DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Regime Derange | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss the US/Israeli War Against Iran:• Once again, the U.S. has decapitated the leadership of a country without a reasonable plan to fill the power vacuum it created. Trump tells Iranians to “take over your government,” but there’s no organized opposition. “The plan,” a German official worries aloud, “is to have no plan.” • Escalation: Israel, the U.S. and Iran are poised to hit more targets with more powerful weapons. At least 787 Iranians and 6 Americans have died.• Iran threatens to blow up ships attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, a major oil-exporting nation, watches oil prices soar. Gas prices are already rising. Today will be a rough day on Wall Street. Financial expert Aquiles Larrea joins us to discuss the economic impact of the war. • Marco Rubio explains the “imminent threat” behind the war: Israel, he says, was going to attack. Iran would have retaliated against US bases. Why didn’t he tell Israel not to attack, or notify Iran of the danger from Israel?Also: • In Texas John Cornyn, a four-term incumbent, is facing off against the state’s attorney general, scandal-plagued MAGA darling Ken Paxton.Democrats are facing a choice between Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who plays to the party’s base, and state representative James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian preaching a blend of Christianity and liberal values.TO ASK A QUESTION FOR TED AND/OR JOHN BEFORE TODAY’S SHOW AIRS LIVE: https://ahaslides.com/4UJWTMERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall/id1825379504

Good morning. You're watching D. Program for Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. I'm Ted Rall. John Kariaku is my co-host. How are you, John? Hey, Ted, doing well, and you? Good, good. So, obviously, we're continuing to follow the U.S. and Israeli attack against Iran and how the war is spreading throughout the Middle East. once again, we have replays of 2003 and differing rationales for war. Things are spreading throughout. We're going to have our financial expert, Achilles Loretta, joining us at 915. The stock market just opened half an hour ago.

And as predicted from the futures market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged over 700, 800 points. We're looking at a possible total downward trajectory on the stock market today of one to two percentage points. That's a lot. And it's not good. Defense stocks and oil companies being the exception. Marco Rubio finally explained the rationale for the war. He said, and we'll get into that.

And of course, there's a series of primaries in Texas where the futures of the Democratic Party and Republican Party are being sort of analyzed. We're going to read the tea leaves out of that and try to predict what's going to happen there. As always, please like follow. and share the show. We always love to get your questions in the live chat on Rumble and on YouTube. And for those of you who piped in early with the aha slides, please bear in mind. We currently have

like 49 questions in the queue. So we'll try to get to all of them, but it's going to be a little challenging. And, you know, we're over 22,000 subscribers. So thank you for helping us grow our show. it's really gratifying. Let me add real quickly. I want to say thank you too for subscribing to the show. This has been completely utterly organic growth. We've been guided very, very wisely by Robbie. True.

Robbie understands these algorithms way better than we do. But really, it's just because you guys get up and watch every day that we're able to continue doing it. Otherwise, we would have walked away six months ago. It's true. Thank you for that. And it was, yeah, I mean, it was definitely a slog for months, you know, where basically it was. It was tough.

It's like, you know, we're not making a penny. Like, does, you know, does anyone care? Does anyone want us to do this? Is this worth doing? Is this worth our time? But I think that we've turned that corner. Thanks to you guys. Speaking of which, let's go quickly remind people, because we need Robbie, we do need

you to help pitch in to help us keep Robbie. please we look for $1,000 every month. It's the beginning of March. So please go to GoFundMe.com and go to deprogram Robbie or go to gofundby.com slash effesant frank slash deprogram Robbie, one word. And just do whatever you can. We will stop asking when we get to $1,000. John and I each put in $500.

And I guess we should just get to it, John. Yeah. Obviously, we'll get to Texas later. And we made a little mistake. Achilles is not going to be with us today. It's tomorrow. Oh, it's tomorrow. Okay.

