DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - No ICE, Please | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Scott Stantis of The Chicago Tribune fills in for John today.Today we discuss: • As Trump mulls invoking the Insurrection Act against Minnesota, the first poll after ICE gunned down Renee Good—with four shots—shows most Americans disapprove of the agency and its violent tactics. Also: ICE shoots another man and gasses a family of six trying to escape the chaos in Minneapolis, where ICE is targeting daycare centers. • France, Germany, Sweden and Norway rush troops to Greenland as a shown of force against the United States. Even lickspittle Republicans are pushing back against an invasion. • María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s extreme-right politician and neoliberal darling, gave her Nobel Peace Prize to The Donald. • Even as Israel continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza, Israel and the US announce phase two of their ceasefire: the Board of Peace.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:https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuLISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Good morning and thank you for tuning in to D-Program with Ted Roll and John Kariaku. Filling in for John today is Scott Stantis, editorial cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune. It is Friday, January 16th, and we have a lot to talk about, as we always did, and we always will. Nothing seems to ever change there. We'll do some housekeeping today on the agenda. We're continuing to cover the Renee Goods shooting, as well as the, ongoing aftermath and all the blowback from basically ISIS surge against the people of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis suburbs. France, Germany, and other European countries are

rushing a small symbolic number of troops to Greenland as a show of force against, you know, a horrible, disgusting, threatening, bullying invader. That would be us. But even some Lick Spittle Republicans are sort of rhetorically, kind of maybe probably not pushing back against an invasion. Maria Corina Machado, the extreme right politician, not that you would hear anything about her politics in the American media, gave her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump. We'll talk about that. And I'm sure, Scott, you'll have thoughts about all of these, but also Israel and the U.S.

have announced that the ceasefire in Gaza, which hasn't been, you know, much of a, there hasn't been much fire that has been ceased is now entering phase two and that even despite the fact that there's shooting still going on and Palestinians are still getting killed, the Board of Peace is meeting in Egypt to basically have a bunch of technocrats run what's left of Gaza. As always, please like, follow and share the show. for those of you who are regular listeners, yesterday we brought you up to date on the latest with YouTube.

It appears to be completely fixed, so we continue to accept your donations, everything John and I are going to get the funds. It's bureaucracy, and it's a very poorly run website, and Robbie and I will debate as to whether that's, you know, a bug or a feature of their system

so that they shouldn't want to pay anyone. Basically, we have, we have, we have donations and money, you know, from the ads and stuff. And they basically, you know, we see the money waiting there, which we would love to have because we're, what's the word, broke? And we, and it's like, and it's really hard to figure out like what we need to do to get it. It's like, well, you have to fill out this form. Well, we filled out that form. You have to do this form again. But we did that form again. Oh, and then it's like very deep inside, you know, we're going to need this other thing. So we sent the other thing. So it's like the French

bureaucracy is what this is. It is like the French bureaucracy. So we will get into that. A little other housekeeping for people who are familiar with Jermal Thomas and his show. He's a friend of the show. I've appeared many times. We used to be partners at Sputnik together, colleagues, I should say. We didn't have the same show, but we were on each other. Show is a lot. Anyway, Jamal had a stroke or a mini stroke. You define it. He is back from Europe, and he's back stateside. he's getting the medical attention he needs. If you want to search him up,

he's got a six-minute video on YouTube that explains where he's at. I've been texting him. I think he's in better shape than he thinks he is. I think he was really shaken, but he sounds and looks better than you would expect. And so he says the show will go on. I believe that.

And I look forward to being on his show and helping out any way I can. And I've offered him that assistance. And I hope he takes me up on it. Okay, so that all said, we're going to, as usual, Scott, you've done this before. We are going to get into the, we're going to get into the questions from the viewers and listeners. We put those into the YouTube or the Rumble chat if you're watching live. And Scott and I will get to pretty much all of them, unless we run out of time.

and we will in between fill in and bring you up to speed on what's going on in our thoughts about the situation in Minneapolis, which I think is quite grave. It is very grave. The mayor of Minneapolis yesterday evening announced that there's now over 3,000 ice agents in Minneapolis. And only like 600 cops. Is that right? Yeah, the ice force radically out numbers, the number of police. So even if we were going to go head to head with an epic states of states, the ultimate states rights versus federal power showdown, ICE has the decided advantage, even though they're a bunch of retards. Yeah.

Remember when Republicans used to be against states rights or for states rights and all, you know, for local control and. Yeah. Well, everything is context, Scott. Like, it's like protesters. If your protester is in Tehran, you love him. and you'll declare war against the country that's trying to kill him. If your protester is in Minneapolis, you're trying to kill him. Yeah, it all makes sense now.

Thank you, Ted. Always trying to be cheery. No, it's preposterous. Well, let's go ahead and talk about it, right? Okay, so basically some of the developing stories, the latest analysis of Renee Good's body shows that she was actually struck not three times, but four times. She took four shots.

And also, there's new polling out that indicates that the majority of the American people are still in favor of immigration enforcement, but opposed to ICE and its tactics. Not surprising. That seems very American. And in that sense, I agree with them. Also, the ICE shot another dude. They claimed that he was a threat. However, he was running away when they shot him.

So he was fleeing, which, you know, normally when people are fleeing, it's kind of the definition of not a threat. Yeah, well, the very definition. Yeah, the old fashioned notions of threats. They're more of a threat if they're standing still. Let's put that into context, right? Go ahead.

