DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - No More Mr. Nice Guy | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • WarSec Hegseth declares an age of American “utopian idealism” over under the new National Security Strategy, demanding that U.S. allies fend for themselves, and called for a more conciliatory approach to China. • Oral arguments in SCOTUS over Trump v. Slaughter, which will likely strip independence from agencies have regulated American monetary policy and stock trades, transportation systems and election campaigns, consumer product safety and broadcast licenses. • Thailand bombed Cambodia in what it claimed was retaliation, leaving a peace plan presided over by Trump in danger of collapse. • “I’ll be involved in that decision,” Trump says about Netflix buying Warner Bros for $82 billion. Will he scuttle this monopoly?

Hey, Seth, you still have a job. Congratulations. You're watching the program with Ted Raul and John Piriaku. It's Monday, December 8, 2025. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. Good to see you. Likewise. I hope you had a good weekend.

Thank you, sir. You too. I did. It could be cold, though. Yeah, it's cold. Really cold. Very cold. So, lots to talk about today, as always.

I think I'm always going to be saying that because it's always going to be true. So, Heng Seth, speaking of which, the war sack or deaf sect, depending on your politics, has declared an end to the age of American utopian idealism. I missed it. I must have been sleeping, but when that happened. But anyway, no more Mr. Nice Guy, as we declared in the title of today's show. Also, the Supreme Court is poised to, I think, rule in favor of the administration

in Trump v. Slaughter, which is going to have some huge implications. in terms of the way that the federal government works and in terms of its independence from the executive branch. We'll talk about that. I suspect as a former federal government employee, you have a few things to say about that, John. Thailand and Cambodia are back at it. So the question is, will Trump step in to try to rescue the ceasefire agreement that he negotiated two months ago? And also, and this is not last but not least, you know, this Netflix Warner Brothers deal obviously has clear monopoly implications. I mean, literally, when I go to watch TV, I literally am like, my two favorite networks are either Netflix or HBO Max.

I literally look at those two. I mean, these two will now be one. There's going to be fewer places for people like us to pitch in Washington. It's a monopoly, and it looks like Trump's aware of it. And he's saying that he might, he's going to consider it. He's going to be personally involved in this decision. I'm not a, which is highly unusual at all. Yeah.

The more people who question it, the better. So anyway, there's that. As always, we're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. If you have questions or comments, please post them in the live chat. We are fully monetized back on YouTube. So please like, follow and share the show. Super Chat's work again. I think that's about all the housekeeping we have to do until we do an ad.

So, John, what do you want to do? Well, let's talk about Heggseth. I have to say that I wasn't paying very close attention to Heggseth yesterday until you sent me this piece. This utopian idealism, what the heck's he talking about, Ted? You're a living proof of the fact that there was no such thing. No. Is he talking about this alleged wokeness in the military? Is that what this is about?

If so, why didn't he say this a year ago? Yeah, it's very vague. Yeah, it's vague. You know, he's basically our, this is a new national security agency, I'm sorry, new national security strategy that basically says that we're going to be looking out for America first.

Here's a quote. In his speech, Hegset said, the U.S. shouldn't be distracted by democracy building, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing, and feckless nation building. We will instead put our nation's practical concrete interests first. First of all, I want to just say, never have I agreed with anything Heg Seth has said more in my entire life. Exactly right. However, I have to say at the very same time, that speech is making headlines that are shared on the same exact news headline page

as all these stories about, for example, the controversy he's involved with blowing up random fishermen and drug runners in the Southern Caribbean and trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela and negotiating with President Maduro for him to leave. How do you reconcile these two simultaneous actions in the same exact cabinet department? You know, I think they're trying to thread a needle here

where they don't want to actively overthrow government using military force. They want the government to essentially overthrow itself and put Maduro on a plane. Yeah, exactly. It's a put Maduro on a plane, have them go to Havana or Moscow. Kind of like what they did with Bush did with Aristide in Haiti. Exactly what Bush did with Aristide. That's right. And then, but on the other hand, they're able to, or they think that they will be able to couch this military action as a MAGA action because we're not committing ground troops.

It seems to me that they're trying to have their cake and eat it to. That's really what it comes down to. And here's the thing, right? Like, I don't think it matters what people like us think about it because we're not the audience for it. But, you know, I think MAGA World already knows all about what's going on in places like Venezuela, and they don't like it. Nobody likes it. I mean, if you don't have the Canadians, you don't have the Mexicans, you don't have the Brazilians, you don't have the Colombians, what else matters in the Western Hemisphere? Right.

I mean, there's that Caribbean organization of, you know, what's that called? I always forget what that thing is called. It's the equivalent of ASEAN, but it's for the Caribbean countries. Right, right, right, right. And it seems like you'd want them involved. You know, I mean, here's the thing. Like, I think it's possible in the same way to say that Saddam Hussein was a bloodthirsty, torturous dictator and say we shouldn't have overthrown him.

And say the same thing here, like Nicolas Maduro is maybe not like the best Venezuelan national who has ever breathed air. But, you know, and say that at the same time. it's really not our business. It's up to the people of Venezuela to get rid of him. That's right. And so, I mean, yeah, so I agree with you. It's a push. I mean, John, this is your wheelhouse.

I mean, wouldn't this have called more typically for an old-fashioned 1960s, 1970s, Latin American coup, right? Isn't it like CIA-backed covert? Sure. Isn't that really kind of like if that's what the administration is after? But the problem here is that those old-fashioned CIA coups were almost always done with the support of the local military. And in this case, the military supports Maduro. Right.