All right. Well, so we've got a lot to talk about it. Yeah, it's fine. And we can still talk about the economy even without all those. Okay. So real quickly, I wanted to say that the Dow futures, the market opens in 25 minutes, the Dow futures are down almost 900 points, 1.8%. The S&P 500 is down 1.7%.

the NASDAQ is down 2.2%. It's going to be hideous today. And now with the Strait of Hormuz being closed, in the last two days, oil has gone from $66 a barrel to $83 a barrel. Gas prices in the United States literally went up an average of 10 cents yesterday. Yesterday in one day. Yeah. So, yeah, so we're just going to see more of that. So, okay, so we're going to, I think we should just go, John, if you don't mind, can we just talk about Marco Rubio? Yeah, let's talk. Yeah, he needs a smack across the chops. So Rubio, you know, basically, he said, look, we, you know, under the, as we know, as we know under international law, preemptive war is not allowed. You have to either be directly attacked, in which case you can defend yourself.

That's legal. Or you could, there can be an imminent risk of attack. you know, the classic example is you look across the border. I guess a good example would be Ukraine and Russia before February of 2022. Russian forces were massing and preparing to attack Ukraine. There was credible intelligence. If Ukraine had attacked Russia first, they could have made a credible case that there was an imminent threat. There's nothing like that here.

All the experts say that there were not going to be that Iran did not have normal. was seeking a nuclear weapons program. In the long-range missiles, there's no indication that Iran even began researching or developing, much less manufacturing them. It would have taken at least 10 years for them to get there, according to the intelligence assessment. So Rubio goes on and says, well, Israel called us and said they were going to attack Iran. So they said, you've got to be careful because then the Iranians will retaliate.

against your troops in the Middle East. Therefore, you have to come to our side and attack Iran also. Now, John and Zee and I were both talking right before the show. There is a doctrine under international law. Rule 20 of the customary international humanitarian law, specifically Article 572C of the additional protocol passed in 1977. The United States is a party to this. and U.S. soldiers and sailors are taught this in the academies that they have to provide,

a member state has to provide a warning when it knows that there's going to be an unjustified attack. So Trump, if Rubio is telling the truth, or then Rubio or Trump had a legal obligation under U.S. law and treaty law to contact the Iranians and say, listen, they're coming for you. And maybe you ask the Iranians for a favor. Like, since we told you, do you mind leaving our guys alone? That would be great. And, you know, also, what's to stop Trump from telling Netanyahu if you do that? There will be no more money and there will be no more weapons from us.

George H.W. Bush was the last American president to stand up to the Israelis. It was on the issue of settler housing. and he said, if you don't stop with these settlements, we're going to suspend loan guarantees. And the Israelis said, go ahead and try. And he did. And they suspended, the Israelis suspended new housing for settlers. It was temporary, but at least it worked. And since then, we haven't had a single president of either party willing to stand up to the Israelis.

Do you believe Rubio's story? I'm not sure I do. No. I think that's just an effort to make him look like or make us look like the good guys. I mean, the truth is there's no legal justification here. And what's interesting is maybe because of the fact that only one out of four voters support this, all the mainstream media outlets that normally would be cheerleading a war like they did in 2003, they're all saying, you know, getting experts to come on and say, yeah, there's no justification, this is illegal, and so on. Right.

Yeah, I think that's right. It's very, very different. We could go in, oh, and the other thing is, I guess the main news today is that 787 Iranians so far at least have died, and six American soldiers at least have died. And you know what, if those numbers are correct, that is 20% of those deaths are children. from that school that was bombed by the Israelis. Yeah, that's just from that school. You know there's more children there too.

So, yeah, so both, interestingly, we talked about this yesterday, John, that Iran clearly is holding back their more powerful weapons for later, and they've decided to take a totally different approach than they did previously in their last two times that they were attacked by this coalition. But Trump also has said, oh, we're about to hit them even harder. John, what does that look like? I think they're going to they're going to start I think we're going to initiate more sustained bombing attacks. I think we are going to

probably send a third carrier battle group. I think that we're going to begin diplomatic work to bring other countries into it, which would be just a terrible, terrible mistake. In fact, In the Greek press this morning, the prime minister went out of his way without being asked to say, we are not bombing Iran. We will not bomb Iran. We don't have anything to do with the bombing of Iran. And I think he said that because he knows that it's coming, that the request to up the ante is coming. But meanwhile, other countries, other U.S. allies like France and Germany are, you know,

they say that they're going to be participating with different. Offensive operations. What does that mean as opposed to offensive operations? You know, does that have a meaning? Barely, without a difference. If any of these countries have Patriot missile batteries, they could send them to the Emirates or gutter, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. But even if they do have Patriot missile batteries, those are finite arsenals.

