toro is a genius. And then the thing about Frankenstein, though, is like, it's like Wuthering Heights. How many times does the same story have to be told? Yeah.

It's already been told, those have both been told pretty well. And this one should have been named something else, and they should have said based on the book Frankenstein. Oh, because it's not really a straight retelling. No. No. It's not. Which makes it that much better. Oh, okay.

Yeah, loved it. I loved it. No, no. I think she would, I think she would have loved it. Well, quick question for Robbie, and then we'll get you up to date, John. So, Robbie, what do you make of the, and obviously, John, you too. What do you make of the further dart occult connections shown by the Epstein emails from Desert Fox? There's all this conversation about the temple, the Mollock Temple, which I've now dived into.

But anyway, go ahead. Robbie got me going on this, too. Yeah. Yeah. It just shows just how satanic, so many people who our government are. honest to God, there's no greater power that a human being can have than to kill another person. There's no higher power that you have. And the fact that these people get off on pain and get off on death and get off on humiliation and just domination.

It's satanic. I firmly believe this is a spiritual thing. It's a spiritual battle. And the sooner people wake up to that fact, the easiest of able to realize is why our government is so dysfunctional. I mean, so here's the thing. I looked into the Mollock Temple thing. I will admit that the architecture of that little off building, Epstein's little island, is weird. I mean, it is unusual.

It is not Bahamian. It really doesn't go with the building by itself. But there's really no evidence that it's anything other than a strange-looking building. I mean, that there's no one who's gone on record as saying, You know, this was used for sacrifices. This was satanic. There's no, there's no, I mean, you can build a building and be, and be like, I just want something weird and exotic and just make it and build it on your property.

That doesn't mean anything, right, right? I mean, it might mean something, but it doesn't inherently mean anything. I don't know, Ted. I mean, are you going, do you honestly think that someone who's been involved in? Keep in mind, we still have a client list. We still know who all was there. So let's just assume. So let's just assume, for example, that the government, that the president of the United States, the Department of Justice, and all these people are lying to protect you, that you're going to say, oh, no, it really happened. This is what was happening. Or would you just keep your, just keep your face shut? The people that you're looking for confirmation of the people who were involved.

All right. Well, Robbie, with that, I'm putting you backstage, if that's okay, even if it's not okay, I'm putting you backstage. Okay, there it is. Okay, so John, obviously, I know you. you were on your phone on the plane. I was. And here. So you know about the arrest of former Prince Andrew. I'm thrilled over this. We talked about the Zuckerberg. We're going to talk about Zuckerberg.

Robbie and I have already kind of digested the, unless you want to add anything to the ice gulags of community opposition. We still have South Korea billionaire attacks and Quentin de Ranc to talk about if we want to. So I guess we should talk about Prince Andrew, right? So now known as Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. So this does seem like the cracking of an egg. This seems like the beginning of something, right? Like basically he's now been arrested for basically showing and giving classified UK documents to Epstein.

What is it with people who do this, right? Yeah. Look, I looked at classified stuff. Isn't this exciting? And, you know, the funny thing, too, well, I'm going to blow my own horn on the one hand. I'll say that in a second. But the funny thing is, too, is why, oh, I think I'm double. I'm going to just take you out there.

Thanks. Okay. So on the one hand, why would Epstein care about British trade information? That doesn't make any sense to me. On the other hand, this is exactly what an Israeli access agent would do. It's exactly what he would do. Just bring in anything he can because this is something called operational testing. Well, it could be insider information.

It was. Epstein's holdings. Absolutely. 100%. if Epstein says, hey, listen, you know, it would really help me out a lot if you could get me what the next, you know, round of trade negotiating positions is going to be. And then you sort of bump it up from there. If he comes through with that, you give him something that's a little tougher.

And then you move him into defense. They're investigating Lord Mandelson now, the former Lord Mandelson, Peter Mandelson, right now. For the same thing, he'll likely be arrested in the coming couple of weeks on a charge of of providing Epstein with classified defense ministry information. Would Andrew be someone they would want to try, that the MI5, I guess it would be in this case, would want to flip or is he a big fish? That's a good question.

