DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - On Thin ICE | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Producer Robby West fills in for John today.Today we discuss: • The ICE agent who shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good to death in her car has set off a confrontation between the federal government and local law enforcement. Protests heat up and major questions about ICE tactics and training arise as the weekend begins and ICE shoots two more people in Portland. • Oil executives head to the White House to discuss looting Venezuela’s oil. Major companies want taxpayers to guarantee they’ll be compensated if their risks head south. Meanwhile, Russia is being accused of spreading propaganda about US imperialism. • Gavin Newsom is pre-running for President. • Trump says he’s only constrained by his own morality. Is that enough? 61% of Americans say they want America to be a moral leader. 39% say it is.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. It's hopefully this is a good morning 2.0. It's Friday, January 9th, 2026. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Raul and John Kirooku. Sitting in for John is Robbie West. We had a false start this morning about 10 minutes ago due to some technical difficulties with the Rumble feed, but which affects everything else. And hopefully we sound and look decent or about as decent as we can. back on Monday. I will be doing a full two hours, and so will Robbie today will be on TMI show. Manila's out also.

Everybody's out. Everybody's thinking, I suspect a three-day weekend, although we know John's got real things to do. Manila probably does too. I don't want to be sexist about it. Anyway, please let us know if you can see us and hear us properly. And if those technical difficulties are fixed, we probably need to get one of those old-fashioned 1970s, you know, screens that say,

please stay tuned, technical difficulties. Anyway, yeah, got to get some nostalgia out of it anyway. We are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern on D. Program. And what we're going to talk about today is obviously the repercussions of the ice shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. There's already been big protests. There's going to be more this coming weekend.

almost certainly. Two more, ICE also shot two more people in Portland, who they have a whole trend of claiming that people are weaponizing their cars. Oil executives are heading to the White House today to discuss Venezuela. Some companies are more enthusiastic than others. The ones that are more reticent want the U.S. taxpayer to guarantee that they won't be burned if they lose any money and get screwed over in Venezuela. Gavin Newsom basically had his coming out party for the 28 presidential campaign.

Donald Trump gave an interview to the New York Times wide-ranging in which he said that he's only constrained in his actions and his rights. By his own morality, I thought that, you know, it's a good, it's a happy coincidence, Robbie, that as the religious person here on the show, John's a religious man too, but I think it's fair to say more so. that there was a new poll comes out that says 61% of Americans want America to be a global moral leader, but only 39% believe that it actually is. And so I thought, you know, we have a whole morality trifecta going on today. You don't normally see that on a Friday.

So please like, follow and share the show. We are still continuing Robbie Aid, because we haven't quite achieved our $1,000 goal for the month of January. We're almost there. So I'm going to go ahead and put the Robbie Aid URL up. But in case you don't remember what it is, just go to GoFundMe and do a search for deep program, Robbie, and make your donation there if you're willing and able.

And hopefully you won't have to hear me ask about this until the month of February, in which case you will have to hear us ask about that. We need $1,000 a month from y'all every, at the beginning of every month. John and I each kick in $500. So we get the $1,000 from the two hosts, $1,000 from the listeners. Seems like a fair split here.

Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. All right. So I think that's, and if we have an ad, Robbie, just let me know whenever that happens. I can actually go ahead and toss it up for you right now. The questions are already coming in hot, Ted. I like it. I like that.

Those are the way I like my questions. How do we sound? Do we sound decent now? Yeah, no, people say we're sounding good. I've also got, I'm also listening on the phone. I think what happened is just for whatever reason on your end, there was just a metric ton of packet loss. I don't know what happened there, but it's fixed. All right.

Well, it might be, you know, I might need to do TEDAid for a lap for a new computer at some point because it's like my computer is, it is old. But you know, Rumble is letting us now accept donations in cryptocurrency. So that will live yesterday. So that is a thing. And that add is up. Do you want me to read it or do you want to read it? I'll go ahead and read it.

Here we go. We've already lost so much time here. Let's do it as fast as possible. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee. Now is your shot, the 1775 starter kit just dropped. Only a thousand units. You're getting the bold, dark roast that hits hard, the smooth mushroom, medium roast, sorry,

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Wondering if it's actually worth it, spoiler, it is. Go to 1775 coffee.com slash studio and grab your starter kit before they're gone. Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something. just like Rumble does. All right, let's see what questions we got here. All right, Matina, we are going to be talking about this. We might as well go get into this. Robbie, how do you feel about all this ice killing? Is it okay with you? We know the officer won't get any punishment because the FBI took over. In other words, took over the investigation. Conversely, we have Phil, who I think it's fair to say, to assume is probably a conservative,

says leftists have been actively committing terrorism with their cars, blocking ICE agents on purpose, is literally a nationwide tactic of these people. All right, look, we have to talk about the situation with Renee Good. It seems pretty clear now that she's not just a motorist. She was part of this team of anti-ice activists who've been following around ICE reporting to the community on their activities. there's really no evidence, Phil, that in this particular instance,

she tried to block ice. I just want to be really clear. But Robbie, the question was for you. So why don't you go ahead? I think it sucks, to be honest, to do I think it's okay? No, I don't think it's okay whenever people get killed. I think that's a travesty. I think it's disgusting.