And so I think that's what that would mean. I mean, we're talking about a week or two weeks worth of defense. Kirk Swenson had this question for me, but I don't see why you couldn't answer it, John. Are we the closest we've ever been to needing the 25th Amendment, you know, getting rid of pulling out the president? By the way, speaking of which, I just posted J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance is the man who would have to trigger it. The vice president triggers it and then gets a simple majority vote from the cabinet

in order to change the president. It's never been done. I want to get this right. This is this morning, or sorry, yesterday. This is a quote. President Trump will not get the United States into a year's long conflict with no clear objective. Iran can never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. That's the goal of this operation.

And President Trump will see it to completion. I'm sorry, John. Didn't Trump announce that Iran's nuclear weapons program had been completely decimated last time, a few months ago? I think he used the word obliterated. Okay. Abliterated is a big word. Either he was lying to us or these movies were lying to him. Or he's lying now.

That's right. And I mean, and so, yeah, and there's not even a statement like, well, we got pretty close, but we really have to finish the job. We were wrong. We meant 80% obliterated. Right. Okay. So 25th Amendment, I mean, I say yes.

I think the president's out of control and should be removed. I think, you know, he should have gone to Congress. He didn't. Okay. So let's, shall we do some questions? Yeah, let's do questions. And we've got to thank some people first. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we've got to thank, well, first of all, heart made. 99 pounds 99. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And also thank you for five bucks from Tati Mary.

Thank you. What do we think the off ramps for this war look like? It's a good question. How likely is this this ends without becoming a long-term conflict? Can I answer the second one? I think we're 50-50 on that one. I think that this, I mean, you know, this could, I mean, it's going to be weeks, maybe months, but I mean, does it go years? I mean, years is hard to fathom, just given the mismatch in weapons between the U.S. and Iran, but what do you think? Yeah. I think that if, If the United States really wants to destroy Iran, it can destroy Iran.

But what does destruction look like? My guess is it's going to be decades of chaos. And like we said yesterday, Ted, that's to Israel's benefit. It's not to our benefit, nor is it to the benefit of our friends and allies in the Gulf. You know, John, the more we talked about this sort of very fleetingly when we did the special shows over the But now I'm really convinced that civil war is the most likely outcome here. God almighty. And you know what would be worse is, and you know it's going to happen, that the United States

and the Israelis are going to begin arming factions in Iran. Probably radical factions. Most likely. Isn't that always the case? That's all what we always, why is that, John? Why do, why in Afghanistan did we arm the Mujah Hadin as opposed to another force? Why do we always go for the crazies? Yeah, it's like the white Russians versus the red Russians.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I never understood. There's always this very short-sighted analysis. Always. Like, who's going to help us win today? Okay, these really terrible people, they're going to help us win today. And if they win, then we'll deal with them later. And they'll owe us.

They'll remember us. Oh, yeah, sure, because that always works out so well. I think they always think bad, though. Okay, so let's see. And what did the off-ramps look like, John? Hard to see. Yeah, I don't really see an off-ramp other than just declaring victory and going home. You wiped out most of the leadership.

And I think Trump was hinting at it yesterday when he said that the Iranians wanted to talk. In fact, the reporting is that we want to talk. The reporting is that we approach the Italians and ask the Italians to tell the Iranians that were interested in a ceasefire. And it was the Iranians who said no ceasefire. By the way, I have some good news, John. Robbie Aid is now fulfilled. We have our $1,000. Thank you, everybody.

So that's great. Thank you. We will not be bugging you about that. By the way, for someone who asked about this, they saw that there was like a total of $4,000 in there. That's because it's been four months. So we go for $1,000 a month. So it's a total, I'm sorry about that confusion. It's not a new GoFundMe every month.