So, yeah, well, you're no, you know, regime change without the military in all, even in a revolutionary situation is always impossible, right? When you ever study, it's always, the military always cinches the deal in places like, you know, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution. that's always the final thing. You have to have them. Just parenthetically, by the way, did you notice this coup attempt in Benin? Yeah, sure did. The government announced,

or I should say the military announced that a coup had taken place, and the president says, oh, not so fast, I'm in charge, you're all under arrest. There was a coup attempt, but it was unsuccessful.

And that was an old-fashioned dogs-of-war-style coup, right, where they seized control, of state media. That's right. ...appeared on TV. Just the way they teach you to do it. But it didn't really, yeah, it didn't take.

I think we're just, you know, we haven't seen the last of African coup attempts. There's just been a whole spate of them lately. All right, so, I mean, I do want to, like, linger a little bit on this idea of American utopianism. So let's talk a little bit about the strength of it here. I mean, the meat of it. He says, allies are not our children. Hegesat said we can and should expect them to do their part.

In other words, the U.S. shouldn't be financing the military defense of countries, of rich countries that are allies that can easily afford to pay for their own upkeep. I mean, I agree. Yeah. Yeah, I agree too. But the thing is, though, that's not going to save the American taxpayer a single dollar. Because we'll find a way to spend it.

And it won't be on things like infrastructure. It'll be some other component of national defense, which is terrible. It's funny because I was kind of thinking of Venezuela compared to Iraq. We were having that in the group chat discussion. And I was thinking, like, in a way, right, I mean, you know, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when you create this giant military industrial complex, you know, people are sitting around thinking of ways to be useful. Like, what can we do? I mean, we don't, it's not enough for them to say, let's just sit around.

And if anything threatens us for real, then we'll be ready. That's just not, like, real. That's not, like, not how people think. There's always ambitious human beings always want to, you know, step it up. You know, oh, like, you know, Iraq, what if they still had WMDs? Oh, well, then, you know, we could topple the whole Middle East. All the dictatorships would go like dominoes. You know, and now this Venezuela thing is like, well, maybe we can get oil on the cheese.

What is the real, let's just say we, let's say Trump wins in, you know, he gets Maduro on a plane, he's gone. What's the next plan here? I mean, it's a two-part question. First of all, would it be the Trump administration's plan to find like the equivalent of an Ahmed Chalabi who is going to step up and be the new ruler of Venezuela? Would they reinstall, what's his name, the other Venezuelan guy who wanted to be president? Oh, Juan Guaido. Would they, yeah, would they install Juan Guido? It seems like that's what they would want to do.

I had this Venezuela expert on my other podcast, Deep Focus, the other day, last week. I'm not even sure we've released it yet, but I think it's coming soon. And I asked him essentially the same question. And he said, Venezuelans don't have. any idea who Juan Guaido is. He was literally just a grad student at George Washington University when the first Trump term people, led by John Bolton, just announced that he was president of Venezuela and then forced, what was it, 36 countries to recognize him. That's what we did with Hamid Karzai. Most Afghans didn't have any idea who he was. When I talked to them, they were like,

who? Yeah. And then we just installed this guy. I mean, so, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think there's any plan for who steps in in a post-Maduro regime. I don't think so either. I don't even think there's a plan whether we should install them. I think it's just like, just get rid of Maduro and hope for the best, basically. Like, hey, that worked out great with Gaddafi. You took the words right out of my mouth. That kind of policy never works. The whole overthrow policy never works. It never works out the way you think it's going to. Just like, and there's not even a best laid plan of mice and men here. There's no plan. There's no plan. And so, okay, so it's like they go, Maduro goes away. What's the hope here? Is the hope that we get the oil at a discount? It doesn't

work that way. Oil is a global market. Right. And the, I mean, the Belgians get it for the same price we do. Sure. Venezuela is a member of OPEC. They're not going to undercut themselves by giving us cheap oil. See, and this is the other question, too, Ted, is what threat does Maduro pose? no threats there aren't americans being killed or kidnapped there's no threat that that they're going to invite the chinese navy or the russian navy in to you know be right off the coast of florida none of that is happening we just don't like the guy well and that's the thing too though here's the thing that i get right like so we have bumper sticker politics in this country right i mean americans be working 60 hours a week they're they're too busy to follow everything to the extent

that they even want to. Now, if you target Iran, which is foolish, but at least there, it's like, okay, the skids have been greased from a propaganda point of view. Everyone knows, like, the Ayatollah was evil with his big bushy beard and, like, you know, the hostages and 444 days. Like, they know about that. People have, it's in our national consciousness. Russia, the Cold War, Stalin, all that stuff. But Venezuela, I mean, I mean, the American people have not been propagandized to think that Venezuela is anything to even think about at all. Yeah. How can you, so there's not going to be any support for those.

No, you remember just after 9-11, everybody in America wanted to go to war and just destroy Afghanistan and destroy al-Qaeda. Which, by the way, I think just to interrupt quickly, I think that had a lot to do with the fact, again, that the wheels had been greased because of the Taliban mistrust. treating women, blowing up the Buddhist statues a year ago, a year before. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, kind of took the words out of my mouth. There was kind of a, I mean, it was easy to convince Americans. You don't even have to do any convincing. Everybody saw 9-11.

They saw it all play out on TV. We wanted to kill everybody. There is no such background with Venezuela. What have the Venezuelans done to us? It doesn't make any sense. No. And then like this whole, I mean, and the whole shtick here, And this, I guess this goes into sort of Fox News echo chamber stuff.