I'm sorry. Yeah, he shot the guy in the leg. Yeah, they shot him in the leg. And then also and then two really gross. things, as if this wasn't already a really gross story. ICE is now targeting daycare centers. They are going to daycare centers throughout the Minneapolis metro area and arresting caregivers.

So then the kids whose parents are at work have nowhere to go and they're trying to see if there's any undocumented children that they can detain as well. So that's charming. And then as part of making friends, they also tear guys. a family of six. Basically, this family was not related to the protests or to the ice raids. And they are U.S. citizens. They're driving along.

They come across an ice kerfuffle. They're like, oh, God, I got to get out of here. They're trying to turn. Ice guys surround them and say, you got to get out of here. And they're like, that's what we're trying to do. And then the dingus is drop a tear gas grenade under their car. and then the blast is so intense that the airbags deploy. So all the people, the six, the kids and the parents are stuck inside.

Two of them have severe asthma and almost died. Now, so they're real charmers, these like hillbilly ice guys. So that's basically the rough. I mean, and of course, Trump is mulling invoking the Insurrection Act, which he can do. I mean, yeah, there's no insurrection, but he is, you know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't stop him. There was no insurrection in Los Angeles during the L.A. riots, but that was certainly more understandable. Scott, you are muted.

Please demute. There you are. You are demuted. Scott, I still can't hear you. Testing. One, two, three. There you go. There you go.

Yeah, I like to call the proud boy employment agency or ICE. I mean, you see these guys and, and they're hiring. worse and worse people. I mean, it's worse in terms of physical shape, in terms of mental accruity. Their training is nominal. You know, even if you support, you know, this kind of ham-handed and heavy-handed enforcement of immigration laws, these aren't the guys to do it. I mean, it's just, it's absurd. It's becoming a force. Ted, you've warned about this for a while. I agree with you. And it really does play to my conservative thoughts as well, is that the government is the threat to your liberty. Now, what could be a bigger threat than an armed force of morons who are beholden

to an idea and who clearly don't know what they're doing, but they're heavily on. The vice president says they have absolute immunity. That's a quote. Yeah, which of course, they don't. But, you know, if the federal government thinks that they do, that means that there's not going to be any prosecution for things like, oh, I don't know, shooting people who are trying to leave, shooting people in the back. All of this just flies in the face. face of, if you're a real conservative, if you're a true, you look at this and it makes you very, very nervous because it just confirms everything that conservatives like myself have been saying for decades that the biggest threat to your liberty is the federal government. That's why we want

to limit it. That's why the founding fathers wanted to limit that power. And now of a sudden, you have an armed force that potentially could be the biggest armed force on the planet, by the way, if current trends continue. Bigger than the already bigger than the already bigger than the armies of most countries. And, and yeah, I mean, that's a thing, right? Like, so I just did, I just drew a cartoon for next week about this topic, about ICE. And, you know, and it's, and so here's the thing, right? Like, I always joke that the last thing that the American Cancer Society wants is for cancer to be cured, because then what? You know, we all have to go out and get new jobs. I mean, that could be unfair. Maybe there's just, they would love that. I don't know.

I'm just my joke. But one thing that is true is that, you know, you know, know, ICE one day might have, might deport the last undocumented illegal immigrant in the United States. That could happen. And when they do, are they going to say, you know, are they going to throw a big party and say, what a job well done? We did, we, we, we have secured our borders. Let's go home now. It's been a pleasure working with you. Now we will go back to our, you know, and take a 90% pay cut or be or 100% pay cut and be, you know, underemployed and unemployed. I mean, Scott, this is a job where there's already been, you know,

some 18 and 19 year olds who are getting $200,000 a year working for ICE. Now, these are people who often don't have even a GED. Okay. So no high school degree, 18 years old, they don't pass the literacy test. They can't read or write English. one of the guys they hired is 459 pounds. Okay. So these are not like, let's just say, the most employable people. But not the crumb to look atrum. I don't know about you, Scott, but if I had a job like that, I'd hold onto it with like Charlton Heston's grip on my gun.

I would not let it go, right? Like, it's like I'd keep that job no matter what. I would also love my bosses and my employers to death. And I would do anything they wanted. And if they said, you know, well, now that we've deported all the illegals, maybe we have something else, some other people for you to go out, go after. That's, you and I know this is what history teaches us. I mean, it's like these things, you know, bureaucracy, I mean, as we learned even in the era of Doge, all those Doge people who got fired, almost all of them are going to end up being forcibly rehired.

You can't really, once you build a bureaucracy, that's it. It's really, it's harder to get rid of than herpes, right? I mean, these guys aren't going away. This ICE will be with us. And people, I know some liberal Democrats who are watching this show are going to say, well, if we elect good Democrats, good progressives, they'll get rid of it. No, they won't. They won't.

Because ICE will go to meet with the new Democratic president and will say, You know, President Stantis, you know, we really, first of all, we appreciate you moving over to the Democratic Party. And also, we really, you know, you don't know. I mean, the right wingers could try to take over the country. We've got to be ready. We've got to have this. You know, you can't just put them back in their box. We wouldn't be able to stand them up quickly enough if we had another crisis.

We've got to keep our borders secure. We've got to keep these guys working. That's how this works. Not to mention, it's like if you fire them, it's going to hurt the economy because it's tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Well, idiots. And all the, all the, you know, they get their, they spend all that time at the Army Navy store buying surplus gear.

That's a lot of money generating, you know, that's a lot of economic activity you're going to put an end to. I mean, I'm not even really kidding. No, the Army Navy surplus stores need this. They do. They're going to defend them. You know, to your point, said, I was out to lunch a few years ago. And the SWAT team.