It's an old GoFundMe. Maybe there's some way that Robbie can like edit that in order to explain that in the entry because I could totally see why that would be confusing. People like, hey, you say you need $1,000, but there's $4,000 in there. But that's spread out over time for people who, been watching the show. They know that to be true. Okay. John, this is a question from Papadupelo's. Thanks for the two euros. Do you think there will be Greek-Turkish tension more than now? I do. I do. The Turks are probably the most militarily powerful country standing in opposition to Israel. And the Greek government couldn't get any more pro-Israel. You know, the Greek government couldn't get any more pro-Israel.

this is funny the funny thing in greece the the greek people are solidly anti-israel because they're pro-palestinian but the greek government is solidly pro-israel because cyprus is sitting on an ocean of natural gas and the greeks the cypriots the israelis to a lesser extent the egyptians are lifting the gas together and sharing the money from it which is driving the turks crazy but it's made this situation where as bad as things are between Greece and Turkey, they're sort of on track to get worse. And then this war in Iran doesn't help anything at all. Question for both of us, and thanks for the 499. How do we feel about the nine dead Pakistani protesters killed outside the U. Embassy in Karachi? I saw the video of that. It looked to me

like it was embassy guards who were or consular guards who were firing at the Pakistanis, right? Yeah. I mean, were the Pakistanis trying to enter the compound? And I would imagine that's why. You know, in Pakistan is a country where American embassies and American consulates have repeatedly been attacked and they've been burned to the ground. Diplomats have been murdered there inside the embassy. Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

if you are an American. For sure. It's not unusual for people to fire rockets at the embassy, to shoot you as you're coming out of the embassy parking lot, you know, to throw Molotov cocktails or hand grenades. And so you can't, you can't risk it spinning out of control. You've got to shoot. If you feel your life is truly in danger, you've got to shoot.

I mean, in Pakistan, if you look like me or John, you're dead. There's a good chance that, you know, like just being in a cab, people will throw rocks at you or, you know, whatever, or worse. Yeah. It's happened to me. Italic, John, what do you think about Italy's position? And thanks for the two euros. The Italians are trying to stay neutral as best they can. The Italians actually told us that they would deliver such a message.

And in fact, the reporting is that they did deliver. message that the U.S. was interested in a ceasefire. It was the Iranians who rejected the ceasefire because they haven't yet begun fighting back. Not really. Let me add one of the things. Several different people asked me about Gatimani, the Greek newspaper, Gatimani's documentary on 17 November. Have I seen it? I've not seen it, but I'm in it. I sat for an interview last March that lasted like three hours, but I haven't seen it. I look forward to checking and out. John, it's all over the press today that the Trump administration has no plan whatsoever for post-war, post-Kamini leadership, right, for what Iran should look like. Yeah. This keeps happening,

right? And the thing is, I mean, obviously the most, the classic example is we didn't know, you know, who was going to replace the Taliban. And we were flirting with the exiled king who was living in Italy. And then we dredged up Hamid Karzai, who was not widely popular, I think would be fair to say. Yeah. Even from the very beginning. Oh, yeah, we were flirting with Ahmed Shalabi. We didn't know what we were going to do about Saddam, and we never did figure it out, really.

Iran ended up filling that power vacuum. But this U.S. regime change thing, it goes back to, like, World War, War II, right? Like, you know, the FDR didn't seem to know what he wanted to do about France after D-Day, and he didn't want to Gall. And I mean, what is with the United States not understanding? Because over and over and over, they're told, policymakers are told, you have to have a plan for the post-war. You have to have a regime. You don't overthrow someone and create a power vacuum unless you have someone credible to replace them. Venezuela, I mean, I guess it kind of like worked out because we just kidnapped the dude and the government is still there.

What is happening here? I'm sure the CIA advises presidents to, you know, hey, here's a list of people who could run this country you're thinking of overthrowing. Don't they? Yeah. Hey, before I answer, the United States just announced that it is closing its embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. this is dramatic.

Is it true that the Qatari's shot down an Iranian fighter jet? You know, I saw the report and I didn't see any confirmation. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. All through the first Gulf War, we never closed any embassies. I mean, the Iranian, obviously we had to close Kuwait because it was attacked and invaded and our diplomats were held as hostages, human shields in Iraq. But to close to American embassies means that the White House and the State Department have decided that this is going to get a whole hell of a lot worse than what it is right now.