That being said, as far as the ice agents go, I wasn't there. And as far as I know, no one here on the chat, was there. None of us saw what, what happened. None of us, no of us are there on the ground. And so what my default position is whenever I don't know what exactly happened is I like to wait for the investigation. Now, that being said, I'm also incredibly skeptical of the federal government. Do I trust, do I trust the same people to investigate themselves that have also investigated Jeffrey Epstein? The answer is no. And that's what I don't trust anyone who investigates themselves. I don't either. I think it's, I think it's,

I think that this is, I think that this is the worst possible storm because the entire thing is politicized. If you, if you think that migrants have an innate human right of being here and that borders don't matter. And if you, if you want borders to be closed and think that immigration law should be enforced the same way that gun laws are or tax laws are, just I don't know because here's the whole issue. We already have a two-tier justice system. what happens we have a two-tiered legal system where some laws are enforced selectively and then some aren't that's my concern that's the bigger issue more so than even these shootings Ted what do you think well i mean i think that unfortunately of course obviously there's no way to avoid the immigration

debate in this discussion but i don't think this story is about immigration at all i mean this same exact incident could have occurred for example during a black lives matter rally it could have been during the unite the right rally. I mean, what this is really about is about policing. It's about the excessive use of force and how you handle situations where instead of escalating a situation, you de-escalate a situation. This is about law enforcement officers being professional or unprofessional. Now, I will take issue with you, Robbie. You said that nobody knows what happened. Well, okay, we weren't there. That's true. But we do have, we do live in an age where everybody's videoed right now Clovis is no doubt being videoed and his taking a poo in his litter box.

And we have at least three videos depicting different angles of this situation. That's a lot, none or ten of them. I suspect that there's probably more, the ICE officers probably some of, at least some of them must have had some video in their, in their vehicles, right? So the, so what we do, we do know a few things, right? So first of all, it looks pretty, clear that this Renee Good was trying to leave. It also looks really clear that the officer in question was very aggressive. This guy, he approached the car. He said, get the fuck out of the car. Get out of the fucking car. That's what he said. Which you should have done, by the way. Okay. Well, first of all, she doesn't have to. Okay. Well, she suffered from clinical stupidity. So, I mean, all this just kind of

just boils all in there together. So you have some, so I'll use your term here, some jackbooted thug who's high up on testosterone on a power trip. Then you have some woman who's seen, who's already been an activist, who's already, who already has an adversarial relationship, who's in a 3,000 pound car who decides, no, instead of going to, instead of complying, I'm going to step on the gas. So she doesn't have to come. I mean, the thing is, she doesn't have to drive either. He's not, he's an ice guy. He's not a real cop. And the thing is, so, I mean, he, the other thing is, she was receiving conflicting commands, right? One off, at least one of the ICE guys screamed at her to get out of there.

So it's entirely, and then the other one is saying, get out of the fucking car. We don't even know if, like, let's say she had the radio on, whether she could even hear him. Then the other thing is the ICE officer reaches through the, breaks her window, reaches through and tries to grab the, the, the, the handle. Now, speaking of mental retardation, this guy did the same exact thing a year ago in another situation. He's a 10-year veteran of the force and got dragged and ended up requiring multiple stitches to repair his injuries. So just for his own self, that didn't work real well. That's not a great tactic. I remember years ago, I worked at a supermarket when I was a kid and someone's, And one of my colleagues tried to stop a shoplifter.

Now, we were all told don't do that. But he's like, I want to be a hero. He runs out and tries to reach through. He did the same thing. He reached through the open window because it was summer and tried to stop, tried to grab the guy's car keys. The guy instinctively floored it.

And he got dragged out to Shroyer Road. We're all laughing because like, you're a retard. Okay. Like if I know myself, if someone's, you know, sticking their meaty paw into my car, it's instinct. I'm going to hit the gas. I'm going to try to leave. You know, listen, I get it. She was, she scared the shit out of her.

Just imagine if he had professionally, instead of run up there, they had walked up professionally and calmly, wrapped on the window and said, hello, ma'am, listen, we're going to need you to leave this location or please step out of the. at this time we need to talk to you. Imagine that. I mean, we can't even imagine that because that's not how these guys roll because they're idiots. Okay, so do you think that the protesters have any kind of culpability or blame here? It's not like that she got pulled over for a speeding ticket, okay? Because this is an adversarial thing. This has been an ongoing issue.