I'm not making this up. The SWAT team for the city of Hoover, Alabama. Hoover, like the vacuum cleaner. Yes. We're out. And these are jacked up. I mean, like obviously steroided to the gills guys. You know, the uniform, the shaved head, the, you know, the hillbilly beard.

They all want to be like, they all want to think they're in SEAL Team 6, right? That's their deal. Well, yeah, these guys didn't have beards, I don't, but they did have the two sizes, two small T-shirt. That's not gay at all. Barely gay. But my point is that do we really need a SWAT team in Hoover, Alabama? If there is a SWAT situation, can they not say the bigger city to the north, Birmingham,

say, hey, Birmingham, we have a situation. Can you lend us your SWAT team? Because they won't be doing anything. Right. These guys, you know, so this couple of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. ice the ice the the the the explosion in the size of ice coupled with the president threatening an institute to have used the insurrection act which he seems to like this is a president who truly loves the late 19th century i mean i've come to the conclusion now he loves i mean he gilds everything the white house looks like a french horth house now a couple that with our imperialism which apparently we've got the new imperialism because we're going after greenland and maybe other countries, who knows. You know, Scott, like someone on Reddit dug up one of my old cartoons from 03.

Okay. And it was like, it was a cartoon about like ridiculous expansionism. And I had Bush invading the silliest country he could possibly invade, which was Greenland. Well, it's the, and to finish the thought, imperialism was in vogue. in the last part of the 19th century, we went to war effectively with Spain over it and ended up with the Philippines and Cuba in Guam, Midway, a lot of islands in the Pacific. This should send a chill, and that's- Puerto Rico.

Oh, yeah, Puerto Rico, which we still have. Cuba for a while and then Guantanamo Bay now. Yeah. So, you know, and now couple that with having a massive armed force, domestic force, which is so anti-American, I can't believe it. That's right. And I mean, the thing is, so a heavy plurality of Americans who are Republicans still basically are in favor of this ridiculousness. 50% of Republicans think it's okay to invade Greenland. And about 40% of Republicans are still okay with ISIS doing. I mean, I do have to ask, I mean, look, and by the way, you and I've criticized, you know, I've been brutal to Democrats under Democratic rule. But right now, they don't have any rule. So it's like, It's the GOP that's in charge.

So they're the ones who, you know, we're going to be talking about. They, you know, where is there under, forget about patriotism. Where's their understanding of what this country is and is supposed to be? Oh, it doesn't exist. I think that, I think the election of Donald Trump, especially in 2016, I've spoken to this before and I'll speak to it again. Because I sound like a sad old man because, well, I am on this score. And that's on, in terms of civics and in terms of understanding. what the United States is, we're held together by an idea.

You know, it's not like a common, a long, you know, centuries-long history, although we're celebrating our 250th this year. But we don't have what France has, what Germany has, what Italy has, what England has, to that kind of cohesion of millennials, of being together. So what holds us together is an idea and ideals. and all of those went out the window in 2016. Everything we thought to be true, everything we thought to be,

here's the paradigm. When this happens, this happens. We believe that this is wrong. As Americans, this is what we believe. We don't believe that stuff anymore, Ted. It's not being taught much anymore, either, to be fair. Right. And it's also, I mean, I think Trump is as much of a symptom

as a cause of these problems. I mean, and also obviously, you know, our constitutional rights have been abrogated slowly over time. You know, I mean, the president state has started stealing, you know, congressional war powers, you know, 180 years ago, right? And it just basically has gotten worse and worse. Yeah, 2000, I think is key. I think 2000 is really crucial, you know, torture, the stuff that, you know, John helped expose that he did expose. And, you know, the NSA stuff that Snowden exposed. I mean, the thing is, to me, the question, the thing that's surprising is not the fact that the government was up to no good or is up to no good or that they eventually, it all came to light or all comes like, that's easy to understand.

What's not easy to understand is why the American people aren't more uniformly pissed off about it and willing to do something. Yeah, and they were. If you remember back in the 70s, they had the Church Committee, Frank Church, Frank Church, from, I want to say, oh gosh, Idaho, Iowa, one of the I states. Anyway, had hearings for the CIA in their domestic spine and domestic shenanigans, shall we say, and Americans were aghast, many. Some, you know, and there was that, there was always that group that said, hey, what's the big deal? They're just defending us a guess. You have nothing to worry about. Right.

And so, but the revelations from there are weak tea compared to what's happened since 2000. You and I were one of the few cartoonists, if I may, you from one perspective, me from another, who really were screaming bloody murder at the erosion of civil liberties. And how many times were you told, Ted, we're at war. Scott, we're at war. We've got, we have an enemy and they're not going to follow the rules, then we're not going to follow the rules. No Queensborough, Queensberry rules for us. Scott, we have lots of questions backed up.

We should take. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. All right. Let's, let's, all right. Thanks for your questions and please put them in the YouTube chat. Let me poke in Robbie here just for a second. Robbie is blacked out here inexplicably.

Robbie, do you have, do we have an ad? One second. My internet is cutting. You take care of that. Let me know. Okay. Okay. We all know what that's like. Okay. So, Elliot Covert, between foreign insanity and democratic backsliding, what are the odds of the United States remaining in NATO over the next decade? It's a good question.

We invade Greenland, then not at all because we've just invaded a member of NATO. And as Ted mentioned in the way we came in, the news, is that Germany and who else, France? is sending, you know, token troops. Norway. Yeah, I think they sent as 28 troops as and as Robbie said like, as if 28 troops is going to stop Trump. Look, here's the thing. It could though. It's not that the 28 troops are going to repel them militarily. But if you kill them.