John, what are the obligations that the U.S. embassies and consulates have to U.S. nationals and affiliates in a war zone? I mean, over and over, we're seeing these facilities close. But other countries, like the U.K. is sending chartered planes to try to rescue their. nationals. Usually the U.S. does that. Usually. But we're so deep into a hot war, so quickly, like there was months of run up to the Gulf War. There's no time to do it. There was an announcement made yesterday by the State Department urging all Americans in the Persian Gulf to get out. But there's no flights. There are no flights. And so today, the Airports are closed. Today, the UAE government said that any person, any westerner, stuck in a hotel and unable to evacuate,

will have all of his hotel bills paid. So just stay, relax, protect yourself, and we'll figure things out later. Well, I guess there's worse things than that. Yeah, that's very generous. That's the Emirates. That's how they are. They're very generous. But it's like, what's the, but like I just saw.

the official ex-notification from the State Department telling Americans in Israel that they should get the fuck out and leave as soon as they can, but that there's no flights and that they're not going to provide them with any assistance. And the advice was, try to make your way to Jordan. I'm like, wait, so you want them to make their way through the West Bank right now, right now. That's what you're saying. Freaking believable. Right?

Because, yeah, where they're going to go. Rafah's closed, so you can't go to Egypt. You can't go to Lebanon. You wouldn't want to anyway because the Israelis and Hezbollah are fighting in the south. You can't go to Syria because it's no man's land. But you can't get to Jordan because you have to cross the West Bank and the Israelis won't let you. It's really like, man, U.S. passport is not worth what you think. Ballin TCC.

Thank you very much for the Hungarian Forrents, the 4,000. I have no idea how much that's worth. I'd like to think it's a king's ransom, but I suspect it's not. Anyway, do you guys think that the news of 50% of Iran's missile launching capabilities have been taken out is true? If not, what do you think the true figure is? Iran's missile capabilities? Uh-huh.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's what the Pentagon is reporting. The Pentagon is saying that we've destroyed all these missile launchers. I saw a report yesterday saying that 50% of Iran's missile launchers, have been destroyed, but the Iranians can still take deliveries from Russia and China through the north. And if the Russians have any idea what's good for them, they're going to try to get back to us for Ukraine by continuing to send surface-to-air missiles and missile launchers to the Iranians. I would. I would too, big time. LOL, thanks for the five bucks. Saudi analysts say, that Israel attacked their Aramco oil refinery, not Iran,

is this another Israeli false flag? What other false flags should we expect? Speaking of false flags on the other side of that, Iran was accused by right-winger's of attacking that school themselves. Yeah, so stupid. That didn't happen. I had a friend tell me today that he does not wish to speak with me any longer because he posted, he's very, very religious.

And he posted this thing on Facebook saying that there are millions of people in the streets in Iran and that they're all secretly Christian. And now Iran's going to turn into a Christian nation. And I literally not one single word of this is true. And he says, oh, because you're the expert. And I said, yeah. Ridiculous. Johanna, thanks for the 499. I'm in the process of enlisting as infantry in the Army.

What are the chances that we ever use boots on the ground in this war? 48 hours ago, I would have said we're not going to do that because it's going to go very quickly. And today I'm going to say it's probably a 50-50 prospect because even after the president said repeatedly, we are not going to send boots on the ground. Yesterday morning, Pete Higgseth, the Secretary of Defense, said, well, not so fast. And then the president refused to reiterate his earlier position that we won't send boots on the ground. I think there's a chance.

I do too. I mean, I don't know if it's quite at 50 percent, but we're moving toward that direction. Magnus Kharanis, thanks for the 50 Norwegian Krona. Why did Iran bomb all the Gulf countries? We did address this. So we should just quickly, though. How would the Gulf countries react to this when the Gulf countries aren't the biggest fans of Israel. The Gulf countries, I mean, I was just there in the Gulf and we talked about this.