That's a statement of fact. I don't think that the ad, I don't think it's like a team. Like in other words, like I don't think protesters owe anything other. than, you know, obedience to the law to these law enforcement officers. That's all. They don't owe them being polite. They don't, they don't owe them being nice. They don't owe them being respectful.

They can give them the finger under the First Amendment. They can say, fuck you, you're a dick, suck my cock. You can say anything you want to these people. And it's not like your job to keep them calm. It's their job to try to keep themselves calm. And they somehow aren't good at this. Well, a big part of the reason is, is because the police have gotten so militarized,

which, by the way, is something I oppose. I mean, that's, I'm not to say something that's going to break a lot of conservative brains, especially Republicans. There is a reason why soldiers should not be cops. Right. Soldiers are trained to, to defeat an enemy, to subdue it, to destroy it. Cops are supposed to be civil servants. They're supposed to be officers of the peace.

Peace officers, yeah. You can't be both. So that right there is a major training issue. Like when George Floyd, the sainted George Floyd got killed. killed, the knee-on-the-neck tactic is a tactic that's taught in the military. That's not something that you would normally teach a cop. So right there. Well, that's a, yeah, chokeholds are illegal in most police departments across the country.

So that's one of the things that needs to be separated. Now, that being said, we have the system that we have. We have federal law enforcement. You have these protesters in these states. And this is where I really like to get John's opinion of it, because he's more a team Robbie now. I think he realizes as far as states, rights versus federal authority. We currently live in a system where federal law, because the

interpretation of the supremacy clause is the rule of the land. Federal law is law that was passed by Congress. These are people who are obstructing the lawful duty of federal law enforcement to remove people who have no right or obligation to be in this country full stop. Is that, is that, is anything that just says, do you agree with what I just now said? 100%. Then if you are obstructing law, law enforcement, how could you possibly expect law enforcement not to remove you because you are preventing them to do their sworn duty under the Constitution, which is to uphold law? Well, first of all, if someone, so, you know, we know, these ICE officers can't possibly at this stage be surprised that they're being confronted by activists.

You know, they're coming in with very aggressive tactics. They're wearing, you know, they're dressed up in in military gear. They're yelling at people. They're cursing at civilians, which is not something that they should ever be doing. They should be maintaining the highest standard of decorum.

Now, if you're saying like, so let's say, you know, these guys are in the middle of apprehending an alleged illegal immigrant and someone steps in between. The ICE officers have the right to arrest this person who's interfering with them,

but that's not what's going on here. There was no, you know, there was no suspect there. These guys were, you know, there were no suspects in sight. Yeah, they're being tracked. She was, yeah, she was following them. They were following the migrants. She's following them, right? Correct.

Boarding the migrants. They told her. That's obstruction. Now, the thing is also, let's talk about training. And I do want to get back into the state's rights issue. But she, but in terms of training, every cop, every law enforcement officer is taught for their own good, never to stand in front of a car in an attempt to stop it. Because as you pointed out, cars are heavier than people. And cars are hurting. And you don't, and I, you know,

being, and you will not win that fight. Right. So, but if you look at this, I mean, first of all, the cop who fired the shot was off on an angle. John pointed out yesterday that they're all trained like if there's a genuine threat for all of them to open fire. Only this one guy did. I guarantee you that his colleagues went home last night and poured themselves a few stiff ones and said, Jesus Christ, our fucking asshole colleague fucked up today. Not to mention, he then runs away. Okay. He runs away. I mean, okay, let's talk about states rights. Sure. Okay, so the jurisdiction for this investigation is obviously the suburb of Minneapolis, whatever it's called, that's involved here, their local police department.

The PD and the state attorney general who would be interested in civil rights, possible civil rights violations, asked for information, video and stuff. They've been completely cock blocked by the Trump administration, and they're who are refusing to cooperate with local law enforcement. I mean, this is state's rights issue. The federal government doesn't have the right except on tribal land to investigate these kind of things. So they're, but they're not even like saying let's share the investigation because these are federal officers.

They're saying, we're not, we don't want you to investigate. That coupled with the fact that they were so quick to side with the ICE officer reflexively. I mean, Robbie, you got to know that there's no world in which the Trump administration, Christy Noem, the president, the vice president, there was no world in which they were going to say either the ICE officer was mistaken or we don't know who was right or wrong and we're just going to await the outcome of the investigation. Their thumb was going to be on the scale no matter what. And so just for that reason alone, they have no credibility here. That's why it's a crisis.