That's a good question. They probably wouldn't have had the guts to try to flip him, or they would have been afraid of the Israelis, or the royal family wouldn't have permitted it. Well, the king, King Charles III has said that he is willing to provide, was willing to provide a statement and to basically be deposed or question, I guess, maybe more to the point about what he knows about all this. So it sounds like he's cooperating with the inquiry. I've got to think there's more coming and I think it's going to ripple across the Atlantic. And I think it's, this is just the very beginning.

But this is a lesson for the Americans because we're like, oh, we really wish we could arrest somebody, but the statute of limitations is expired. So everybody's off scot-free. In the meantime, a couple of congressional committee chairman want Andrew to come to the United States and be deposed. There was a conversation on BBC that I watched last night where the Brits were seeking American assurances that Andrew wouldn't be arrested. if he were to arrive at JFK or at Dulles to testify on Capitol Hill. Well, the reason why they wanted the assurances was because they wanted to arrest him. Right. Well, is he, right.

Is he voluntary? I mean, would he voluntarily testify? He doesn't have to. He does not have to. He's not an American. They were asking him. They didn't issue a subpoena. They just simply sent a letter to the British embassy asking for it to be passed to Andrews, saying,

we would like for you to come and testify. We will offer you transactional immunity. And then they said, well, besides the immunity, we want you to promise that he won't be arrested when he arrives. And then they grabbed him. Do you think the Brits would have shared, given how close the relationship is, the Brits would have shared their intent with their American counterparts to say,

we're going to arrest him. I do. I think they told the FBI. And that's why we haven't heard anything from the FBI about Andrew. Nothing. Only from Capitol Hill. and they would not have access to the information. So is there a statute of limitations in Britain over the mishandling or classified information?

Is there, so is it, is, so is this like going after Capone on taxes? Basically, we know he was like raping little children, but, you know, we can't get them on that. That is, yeah, it's like going after Capone. And the thing is, once you, the other, my other take on this is, once you, once you, once you have the investigation, Once you've arrested him, once you have now you have a case, you've got discovery, you've got everything, and you're going to find out all the rest. And everything, every time Prince Andrew has double parked or done anything, you know, not put enough postage on his letters, they're going to know about and they're going to find out. It's true. And then the question is, do they prosecute the other cases that they're able to develop from whatever they find in discovery?

And then the real question is, do you send the former, you know, second in line? At one time, he was second in line to the throne to prison? I mean, British prisons are notorious. They're worse than American prisons. And they had this unusual rule in British prisons. Yeah, Sange was very sick, right? Assange was very sick. There was real worry that he would lose his life.

But they had this weird rule in the UK. A BBC reporter asked me about it. if we had anything similar in the United States. And I said, no, everybody starts off in maximum security. And you have to do a phase of your sentence in maximum. Then you go to medium, then you go to low, and then you go to house arrest. So if you're in for 10 years, you do two and a half, two and a half, two and a half, two and a half, two and a half. If you're in for six months, you know, you do a month and a half, month and a half, et cetera.

Is he going to end up in Belmar? It's possible, right? It's absolutely possible. Or could he be extradited to the United States? Well, but remember, we have this statute of limitations. Right. But what if they get them on something that there is? I mean, it's interesting to me, by the way, just parenthetically, that when New York, for

example, had opened that one-year window for civil claims against, you know, people like that, Yes. Nothing happened to Andrew. No. And, you know, Epstein spent a lot of time in Manhattan. Yes. So I'm sure some of these shenanigans happened here. I know at least one of those photos.

By the way, I wanted to point, let you know that some UAE DEROMs have been pouring in from Dinky 33 earlier in the show. Thank you. 184 of them just arrived. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. We're looking at about $500 U.S. dollars this morning alone. Wow.