But it's like you can't, you can't hurt them. You can't, you know, it's like they're human shields. Yeah, but Greenland's awfully damn big. We could land pretty much anywhere. It may as a big land. We already have a military base there. Stay with me on this. This is why this is why this is so mind-boggling and it really comes back to the Trump-loving the late 19th century. This is imperialism. And you've mentioned this, I'm sure, before several times on the show. Denmark has signed a treaty with the United States in terms of Greenland saying effectively, okay, let me put this the crudest, but easiest way to

understand it, Ted. Denmark has a hot wife and has looked at the United States and says, you can do anything you want to her, anything. And it's, we're Jake with that, but she's still our wife, that she comes home to us when you're done with all your horrible, nefarious things that you've done to her. And Trump is saying, no, I want to marry her. I wanted to be here. And it's just like, why?

You can literally have to do. and have your way. Have your way. They say you can build as many bases here as you want. You can have as many ships, as many troops, as many anythings here as you desire. Why are we doing this? What's, and is this, I mean, is this a faint? Is this a-

The Greenlanders can't even really get around in their own country, right, or in their own territory. I mean, people don't understand this. There are no highways in Greenland. So, for example, if you want to go from Nuk, which, is a, you know, which is the provincial capital, the territorial capital, to another city in Greenland, you can wait for the sea to thaw and take a boat, or you can fly, which is what most people do. That's it. You know, they can't even drive from one place to the next. So, they're not really in a great position to, you know, hop in tanks and roll around and defend

themselves from the Americans. So let's get into the deep, I mean, let's get into the deep, the dark web here. What's actually going on? Because as I just described it, and it's an accurate description, we can do anything we want. Our treaty with Denmark is we can effectively do anything we want, anything. Yeah. Why is Trump doing this? Is this just a distraction from Epstein? Is it that simple?

Or is there distractions from the terrible economy? Everything is a distraction from Epstein. When he wakes up in the morning, he's like, let's do something and distract from Edstein. But look, I think that the problem is, that's, I mean, Scott, that's the $64,000 question, right? Nobody knows what's on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on negotiating style where he's like I ask for everything and then you know people it cows people and they feel lucky to you know to get off to get off with less than everything that's just his negotiating it's we know that's his negotiating style right like

I'm gonna come or kill you all take it whatever I want nothing you can do or in other words, is it a bluff? You know, it reminds, it's very Hitlerian, you know, supposedly he had a copy of Hitler's speeches, but also he probably never read those speeches. He doesn't read. But I mean, you know, Hitler was a big bluffer, right? Like in the early 1930s, when he re-militarized the Tsar Valley in Western Germany and against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, when he went into, certainly when he went into Czechoslovakia, But even before that, I mean, all these moves, remilitarizing Germany was against the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Now, the thing is, later, toward the end of the war, toward the end of his life, he confessed in private that if the French and the Brits had decided to enforce the Versailles Treaty, he said he would have been dead within three days hanging from a lamppost in Berlin.

They would have just, there was no way to stop them. Germany didn't have any military. it was a bluff. He said this was like a triumph of the will to coin a phrase. Basically, he bluffed them. They didn't come in. That gave him the time that he needed to rearm, right? That's kind of like, so is Trump bluffing or not?

Nobody knows. And that's the thing is like you can argue that the, that even bluffing to this extent is reckless and dangerous. And, you know, I think it is. But, you know, we don't know. We don't know what's going on between those two orange ears of his. Anyway, Elliot Covert. Also, three or four generations of Europeans have been free riders on American defense spending.

Are they capable of abandoning their welfare states and re-arming? Probably not because their economies aren't doing well as it is. And they, you know, they fuck themselves up by, for example, blowing up the Nord Stream, you know, pipeline and energy prices went way up. And it fucked up their economies. But I mean, here's the thing. My question is, do they need to? Who's threatening Europe, really? I mean, you and I have different views on this.

But really, I don't think there's any world in which Russia is invading even eastern, much less central or western Europe. Not to mention, a lot of these countries are nuclear powers. Like, really? You think Vladimir Putin's going to take on France? Be serious. No, but I do think he's got there are parts to his western border. Scott, your sound is a little muffled. I don't know why.

Oh, gosh, I just love that. This thing tends to, ah, there we go. Sorry, give me one moment. Okay. Well, while you do that, I'll fill up the air a little bit, which is what I'm good at doing. Is that better? Oh, there you go.

That's much better. Thank you. And, Robbie, if we have an ad, please let me know. Halfway through, half way through the, these things. He says, okay, we should step it. He says, you want to skip the ad, or do you want to do But my internet's really flaky right now. If it goes down mid-ad, that could be bad.

Okay. All right. You know best. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry about that. No, I'm sorry.

For some reason, this thing decides to switch to my iPhone, microphone, halfway through like our podcast. It's the weirdest damn thing. So now I'm back. Well, so the question is, can the Europeans afford to no? Yes. But here's the thing. It's sort of like, can I, can Ted Raul afford a new, a new Tesla?

No, but Ted Raul doesn't need a new Tesla. Ted Rao has an old car and it's fine. And right now, like, NATO is perfectly fine with the weapons they have. They could do with less than what they have. They don't need them. No one's coming to attack them. You know, it's like there was a, there's a photo that I have of like, so, you know, during, remember a few years ago when there was the FEMA accidentally sent a notice to

everyone in Hawaii saying that a nuclear attack was coming. And then later, there's these highway signs that went up that just said, there is no threat. I want to put that sign all over America. There is no threat. We can put it in Europe, too. Well, to your point, and we can roll back to Greenland, you know, Trump's selling point is that if we don't take it, Russia or China will.