Well, here's the thing. And this is a major problem that I'm watching the comments and stuff. No, people saying, no, Robbie's being smug. Robbie's just being a fascist or whatever. I'm about to, I'm about to do everyone who, who opposes me on immigration. I'm about to get a solid favor here. If I was the sheriff of this county, because keep in mind, the sheriff is the supreme law enforcement of a county.

The governor, governor, Tampa on Tim Walts could have out to the shift and hey, I want you to arrest every ICE agent that comes into your county and send them across county lines. They have every right to do that. And now, so Tim Waltz, and you know, you and I both know why Tim Walts isn't doing that. He's being a professional. He doesn't want an armed conflict between federal officers and local law enforcement that could lead, that could result in bloodshed, probably to the local law enforcement more likely. But, I mean, you know, the last thing that we need is a, fucking civil war on the streets of a Minneapolis suburb, right?

I agree. But I mean, but again, though, this is trying to de-escalate this situation. You can't de-escalate this. That's the whole point. So you have people like me who believe that immigration at large and illegal immigration specifically is a major problem economically and politically to the United States. And we believe that those laws should be enforced. Let's stipulate that.

Let's just stipulate that for the sake. argument because this is not about immigration. No, it's about federal authority versus the state. I agree. I mean, that's the real issue here. And it's about police tactics. I completely agree. So, however, and here's the point I'm trying to make here. And so someone just gave us a $10 donation for Robbie. I struggle with rights ideology. We hear less government in our lives,

but federal law enforcement and military sweeping through American cities using American tactics seems acceptable. No, I'm actually making the exact opposite argument. then let me codify this. Thank you for the donation. I think that what the federal government is doing by setting it is problematic from a state's rights issue. I'm talking to you right now as a right winger. What needs to happen is that for the, is that these states need to retake the authority that they surrendered on April 19, 1865.

You cannot do that without a confrontation. The revolution, Ted, that you talk about that you want to see happening could start right here. And it could start under a constitutional mandated power that the states have. It will start over something stupid like this. They always do. States have the right to nullify federal law. Again, I'm not going to argue with that you about that. No, I am.

But I am. But let's just say, I mean, do you agree that I, fucked up here. I think that I think everyone fucked up here. And I think I don't think that lady fucked up at all. I don't think it's her job to be a professional. I think it's her. She's made her job.

She made her business. She's a civilian. If they have a problem with her, they need to follow, they need to follow proper procedure. I mean, I agree. They didn't, you know, they, they didn't. And by the way, the trying to claim every time like, this is their new tactic. They shot to death a man and a woman in Portland in Portland. Portland also Venezuelans.

And they said, no, I don't think they're dead. And they said, and the same, and Christy Noem had the same argument. They weaponized their car. And when you look into it, it's like they were driving and they were trying to get away. Now, again, you know, it's like if someone is trying to get away, let's just say they get away. Who cares? You have their fucking drive. You have their license plate.

You have license plate readers all over the city. You've got drones. You've got, you know, you've got the ability to catch them is not hard. And this is also not Billy the kid. If, like, even if you think that every illegal immigrant in the country needs to be deported as you do, I'm sure you would agree that, like, you know, if two get away for now and you get them later, it's, you're not going to shoot up the entire town looking for them. You can, you'll catch up with them at some point, right? So, like, this is about, I mean, this is about militarization of city streets. This is about, I mean, I was thinking about an episode that is kind of largely forgotten from the occupation of Iraq.

So Basra in eastern Iraq was occupied by British forces at one point. And the Brits had a much lower casualty rate than the Americans did in their zone. And the Brits, the way they managed their occupation presence was really very different than the American. The Americans were paranoid, dressed to the nines in Kevlar, wraparound sunglasses, helmets. They hid behind barriers up on top of buildings. They fired lots of warning shots at cars, which caused all sorts of confusion because people thought they were being fired at and they would fire back.

They thought they didn't see the soldiers who were firing at them. The Brits dressed up as traffic cops. Many of them didn't even have sidearms. They wore Iraqi traffic uniforms. traffic cop uniforms and they didn't wear helmets. And it's just they looked and acted like police peace officers. And as a result, it was much harder for the little kids who were the big part of the Iraqi Fedellian and the resistance.

It was for them to work up the anger to kill them. It was much easier to kill the Americans. I mean, there's a lesson there, right? I get it, but you're completely missing my argument. In my opinion, and I'm going to say this very slowly, I want the audience to hear what I'm saying here because it matters. Okay. This is not about ICE versus the protesters.

