DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Mideast on Alert | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.Today we discuss:• Mideast on Alert: As the US has gathered 150 planes and a dozen military ships in the Middle East and may be preparing for a bloody, extended attack against Iran, the US Embassy in Beirut evacuated dozens of personnel. The US has two destroyers in the Mediterranean, one in the Red Sea, four in the Persian Gulf, and an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by four destroyers, in the Arabian Sea. Another carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, arrived in the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, accompanied by warships. CJCS Gen. Dan Caine worries about high casualties and stockpiles depletion.• Is Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for Islamist terrorists? Pakistan carried out airstrikes against seven camps belonging to the Pakistani Taliban – also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as well as ISIS-K.• U.S. ambassador to France Charles Kushner has been banned from meeting members of the French ‌government after ghosting the Foreign Affairs ministry earlier, where he had been summoned over his comments on the killing of ​Quentin Deranque.JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowFOLLOW TED:https://rall.com/https://x.com/tedrallFOLLOW JOHN:https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakouhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLISTEN ON SPOTIFY:LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Good morning. You're watching the program with Ted Roll and John Kiroaki. It's Tuesday, February 24. Thanks so much for joining us. I apologize in advance for any tech glitches. I'm manning the board today. Robbie West is taking care of his wife, who we should all pray for. She's going under the knife in about an hour. So we're all pulling for you, Kizzy. And I think everything will work out great. But still, it's scary for Robbie and for those of us who know her. Good morning, John. How are you doing? It was nice to do. Well, thanks. How are you? Good. Good. So, you know, what, I'm going to throw a curveball at you, John. I think he'll be fine with it. What does it say that the State of the Union address is not a major story? Like, I literally didn't think it was even necessarily worth putting in the show description today. Robbie is texting us that we have no audio. We have no audio. Huh. Okay.

I can hear you fine. I hear you fine, too. And people are saying on Rumble, there's no audio and no audio on YouTube. Okay. All right. Let me see what I can do here. Wait, up. Okay.

Does that, is that helping? I don't know. Let's see. Okay, guys, is that, unfortunately, we had some problems, some tech glitches this morning. I did something. difference? No. Huh. Oh, it's good now. Okay, we're good. Oh, it is? There's sound now. Okay. Guys, all right, let's start this from scratch. My apologies. So, anyway, this is why we keep saying that we need Robbie. Robbie West is our producer. He, so I'm Manning for today. But anyway, welcome

everybody. You didn't hear what I had to say. This is the program with Ted Roll and John Kiroaku for Tuesday, February 24th. And John and I said, great greetings to each other, so now we can just get to the show. So, John, what does it say that I didn't think when I was compiling the rundown this morning

that the State of the Union address tonight would not be a top story? It's not a top story. What does that say? It says that people have finally gotten used to Donald Trump. And let me add something. I did a short spot on Fox News

last night. And Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker of the house, was on right before me. And the interviewer asked him, the interview was the Jesse Watershow, asked him a similar question. Like, what do you expect with the state of the union address tomorrow and why is it not a bigger deal? And he said, I expect the state of the union to be the longest state of the union addressed in American history is what he said. That doesn't sound pleasant. No. And that tells me that it's just going to be

kind of a Donald Trump you know, self-love fest and that he doesn't really care you know, what people say or how people react or or anything.

He just doesn't care. And so I don't expect any big revelier. I don't expect any news. He's going to honor the men's Olympic hockey team. We beat Canada for the gold yesterday. The women's hockey team had a delay in their departure from Italy, so they're not going to be there,

and he's going to have this guy and that guy. And this thing that Ronald Reagan started by honoring people who were in the crowd. I don't think we should expect anything substantive. He'll probably take a couple of pot shots at Iran. which would surprise no one. But I don't expect anything substantive. Yeah, I mean, I find that a little bit depressing.

But I mean, it's like it doesn't, I mean, well, I'll say to me, the state of the union address has always been a disappointment. It's one of those things that there's a lot of anticipation for like inaugural addresses, and it usually fails to deliver. So this is not specific to the, The current president, he doesn't take it very seriously. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's not to be taken seriously.

He's become a total clown show with like, it's all about the guests. It's like, who can we troll each other with our guests? So that's really, I think the emphasis is going to be this new thing, right? These angel families that I'd never heard of, you know. I never heard that term until yesterday. Right. Angel families. You know, it's like when they revise.

in recently the Gold Star families. I mean, Gold Star families, that was a thing in World War II, but that wasn't after that. And then suddenly, you know, it's like, oh, well, you know, obviously. So angel families are the families. This is kind of repugnant, really. It's families of people who were murdered by illegal immigrants. As if there's such a massive category.

Yeah, right. Yeah. It's this gigantic community. Hundreds of thousands of Americans killed by illegal immigrants. I mean, look, one's too many, but still, you know, it's so racist. It's so foul. It is. It's terrible. It's so foul.