Thank you, Dickie 33. I'll tell you, I've been in Dubai for the past week. First of all, Dubai is one of the most fabulous places on earth. But secondly, Emirates, Emeraldi people are just so genuinely kind and warm. I truly, I honestly did not want to leave. I really didn't want to leave. Like, I was actually depressed sitting at the airport last night in the biggest and most fabulous business class lounge in the world. Well, I always feel, I mean, you know, I seriously rarely am like happy to return from international travel to the United States.

Yeah, I agree. I love travel, but I don't love America. I love the Gulf. Oh, my God. I just love it. I think I like the rest of the world more. I'm very proud to say that I'm going to go to the. the Gulf again a lot in the next in the next nine months it's going to be awesome that'll be fun

hey quick question from young courthouse and thanks for the two dollars have the three of us and I'll put Robbie on here watch the before trilogy he's that's the before before sunrise you know et cetera et cetera I've watched him no no I don't know it it's um it's Julie two say and Johnny Depp, not Johnny Depp, Ethan Hawk. And basically it's

Richard Linkletter, the director from Texas, who basically did all three of them. They're very talky. Basically, it's an American dude who meets a French girl in Paris. They fall in love.

Basically, it's one wild night, and they basically talk about where life is going. What's interesting is that they're both kind of shallow, and not very likable, which was part of Richard Link Letters exercise to see if we could care about the relationship

between two people who aren't that great. And then the second one, basically, he has written a book about his experience. He's at a book signing in Paris. She shows up, and I love the ending of this. He has to get back to his wife. He has a bad marriage. He has to get back to his wife,

stateside. He has a flight to. catch. She invites him back to her apartment and it's like it's five o'clock. He has to get going. And you can tell he's just not going to get off the sofa and the movie ends. And then in the third one, they did get together. And it ended up being a shit show. So anyway, that sounds great. It's great. It's very talky though. The wife of a friend of mine is one of my closest friends. She's a seven-time Emmy winner. She was the director of the Ellen DeGeneres show. And when the Ellen show ended, she went into directing television series episodes and little indie films. And she did a

film that was so great. It was the best ending I've ever seen. It was this woman who had this crush on a guy. They're both in their late 20s. She has this overwhelming crush on the guy. And she's doing everything to sort of get into his orbit. And the whole movie is her just trying to get close to him. Finally, he asks her out. They sleep together. And then afterwards, she gets out of bed and she goes to the bathroom. And while she's washing her hands, just out of, you know, sheer curiosity, she opens the medicine cabinet and there's a half-used tube of hemorrhoid cream in there. And the look on her face, this is how the movie ends. The look on her face like, oh, fuck, He's human.

Right. He's not so great after all. He's got hemorrhoids. It was brilliant. I couldn't believe it. Like, how come I can't be creative? I can't we just pointing out the fact that that's a strange coincidence that you mentioned that because I'm literally going to see a hemorrhoid doctor today for the first time in my life.

It's been 20 years since I had the surgery. It's awful. Yeah, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I've read online, it's the most pain that a human body can experience. experience. Oh, the surgery? Yeah. Oh, great. I'll warn you now. We'll see what happens. All right. Well, I've, I've dealt with pain. Thank you, L.A. times. Robbie, any idea? Have you seen that those movies? Uh, no, I don't really watch very much TV. I spend my time, I spend my time reading books. Okay. I'm taking you out then. All right. Um, okay, so let's see. Okay, so should we leave, do we have anything? We have so much more to cover. Do we, do we, do we want to to leave Prince Andrew where he is, we'll certainly be back to him. Yeah, he's screwed.

Yeah, I would say so too. And he did it all to himself. See, you know, this is, this is the mindset with these, with these people. They, they think that they're untouchable. And they're not, they're not untouchable. Well, usually they are. Well, usually. Yeah, okay. I stand corrected. Usually they are untouchable. Okay, so Zuckerberg, speaking of people who are normally untouchable, so he was dragged before on trial. So basically the parents of this girl who when she was nine or ten years old got onto Instagram and basically spiraled out. Fortunately, she didn't take her own life, but she suffered from depression. She was bullied by other kids, suicidal ideation.