And it's just going, China? I China? China is not a I think Americans like to conflate threat and rival Yeah I mean Scott you and I are rivals

in cartooning we both apply for the same prizes we would both like to be in the same newspapers but you're not a threat to me nor I to you We're rivals China does not have any interest in hurting us They just want to make a lot of money

Well they don't mind hurting our economy which means and they don't mean Disrupt me. Actually, I don't really think they do want that. Think about how much debt, think about how much of our debt that they own. If we tanked and all those treasury bonds, and notes were suddenly worthless overnight, they'd be fucked. Well, that's just a few trillion bucks here and there between friends. And their expansion is in the South China Sea. I mean, you know, building islands and things of that nature. You can't, you can't dismiss China as a threat, but are they a threat to Greenland?

I would say no. Now, is Russia a threat to Europe? I'd say Europe as a whole. Ted, you're probably right. But parts of Europe, you know, this guy seems to want to get the band together. The Ukraine and Kurdish didn't go as planned. It wasn't the Blitzkrieg that Putin had hoped for. But I think he's definitely, I mean, people in the Baltic states are definitely scared

shitless today because they think they're next on the list. And I'm scared shitless of spiders, but it doesn't mean. that I'm right. Oh, yes. Actually, you are never more. You are never more than 20 feet away from a spider. Did you know that? Yeah, I believe that, actually.

And they be coming for me. And they bite you too. You get the two little fang marks in the morning. Oh, yeah. No, I woke up one time I had one in my face. It's just like puffed up. Yeah. I've had them on my face too.

And I didn't have superpowers afterwards, which sucked. By the way, you have to tell me if this is true. I had a girlfriend who lived in Phoenix. and she claimed that one morning she woke up and there was a tarantula mound in her yard. Yeah. That's a thing? Oh, yeah. I told her that this is where at the time I was estranged for my father, we get along now.

And he was, you know, he had top security clearance. I was like, you should have my father call out an airstrike on your house. I mean, that seems like the only, quote, aliens, best to be sure, better to nuke to the planet. Quick story and we get to the questions. having like a little barbecue in the backyard with friends. And my little, my youngest son, who was at the time, I think about a year and a half, two years old, comes walking up and holding something in the palm of his hand.

It was a tarantula. Awesome. He picked it up and the tarantula happily did not bite him. But he had a new pet. Well, I bet he was so unafraid that the spider wasn't afraid of him. Yeah. No, he was pretty cool. That's cool, actually.

Greg Battis on the countdown screen, you should add links to Robbie Aid and merch. Yes, and just because of that remark, I will put the Robbie Aid link up right now. There it is. Are we afraid that the next step, Alex is asking, will be an ultimatum. Choose which country you serve, no double citizenship. Well, John has double citizenship, and that question was partly for him, and I have dual citizenship. And yeah, I'm afraid of that.

Scott, you know, I've talked about that. I mean, I got to tell you right now, my instinct, and I'm not Alec Baldwin, I don't blow. I don't think, look, no one's going to care if I leave the United States at all. You know, the only effect of this is that I'll be eating better food and drinking cheaper wine. But, like, I think the, you know, like, if they make us choose, you know, one or the other, I don't have to choose France because of the fact that they're making me choose. France doesn't make me choose. You know, it's kind of like that.

It's an abusive relationship at that point. What country is John? Greece. Okay, Opa. That's easy for you. Easy for you to say. Good morning from the Minnesota Warzone from Katie Catastrophe. Just another day of 1940s, Germany over here.

I would love to have you on to talk about it. Elliot Covert, do we ever look at you and I, Scott, ever look at political cartoons from the 1800s? Seems like a lot of effort went into political cartooning in those days. Yes. Oh, they're beautiful. Look at Punch. Kepler, I believe was his name, was the publisher and was a an opponent, not an opponent, but a competitor

with Thomas Nast. And it's beautiful work, but that punch came out very strongly against imperialism. They, that was the issue. So yeah, you're absolutely right. They were gorgeous. And they were on lithograph, was it a lithograph stones, Ted? Yeah. And oh my, they are just. copper plate, right?

Well, some of them were. And the guys, the unsung heroes of 19th century art, Ted, are the guys who carved the woodblocks and the copper plates. Because, like, Thomas Nass would do a cartoon and send it in. Yeah. And some other dude has to, like, use acid to, like, make it happen. And also little, little knives at the time to do the engraving part for the copper plate. And just like, these guys were remarkable artists and totally,

unsung. And there's no one who, honestly, you could like put out a search and offer $10 million a year for someone to do that. No one can do that now. No. And these, like I said, these guys took, they remind me a lot of like Hemingway's. There's a book that came out recently of Hemingway's editor. And this is, this is silent. And it which the editor at his publisher did remarkable work. Hemingway would send in like literally a box full of crumpled paper. Yeah, that's a lot of those big authors were like that. Yeah. And like the editors really kind of were co-authors.

Yes, absolutely. Sherwood Anderson, one of my favorite writers, I've seen a lot of his manuscripts. And it's like you describe, it's not even that they're like hard to follow. You've seen the old manuscripts where, you know, a typed paragraph was cut out with scissors and then taped to the side of something with an arrow,

like this goes here. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking like literally, shits full of misspellings and grammatical errors. It's like, you know, it's retarded style. It's not written very well. Yeah. And then some like, you know, probably 42 year old Vassar graduate, old spinster, like wrote it and made it pretty, you know?