Whenever the United States, when the right wants to say that there's a problem, like let's say, you know, opioids will say like they've declared war with using opium. The migrants are a war. It's an invasion. So they use military terms to adhere to these phenomena that are not military at all. I mean, you know, we can, I'm against illegal immigration for sure. I believe in a strong border. But it's not a war. It's not an invasion.

These are people coming to find jobs and make more money, right? And get a better life. That's what they're here for. And it's sort of, so, I mean, the thing is, when you only are playing to half the audience, because only half of Americans watch Fox News and follow all this stuff, I mean, you kind of, you have a, your ceiling of popular support is inherently low. I mean, even if you get 100%, you know, I, ideological acquisition of the people you're targeting,

that's only 50% of the country. You're never going to have enough to really sustain a military conflict. No, you're absolutely right. I see in our internal chat, Robbie is taking exception about the word invasion. It is an invasion. Robbie, shall we pop him in. Sure, pop in. Robbie, say your piece.

It is an invasion. Well, you can tell by the immigrant air force and, the terrible heavy weapons the immigrants are using against us. No, I mean, serious question here. If there's any other country in the world where you had 100 million people come in, would any other than what it is, which is an invasion? First of all, that's not, that's not true. It's not 100 million people.

No. Look, a million is too many, okay, but it's still. I totally agree. But it's not. But for example. Let's just say France, okay? What would happen to France if you say... Well, they have had a huge illegal immigration problem.

Yeah, that's my point. And the thing is, like, the French are actually doing something about it. Whereas I don't know if y'all saw Tucker Carlson when he was interviewed Pierce Morgan on his podcast last week. And he had, and he pointed out, though, so Pierce is that the Native Brits are going to be a minority in their country in like 20 years. And Pierce Morgan's like, what's wrong with that? Like, seriously? that's national suicide by demographic change. But that is exactly what that is.

But we're not, nobody here is arguing for illegal immigration. What we're saying is it's not an invasion. It's a, it's a flow of people. Like, for example, many, many times, you know, hundreds of thousands of Afghans, millions, have crossed the border.

Millions. And it's happened a bunch of times. And then they go back home when the, mostly, when the, when the conflicts are over. I mean, you know, it's kind of like that, flow keeps happening. The Iranians have also taken in lots of Afghans. And so the Iranians and the Pakistanis don't look at it as an invasion. It's a, it's a flow of people. It's a migrant flow. Okay. You're both students of history. When the Goss, the Visigas and the other and the other

German tribes were going across the border into the Roman Empire, was it considered an invasion? Well, that was the answer is yes. Those were armed, those were armed forces, right? These people are armed with drugs and also armed with even on the forefair, depressing. You're making my point for me, Robbie. Yeah, I know I am. And you're totally saying I mean, you're just saying what I'm saying, that you're adhering military terms to a non-military

situation. That's all that. Because it isn't military, it is a military term. That's exactly what it is. I put him on disagree. Okay. All right. Bye, Robbie. Bye. Okay. So, but you know, I'm glad he's here to say that because it's important to, seriously,

to represent that. A lot of people agree with Robbie. NPC, let's do some questions, John. NPC 3PO. How many countries in Africa does France still control after the, well, you know, up to and including the coup and the coup attempt in Benin? That's a good question. Good question. I have to count. I don't know, actually.

Certainly that number has declined. They lost Burkina Faso. They lost Niger, right? They lost, I guess, pretty much, I'd say Mali is pretty much lost. Yeah, they physically withdrew from Mali, what, a year ago? But I feel, John, I got to tell you, I don't think, I think the French are harder to get rid of than herpes. I think they'll be back. You know, I think when Macron, who is such a weak leader, is gone, you know, it doesn't even matter if it's a lefty or a righty.

France will be back in post-colonial Africa, because they always are. I mean, sort of the way the tradition has always been in the post-colonial world that the former colonial power always either has an excuse or a duty, you know, white man's burden, to step in and fix if there's like any kind of outbreak or a coup or a genocide. Like they're supposed to go and mop it up. And so that will be, there will be calls for that. Like you guys broke this African country.

You have to go fix it. You know, I would say that that is especially true in the Sahel. just as the going got tough the french bugged out like now is the time where the world legitimately would like to see french troops just destroying al-Qaeda agreed protecting children and i got to hand it to the french one thing that i like about them when they do these things um i to the extent that it is a violation of sovereignty and all that but i like it they send in small forces yeah they do you know they send in maybe two thousand troops you know but of course badass like foreign legionnaires like serious

motherfuckers but it's like basically it is a it's something the US doesn't know how to do it's a pinprick operation yeah that's absolutely true it's surgical we send thousands and thousands of troops and then we'll get bogged down for years and then declare you certainly a thousand you can get them out easy three planes they're they're gone okay what uh Rob Vaik what was the story about Mike Baker splitting Greece, John. You've never answered this story after touching on it multiple times.

Mike was, Mike and a colleague were doing surveillance on a target. And they forgot to account for the most effective security system in the whole country,

which is one old Greek lady peeking out of her window. And she noticed, She noticed these two guys sitting in a van on the street for three days. And she called the cops. And the cops came, knocked on the van window, told them to get out of the car. They were both wearing very poorly done disguises. But inside the van, nose, mustache, basically, inside the van were other disguises.