Her name is Kaylee, the trial name. That's not her real name. And she's not 20 years old, but because her name is being withheld. because she was a child about when the events in question were brought to trial. Anyway, so her attorneys are one of 6,000 cases. This is the first one to come to trial. It's all being a lumped together in a class action suit. And this is a big deal.

This is like the new big tobacco. This is big tech. And basically it's a product liability case. So normally Facebook is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Act that basically says, we can't help what people do on our platform. It's like, we're not a publisher. We're like the phone company. If you call up and make an obscene

phone call to someone, that's on you. That's not on us. Well, but they're saying, look, this, the product was designed to be addictive and to bring in kids. They found a, I thought, a smoking gun memo where Zuck says,

oh, you know, officially no one's allowed to use Insta unless under the age of 13. But we've, You know, we're never going to get them hooked unless we have the tweens, the 10, 11, and 12-year-old. Just awful. If you're a parent or you care about kids or you've been a kid, it's not cool. And I don't think a jury is going to like it. And I don't know how much, look, I know how corrupt the Los Angeles Superior Court is.

But I don't think that Zuck is going to be able to escape this. I think they're going to get nailed. I think big tech is going to have to fork out billions, if not trillion. of dollars in the long run, the not so long run. I think this is a big deal, and it represents the next chapter. I think you're right. And, you know, it's not an accident that the Europeans are so much tougher than we are and better at policing these gigantic social media platforms.

You know, they've gone after Twitter and X. Now they've gone again after Zuckerberg. This is not the first time he's had to face committees in Europe. They've been fined repeatedly. So I think we're going to see more of this. If Americans, if the American government's not going to protect American children, the Europeans are going to protect European children. Well, so the defense here is, like, kids are going to find a way, right?

Like they're going to say, are you 13 years old? Sure, I'm 13 years old. That's true. I mean, I certainly remember, you know, as a, I saw my first porn mag when I was eight. So I know exactly that that's true. Yeah. You know, but is that a defense, really? No.

I mean, I don't feel like it's a valid defense. I agree. I agree. Yeah. I don't think it is going to help. But, but you know, what? What's the, what can the Europeans do other than levy fines? Like, Zuckerberg's not going to be prosecuted.

No, but this is Los Angeles, right? So this is a, I mean, that's what I meant. I meant law enforcement, not the Europeans. Sorry, I'm tired. Yeah, no, I mean, well, I mean, the thing is, this is a civil case, right? Yeah, exactly. So he's, so I mean, yeah, they can be shaken down for money. I mean, you know, with this going to be, there's going to be, there,

There are countless kids who've committed suicide. Yeah. Countless kids who are, you know, in therapy. Adults who are former kids. I mean, Facebook's been around so long. They obviously don't care, right? I mean, I heard, you know, one of the parents complained, like, they just don't care. It's true.

They don't care. They just want to make money. And I guess to me that the solution is here is to create a product. It's kind of like don't make can't, don't make. you know, candy flavored cigarettes and then say you're surprised that kids are smoking. That's, that's right. So it's kind of like you have to redesign the product entirely.

Not just, you can't just sort of have a, you know, ask nicely for kids not to sign on. Yes. Yes, indeed. Well, yeah. We have to get our act together, like nationally on these issues. No question. Okay, here we go. Let's do some more questions here.

Would Charles dissolve Parliament over all this? He does have that royal prerogative. Well, you know, that's a good question. And it's a more difficult question to answer than it might seem. The easy answer is probably no. But here's the issue. Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States, former business minister, former member of the House of Lords,

we knew that Mandelson was close to Epstein. He lied to Keir Starmer about it, and Keir Starmer just bought the line, hook, line, and sinker. And so the issue now is that British voters are asking Keir Starmer, What kind of judgment do you have? Everybody in the Western world knew this guy was a peto. But just because he looked you in the eye and said, no, I'm not a peto. You said, oh, okay, I'm going to make you a minister.