They would have, they would have very nervously just sat the whole thing out, right? This is between the Americans, the Americans, the Israelis, and the Iranians. But, you know, when you're blowing up hotels in Dubai or the airport, the civilian airport in Manama and in Kuwait, and you're bombing of all people, the peace-loving Omanis, who have been trying to broker peace between the two sides, okay, then you've made a lot of enemies that you really didn't need to make. Gorsk, thanks for the five bucks on Rumble. Trump starts a war and you're on your own to get out.

What a prick. I agree. I would like B. Wen, thanks for the 10 euros. I would love for you guys to invite Professor Chiang. He has some great takes on the situation in geopolitics in general. Robbie, please look into that. And Robbie, do we have an ad by any chance? All right, we're ready for it.

We'll take another question in the interim. Okay, so, all right, let's get to some of these aha slides questions. Will China provide Iran with intelligence and continue to sell them weapons? Absolutely, yes. Bahrain is buzzing with revolution talk. Is it likely that a full-scale uprising will occur? What would be the- That is a very very?

is a very important question. So historically Bahrain had been between two-thirds and three-quarters Shia Muslim. The royal family is Sunni Muslim. When I was there, I was there during what is now called- It's like a Kashir situation. Yeah, I was living there during what was then called the Intifada, it became now known as the first Intifada. And it was freaking hideous, let me tell you.

So what the Bahraini royal family did in the intervening 30 years, I was living there 30 years ago, is they imported Syrians, gave them, Syrians are mostly Sunni Muslims, gave them Bahraini citizenship, and then started naturalizing Indian and Pakistani Muslims, Sunni Muslims. So now it's closer to 50-50. But even though it's closer to 50-50, the Shia, the, the, the, the, the, The Sunnis still have money. The Shia are still poor. So there is always a threat of an uprising in Bahrain. Let's do that spot. 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 like John and myself.

Right now, Rumble is offering $10 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. No ads, more freedom and content you actually care about. That's the deal. Robbie, just to remind, please remind people why they should, consider migrating from YouTube over to Rumble? Yes, a few different reasons.

One, from a purely monetary standpoint, Rumble pays a hell of a lot better. YouTube pays off of your ads. So you click on the YouTube video, if you let the ad run, the creators get paid. Rumble, because the program is part of the Rumble creator program, is paid off of watch hours. So think about the TV or radio.

The more that you watch, the more that they get paid. So basically for every nickel that they make on YouTube, they make about 95, 96 cents over on Rumble, so the money is definitely there. Also, if you are a channel subscriber on YouTube, YouTube takes a nice, generous 40% cut out of your subscription fee. With Rumble, you subscribe for $5 a month, and John and Ted keep every penny of it. Rumble doesn't take a dime for themselves. One of the listeners is asking, Robbie, what about the reputation Rumble has for being right-wing?

I mean, obviously, I'm not right-wing. John's not right wing. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, so let's just address that for a little bit. When last year, when YouTube, the progressive liberal platform demonetized John and Ted for almost three months, Rumble didn't. When the war with Ukraine started, YouTube, not Rumble, deleted John's channel. YouTube, not Rumble, shut down and throttle Ted Rall's channel. YouTube, not Rumble, removed RT. So if you're going to use YouTube as your beacon of free speech, maybe you should consider moving to Israel

because that's the kind of free speech that you want. If you want free speech, go to Rumble. It's true. We've never once heard from Rumble to say, please take this down, take that down. We don't like the cut of your gym. YouTube's been a lot of trouble for us. And lastly, I mean,

at the top of the show about just thanks for all the people coming and watching. When YouTube was paying a couple of hundred dollars for what John and Titter doing, rumbled just off of people watching was allowed them to pay their bills. Not YouTube. Thank you very much, Robbie. Just because someone's right wing doesn't mean that they're your enemy. That's true.

I can vouch for that. I got censored more by the nation and Mother Jones than I ever did by Forbes or Fortune as a cartoonist. Slay 123, thanks for the 10 bucks. Didn't you guys catch the president's war briefing? Beautiful, oh my God, this is like moving. Beautiful curtains and the construction in his new ballroom. At this point, idiocracy feels less like satire and more of a documentary. What the fuck?