This is about the state of Minnesota or the state of Oregon or pick the state saying, I sure are not welcome here. You do not get to come in here and do this. Fine. You can say that. This is a crisis of leadership. If your position is we do not ice, we do not want you here. Then your governor should not be.

the that should not be a coward and send a bunch of protesters out to harass federal uh no federal agents to have a god complex that it is incumbent on the state if your position is that we will we will nullify federal immigration law then the governor should say with the force of his authority you are not welcome here sign a decree saying that is the case and then order your county sheriffs to arrest and remove ice agents in your state. That's what I'm saying. If your position is that you are welcome here, you're all God's children, welcome to our garden. Then you don't get your protesters out there against this. Well, first of all, I'll take issue with the idea that these protesters were assigned by, you know,

either the mayor of Minneapolis or the governor of Minnesota. I don't think that's true. They certainly, I mean, we have the right to protest in this country. Of course you do. But that's important. But again, though, I mean, listen to what I'm saying here. What they're doing is that they're trying to use the mob to, to, to drive policy through public outrage, because people are going to get hurt as we've already seen. And it's going to continue happening. I have a problem with using people as pawns because you're because our elected, our elected leaders are two are two fucking dickless to stand up and say, Mr. Trump, you do not get to do this. Well, I agree with you. I will nullify this.

100% that's the local, the local. This isn't Iraq. The state in the city absolutely should have told, you know, like, for example, in New York, where it's a sanctuary city, the mayor Moundani should do the same thing and say, we will expel you from our jurisdiction. You're right. I agree with you. But here we are, right? And she's not, not a lot of Matina.

She's making a good voice. Robbie, I don't think that is allowed, they are allowed to keep eyes out. No, absolutely. You're wrong. You are. Well, it would set up a, it would set up a, you know, a. Oh, it would be a constitutional crisis. It's a classic, but why not try that crisis.

But that's my point. Yeah. Otherwise, are you doing you playing with life? Let's see what the Supreme Court has to say about it, right? Let's find out. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are clear. Any power not given, the Constitution is a bill of negative rights. It tells the government what it can do.

That is the whole point. I don't, yeah, I don't interoper with the Ninth Amendment that way. But I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a Supreme Court does. Well, the ninth and 10th Amendment is both basically to say that. say the same thing is that powers are referred to the, or reserved to the people. If you believe that states are sovereign, which I do, and you're supposed to be joined together in a federal union, then the state can then at that point nullify federal law. So I'm just going to say that like a lot of things in our Constitution, it could have been

written more clearly and it's not. Well, it's also for a different time. It was written for a very small, very agrarian society. So, I mean, a lot of ways, our Constitution should really be replaced. And again, this is coming from a right-winger. Now, that being said, the political answer that you then have to give to the people who live in your state is why are you saying up this confrontation to protect people who are violating the law? Yeah. Well, listen, that's a question, too.

Let's get into some of these questions, too. And we should also get into the other stories of the day. But, you know, obviously this is the big one. So let's see. Oh, I also wanted to thank young courthouse for the dollar donation. Do we, this is a question for both of us, do we think the cops would attract fewer burnout retards if it was more high paying and required difficult legal training? 100%.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, for example, I have a friend. We'll call him Paul Bacon because his name is Paul Bacon. And he joined the NYPD. He even wrote a, he even wrote about his experience. And, you know, he was a, he was a smart. guy and he rapidly learned that there was really like no place for a smart thoughtful person in the ranks of the NYPD. I think, you know, I mean, I would never consider becoming a cop

because of not because of the job enforcing the law. I think it'd probably be pretty interesting and I like driving around in a taxi like car. I wouldn't do it because of the culture of the force. You know, it's like it's about militarization and violence and, you know, it's just like I don't think I would fit in. Young courthouse, thanks for the buck. As a staunch but not dogmatic leftist, how do I tell my friends that it's not true that every hardship and shortcoming of a colonized country

is America's fault. It makes me look like an apologist. You know, I think, look, I don't know if this works for me. I only know how to be me. And my answer to that question is that, like, you lose credibility, when you're full of shit. And so when you admit that things that, you know, the other side is right about some things,

you know, like a, like a colon, there are victims of colonization that could do some things for themselves that are, you know, it's up to them. And if they're not doing it, it's on them. If you don't admit shit like that, then who the fuck, why should the fuck should anyone believe you? You're just a hack. So I think, you know, you just, you just fess up. That's it, you know, and then like, let the, chips fall where they make. Hopefully your side is right. If you're right in the broad sense,

I think people respect you when you admit that your side is wrong about some things. I was wrong about lots of things. Socialized medicine, first and foremost, we should have, we should have national health care. I changed my mind. You know, you convinced me on this. It's just, there you go. I mean, really, I think what people need to, here's the real danger about all of this. Take immigration out of it. When you decide, what laws are going to be enforced and which laws aren't, you're then setting up a president for anarchy.

For example, I think that the Second Amendment is very clear. What part of shall not be infringed? Do people not get? I should go to Walmart and buy a tank if I so desire to do something. I do think that's what, I do think that's what the Second Amendment says. Oh, 100%.