And multiple identities, multiple, multiple identities. ask, multiple identification cards and passports from different countries in different names. And so they were expelled from Greece. That's what it came down to. Robbie, I'm going to let you come in and answer this one. From three birds, one stone, question for you, do you intend to legally go after the personal organization that docks you? I was a lawyer.

I would rep him for free. Robbie, answer. The answer is no. That person, what they meant for ill, the lawyer. meant for good. It's been a blessing in disguise and that's no small part because of the generosity and support of the audience here on this show. So no, they tried to hurt me and it completely backfired. I'm able to do what I love doing. I'm working with two great guys. And you're cheating on us? I wish them. I wish them all the best. And I'm, I'm enjoying watching them cannibalized

because all the doctors just unionized on Friday. So they're fucked. Thanks, Robbie. All right. Let's see. Do we think that the, that maybe the fact that maybe the U.S. came into an agreement about Venezuela with Russia, wait, do we consider the fact that maybe the U.S. came into an agreement about Venezuela with Russia in exchange for Ukraine? Ooh, that's interesting. Ooh. I like that. That is interesting. I don't know.

I haven't seen any evidence of it, but that would be very interesting. It would be, I think politics at a higher level than. you know, we're seeing that kind of, I can't imagine that kind of geopolitical horse trading in this current environment. And I'm not just, you know, using that as a way to attack the Trump administration. I don't see, I don't think Putin thinks that way either. You know, this is like, you know, you always have to go to the Cuban missile crisis and that famous tradeoff between the eastern, between the missiles pointed at the U.S. and like, you know, we, the Kennedy promised to I mean, at the USSR, Kennedy promised to remove them. Where were they? Were they in?

Turkey. Turkey. Yeah, yeah. I always want to say Poland, but that was part of the Warsaw Pact. Right. Yeah, they were in eastern Turkey. Okay, thanks to U.S. Triple X Arod for the two bucks. Thank you.

Oh, until Trump tests its Biden's preemptive pardons. It's coming. It's coming. Hague set this prime example. Why doesn't he want to try and undo it? But will that stop him for much longer? He can't have that kind of awareness. I don't think he's going to, I don't think he's going to do it.

I think he's just jumping up and down and yelling about it because if he does it and he's successful, then the next president can undo his preemptive pardons. Okay. And let's see, one one for each of us, and then we'll get back to the topics here. Differ, I talked about knowing Carter Burwell. He's a famous film, film music composer, in an episode released over the holidays

That's cool. Can you talk about some famous people you know or maybe share a story of one of those friendships? I'll think about that. I feel like maybe that's a rubble premium. That's a rubble premium idea. That's what we'll do because it would take up too much time here. Also, I always think about like I don't want to tell any stories out,

any tales out of school. I know Carter wouldn't care. Johnny Jackson. John, if you heard about Admiral Leonard Francis, I've never heard. Is that Fat Leonard? Yeah, Fat Leonard. He's a defense contractor got himself in a whole bunch of trouble around a bribery scandal. I think it was with the Navy and got, what, 15, 20 years in prison? He was the guy that dragged down along with him. What was his name? He was the CIA executive director under Bush. I forget his name now. Nice guy. But, yeah, Fat Leonard, this was a pretty big scandal in the Navy, which seems to be prone to scandals. Why do you think the Navy is, yeah, it's true.

You never hear about a Coast Guard scandal. No. Like, you know, or even Space Force. No, Space Force. Space Force is clean as a whistle. I met a guy the other day who told me he was retired from the Space Force. And I said, retired from the Space Force. I said he just made the Space Force, but eight years ago.

Yeah. He said, yeah, but I was in the Air Force for 20 years. years, and then I switched over to the Space Force. And I said, yeah, but then the Space Force has literally nobody in space. I thought it was kind of a joke until people started transferring into it. So what do you do there? And he said, well, we just pretty much- It always freaks me out when I see the flags of all the branches of the armed forces.

Yeah, and you're like, what's that one? Yeah, yeah, what's that weird-looking one with the Star Trek logo on? Uh-huh, with the Star Trek logo, exactly, which they did on purpose. Did they really? I'm glad it was on purpose, actually. Just like, you remember the early flip phone called the Star Tech? Yes. It was a play on Star Trek, and it was the flip phone like the Star Trek communicator.

Star Trek has so much influence on the aesthetics of our modern technology. Oh, my God, yes. So the compact disc, there's an episode where there's a library on a planet that's about to be destroyed when a sun goes either red giant or supernova, and there's an old guy in a white robe, and he shows all the information of our society is stored on these disks. On the disks. And it's a disc like this. And the guy who invented the compact disc, he didn't invent this disc because this was

the most efficient way to store data. He literally was just like, he was a Treki, and he's like, this looks cool. And people would buy these. Awesome. And also the iPad. Same thing. I want to show you something. Hold on.

Here we go. Yeah, the iPad is like basically. like in Star Trek, you'll see them hand a pad to each other, a report like, here, Captain, here's the information you asked for, or he signs off on something, it's the iPad. There was a contest in the Washington Post among cartoonists, for some reason. They wanted to know what this new Apple tablet would be called, and I won the contest because I said, I think they're going to call it the iPad after Star Trek. check this out

let me make sure that I this is an actual dilithium crystal from Star Trek I bought it from Scotty's son no way yes I did 10 years ago so what's it really made of

do we know is it quartz it's just quartz I figured it had to be something like that cool right so okay I'm going to answer one of the questions that about like friendships so I got to know Joe Jackson the singer-songwriter you know is she really going out with him that's fantastic and oh and one of the most magical

memories i had was uh i was invited over to his apartment in new york for a small grit gathering of people to do uh for new year's eve and at midnight he came out with his keyboard and performed just for like the 15 of us all for au laxan which was amazing because it's joe jackson anyway his bathroom is star trek themed and he had like he had like a tricorder he had a communicator all from the original series in the bathroom he had like all sorts of ephemera from the first season series i love it i love the original one i never really took to the other ones but the original i took i have to say i mean next gen is pretty fucking awesome you got to get past the first season because the first season is way too much about establishing characters right and like it hadn't really found itself also deep space deep space nine is fun too uh even though it's got some magical realism in it, which I'm generally opposed to. But Voyager, you know, I liked it.