All right. So should we just get into an, oh, please like, follow and share the show, as always. And, you know, we, for those who are just joining in when the audio was out, Robbie West is out today. So I'm running the board, and it won't be nearly as smooth. and I apologize in advance for that because I've got to run the board and try to keep John and I both have to keep track of the comments and your questions, but we do love your questions. So please, you know, keep them coming and we'll get to them. We always try to get to

all of them. Yeah. Okay. Should we talk, just get, talk about, should we talk about Iran or we also have this story out of Afghanistan and a strange France story too? Yeah, yeah, yes to all of it and whatever you'd like to start with. Maybe we'll save Iran. Let people join in. It's only five minutes into the show. Charles Kushner, right? We were just talking about it. Charles Kushner, Jared's dad,

he, a former real estate guy from New Jersey, spent some time in jail. We won't get into that. But anyway, he's the U.S. ambassador to France. What a great job, right? The best. Like the best. Usually reserved for a very high-end political donor.

Right. So he decided to make some, intemperate remarks about the killing of Canton de Ranc, who is the right-winger, who was beaten to death apparently by some left-winger, you know, left-winger goons. He was himself a right-winger goon, not that this justifies what happened, but anyway, France is trying to keep prevent itself from exploding in the streets into, you know, spasms of urban violence between far-left and far-right groups. And while this is all going on, the, you know, Kushner decided, decided to weigh in and say, oh, we're deeply concerned, blah, blah, blah.

The French government issued a statement yesterday asking him to butt out and please, like, mind your business. This is an internal affair of the French Republic. We're not interested. We have no lessons to learn from you. They declined Kushner, the United States as part of basically a vast right-wing conspiracy, the international reactionary, or I think is what they said, the movement, the international reactionary movement. Pretty harsh words. After that, Kushner was summoned to the Elysee Palace,

where basically he was going to be told informally by the French why they're upset, and to convey that to the State Department. He didn't show up. This is the second time he's ghosted his French contacts there. And let me add something. Listen, I spent years as the junior guy in those meetings, right, being the note taker in a variety of ambassadors meetings with the ministers of foreign affairs or defense or interior or whatever, public safety, whatever. You cannot ghost the foreign minister. I don't care if he was the foreign minister of Botswana. You cannot do that. And doing it, especially in a country like France, you're risking being expelled from the country.

Ridiculous. You can't do it. Do you think, I mean, I doubt that France has ever expelled, or any major country has had to expel a U.S. ambassador, right? Oh, my God. But looks like they're on that path. So the French government, they're not just talking. They're seething.

They banned Kushner from meeting with any French officials. In other words, if he's called. someone who worked at the French DMV, they're supposed to hang up the phone and say, I'm sorry, I can't meet with you. Yeah. This is, I mean, this is pretty bad. That means he can't really do his job, right?

I mean, his job is to liaise with French officials. He can't do his job, which is to represent the president of the United States. So what happens next? I mean, do, I mean, does this go up the, does this end up at the, is this a call where Trump has. to call Macron and say, our bad won't happen again. It's going to start with a call from Marco Rubio.

And he's going to apologize on behalf of the president. And they're going to try to smooth things over. This is one of the things. Listen, Ted, I had never seen this in the course of my career. I never heard of it. It's not done.

You don't do it. It's horrible. And so this is going to have to be an apology from Marco Rubio to the French foreign minister. The French are going to consider expelling Charles Kushner. Wow. Because this is a direct insult to the French government. You can't do this. And so what are the odds of that happening?

50-50, you think? Could go either way. Yeah. I think that they've had. had enough of this guy. And I mean, is he, do you think this is him going rogue or do you think that he is taking a cue from President Trump where he, he's kind of asked, oh, what if I didn't show up? And the, you know, Trump said, don't worry about it.

Or do you think it's just like he just decided not to show up? Who knows, right? I, sure. My guess is he did this on his own. See, this is the shocking thing to me. Because these guys think that they can just do things like this with impunity. There are international norms by which you have to abide. And you can't, you can't just give the middle finger to the French foreign minister and say,

you're not important enough for me to talk to you today. I'm not doing this. Right. It's literally the reason he's there. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Exactly. All right, John.

Should we do some questions? Yes, absolutely. All right, Sinking. Thanks for the seven Canadian dollars. Did you see that Netanyahu gave Trump a key to the country as a gift? I wonder if that includes the greater country or just the country as it is now. Do you know what it's a, what, knowing what you know about the Mossad, do you think the key is bugged? Yes.

And it's very heavy because it's packed with the batteries. $5. Much love for Robbie and his wife Kizzy, currently about to go into surgery. By the way, the prognosis is good, guys. And her attitude is very good. Her spirits are high. Thanks very much for the donation, DBG.

Hi, guys. Why do you think those who are anti-West shy away from criticizing China and those who are pro-West are not able to criticize Israel or the U.S. An example of this being Jeffrey Sachs loves to point out the U.S. but is silent on zero COVID policy deaths or U.S. That's a good question. It's a fair question for sure. I will say, and I know that you've had exactly the same experience that I have.

We both worked for Russian media. And we both criticized Russia, both of us. If you don't have your independence, my God, you don't have anything. But this is an important point that our viewer is making. As Americans, we should feel free to criticize anybody with whom we disagree. We're Americans, for God's sake. Yeah. And Brian Becker and I had a couple of debates about the Uyghurs.