And then I'm going to make you ambassador to the United States. And it was all a lie. So it's not necessarily that it would necessitate new elections, but I think it absolutely will necessitate an election insubstate an election inside the Labor Party to choose a new leader who would be Prime Minister and to throw out Kier Starmor, who frankly is as bad as, you know, Liz Truss and the head of cabbage. And it's definitely on his way out. He's out.

Yeah, he's going to be out. Jackson McGrath, John, do you think Epstein was a murderer? That's a good question. I haven't seen any evidence yet that he may have been. But, you know, people that are that deep in this kind of perversion, who knows? No clue. Logger Jogger. John, I worked in the Gulf Coast refining chemical industry. The threat of terror attack seems obvious, but it isn't really taken seriously. Yeah.

Is economic terror not terrifying enough for terrorists? You know, that's a great question. There's lots of holes, right? Huge. Like not just that, right? Trains. Yes. No one really, there's no security on passenger trains.

Zero. Zero. What about our, what about reservoirs? Right. You know? None. dams. What about this shooting? It's been like 20, 25 years now where somebody or multiple people with high-powered rifles shot up an electrical substation in San Jose, California, major act of terrorism. They never could figure out who did it. I think economic terror absolutely could be devastating if, you know, depending on the target, depending on the effect. Yeah. But yeah. I think that's right.

And Gulf Coast oil refineries, you know, when I was living in Bahrain, there was always a fear of, you know, some skiff just kind of coming up onto the shore with assault rifles and explosives. And how do you combat something like that? I mean, John, the truth is there isn't really that much terrorism internationally. And I think does it basically just boil down? I mean, to me, I assumed you'd know much more about this than I would. I assume that that's basically because most of the people who would like to blow up something American aren't in America, and it's hard to get here, much less like make anything happen. Yeah. I think that's, it saved us more times than we could possibly know.

If we were like neighboring these countries, it would be, you know, geography is protecting us. Furfer, question for both of us. How did we deal with the heat in the Middle East and the summer? I love it. Oh. I love it. That's a big difference. 115 degrees and 80% humidity.

I'm like, oh, bring it on. I love it. I fucking hate it. If it's over 60 degrees, I'm sweating like a pig. Oh,

no, listen, all the swimming pools when I was living in the golf, all the swimming pools had chillers, not heaters. Love that. In fact,

I went into one pool in a housing complex in Bahrain. We were having dinner with friends, and they said, oh, let's go for a swim. and they didn't have a chiller and the water was so hot it was like an overly hot bath as soon as i jumped in i had to get out now i know about that like yeah and there's and there's like and there's oceans that are like that like what i go to martinique sometimes yeah the golf is like

that it's too hot to swim it's too hot yeah no i mean uh the bottom line is look i'm just miserable i find the air conditioning and i try to stay out of the heat of the day uh you know that's i'm a I'm a total pus when it comes to that stuff. John, have you hit the ski slopes in Dubai or have you been on that crazy roller coaster? I've been to the ski slope. It was part of a tour. An Emirati friend was taking us around. This is when they first opened, but I haven't skied down it.

I'm not a good enough skier. I'm still kind of a beginner. But it's awfully impressive. And I'll say another thing, too. I went to the Dubai mall yesterday, and I haven't been to the Dubai mall yesterday. and I haven't been to the Dubai Mall in quite some time. 2011 was the last time I went. One thing that Dubaians do that I really like is if something is a success,

they'll just add on to it. So it was already the biggest mall in the world. Now it's like really the biggest mall in the world. Because they just keep adding to it. Yeah. Excess. There's no such thing. It's like the old ad for MTV with David Bowie.

Too much is never enough. Desert Fox question for all three of us. what's our take on the mentioning of cloning designer babies and spare parts in the Epstein emails? As a Catholic, the soul being abused like this seems horrid. Yeah. You know, this seems like eugenics to me. I think it is. I think that's what it was.