I'll check it. The Enterprise sucks. Never watch it. Too bad. Yeah. Oh. It does have this, like, insanely hot woman in it and who's, you know, always, like, taking showers in the steam room and stuff. And you're just like, I know why we're doing this, but really.

anyway. So, all right, so let's talk about, shall we talk about Thailand and Cambodia? That seems like it's worth some. Yeah, I thought that conflict was solved and we had peace. Apparently, I was wrong. And I'm unclear, Ted, as to what exactly it is they're fighting over. It can't really be this little island in the river with the abandoned temple on it. It can't be. Well, as you know, The Thais are fiercely nationalistic. Yes, fiercely. Thailand is one of the only countries in the world that's never been successfully invaded by anyone else. And basically they're like the calm, like temporally, right?

Temperamentally, these people are basically, we're calm and peaceful and Buddhist. And if you fuck us us, we will kill you six ways till Sunday. And they mean it. We never start anything. We finish everything. That's the Thai way. I respect that a lot. And anyway, the thing is the French drew this map, right?

We talked about this earlier, so I'm not going to redo the whole thing. But anyway, there's a French colonial map caused this fuck up. And Cambodia's claiming, and Thailand both claim this little border area. I think that, so the ties are claiming the Cambodians started it up and shot at their border guards. Right. So they claim this is retaliatory. Fuck you. We're taking it over.

You know, we're fighting back. So they bombed Cambodia. Obviously, you and I talked about this, that there's no world in which the Cambodians can ever beat the ties at anything. Not a chance. So I guess, I have to think this is for domestic Thai political consumption. This is about national pride. It's about like no one fucks with us.

I think it's kind of like Thailand's like a little United States down there in Southeast Asia. Like we are, do not even think about it. I really think it's just about that. I think you're probably right. And you know, these little border disputes, they happen all around the world. We have border disputes with Canada, with Haiti. They're all over the place.

It's just most countries don't act on them. Plus these frozen conflict zones in the former Soviet Union. I mean, it's amazing when you think how little violence there's been associated with those. Agreed. Oh, interesting breaking news, which is related to one of our stories here. Paramount Skydance is stepping into the breach. They just announced a hostile takeover bid for Warner Brothers. They're challenging a $72 billion bid by Netflix.

John, that number keeps changing. I keep seeing $82 billion versus $72 billion. Paramount's offer, though, is bigger than both. They're offering 108, according to variety, which I would say probably has sourced it well. So it's not over. Interestingly, I would, you know, at first thought, Paramount might be viewed more favorably by federal regulators as a suitor than Netflix, because Netflix is really in the same exact business as many of the component parts of, you know, of Warner Brothers. Yes, you're right.

Not so much about Paramount. Not so much, not as much with Paramount. I mean, they have streamers. They have like Paramount Plus and stuff. I agree, but it's not a natural fit like the other would be. So it's like, yeah, they can make a synergistic argument better than, you know, but you know what the Netflix can. But the bottom line of all this, as you, as you said when you opened the show, is that it's just quashing any real competition.

Like everything we consume in terms of media. is all owned by, you know, one of six, soon to be five companies. And, I mean, so, I want something different. John, did you see, I'm sure you did over the weekend, the New York Times article that said everybody in Hollywood hates Netflix. And, you know, they sort of described why. But basically Netflix has kind of like, I think what this is, I mean, and they're basically saying this would be the absolute death knell,

the final nail in the coffin for the cinema house experience of going... Ted, honestly, I don't know the last time I went to a movie in a movie theater. And I like movies in movie theaters. So do I. But why spend the 20 bucks when it's going to be on Netflix in two months anyway? John, to me, the exception to that rule are these theaters like Alamo Draft House, where you can eat and have beers like while you're watching the movie? That's right.

Then it's a whole night out. I like, and, you know, Americans love multitasking. I'm no exception. We like to drive while we're texting. And we like to, you know, and we like to eat while we're watching a movie. That's what we do at home. We eat while we watch the movie. So you're like, oh, it's like, it's a night out.

Yes. Yes. That is nice. So maybe that's the future. Independent cinema. I mean, I think it's true. It's hard to get people to just, you know, why would I go just to sit in a chair and pay $27.

$27.50 is the price of a normal movie ticket in New York City now. Are you kidding me? One ticket, one adult ticket. See, and I bitched and moaned when I paid $15 last time. I bitched at 12. So, yeah, so people, so it's kind of like, okay, so you go with, I mean, it's a hundred, it's a hundred dollar night out if it's a penny, right? I mean, for two people and some popcorn and a parking, I mean, it could be easily,

$150. So, you know, are people going to do that when they have a 65-inch flat screen at home with, like, surround sound speakers and no one kicking the back of their seat? I mean, no, they're not. And not to mention, the movies aren't staying in the theater for any length of time. So there's no sense of exclusivity. Whenever I see that a movie is out, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm interested in that theater, that movie. And in three weeks, I'll watch it on streaming. My son called me and said, you've got to see Spinal Tap 2.