He always believed that the whole Uyghur thing was completely made up. Oh, it's not. It's not. No, I've been there. I've seen it. Yeah, no, I mean, I watched an execution in Kachur, which is also known as Kashkar. They've been to Kashkar. They literally brought, this was at the height of what's called the East Turkestan Independence Movement,

when they were blowing up like Chinese post offices and buses like they were going out of style. This was, I believe, I want to say, 1999. and there's an old city, which is the traditional old Silk Road city of Kashgar. It's, by the way, now probably all gone because the Han Chinese were, the Han Chinese were delivering, we're carrying it all down. In fairness to the Han Chinese, these places were squalid, no running water, no plumbing, foul, but on the other hand, really insanely charming and world heritage site should have been restored and, you know, turned into tourist hotels. People would have loved it. They're so cool.

But anyway, they, at one point, I didn't know what's going on, they brought in a flatbed truck with loudspeakers and these poor fucking guys who were allegedly ETIM guys and they announced something. You know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't understand Mandarin. But it was clear the people were horrified on the streets and they fucking shot the dude right on the fucking street on the back of the truck. It was shocking, to say the least. But the Uyghur stuff, I mean, you know,

are they genocidally killing millions of Uyghurs in like death camps? No. That's not. That's not happening. No. But they are committing cultural genocide by importing Han Chinese into Xinjiang and

supplanting them, turning them to a minority in their own homeland. They are propagandizing them. You know, it's everything is super political there. Like, John, even the time of day is political. Like if you're in Xinjiang, so China is bigger than the United States, right? Yeah. But it's sort of like, it's the same size of the United States if Alaska were attached to the lower 48, right?

It's like that. So it has, and it's about the same kind of shape, but it only has one time zone. Beijing, right? All the way out in the east. Yeah, it's one official time zone. So at 7 o'clock in the morning, you know, official national time, it's 4 o'clock in the fucking morning. You've already overslept at 4 o'clock in the morning in Xinjiang.

So people get up and, you know, they have to listen to some party cadre over a loudspeaker outside from the phone pole. It's like, get up and build socialism, losers. And so it's like you're literally, even for someone like me, it's enough to turn me into a rabid, like Milton Friedman capitalist. And so anyway, they, so if someone tells you in Xinjiang, like, oh, meet me for lunch, meet me at one, you'll, if they say, like, you'll be like, do you mean national time, Beijing time, or do you mean local time? If they use local time, they're pro-independence for the Uyghurs. If they say national time, they're loyal to the national government. Everything's political there.

But anyway, sorry. Oh, my God. I've never heard that before. That's incredible. It's really, definitely. I think I've told you this story, but we busted down the door of this Al-Qaeda safe house in Islamabad, grabbed a whole bunch of guys, like a dozen and a half of them. And there were three.

That you know, that old song, one of these things is not like the other. Yes, exactly. These guys did not look like Al-Qaeda people. They look Chinese. And so we brought them in for interrogation. I started speaking to them in Arabic, and they just had these blank looks on their faces. They didn't understand a word I said.

So we had half a dozen other languages in our little group of guys. And so we threw all these languages at them, and they're just staring at us. And finally, I said, I wonder if these guys are Chinese. Like maybe they're Uyghurs. They look like they could be Chinese. They look like they could be Tajik or maybe Uzbek even. So we had one guy, Tim, who spoke Chinese.

So he came up and spoke to them in Chinese and they just lit up. And they responded in Chinese. And he said, they're Uyghurs. I said, what the heck were they doing in Al Qaeda Safehouse? Oh. It turned out things were so bad in China for them that they went. to Afghanistan looking for work. And they ran into somebody up north. And this guy told them, this Afghan guy told them, oh, you should go to Torabora. I heard there's work there.

So they go to Torabora. They have no idea that 9-11 has taken place. We start bombing the shit out of Torabora. And these Arabs say, come with us. We're going to run. We're running from the Americans. They cross the border into Pakistan. They go in this safe house. We bust down the door. we grabbed them. They had never heard of 9-11. They had never heard of Osama bin Laden. They were looking for construction work in fucking Toribora Afghanistan in October of 2001. No, things are very bad for them. Yeah, no doubt. Really bad. That said, that is all, it's also true that between 96 and 2001, the Taliban did allow the Uyghurs, who were part of the East Turkestan independence movement to come to,

you know, to come to Afghanistan and train in their camps. So some Uyghurs, I mean, but they weren't there to do jihad against the West. They were there to train to do jihad against the Chinese. Yeah. Everyone, all the Uyghurs I talked to in Kashgar said, oh, you know, the Americans are going to, they were listening to Radio Free Asia. They were convinced, John, that we were going to come and rescue them from the Chinese and give them back their independence, which they used to have between 1933 and 1944.

there was a briefly lived Republic of East Turkestan who was aligned who they were allied with Nazi Germany and they still had some leftover like old Nazi planes at the airport that they still used of course you know totally totally it's so wacky so remote anyway it's a lot I'm sure it's a lot more connected now but that's because Uyghur culture is being eradicated You know, I went to Kashgar in 2007. I went because Paramount Studios had hired me to go to Afghanistan

and to rescue these children, these three children who had acted in the movie The Kite Runner. But I went to Koshkar first because they told me they wanted me to get sort of a lay of the land and then from there to to Kabul it looked exactly like Afghanistan it's the one and only time I've ever been there I'll never ever have reason to go again but I was struck at how it looked exactly like Afghanistan interesting um I can remark a comment from gerenica I always compared with China as doing to the Uyghurs to what the U.S. does to black families while Israel was more like apartheid South Africa, pretty evil stuff. I think a better comparison is maybe what we did to the Native Americans. I was going to say the same thing. Yeah. Agreed on Israel.