Well, this editor worked with both Hemingway and Fitzgerald and cobbled their copy into something comprehensible and beautiful. And he finally is getting the credit he deserves, but he didn't get any credit then. All right. Let's get more questions. McKenna 308. What are your thoughts on the FBI search on the Washington Post reporters of home? It's disgusting. It's it's it's it was designed for the same reason that ICE is designed to send a chill down the spine of, um, of reporters. And it's not unheard of. I met it's a Ted the other night. It has happened before. Yeah. It has happened before. But it's still the purpose is clear here. Yeah. Well, when it's happened before. It was also disgusting. Yeah. And so, you know, that's because reporters aren't really protected under the law. We don't have a federal shield law protecting reporters.

Reporters should not have to reveal their sources. They should be like Catholic priests. Catholic priests do not have to reveal what they hear in the confessional. And nor should a journalist. I mean, any good journalist is like, fuck you, send me to prison. That's what I would do. Well, I thought the courts had ruled in the 70s, especially when Nixon was going after the press in a big, bad way,

they'd ruled that, yes, you can defend your sources. And reporters went to jail, some of them for, you know, an uncountry long time. Yeah, an uncountry. And I think, yeah, there should be a shield. It's up Roger Mudd's career. He was supposed to, he was first in line to take over after the retirement of Walter Cronkite at CBS News. but while he was cooling his heels fighting the feds, Dan Rather kind of like got the drop on him.

Remember Dan Rather's sweater vests? I do. Do you remember him sneaking into Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion? No. He did. He snuck in over the mountains. It was actually really badass. That's pretty badass.

Yeah, he was, you know how he came to national attention is he was a local no-name reporter in Dallas, Texas. And then New York. What? well he wasn't but he was in Dallas and he just happened to be on call to for for general assignment duty on November 22nd, 1963. Oh wow. That's amazing. You know, I went to college with Jan Rather Jr. And he was a great who was a he was an excellent guy who looked a lot like

his bush his bushy eyebrowed father. And his in anyway, one time he threw a keg party in his dorm and we ran we ran low on beer which as you know is a major crisis oh my god yeah situation like that and then he's like oh yeah i sent out for beer his father shows up in a van a rented van with with kegs and he's like hi boys and he partied with us oh what was he like he was like a really funny normal fantastic it was like one of the it was like a true privilege to meet him he was he's really seriously salt of the earth Isn't that nice when you meet people you respect and they turn out to be pretty great? Yeah, yeah, it is great.

They used to have media parties at these conventions. 1988, I'll never forget walking. And Janine is my wife is extremely pregnant with our second child. But we come into the media party and two quick stories. You walked under this like hallway of balloons and we're walking up to the entrance and people are going, and I'm going, okay, they know they work. This is awesome. I love this big.

But I love my God, this is fantastic. I look over my shoulder and it's Peter Jennings is just like five feet behind me. Is he smoking? Because he was a big smoker. He wasn't smoking in there because you couldn't smoke. Even in the 88, you couldn't smoke inside most places. I met Peter Jennings because I used to do stuff at his network in the late night on the world news now. What would you do?

3.30 to 5.30 a.m. It was in the 90s. It was basically late night. It was Gen X Andy Rooney is the best way to describe. it five to seven minute segments um i sell i have them on vhs and i always think about like you're way i'd have to come to take a look i never i didn't know that yeah i have them on vhs if did you have any viewers the joke we used to say was more security guards get their news from abc news now than any other source more bakers anyway he was a very nice very nice and very collegial person too oh see that's great

but, I mean, we, at the 88, and then I ran into Andy Rooney. You ever noticed that, you know, that guy? What a, what a dick. He was, he was, he was a crudgeonly unpleasant. He was a very, he was very uncomfortable in his own skin, too. But, you know, he, speaking of badasses, he was on the fucking beach at D-Day. As a reporter? As a reporter.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, he was a, he's a lethal guy. That's why he probably survived. because nothing hit him. He's not like, well, the ice guys, they'd be dead immediately. Well, the boat would sink.

Flandarina wants to know. Did we see that the Court of Appeals has overturned the ruling in favor of Mahmoud Khalil? Yes, Mahmoud Khalil being, of course, the Columbia University, I was going to say grad student, but he graduated from the school with a master's degree from Colombia. He's got a green card, and he's got a, And he's got an American-born wife and he has an American-born baby. And, you know, his case has bounced around the courts. I guess this now goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I'm terrified how they're going to rule. I mean, basically the precedent is that Mahmoud Khalil would be effectively sort of semi-denaturalized, stripped of his permanent residency status simply for criticizing Israel and using his First Amendment right to protest non-violently at Columbia University. I find that terrifying. Yeah, and this court is not a friend to civil liberties. No. And as I mentioned at the top of the show, I am a friend to civil liberties.

And so which court threw it out? Do you have it to? This is a federal appeals court. So it's serious. Trump appointee. Yes. So now it goes to SCOTUS. Oh, yes.

God knows how that. they're going to rule on this one. I think they do. I don't really know what they're going to do. John, I mean, sorry, Scott, old habits die hard. That's okay. Marina Karina Machado, who's, of course, the neoliberal darling. Yes.

I mean, to Donald Trump's credit, he was smart enough to say, okay, let's not repeat the mistake that we made with Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and install someone. that nobody in the country likes. She's so far right that when she was part of the right-wing coalition against the Chavez-East, the Chavez-Das in Venezuela, the right-wingers threw her out for being too far right. Okay, so she's really out there. Inexplicably, but not for the first time inexplicably.