It's hilarious. I laughed through the whole thing. Big stars. Great. I said, great. I can't wait. I'll get around to it. Poof, it was gone.

Now, I'll just wait till it's out on Netflix. Yeah. There's just no point. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess the question is, this is a big question. I mean, should we, you know how like a lot of countries protect their business? Like, for example, the Europeans, they protect their farmers. They're like, it's very important for us to have not everything be big farm, you know, big agribusiness.

We want small family farms. So we pay taxpayers who live in big cities willingly happily pay to support small farms. It's a part of their national identity. In this country, should we as part of our national identity start thinking about certain lines of business? Like, you know, it's just not America without a print newspaper in your town. Or it's not America, really, without a bookstore or without, you know, whatever, a movie theater. I mean, should that be funded, financed, you know? I don't know, man, because it seems like a losing strategy to me.

The world is going to continue to change. You know, I'm going to draw a parallel. In the early 20th century, the Indiana legislature decided that Pye 3.1417, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, that's too complicated. So they voted and they passed a law in Indiana that Pye equals three. they did you can it's the ratio it's the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter and of course pie doesn't equal three so it screwed everything up and a year or two later they had

to withdraw retract the law that that would have that would have impacts on like acreage and stuff like land and exactly that's exactly what happened so it seems like yeah we can we can try to we can try to slow, you know, change and slow progress, and it's, it's going to fail. We're going to lose. And I feel like it's the same, the same situation. Indiana is to Ohio as New Jersey is to New York. We used to always make fun of them. Oh, my God, in Pennsylvania with West Virginia.

Absolutely. So we can, we can say every town needs a, need to print newspaper, which I agree with. I was a paper boy for five years. That's how I got started. in life, right, at the age of 10. The Dayton Journal Herald. I was the Newcastle News and the Youngstown Vindicator. Kettering off with times also.

But that's not going to slow the phase out of print newspapers. Just like subsidizing a theater, which I also think would be great fun, isn't going to slow the demise of the theater. Right. No, I know. But I feel like there are ways, like, for example, in Sag Harbor, the theater burned

down and there was a you know there's a lot of rich people there so they they paid to rebuild it and the theater came up with some really novel approaches that they needed the capital to have the chance and then like without having that like need to have make a profit every single night they had the breathing space to do things like we're going to sponsor you know you can have a kid's birthday party i went to one of these things at a at a at the movie theater and they played like Warner Brothers cartoons and stuff and served food to the kids in the theater You know, you can have events. It's an event space, and it's like, yeah, I like that, you know.

I like that. Hey, before we move on, too, Robbie says we have an ad, but I have a complaint from a viewer that I received over the weekend. All right, let's hear it. Ted reads the ads too quickly. I was doing you guys a favor. I'm trying to get through them. I don't know about you, John.

I don't like, what, is it not enough time to go take a piss or? I don't know. So, man, I'll tell you, I started doing ads for the very first time on deep focus. At least you don't have to say, go to www.john lovesgold.com. That's www.johnlovesgold.com. Do you have gold in your IRA? See, I would want everybody to read the ads really fast. That's like on, you know, like on radio when they do the station IDs for stations that have like multiple broadcasters like, you know,

WQXR, I'm like, you don't need to linger on those. Like, it's just like, you know, you can sound like a, like, that band with the squeaky voices. I forget what they were called. All right. Anyway, let's answer some questions. And Roddy, yes, we're, whenever you're ready to put up that ad. And I'm sorry about that complaint that you got, John,

but I'm going to read that ad faster than ever. Okay. John, do you feel the U.S. deserves the opioid crisis after doing the same to Russia with Afghan opium. I hate to say it, but yeah. This was a precedent we set. And I mean, we don't really have the moral high ground to point the finger at the

Chinese. The Chinese are just as guilty as we are. I have no love of the Chinese, that's for sure. But, you know, maybe I'm too much of an idealist when it comes to the kind of country that I think we should be or think perhaps we once were. But yeah, we were wrong, wrong, wrong about poppy in Afghanistan. Just like the Chinese are wrong about fentanyl. Yeah, that's for sure.

Okay, but I feel sorry for the victims. I do too. My brother-in-law died of an overdose. It's a terrible. It's a terrible thing. It's hard to make it to 30 without knowing someone who dies of an overdose. You probably, let's do this ad. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down.

They're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech. And now there's Rumble Premium. An easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the platform. No pre-rolls, no interruptions. Just the content you came for, plus premium members. Unlock exclusive content like bonus videos, behind-the-scenes drops,

and more from your favorite creators. Right now, Rumble's offering $10 bucks off an annual subscription. Just go to Rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout. That's Rumble.com slash premium promo code studio. So no ads, more freedom, and content you actually care about. That's the deal. Okay, we have a lot of questions, John. So let's fly through them here.

A more lighthearted question, do you guys have favorite conspiracy theories like the parallax view, Three Days of the Condor, et cetera? I love both of those. I love, it's not a, it's not, well, I loved Day of the Jackal. We talked about that. Day of the Jackal was so great. We did an entire, oh, God, I mean, I would say all the President's Men count as a conspiracy movie. Oh, that was terrific as well.

What about Ronan? Great, great, great movie. So underrated, such an underrated movie. It's not a movie, but I would say the X-Files qualifies as the mother of all conspiracy, everything in broadcast. I agree. Very well done. A little bit ahead of its time. Totally.