Yes, totally agreed on Israel. I guess we probably should talk about Iran. Look, I'll just, let me just frame what's going on. So at the latest point, we know that the U.S. has at least 150, planes near or over Iran right now. A dozen military ships in the Middle East. U.S. Embassy in Beirut just evacuated what they called non-essential personnel. I was going to mention that. We have the two carrier groups are already there. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who's currently Dan Kane or Raisin Kane is apparently his nickname. He's been publicly telling the press, everything's going to be cool if we decided to go after Iran. There's nothing that they can do about it. But privately warning President Trump that there's a risk of high casualties if the U.S.

does this. I don't know. Did you see the reason for that? I was going to ask you that. What is the reason for that? None of our allies are helping us. Not a single one of them. Well, why would they? I mean, this is a gratuitous attack just like Iraq was. You know, a war of choice is one thing. But this is intuitive. You're right. And I mean, there's not even been any attempt to gin up a, you know, a Casas Belli, right? And then I thought this part, I really wanted to pick your brain about this part, John. So he was also privately worried about depletion of stockpiles. Now, John, you and I are both in our six, our low 60s. I've never heard of the U.S. government being in danger of

running out of munitions before. I mean, is this because we gave so much shit to the Israelis? To the Israelis. Yes, it is. And we just haven't had a chance to manufacture and refill the supply. So literally, we literally not only participated in financing and arming a genocide against the people of Gaza on behalf of Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty regime, we also, imperiled American national security

and our ability to project power and to protect ourselves. Is that basically the story? Yeah, we put ourselves in danger. That's fucking insane. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So, let me interrupt you for one second.

Please. I got to say something about Israel. I've been obsessed with the clips that Tucker Carlson has been putting out on social media about his trip to Israel. You know, he met with Mike Huckabee at the airport. Huckabee wouldn't have him into the embassy. And Tucker was, you know, allowed to enter Israel.

He interviewed the Greek Orthodox patriarch, Theophilus III. He interviewed the Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem. Huckabee would not have him in the embassy. Huckabee had the traitor, Jonathan Pollard, into the embassy. but not Tucker. And then, as they were leaving Israel, the Israelis grabbed two of Tucker's producers, a man and a woman.

The woman, they let go. The man, they were asking him, like, things like, who did you meet with? What did they say? What questions did you ask? Let me see your phone. I want to download your phone. Who do you talk to on a daily basis?

What's Tucker's position on XYZ? and the guy wouldn't answer any of the questions. So the Israelis came out and told Tucker, just get on your plane and go. We'll put him on the plane when we're done with him. And Tucker's like, absolutely not. You're not kidnapping my producer. And this kid is like 24 years old, 25 years old, panicked.

The Israelis were intimidating. And Tucker refused to leave. And finally, they kicked him out and kicked him loose and said, okay, the kid's free to go. But the Israelis, you know, either we're at the point now where you're either with them. And when I say with them, I mean 1,000% with them or you're an enemy of Zionism and you're anti-Semitic. And I think that we are just about at a tipping point where these, where the Israelis will have done themselves irreparable damage politically in the United States. because there are people who consider themselves

or have always considered themselves to be, you know, pro-Israel, if not Zionist, pro-Israel. And now it's because they never really paid very close attention to the issue. Right. And now they are. And they don't like what they see. Yeah, John, I think we're past that point already. I don't see, I don't think there's any coming back.

The Israelis are, I mean, the APEC lobby, in this country is so desperate. And it reeks, you know, following their socials and following the socials of their allies in Congress, you know, you can just, you, they're scared. You know, they know, they are one administration away from really just not having the same relationship with the US as they always had.

I don't know how that's gonna look. I don't know if that would be a Buttigieg or a Newsome or someone else, or even a Republican maybe. You know, a friend of mine said, I'm sorry to interrupt you. A friend of mine said something interesting on social media yesterday. And he said, you know, we're all up in arms about Netanyahu and the way he's manhandling the U.S. government. And, you know, Donald Trump is falling into place and just doing as he's told,

Newsom has said nothing. No. Shapiro has said nothing. Kamala Harris has said nothing, Bernie Sanders has said nothing, AOC has said nothing, Hakeem Jeffries has said nothing. The Democrats are completely implicated. It's as simple as that. No, I mean, that is true. And, you know, the progressive base of the Democratic Party, they're watching.

They're paying attention. Well, and did you happen to see the after-action report that the DNC wrote? why did we lose the election in 2024? It was kept from the American people, of course. These things usually are released, this time it was not released. And finally yesterday, somebody leaked it. And the reason why the Democrats lost the election to Donald Trump is because they would not take a position on Israel,

standing up to the Israelis, and so Democratic voters stayed home. Yep, that's exactly what happened. People sat on their hands. Yeah. They should have voted for, Jill Stein, in my opinion. Yeah, I agree.