The Nobel Peace Prize went to her. God knows, you know, a lot of the time what the fuck they're thinking. Anyway, she met with Donald Trump. She's so great, even though he didn't install her as new president, she, to thank him, she said, hey, have my Nobel. This is causing problems in Stockholm. I'm sorry, not Stockholm in Oslo, where they're sort of saying, you know, like, oh, maybe we should be a little more careful who we give our no bells to. Yeah, maybe.

Honestly, Trump deserved it more than she did. Well, she was fighting for free elections, which I mean, you can be a right winger and still believe in free elections, which is what she was pushing for. But that's not also a peace issue, is it? Yeah, it was a weird. It was kind of, and it was also a fuck you to Trump, wasn't it, if you recall? Because Trump was doing, I mean, I got to hand it to the guy. He broke it a piece. It's tentative pieces, but there's still peace between, say, Cambodia and Thailand.

the Gaza piece, which is now going into a second phase, which no one's really sure what that means. But there you have it. And he's been working hard trying to get a piece there between Ukraine and Russia. You got to respect that. You've got to respect the effort. But by turns, he's blowing up boats without due process. And he's invading countries and kidnapping their leaders. So that kind of, you know, one would think.

And threatening close allies. And threatening allies and invasion. So that's right. You're Canadians. Did he? Yeah. How do you piss on? They are very hard to piss off.

You just came back from Canada. Yeah. They're pissed off. They're really pissed off. I mean, fortunately, they're smart enough not to take, you know, not to personalize it. Like you're from America, therefore you're a bad person. That's not the case at all. Any American good can go to Canada these days.

You'll be treated great. That's not. But they're pissed off at our government, big time. They're boycotting our booze, which has. had a major impact. Jim Beam had to stop production for the entire year because the Canadians are no longer importing our bourbon. That's a problem. It's amazing. That's also just, that's also tied to the amount of or lack thereof of drinking that people are doing nowadays that about a year or two ago, we took a tour of, we went down the bourbon trail in Kentucky.

And these people, it's so great. It is great. But the, manufacturers could not build what's called brick houses that's where they store the barrels to age the bourbon and they couldn't build these things fast enough and now all of a sudden I mean what's the drop in alcohol consumption 60% yeah it's off a cliff yeah I mean remember remember during the pandemic when liquor stores were classified we're allowed to remain open yes essential service I was like at that time I was like God bless America yeah well we you know we were going to drown the COVID germs and alcohol. I did my part.

Vermicious Nids wants to know, what's the likelihood that some of the large popular YouTube channels are CIA intelligence backed or sponsored? Sure, a lot of ex-unquote ex-CIA channels toting agency lines, hashtag free kiriaku. Well, I'm going to try to remember that question for John. But I think that's a really valid point, right? like X-C-I-A-A, right?

Ted, if I watched John's appearance on J-R-E, if so do I think about his sucking up to this administration. First of all, I didn't see it, so I can't comment on that. If John sucks up to this administration, considering that he's up for a pardon from this administration, I, for one, will help him suck up to this administration. I want John to get his pardon. He needs it, he deserves it, he never should have been imprisoned

or sentenced in the first place. the dude deserves a ticker tape parade down Broadway. So look, it sucks when you have to. But also, John does call it as it is, and he's been right here criticizing this administration a lot more than he ought to be, given his current situation, pending, waiting for a pardon.

That's my take on that. EOL 43, maybe a few cartoonists should update fear and loathing on the campaign trail into an updated graphic novel, a midterm race to the bottom. I don't know about the midterm thing, but I do think that fear and loathing could be updated, you know? That'd be fun. Would be fun.

Which one of us would take the drugs, Ted? I'm really... I don't like drugs. That would have to be you. You have more experience in that field than I do. I do. Not that you're doing it now. I'm just saying in the past, in the very distant past.

Let's be clear. That's true. Yeah. Even in my very distant past, my experience with drugs is highly limited. I experimented. Don't true. I can't even say that I experimented. It's kind of like the officials say that.

Yeah, I was young and I was experimenting with drugs. You had a lab. You were the control group? Exactly. Let's see what happens here. Frasmataz, Scott, you mentioned a proud boy ice connection. Did you see former head of the group Enrique Tario was one of the names listed in the recent leaks? Yeah.

No, that doesn't surprise me in the least. You can look at these guys. Yeah, Scott, you were early on talking about this. I said, because I see things, you know, with my eyes, as Ted says, I know what I, I see what I see and I hear what I hear. There's a picture of an ice raid out of Chicago. And the guy was wearing, he was wearing literally wearing a souvenir t-shirt from a Texas Rangers baseball game as part of his uniform. And I sent this to my, to my, to the editor there I work with at the trip. And they were like, yeah, we kind of noticed that too.

And you just got to go, are you going to do a story on it? We're not sure we have this. I'm like, oh my God, if there's a story in this country, that's a story. It's a massive story. Yes. And it's not being covered. And I think you're right. I want to know, can you think they're wearing masks.

I want to know who the fuck they are because we are paying their salaries. They're U.S. government employees. And if they're law enforcement officers, I mean, you could get a list of every employee of the New York Police Department, if you're in the press. Why can't I get a list of every ICE employee? The state of Illinois passed a law that you cannot, if you're law enforcement, you cannot cover your face.