I don't understand it. I don't even understand the legal constitutional logic that says, well, military weapons aren't covered by the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment doesn't say that. I mean, it should, but it, but it doesn't. But that's the point that I'm making. Is this a no, no, pick the law that, that you, that you don't want to obey. Is it a tax law? Is it, is it, is it the gun laws? Is it drug laws? When you start picking and choosing at that point, the entire social contract breaks down. And that's why I'm, that's why I said, this is a crisis of leadership at the state level.

on the on the other hand i mean that's always i mean there are you've you've been to a lawyer's office and you see those old-fashioned like the state code of montana or whatever like you know the the bookshelves are groaning under the weight of them there are tens of thousands hundreds of thousands millions of laws so obviously you know politicians and politicians and law and law enforcement they're going to be enforcing some laws and not others right like the whole like you can't eat ice cream on Sunday not being enforced, right? Of course. But okay, let's get...

Let's get some... Let's hit some questions here. Well, one's questions for John from Mishisholid. John will be back on Monday at 9 a.m., so I'll leave that for him. Venkatesh, what does China and Russia lose if Iran's regime falls today? What does Israel and the U.S. gain by it? And what... Why is the U.

US stocking a lot of military assets in the UK right now. There's a lot going on there. So, well, first of all, China and Russia have trade relations and they buy oil from Iran. So they would lose that trade, right? It would also be a prestige thing, right? Like when you're a great power and you have an ally and your ally is destroyed, like let's say Venezuela, for example, and you know, it tells it tells. your other allies, well, you can't be counted upon to defend us in a clutch. So I think it's, it's a prestige problem, right? Wouldn't you say? Oh, yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think ultimately, though, it's, it's economic. China has a crap ton of people. Xi Jinping doesn't wake up in the

morning thinking about what country is going to invade. He wakes up in the morning thinking, how about going to feed one and a half billion people? That's correct. And so he needs oil to make that happen and China gets a lot of its oil from from Iran because while the fact yes it is true that China and Russia right now are friendly in the past they've been they've been enemies more often than than they've been friends and so the last thing China wants to do is be dependent on Russian resources just like Russia doesn't want to be dependent on Russian on Chinese tech what would the Israel and the US gain by it well you know it's you know in a you know enemy is my friend but you know the truth is nothing directly, really. It's just like, it's just fucking with your adversaries. That's all.

And why is the U.S. stocking a lot of military assets in the U.K. right now? That I don't know. Can't answer that. Let's see. Robbie, what if that driver was your son? Are you also against the truckers in Canada and the farmers in London who blocked all of London with their tractors? And I think the truckers were in Toronto if memory serves. Yeah. So those are two different things. So the truckers in Canada, they were protesting a clear overreach when it comes to COVID. I have to be careful because they're all on YouTube. They were protesting the COVID shutdown mandates and also in Europe. The farmers are shutting down, we're shutting down things because of the, just the asinine green energy policies coming through where they wanted to, basically, they want to kill their farms.

This is different. What's going on here in the United States is specifically because a segment of the population wants to defend people that have no right to be here in violation of federal law. So those are two very different things. What's the difference? I mean, I mean, okay, I know that like you agree with one cause and you don't agree with the other. But it's still the same tactic that's being used, right? It's the same tactic, but it's a different context. So if you're a citizen, you're a taxpayer, you, especially if you live in a country that says this a democracy and that the will of the people actually matters,

then whenever the government does something that directly impacts the livelihood of its citizenry to be able to make a living, you have the right to then go out and protest and shut things down. I'm not against protest. I think protest is a good thing. I think that needs to happen. What I don't understand, and I asked this question yesterday on the TMI show, I don't, understand why so many people specifically on the left are willing to make this the hill to die on. Like, why would you go and defy federal law to defend people who have no right to be here,

and by their being here, drive down wages hurting you economically? I don't understand that question. And the answer is that the left is not like the right is not monolithic, right? And anti-ice protesters are not monolithic. Some of them really do believe in open borders and don't think that, borders should be a real thing and they don't think that, you know, they think that everybody has the right to be everywhere if they want to be. Okay. Then there's other people who, who do on the other side of this, just dislike the tactics. They're like, okay, enforce the law, but you guys are

a bunch of violent thugs. Don't do it that way. Then there's other people who, you know, who may be self-imple, who might be selfishly, not maybe selfishly, but who are vested in the presence of illegal immigrants, maybe people who hire them for their businesses or, you know, or who are friends with them, who marry them, whatever. So there's, and I'm, you know, I'm sure there are a myriad of other motivations here. Just like, you know, honestly, not all the truckers in Toronto were there, or Ottawa, sorry, it was Ottawa. They weren't all there, I'm sure, for exactly the same reason. Protesters come together for a variety of reasons. But like, but the thing is, She was a peaceful protester.