You know, it almost failed. Right? It basically was about to be canceled. It aired for one or two seasons or something like that. They were going to cancel it. And then Fox had something else fall through. So they were like, okay, just keep that rolling until we get our new thing up and running. And then that was the year it caught fire. You know, David Dukovni, I saw him in an interview one time, and he was talking about a similar issue, about how there are so many fingers in the recipe that becomes a TV series, that it's a miracle that any series succeeds. He said that he came up with this idea. He had a brother who died, and I think it was an overdose. but he came up with this idea for a drama on this family torn apart by drug addiction and you know blah blah blah by the time it got through the process well he when he sold it they were like oh my god this is so powerful it's going to be one of those must see television

series we're going to buy it we're going to make it we're going to green light it by the time it was done and every asshole studio executive got a whack-out at it. It was a comedy. And he withdrew from it because he said it disrespected his brother. It's gotten so fucked up. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, things, things, I mean, it's so dumb. I mean, the process. I had this book called Real Americans admit the worst thing I've ever done where I collected confessions from people about the worst thing I've ever done. Awesome. And the, and it was in development twice. And the last time was like, during the peak woke period a couple of years ago and um and they were like ted would you be willing to be the host

of this i was just like going to sell the idea i'm like if you think i mean i don't care but if you want me if you want me to be the host then they're like we went to we you know we did some pitch meetings and they're like they think you're too white and i'm like okay well so i mean so they're like do you care if the host is black and you know not anything else black and i'm like i don't care the host can be black? Do you care if the host calls himself Ted? I'm like, there are black guys named Ted? Sure. I don't care. I kept saying, like, sure, you guys do whatever you want. I don't care. I just kind of would like to have some money. That's all. And then in the end, they were like, oh, well, we can't, if we can't do it because if anyone ever finds out that our black host was

based on an old white guy, then they'll be mad. And I was like, you people are so fucked up and so stupid. I don't even know what to say. And everybody who's been, there was a compilation, I was not part of this, of cartoonists who were all, it's all collections of their Hollywood development hell stories. And

it's great. It's all like, just one stupid story after another. Yeah, like I said, it's a miracle that anything gets made. Oh, I feel like they don't, in Hollywood, they don't do anything. My agent, hey, if you're watching, Kevin, how are you? he literally like it's like there's always a reason why you can't do things

what's going on right now oh like right now oh well you know people are really getting ready for the Christmas holidays yes so really nothing's happening in Hollywood nothing's happening and nothing's happening because could the can film festival is a month and a half away right nothing's happening because it's Hanukkah they're recovering from the holidays is nothing nothing gets done nobody works no they don't do I don't know how they make a living because like I mean, because nothing ever, it's like, whenever I watch a movie, I'm like, wow, I can't believe a movie got made out of this. I mean, you think about like journalism.

It's so different. They're banging out thousands of things every single day. Yes. Ridiculous. Question for both hosts. What's our opinion on MH370? That's the Malaysian airline plane that went down in the Indian Ocean. It's still all over Twitter 10 years later.

Yeah. Well, I think one of two things happened. I think it was either the suicide. like that German guy who tanked the plane into the, because apparently the pilot or the Egyptian. Yeah. Yeah. Or gas, right, like a gas filled up the plane because that's happened

too. And they all got, they went unconscious. I'm leaning more towards theory one, but what do you? I agree completely. I think it was probably a suicide. Just like in that Egypt air crash in, what was it, Switzerland or something, where the only thing that they were able

to get off the black box was the co-pilot just saying, Allahou Akbar, Allahou Akbar, and then it crashes. And the German guy in the French Alps, right? Like, I think that was Luftanzah, could be wrong. John, question for both of us. Do we both, do we like the outlaw Josie Wales? Oh, yeah.

I love those movies so much. Me too, and I still watch it on IDVR, it's on Me TV. By the way, the Star Chamber, great paranoid movie. You know, that's another one that's underrated. I like the Star Chamber. Vicki and Greece claims that Enterprise is her favorite. Okay. Really?

Women, says Ray. I can't even imagine. I think, well, I mean, there are, I've heard that opinion expressed fluidic poly. John, since you worked at the Middle East for a long time, do you ever think that all the Arabs being united was ever feasible? No. And create a country like China. Oh, that's an interesting question. No.

People seriously underestimate the dislike and the distrust. that Gulf Arabs, Peninsula Arabs, have toward other Arabs, and vice versa. Yeah, they're not the same people. And don't forget, the Chinese weren't brought in because they all got along, right? They were all unified under an extremely, they were forcibly unified under an incredibly violent king and who became emperor. Question, what's the, from Medara Slan, 9392. What's the agenda and role of Ahmed al-Shara, the son?

Syrian president in Syria and globally. What's the agenda? Well, he is the, he's the savior of, uh, of Syria and all things Syrian, isn't he? You know, I said on a podcast the other day. He's a pure and noble breed, I have, I have, yes, I have no inside information whatsoever, none, zero, but I'm making an educated guess that this guy was probably a long time CIA asset. And, um, he found himself.

at the threshold of power and the CIA pushed him right through the door and now he's the leader of Syria and everybody's happy. Yeah. Except the Christians and the Drews. Yeah. Nothing to add there. Peruse, do you guys know if the CIA

has a hand in spy novels or are they more focused on influencing movie scripts? Yeah, it's movies in television. They've got dedicated, there's a dedicated branch inside the Office of Public Affairs whose job it is solely to liaise with Hollywood studios and to give them whatever they need to make a pro-CIA product.