Ray Hepburn, thanks for the 10 pounds. Random question during the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, which, by the way, I can't believe, didn't pass like 90%. If we were just talking about that a couple of weeks ago. We were. What would be the CIA's position on that, John, and would they attempt to influence it? No, something like that, they wouldn't attempt to influence

because they're going to have really, really good relations with the Scots, just like they have really, really good relations with the Brits. That wouldn't be an issue. So I think that's 200 yen, maybe. No, it's got to be more than that. Maybe it's, I think it's 2001. Thanks very much for the donation there. And thank you for your very kind words.

Thanks for the 499 to Cleve 2. Just wrapped up a quick show with Carrie Prejean. Any interest in swinging by the show at some point? Also your last name. Are you Orthodox? Thanks. Me? I'm not Orthodox.

Yes. I mean, I could be. I mean, do I not? It's funny, you don't look Orthodox. Yep, I sure am. And somebody's correcting me that the interview with the Catholic Archbishop was in Jordan. Thank you for that. Thanks for the correction.

See, so he was not free to just go around Israel the way he might have wanted to. He was not free. No, no. I mean, So incredible. All right. So let me see here. Good morning, John from Stephen.

Do you ever plan on coming to the Midwest, specifically Northwest Iowa? That's very specific. Yes. But we haven't gotten, I'll tell you the truth. I'm planning, I'm working with a gang of people. We're planning this nationwide speaking tour.

You know, we wanted to start it in. February, then March, now April, then May. And the issue is, I need either a sponsor or an investor. I've approached three people. One said maybe. Two said yes, but we're bogged down with their lawyers who seem to work in such slow motion that we're actually moving backward because I can't rent the venues without the upfront money.

As soon as we get the upfront money, we're going to start renting those venues and going all across the country. So the quick answer is yes. I just don't know when. All right, TBD. Okay, let's talk about Afghanistan, right? So, you know, basically the news out of Afghanistan vanished along with the U.S. forces in 2021. Apparently, American media outlets don't care about a country unless we're invading and occupying it.

It's 1988 all over again. It is, it is. So, Everett, but things actually, life has gone on over the last five years. And so the question now is, is Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for Islamic terrorists? Pakistan has been complaining for years about these Islamist groups, particularly TTP and ISIS Khorasan, which is basically the Central Asian branch of ISIS, who have camps in eastern. and northeastern Afghanistan, which is kind of like traditionally wherever, it's sort of like no man's land where it's way up in the mountains. It's very remote, even by Afghan standards,

it's very hard for any government based in Kabul to get to it. And these people are always protected by local tribes. So anyway, they bombed these seven camps. The Taliban government says, you didn't kill any terrorists. You killed a bunch of innocent civilians, including women and children. The Pakistanis, there's like, oh, where we are sick and tired, we fucking told you to stop fucking around or you'd find out. This seems to me, John, to be kind of like, I think a story that's not well understood in the West. I mean, I don't think the Taliban are not friends with ISIS K. No. They don't like them at all. They would love to kill them all. Yes. But they just, I think the Taliban are too weak to really provide, ironically,

the Northern Alliance government under Hamid Karzai and then under Ashraf Ghani, they were too weak to have security throughout the country. And now the Taliban are too weak to have security throughout the country. I think as long as they're isolated from the world diplomatically and economically, that's going to continue to be the case. And then, you know, there's this, I guess no one cares about Afghanistan's sovereignty. I mean, UN Security Council isn't going to meet over this. I mean, what do you think of all this?

I wasn't kidding when I said, I think that this is 1988 all over again. The U.S. isn't interested in Afghanistan anymore. It's frankly not so interested in Pakistan anymore either. No. The bottom line is we don't have any national interest in the region other than counterterrorism. And so if they're going to just be out there killing each other, we don't care. You're right about ISIS-K. ISIS K is in Pakistan.

They are not allied with the Afghans. In fact, they've attacked the Taliban as not being radical enough. And so, just to put it crudely, the shit's going to hit the fan in that part of South Central Asia. And we don't care. And a whole lot of people are going to be killed. Mark my words, too. One of the things that ISISK likes to do or the Pakistani Taliban, which is also not connected to the Afghan Taliban is they love to attack police training camps and military camps because they're not what an

American would vision of police or military training camp to be like they're just you know there's kind of a cheap fence up around part of it it's otherwise open there aren't enough weapons for everybody they train with you know broom handles or whatever and a whole lot of people are going to die. And so, and then ultimately when something happens that does draw the attention of the U.S., Europe, or the West, again, everything's going to get conflated, right? Like the Taliban are going to be blamed for the shit that these groups carry out. Yes. Even though they're not, even though they are themselves opposed to it and enemies of these people. Yes. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I hate, By the way, I just want to just say I hate the U.S. policy towards Afghanistan.

We should recognize the Taliban government. We withdrew. We handed the country over to them. We should recognize them, but bring them back and try to integrate them into the world. That's it. Exactly. And maybe we could use that airbase again if we wanted to. Oh, exactly.

I mean, I bet we could. I bet we could. Yeah. The only people who are even trying to be slightly friends with the Afghans is the Chinese. Because they want them, they're, they're digging up the minerals in the east. That's right. Okay. Let's see if we have any, I know we have more questions here.