She didn't, this, this, you know, Ms. Good did not try to hurt anyone. And, you know, even if she were there protesting in favor of, say, Nazism, I would defend her right to do that. Even though I vehemently disagree with the cause, because she was doing so peacefully. She didn't attack anyone. She didn't hurt anyone. It's the ice guys who are hurting people. I agree. And that's what I'm saying is that, and again, if you support.

the whole open borders thing. And I keep saying this a lot is, is someone who came across the border during when Biden threw open the, the borders, is that person here illegally? My answer is yes, because presidents don't make laws Congress does. And until Congress appeals immigration law, if you come across the border uninvited, you're here illegally. I hate to tell you that that is a statement of fact. So there's that. If you support imperial presidency, then what you're saying makes? sense. I don't. I don't want a strong

executive. I don't want to live under an emperor. That's the last thing I want. And what Tim Walts is doing and these governors in these big Democrat-ran cities, they are playing with people's lives because they don't have the spine to stand up and tell the federal government,

we are going to nullify these. I already, I already stipulated to that. But I like this point, from Marlon's daughter, immigrants who came during open borders, like under Biden, are not violating the law. Sure they are. And that's true. They came in.

I mean, you and I might not like it. But the point is that Biden threw open the border. Correct. He said, come on in. Illegally. There's an app for that. And he did. And he did.

So they came in. How are they suddenly bad people? It's sort of like. I didn't say they're bad people. I've said they're here illegally. So remind me from civics, Ted. Who makes laws? Is it the legislature or the executive? It's the legislature.

Okay. So then the executive's job is to enforce the law, correct? Yes, that would be correct. So just because the executive fails to enforce the law, as he's sworn to do by the Constitution, which, by the way, should have been impeached for, that does not then make that law null and void. It's still enforced, even if it's not being enforced. That's the argument that I'm making. Now, keep in mind. I'm not Steve Gill. I'm not a lawyer. I'm just saying you're punishing people who, like, here's the thing, right? Like, if you're Guatemalan and you show up at the border crossing in Texas at Eagle Pass,

you don't know all the, you know, like, well, you know, under the system of the country I'm seeking to immigrate to, it's the executive that, and then like that could change and all that. I mean, Robbie, if you and I try to sneak into Guatemala, I don't have any idea who the name of the president of Guatemala is, and I'm a pretty reasonably well-informed person. I'm not really totally clear on the nature of their parliamentary system. I don't know the name of a single political party there. I don't know how many provinces they have. I mean, you get where I'm saying this.

I don't know shit. I show up. If the Guatemalans, and I'm like, hi, I'd like to come into your country. And the Guatemalans say, yeah, okay, Mr. Rawl, here's an app. Fill this out. You know, and you're good to go. Have a nice day. And then, like, you know, six years later, some military goon comes.

and beats the shit out of me. I mean, I have the right to feel like I've been lied to, right? You can feel however you want, but you're feeling stopping with facts. And also, that analogy doesn't really hold water. For one, if you want to come here for the premise of having a better life, then maybe you should get some smarts about the places that you're going to, like maybe how things work.

I guess the counter argument would be just saying. What we basically did is, you know what we did, it's like in vampire lore. You need the invitation in order to enter the house. And then like if you revoke the invitation to the vampire, the vampire blows out through the window or through the front door. Right. And basically that's what Trump did.

He basically revoked the revocation. It's sort of like I can invite you over to my house. But when I'm like, dude, you overstayed your welcome. It's time for you to go. I'm going to sleep. And you refuse to leave. At that point, you become a trespasser. So, but I do see the point here.

We Persian cat. Thanks very much for the 10 bucks. What do we think about China, Russia, and North Korea's lackluster response to Israel and the U.S.'s actions in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran? Or was there a show of military support we don't know about in the West? No, there was no show of military support. I mean, fundamentally, these countries are, they made a call, a judgment call that the U.S. is too crazy and too heavily armed to take on and defeat in a Cold War environment. and basically they allowed themselves to get rolled. And I think they look weak.

I mean, honestly. And they may have made the right call. But the downside of that call was that they look weak. We've only, Robbie, we've got minutes left here before we start go to TMI show. So let's hit, let's do like a rapid fire because we're like getting started. Well, that's true. But TMI should start on time, I think. The TMI people deserve that.

But anyway, let's talk about the Gavin Newsom quickly. We all know he's running for president. Did you have a chance to see his speech? I didn't, but I mean, to be honest with you, I don't trust anything that the man says. I mean, he's a chameleon. He'll say, he's a lot like J.D. Vance. He will say whatever it is he needs to say to the audience he's looking at at the time. I mean, he's an empty suit, but probably an even larger empty head.