Yeah. I think he planned some kind of weird master race thing designed after himself. Well, whether, and with or without Epstein, that's the direction that we're moving. Yeah. I think we should. We should ban that. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say ban it until we have lots of time to study it.

You know. We don't have to write to play God. That's a bottle you never want to. I just don't think we should do anything radical without seriously contemplating all of the consequences, morally, ethically and scientifically. But, all right, taking that out. Okay, we got a quick comment. What do you think about the South Korean president? That's a long prison sentence.

Life? Life in prison. Is he going to get out? I was shocked. You know, he'll probably get a pardon at some point. I would think. That's what's happened in the past. But oh, my God.

Listen, this was like six days of really bad decisions. Yeah. But nobody got killed. Nobody got killed. And he's known as an asshole. So life. Wow. harsh. Also, let's talk about Quentin Deronk. We talked about that briefly on the show the other day. It's really, it's blowing up. It turns out that new video has been revealed by Le Canin-en-en-en-en, which is a very cool satirical newspaper in France that also happens to break some of the biggest scoops in French politics. They got video that shows that basically this was a brawl between, like,

wingers, young left and young right wingers, and that it tragically left this kid dead. I mean, this is, you know, people being really fucking stupid. And the right is trying to make it out like to basically the far right is saying that la France esumis should have a cordon, a cordonitre, in other words, basically be sort of partly banned in French politics, not permitted to hold any seats in parliament. Wow. You know, but they're the majority party in the country. and it's so hilarious, it's not so long ago, that Jordan Bardela's own right-wing party, the Rézambl Nacional, they were the ones being targeted for the same things.

But the left never argued that they should be banned, the rights arguing that the left should be banned. I'm going to draw a parallel. I hope you haven't talked about it. The parallel is everybody wants a quick fix. without thought to the fallout down the line. Donald Trump now is agitating for a, for the nuclear option in the Senate. And we talked about this yesterday.

Yeah. I think John Thune's able to hold him off. But, you know, you can't be in power forever. And when you give yourself or demand for yourself extraordinary authorities, those authorities are going to go to the people that you like the least eventually. Always. And then you're screwed. True. I couldn't agree more. John, what's your favorite book? Toby wants to know. And thanks for the three Australian dollars. I could never answer a question like that. No, that's a tough one. I'm, I'm partial, of course, to biographies. And how can I keep

from singing, which is the only biography that's been done of Pete Seeger, I couldn't put it down. In fact, I started researching. I wanted to write a biography of Pete. He was one of the most important people in my life, really, next to my dad and my grandfather. And then how can I keep from singing came out? And I read it and just concluded, I can't possibly write a better book than this. Oh, that's that's that's high praise. John D. Cackeleller, a bigger, bigger mistake in history, China into the WTO or Russia barred from NATO at the end of the Cold War? Ooh. I have to go Russia barred from NATO.

I have to agree. Yeah. I mean, China belonged in the WTO. They did. They belonged in the WTO. And I think NATO shouldn't exist, but if you're going to have it. Well, like the question we got yesterday, if Turkey and Israel start fighting, is that the end of NATO? Because the more I think about it, yeah.

We're obligated to to defend Turkey. Yeah. So we lose no matter what. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, it's like game over, man. Yep. All right. I think we don't have time to talk about the billionaire attacks in California. We want to.

We can discuss that tomorrow. John, welcome back stateside. Thank you, sir. Good to see you. Not a nap if you can, but not enough enough too much. You know the drill. Anyway, we're here at 9 a.m. Monday through Friday, we'll be back tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Eastern. Stay tuned for the TMI show with me and Melo Chan coming up just in a minute. And at 11 a.m. Eastern time, an hour from now. Please stay tuned for the DMZ America podcast with myself and Scott Stantis. We will be joined by Mike Lachovic, the editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Two-time Pulitzer winner. Very funny guy. So stay tuned for me. Very cool.

Bye, John. Tomorrow.