And again, I apologize for being slow at getting to them. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Sembach for the Grandma Core vibe. I'm rocking. Yeah, I was thinking this is like the worst ISIS video ever, you know, my background for people watching. Question Philip Blair wants to know, am I a Huguenot, aka a French Protestant? No, I am Catholic.

I served mass in everything. Serving mass in Ivan, can you guys even block me? Yes, yes, yes, we could. And yes, we will. If you need to be blocked, we would rather, to quote Donald Trump, to paraphrase Donald Trump, I would not, don't want that to happen, like to make a deal better than not happen. But if you can't make a deal, bad things will happen. Okay here.

Let's see, oh my God, there's so many questions. Please ask my question. Pink Lady, can you put it back in? Because it's like literally I'm like 300 or 400 comments behind here. Would it be possible for you guys to potentially? start taking in calls from watchers instead of just chat questions. Well, we did do a call-in show, if that's what you mean. We could do that again. That'll be, I'll definitely need Robbie for that. I think we'll have Robbie back either later in the week or certainly by next week. Let's see,

if Kamala had said she'd support an arms embargo on Israel, I would have voted for her, says Elliot, but she couldn't even do that. No, you're not going to get any leadership from any of the current American politicians on that issue. Okay, so cleave to John, question for you. Any thoughts on OCU, UOC crisis in Ukraine? Oh, my God. Honestly, we would need at least a half an hour to talk about that. Yeah, I blame Hillary Clinton.

And I'm not trying to be funny in saying that. it was Hillary Clinton that split the two because she believed that it would weaken Russia. And I've seen evidence that money changed hands. And the next thing you know is there's a split after the two churches had been united for 1,000 years. Now they're split. So this is, it's a disaster for orthodoxy and it's thanks to Hillary Clinton. Literally Hillary Clinton's responsible for her own personal schism.

Literally. So, M-Flow, have we ever been to Portland? I've been to Portland more times than I can count because my former in-laws lived in Portland. I was surprised how rough Portland was. Like I was right downtown. And I was surprised. It was a little rougher than I expect. It's a gritty town.

You know, it's very, you know, very post-industrial, not even post-industrial, it's very industrial, a lot of rust. I mean, for people, you and I are from Ohio and Pennsylvania. So if we say that, it's poorer than I expected. It's, what was the thing I also kind of like, I mean, it does do some cool stuff, though. They have like commercial rent control. I don't know if they still do. They did. Commercial rent control.

Commercial rent control, which allows, you know, for quirky stores and, and, and, and, and, restaurants because they don't have to come up with as much money so they can experiment a little bit more. They also have this green belt thing where they control urban sprawl by like sort of the you can't build beyond this point. There's a lot to like about Portland. One thing that I did not know is it's a, it has an incredible history of recent history of race riots against black people. Like back in like the 1920s, like black people and teens maybe it was, but black people were basically run out of town by, like, mobs of racist whites. And it's like still, the demographics are still affected by that.

I was shocked when I learned this. You know, I just learned something about Tulsa, Oklahoma the other day that I never knew. I mean, I know about the whole race riot and stuff. There was a group in the first wave of Greek immigration was 1890 to 1920. And a whole bunch of Greeks moved to Tulsa and were hired as scabs during a major strike there. And so the Greek community so took to Tulsa that they built, not just a church, they built a cathedral in the center of Tulsa. And then there was a move against the Greeks. and they burned the church to the ground.

They burned all the Greek stores to the ground. At the end of it, they had gone from, they had gone from something like, you know, 1,600 Greeks to like four families. And everybody else had fled. And it was another 50 years before Greeks started moving to Tulsa again. And now the community is just minuscule. Yeah, the idea now of like Greek Americans being controversial is,

bizarre. It's crazy. You know, I mean, it's like, it's like who even knows. It might be a dumb question. There are no dumb questions. They're only dumb people. Is there a purpose to the FBI opening an office here in New Zealand last year? Not many people were happy about it. Good question. And thanks for the donation to. Only, only the largest American embassies have FBI. They're called legal attaches. And usually it's because there are either so many Americans in that place, in that country or that city, that you have to have a robust embassy representing all the various federal agencies. Or that country is so dangerous or is a hub for crime that affects the United States that you have to have a legal attache. New Zealand is neither of those two things.

I think that this is empire building on the part of the FBI. They probably had a little bit bigger appropriation from Capitol Hill than they otherwise had had. And they decided, hey, we're going to put a position in New Zealand because once the position's created, it's almost impossible to do away with it. And they're just going to expand. Flacco Flow, thank you very much for this question and the donation. Will China move on the Wakon corridor or is this Western hysteria? I see this as their gateway to the Middle East.

So for people who don't know, if you look at a map of Afghanistan, you'll see this spit of land that sticks out like a tongue in the northeast. That's called the Wakon Corridor. And it barely just the eastern tip of that tongue is the border, Afghanistan's border with China. It's literally, I think, 12 miles or 8 miles or something like that. It's very small. Interestingly, though, the Waukon corridor is the least developed, this is saying a lot, the least developed part of Afghanistan. And it's insanely remote.

This is where when the Northern Alliance was in exile during the Civil War between the late 90s, this is where their headquarters was, right? They have to, it's way up in the mountains. There are no, there's no road that even like pretends to be paved up there. It's very remote. honestly, I can't imagine the Chinese wanting to having any interest in that God-forsaken, desolate piece of shit in the world. There's literally nothing there. Nothing.