Yes. Unless it's for a gas mask. But of course, ICE is ignoring that. Well, yeah. Well, they're fighting it like crazy. They're going through the courts now. And so to your point, yeah, we call this I call. all this. And so early that these, we know what these guys are. Look what next time you,

you see pictures or video from an ice raid, even this, even with the Renee Good videos, you can see, no one's, there's no, there are no uniforms. These guys show up with what they bought at, at, you know, Duck Empire, which is weird, which is very strange to me. Yeah, like Dick's sporting goods, right? Like, what the, I don't understand why. I mean, this is a big opportunity for, for grift and contracting. Like, why not, like, throw out some contracts and say, yeah, we need, like, you know, 20,000 uniforms and, you know, tactical gear. Maybe they just, I assume it's because they're ramping up so fast.

They just don't have time. And they're like, hey, you know, when you're, when you're done with your high school GED ceremony, get your ass over to the sporting goods store, report for duty for your two-week training. And, you know, we'll put a gun in your hair. hand, you can go out and kill some brown people. Yeah, they couldn't get uniforms, but they can get the guns to them. So that's, there you go. I mean, so this one's from me.

Why am I so, Aaron Arnold? Why am I so insulting to Southerners? I make it sound like we're still in the early 1860s, as opposed to what, the late 1860s? So first of all, I apologize if that's how I'd come across. Scott, you are a southerner in a manner of speaking. Robbie is definitely a southerner. and I love some of my best friends are literally southerned. So I was talking about hillbillies.

And by the way, hillbillies are not just from the south, okay? I'm from Ohio, and trust me, there are hillbillies in Ohio. Well, your former senator and now vice president. Well,

he's a fake hillbilly. Foe billy? He's a foe billy. I mean, for sure, I'm as much of a hillbilly as he is. He's from Middletown, Ohio, okay, which is called.

middle town because it's halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton. Okay. And it's literally southwestern Ohio, well north of the Mason-Dixon line, not in Kentucky. It's Rust Belt. It's where like the GE plant is. And that's where he's from. Now, I'm from about 20 miles north of there. I'm from Kettering south of Dayton. Now, we're from the same place. My place that looks more it's a bourbon, but it's a suburb to a rust belt shithole, Dayton. Same thing. We're the same. I know his story, right?

He and I are both very similar. We studied hard in school. We got scholarships to go to Ivy League schools. And we never looked back except when he saw the opportunity to become governor. He decided to go and do that. Senator. Oh, Senator. My apologies.

Governor, you actually have to work. But, yeah. So anyway, Vance is he's a faux billy. Anyway, these are hillbillies. These ice guys, they're fucking hillbillies. And there's lots of extremely well-educated southerners. Southerner and hillbilly is not the same thing. You know, that's all I'm trying to say.

We accept your apology. Okay, thank you. I'll try to do better, though. I can always do better. Glass and candy. Trump already revived the Monroe Doctrine with Venezuela. Him invoking manifest destiny, sadly, is not so surprising. He models himself after Jackson.

Jackson, for sure. I think Jackson actually, I think he models himself after late, late 19th century Republicans like McKinley, although McKinley kind of fought against like entering the Spanish-American War, for instance. He thought that was going to say, though, I agree with the poster because it's like, I mean, Jackson's whole schick was, you know, do what you want and it's easier to get, it's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. That's, that was always his stick. Look at how we acquired the Florida's, as it was called. Oh, I know. I just love that he just went.

They said, no, you got to stay away from it. That's Spain. We don't want any trouble. Just stay. And Jackson's like, fuck you. We've got two minutes left. So we'll take one, we'll do one topic and we'll do one comment. I will.

The Frasmataz, possibly difficult question for you, for me and Scott. How does it feel from the right and the left, looking back on those Nazi Ruby Ridge type people who popularized terms like Zog. Well, I never, I never liked them. I mean, I, I, I thought like crazy. I can tell you throughout my entire career up to the recent times that people would say,

you know, the Republicans are a bunch of Nazis. And, you know, they'd throw all that stuff at me. And I'd say, well, the reason I became a conservative was because I thought conservative thought, you know, a rising tide raises all boats, that it really was beneficial. It was a much better model to help. everybody. And I know a lot of Republicans and a lot of conservatives felt exactly the same way. However, there was an element of the party that we kind of kept in the, you know, up in the attic, the crazy uncle up in the attic. Well, the crazy uncle now owns the house. He's got it. He was in

the will and he runs the place. It breaks my heart. It absolutely breaks my heart that a party and an idealism that I gave up 40 years career to have completely sold out. and gone towards the dark side. And I can't speak for Ted, but I can tell you that that's how I'm feeling. Well, there's no time for me to say anything here, which I'm sure it comes as a relief to many people, but also, so in the few seconds we have left, ceasefire in Israel, Board of Peace, you know, thoughts, Scott, I personally think it's ridiculous. I mean, there's not a ceasefire.

They're still killing people. Well, I still like, but I do appreciate the effort. I mean, I like that. Let's leave on a up note on something that positive thing I can say about Donald Trump, and that is that he does seem to be against, he seems to be against wars unless he's, you know, starting them. Unless he's starting them. All right, that's it.

We have to leave that there. Please have a great weekend. Scott, thanks so much for filling in for John. John Kiroaki will be back Monday along with me here at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. He will be back here. And we're here Monday through Friday, Please stay tuned for the TMI show with me and Manila Chan coming up right up right now.

And please check out the DMZ America podcast. Scott and I just dropped our thoughts about Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams yesterday. It was a great conversation. And I really encourage everybody to check it out. Bye, Scott. Have a great weekend. Talk to you later.