Novelists, sir, I've known a couple of novelists who tried to get help from the CIA. They just wanted information to fact-check to make sure their shit was right. And they basically got no help. No help. Oh, tsunami breaking news. There's a...

Yes, this is a... earthquake. Yes, so CBS News is brought, is saying that a powerful earthquake has hit off the northern coast, off the coast of Hokkaido. Hokkaido is this giant island, sort of like off the coast of Siberia and Japan. There's now a tsunami alert of up to 10 feet. There's no danger, according to the U.S.

of a tsunami hitting the west coast or the west coast of Canada or Alaska, because I guess they can tell which way, which direction things are going. So we will, if we learn anything more about that, we'll let you know. John from Freud, you talked about how Homeland, the show, is very close to reality. What specifically did they get right that Hollywood usually gets wrong? Good question. The complexity of operations and planning operations was right on.

And the psychological pressure that CIA officers are under, leading to many of them, cracking the only the only real exception that i took to to homeland was that if you crack overseas and it happens i saw it happen to three different colleagues um they don't leave you in place to just be nuts and continue doing your operations they pull you out they pull you out and they put you in a hospital until you're not nuts and then they send you back overseas i mean people don't i mean it's funny i uh i knew a guy for he was a reporter this is not the same thing at all. But it is kind of similar. He was stationed in Kabul in 2001, and he cracked after just three weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks. He was at the, and he was, he was hanging out at the

Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, which granted was pre-renovation. But still, you know, and I remember we were all talking about like, we were like, what a pussy. You're like, you know, like. Yeah. You're in the wrong line of work, buddy. Yeah, we're, I mean, we're sleeping hard on the ground outside and you know you're like you're hanging out at the in Kabul where nothing was going on really it was just it was all in his mind right yeah i remember the last time i was in Kabul i wanted to take my security detail and my translator out to lunch and i said let's let's get a nice lunch right i want to let's spend some money nice lunch so we go to this kebab place and it was it was nice they had like a fountain inside and by Kabul standards it was nice sure they blew it up the very next

day. The Taliban went in, just blew it up to a million pieces, killed a dozen people. And I remember thinking, huh, that's unfortunate. Okay, well, now what are we doing today, guys? You have to roll with the pressure or the pressure's going to destroy you. Yeah, you're right. It's like not the job for you. You know, we talked about the Pearl Continental Hotel. I stayed at two of those that subsequently got blown up. Really missed that hotel. It's a great hotel. But anyway, we should talk a little bit before we go, and we'll try to look to more questions. Trump versus slaughter. So this is really interesting.

It's an echo of a 1935 case. Back in 1935, FDR fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission, which was an organization he created, right, a new agency. At the time, this guy was a, that he fired, God, what was his name, Humphreys? Humphreys was a conservative, and he was standing in the way of New Deal reforms. FDR was pissed and shit-canned him. Humphreys refused to leave. Humphreys sued.

It said this is an independent agency. The president doesn't have the right to sue. It went all the way to the Supreme Court. By the time that it got to the Supreme Court, Humphreys had died. And his estate continued the lawsuit. His estate won and said that the government owed compensation to his estate. and the Supreme Court agreed unanimously with Humphrey's estate, and that's called the Humphreys estate case.

So now this lady, Ms. Slaughter, Ms. Slaughter, has sued Trump for firing her from the FTC. In initial briefing, it looks like the Supreme Court majority, the 6 to 3, is predisposed to agreeing with the administration and will reverse the Humphreys decision. If so, this would mean that the Trump administration and future presidents would have basically control, executive branch control over all of these, quote unquote, formerly independent regulatory agencies like the SEC. You can see the problems here, right? The communications commission, all these agencies that are supposed to be independent. I don't know.

I mean, I think the Supreme Court is. going to rule for Trump. I think they are too. I think the Supreme Court is a shell of what it used to be. It's not judicially independent. It really isn't. Some of these decisions, I mean, I thought Citizens United was bad, but some of these decisions are just so nakedly partisan that it's going to take a generation or two to get back into some state of equilibrium. Although you could argue, John, the first one was partisan too, because it was a right-wing court that hated FDR and ruled a group. That's true.

That's true, which is why he wanted to expand it to, you know, whatever it was, 15 seats or whatever it was. Yeah. Yeah. Bruce Fine says all the time that there is no constitutional mandate on the size of the Supreme Court. We can have 50 people on the Supreme Court. It's just, it'll be however big Congress wants to make it.

And then meanwhile, we've capped the number of congressmen at 454 and even 454. 454, 435. Oh, 435. Yeah, 435, yeah. 435, yeah. And like, it kept growing up until a certain point, right? Yeah.

And then they stopped it. You know, I remember when I was working on Capitol Hill the first time, I was an 18-year-old intern, and it was like 700,000 people to a district. And now here it's a million and a half people to a district. You can't represent all those people. I mean, not appropriately anyway. no you can't guys we're done it's been a fast hour john always a pleasure good to see you did

we're back tomorrow 9 a.m. Eastern time we're here Monday through Friday thanks for like following and sharing the show thanks for your donations please stay tuned to the TMI show with me and Manila Chan that is coming up right after this state if you're on rumble it'll just be automatic if you're on YouTube you're going to have to go over there and find it if you're interested thanks a lot see you all later see you later see later See you tomorrow, John. See you tomorrow.