I have personal grudge against Gavin Newsom over the LA, his role in the fucking me over and my lawsuit in the LA Times thing. So that's where that's all I have to say about that. Let's talk about the oil company executives. We'll hit a few more comments before we head out about the immigration. But the oil companies are meeting at the White House today. Basically ExxonMobil and these other companies are concerned that if they go into Venezuela, the political environment might change, kind of like we just discussed, and that they would invest

billions of dollars only to perhaps lose them in a future revolution or nationalization or civil unrest or civil war or whatever. And so they want the U.S. taxpayers to guarantee that if that happens, if they get burned, that we will compensate them for their losses. That's, I don't know what Trump will tell them about that. But I got to say, I for one, think, you guys, are big boys. You do business in very dangerous countries like Saudi Arabia. You should be, you know, you should be okay. You should take your chances. And if you don't like your chances, you should leave. Also, Chevron's already there. So I'm not really clear why they don't just say, you know, you guys just do it. I mean, I don't think the U.S. the government, the U.S.

government should have a role here. But what do you think? I think it's cronycapitalism at best and fascism at worst. I mean, this is kind of how our healthcare system works. It's, it's privatizing the profits and then socializing the losses. I mean, capitalism can't work that way. I mean, if you're going, if you want to go and carve up the, if you want to go and carve up the corpse of Venezuela and profiteer from it, uh, no, more power to you, no, do as you will, but the, the American people have no obligation whatsoever to bail you out if your, if your bet goes bad. All right.

Just like the Dave Edmund song, I won't bail you out. And Donald Trump says he's told the New York Times, he's constrained only by his own morality. That's not much of a constraint. That's a very low fence. What morality does the man have? I mean, he, I mean, he, well, me know, like what happened in Venezuela? What constitutional authority did he have to do what he did? American laws don't apply to other nations.

That's why they're sovereign. Right. No, I mean, no, they don't. So no, I mean, if Trump's morality, the guy who's a serial adulterer, who's a pathological liar who is perfectly happy to sell anyone down the river for a buck, if that's your, if that's your guidepost, I want nothing to do with you. Ted, I've had dinner with you. I would not have dinner with Donald Trump.

I think I'm probably better company, but he'd be interesting. Hey, you guys are great. Y'all, honest to God, Ted has got some great stories. If you ever get the chance to meet this man, do it. Philip Blair, Robbie, it's not about defending the rights of people to be here illegally. It's about to defend our right, not to have a militarized force invading our neighborhoods, pointing guns at us. And, you know, honestly, I think that's how a lot of people feel. I mean, I don't know, I don't think the government's really that interested in enforcing immigration law.

I think they're interested in terrorizing U.S. citizens like you and I. This is like, you know, I think. that's exactly right. I mean, they could, most illegal immigrants are unarmed. You could literally send in civil servants to knock on their door and be like, you're going to have to come with us. And that would, and most of them would just go that way. These are not, you know, fucking, 99.99.99% of them are not dangerous gangbangers. You can send the cops in for them, right? Listen, I agree with you. And I mean, this is a big part of the problem whenever I was talking about the, just a breakdown on leadership and more to the point about a militarized police force.

If you have laws and if those laws are not being enforced, then why it is and shit is that you run the risk of other people saying, well, if this law is not being enforced, then why should you have to obey the law I don't like either? And if you, if you're going to live in a large complex country like what we live in, 350 million people, it's a continental nation, but everyone doing their own thing, that's how you turn into Yugoslavia. So the American people need to have a we need to have a sit down corporately as a people as a nation and decide if the current if the current contract between between the citizenry and the government is no longer to our liking then either we need to sit down and talk this thing out or we're going to settle it by shooting and i don't want the

second part to happen nor do i and that seems like a great place to end thanks everyone for joining us really appreciate you and your support the show is just growing by leaps and bounce and that's thanks to you. Just a reminder, we're still trying to get to $1,000 bucks for Robbie for the month of January. We're almost there. Please go to gofundme.com

and then search for deprogram Robbie or just go to gofund me.com slash F as in Frank slash deprogram Robbie. Much appreciate you. We're now going to switch over to the TMI show with me and Manila Chan, except Robbie's going to be filling in there as well. T-Program will be back Monday with John.

Kiroaku at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Robbie, see you in a jet, see you on the other side. And for a deep program show, this was a lot more contentious to what they normally are. Usually it's you and John agreeing on a lot of stuff and just maybe having some minor disagreements. This was this is fun. Yeah. Always. Yeah, no, my my blood pressure doesn't really raise. You have to say something. I don't know. It takes a lot to make me mad. But people have figured it out. You might figure out. All right. Here we go. Off to the races. Please stay tuned for TMI. Be right there in a minute or two. Ciao.