Nothing. Yeah. And there's hardly any people. And it's forbidding geographically. Yeah. Well, there's parts of it that no human being is known to have ever traversed. I mean, it's literally, I've flown over. I've flown over it in a military helicopter,

and I couldn't believe how remote it was. It's like, yeah, there'd be no reason. So people who are, like, wondering, why does this exist? It's because Afghanistan was created as a buffer state by the great powers to basically keep British India separated from Iran, separated from Russia. It's an in-between country, right? Like, nothing personal, it's just passing through. And that little section is meant to separate like the, you know, Tsarist Russia from the British, from the British Raj.

And it's a very strange piece of geography. But I love the Walk-on corridor. I'm so glad someone brought it up. I wonder how that was, like when the maps were first drawn, like, how did Afghanistan end up with that, I wonder. that's a that is a oh well no it's because they literally um they had a they had a conference during the great game right between the russians and the english and they were like okay so you know afghanistan's not a real country right no no no it's completely made up by the british yeah i mean it's totally made up i mean there's the truth is there's really seven major ethnic

groups all divided like a pie like you know it's kind of like the usbeks live near the usbeck border The Turkmen live near the Turkmen border and so on. It's a bullshit country. And like that little strip is just like, it's a DMZ is what it really is. Yeah, it's a DMZ. That's a good way to say it. So, John, let's talk. Let's take another question.

Would we, thanks again for the donation from Mflow, would we do a Q&A talk for Portland State University? That's a great idea. Yes, absolutely. I have been to Portland State University and would happily come back. So, no, I love, I actually like visiting Portland a lot. And for no other reason, John, it's got the best bookstore in the United States. Excellent. Powell's.

Better than the Strand. I think it's better than the Strand. And the strand is great. I love the Strand. But, yeah, definitely have to, definitely have to hand it to Powell's. The reason I like Powell's better is because it mixes all the new and the used books together. So, like, if you're, let's say, you know, if you're, you're, cheap like me, I'd rather pay, get the used copy, but if there is no used copy, and I still

really want the book that there is the new copy as an option. Although as an author, I should only, we should only really be buying new books because that's what puts money in the pockets of authors. Yeah, that's right. Thanks for the 25 euros from Dem. My grandfather went to the U.S. from Cyprus in the 1930s. He had to leave because he was printing fake dollars. There you go. Whenever I travel, they always security check me. Is this related? Any thoughts on this? I can't imagine. It's not. I can't imagine that it would be related after so long. No way. No. It's your grandfather. All right. James, any thoughts on James Tolariko? M. Flo wants to know. I actually like James Tala Rico.

I hope he wins that nomination. I think the election is like Saturday or something like that, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. Last question from someone whose name starts with C-L-E-C. I told you, I really need Robbie. John, any thoughts on James Fishback? Help me out here. I don't know who that is.

I'm sorry. This is your question, John. I don't know. I guess the answer to that question is, No, James. No thoughts. Who's James Fishback? What a name.

James Fishback, American investor, hedge fund manager, and political candidate, candidate for the Republican nomination. Oh, that guy. Now, I know him. Yes, he's on Tucker all the time. I like that guy. I didn't know his name. Yes. I like James Fish.

Listen, if you're a Republican and you're voting for governor of Florida, consider James Fishback. Yes. Yes. Any thoughts, John, on former CIA director William Burns and current director John Radcliffe? You know, I wrote an op-ed in support of Bill Burns when he was first named because Bill Burns was a 35-year-long diplomat, senior Foreign Service Executive, Deputy Secretary of State. I said they're going to need an adult in the room at the CIA. and he was probably the best man for the job. I still stand by that. I have a great deal of respect for him.

And in fact, Tony Blair was such as Tony Blair, Tony Blinken was such a terrible Secretary of State that you needed somebody like Bill Burns to be really the de facto Secretary of State. The Republicans could have done a lot worse with Ratcliffe. I don't dislike Ratcliffe. I thought that he would be a little tougher. with the CIA rank and file than he has been. I wanted to believe that Trump was really going to try to, you know, take the CIA down to its studs and he would do that through Ratcliffe,

and that hasn't happened. Well, there's still maybe there's still time. Desert Fox question for us, would we do the same for Seton Hall in South Orange, New Jersey? I admit my bias, but even one in the tri-state area would be amazing. Absolutely. So let me just sort of explain about these invitations, right? People need to know, John, if I say anything out of turn, just let me know.

But basically what we and probably anyone else you'd want to invite to speak at, you know, who doesn't live there locally is going to need and want. You're going to want, you need a venue, you need a sponsor who can like publicize the event, and you need to be able to pay travel expenses, like in other words, airplane and hotel, and an honorarium. So basically you need a place and you need to pay your speakers and you need to put them, you know, get them to the venue. If you can do that, you can probably, you know, definitely, right, John? I mean, you can get us.

100%. And I will say, I've developed a certain amount of notoriety over the last couple of years. And I am finally for the very first time in my life able to monetize that. And so I'm represented by a speaker's. Bureau in New York. They booked me a speech yesterday abroad for a lot of money. When it comes to universities, of course, I'm partial to universities. I want to do them. I want to make that happen. So the price is much, much lower. But Ted's right. There's got to be some dollar signs involved. Yeah. I mean, you know, and look, obviously the further away it is.

is the more dollar signs. The more you need us to do, the more dollar signs. I'm going to speak in Vietnam on August the 10th. I'm only going all the way out to Vietnam because they made it worth my while. Yeah, it has to be. Like, now, that's said. Like, if you needed me to do us, if you wanted me to talk in New York City, that's no big, you know. Yeah, I'm going to speak at the University of Pittsburgh on like March 11th or 12th.

and a buddy of mine is a professor there. We've been friends since we were like five and three or six and four. So I'm doing it as a favor. But he's still paying me. He's just paying me a fraction of what I would normally get paid. Right. And you can see old friends. That plays into it.

Like if I were invited to Dayton, Ohio, you know, I would do that for a fraction. That's right. Because that's where I'm from. Okay. So any fairs aloof. Thanks for the fiber. Any thoughts on the massive U.S. embassy in Lebanon? For us, Lebanese, it feels like a CIA base rather than an embassy.

Is this related to Hezbollah Iran slash Iran? Yeah. So, yeah, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We have very few national interests in Lebanon, other than the physical location of Lebanon. The size of that embassy is not reflective of any U.S. desire to help develop. of Lebanon or to pull it out of its current state. It's on the brink of being a failed state. But, you know, Hezbollah is active and it's active in government.

And the Israelis are active in bombing the place. And so, you know, historically, the U.S. has had a significant presence there and they're going to make the biggest embassy they possibly can because the Chinese are there and the Russians are there and you know you can't lose your place. RJ, any truth to the pizza theory? I assume this is Pizza Gate and conflicts. And thanks for the donation. Thank you.

The answer is no. Dem Will. Demwell, do you do consultancy work? Yes. How do I contact you? You know what? Just what's the easiest way to contact me? Through LinkedIn, I guess, or email.

I don't want to shout out my email here. Don't shout out your email. here. But yeah, LinkedIn's probably the best. Just tell me that you're done will in the message. Supra. Hey John, how did M.K. Ultra and hypnosis contribute to torture tactics? That's a good question. That's a good question. You know, the CIA is going to lie to you and say that they didn't learn anything from MK. Ultra, just like the Nazis would lie to you and say they didn't learn anything from Dr. Mangala. So, yeah, they learned a lot. And even though they destroyed most of the documents by some accounts, 85% of the documents,

they learned a lot and they used it in future planning. Yes. Some people are saying that they're getting sound glitches. Other people say no. I apologize for that if that's happening. On this end, we only have a few minutes left, so there's probably not enough time to fix it. I'll be back home tomorrow, so things should be normal. I think, and Robbie will, I'm sure, be out tomorrow.

I hope he is. He should be taking care of his family. Okay, sound. I closed YouTube. Okay, so some people are saying that, of course, they can't hear me say this, so I'm not going to bother to do this. Okay, John, any chance of meeting you here in Saigon when you come to Vietnam? Why not?

Okay, good answer. My brother-in-law is so excited that I'm going to be there. that he's going to go with me. Wow. We'll have coffee. We'll get together for coffee or something. I like it. I like it.

John, last week you said that you talked to someone who, in a position to note, is saying that the attack on Iran, I mean, I think more, it's definitely more likely than not to happen, right? I mean, I think at this point where, you know, war fever is at a high pitch. Today, Monday, today is like kind of like roughly-ish when we were thinking it might happen. Yes. Do you think it'll, you think it could be like so, do you think Trump is so theatrical that he might announce like sort of Greg Stilson like at the speech tonight?

The missiles are flying. Alleluia, Alleluia. You know, I just rewatch that movie, not three weeks ago. The Dead Zone. The book was even better than the movie. The movie's great, though. The movie's great. One of Christopher Walken's best performances.

You know, which, which proves. that he can do anything. Yeah. Comedy, drama, he can do anything. Lead actor, supporting actor makes no difference.

True. Sure, it's possible. But somebody said something to me yesterday that kind of bothered me. And they said, you got your information from somebody in the White House. And I said, yes.

Maybe the White House was using you, knowing that you would say something publicly just to see what the public reaction to it would be. Maybe. And I said, yeah, I could have been used. Sure. I mean, yeah, there's no way to know that. By all the most recent accounts, Trump is going to wait for the next round of talks on

Saturday. The likelihood is that he'll say the talks failed. The Iranians won't concede. And then we hit him on the weekend. Well, the Iranians can't concede. I mean, what we're asking is just not possible. for them to agree to. So, I mean, I don't think any Iranian government could.

All right, I think that's, let's see, where we're going to have to leave that. Am I missing anything here? No. Okay. Real quickly, I never met Reza Pallavi. He would, I would have to call him a clown to his face, so he doesn't, I don't think he wants to meet me.

Okay, that. And I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure he knows how you feel about him. All right, John, thank you. Always a pleasure to see you. back tomorrow. We will be back tomorrow, Wednesday at 9 a.m. Eastern time for a deprogram with Ted Roll and John Puriakou.

Please stay here. We will be on TMI with myself and Manila Chan coming up right away and see you on the other side of the State of the Union address. See you then. Bye.