You know, it's the gold leaf that I just don't get. There's gold leaf everywhere, everywhere. It's going to all have to be taken down. It's a waste of time and money. It's a, you know, it's like the decor is early dole. If you were, right. Do we think Gulf countries want the U.S. to build bases that have been damaged, I guess rebuild, sorry, from Breed. Thanks for the $499.

That's a good question. I mean, the damage hasn't been very extensive, right? Not so far. Although there's breaking news, Robbie highlighted for us that Qatar is now bombing Iran. if you can imagine such a thing. A country of 250,000 people is bombing a country of 92 million people right now. The Qatari Navy has intercepted 15 minutes ago. The Qatari Navy intercepted a ship full of Iranian missiles and drones

and is forcing it into harbor in Doha. John, how good is the Qatari military? It's very tiny, but it's trained and equipped by the United States. So it's good. It's good. The gutteries are playing hardball right now. It's been reported that Russia and Saudi Arabia spoke on Monday. Any significance to this?

Yeah. The Saudis, you know, this is Mohammed bin Salman. I mean, the guy is just the most unpredictable leader or deputy leader in Saudi history. you might as well keep the lines of communication over. Like maybe the Russians can say something to the Iranians while the Saudis say something to the Americans and we can all back off this thing. By the way, I do want to, John, if you're okay with this,

I'm focusing on the questions related to the war and sort of prioritizing those over other things, if that's okay. Of course. I've been seeing reports unconfirmed that Israel has been bombing oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and blaming it on Iran. So that's more.

Although, you know, you can see on radar, you can see incoming missiles. So I, no, I don't think the Israelis are bombing Saudi oil fields. They don't need to because the Iranians, for the last 40 years, the Iranians have been targeting Saudi oil fields. Now that the war has started, is there any way to end it with peace in the region and without an increase in terror attacks? Not the second one. What will the impact be of Congress does take Trump's war powers away?

I don't think it doesn't look, John, like that's going to happen, right? We're going to see a vote. But there's enough, even though there's some conservatives who are, you know, I think Thomas Massey, Rand Paul, people like that, who are going to vote for the war powers resolution. But there's also going to be the John Federman's and other Democrats in name only who are going to cross the other way. so it'll probably look kind of like a normal vote in Congress that Democrats try to get through that fails. Yeah, and if it's written as a resolution, a sense of the Congress resolution,

it's not going to have any teeth or authority anyway. If it's done as a bill being passed into law, the president's going to veto it. Let's see. Over the past year, several current and Israeli, former Israeli officials have pointed at Turkey as the next strategic threat to Israel. God, what a change, dude. They used to be buddies. Yeah, they used to be close buddies, which is one of the

reasons why the Greeks and the Palestinians were so close. Yeah, you and I should explore this more deeply at some point, but let's say that the Israelis are successful in Iran. And the Iranian leadership is removed from from power there's no need to worry anymore about about an iran nuclear program but the israelis are always looking to attack the next guy yeah well that's the rest of this question from our anonymous question here does turkey constitute a meaningful military diplomatic or economic threat to israel not only in terms of capabilities i would say yes in terms of capabilities, but also in terms of, oh, my God, it's just, it's just, it's moved forward. I'm sorry. Anyway, that's okay. You get the idea.

Yeah. Diplomatically, yes. I do believe diplomatically the Israelis have their hands full with the Turks, but that's life. Maybe the Israelis should try to start getting along with people. Militarily, economically, no. No. The Turks aren't going to invade Israel. No, no, no. Yeah, I don't think they, yeah. Have you seen that Israelis are going to advance troops into southern Lebanon? They already have. They did.

Greater Israel coming true. Although, they do that all the time. So it's hard to say whether this is. All the time. There's this like 20 mile no man's land along the border. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Sorry. Do we think Hezbollah's intervention was a smart move for them? I mean, it does feel a little bit like something to lose. They have nothing to lose. But remember, remember, martyrdom is something to be aspired to. Right. Is there a big, John, big fan of the content you produce?

I want to ask, is there a reason why the UAE and Dubai is being disproportionately targeted compared to other Emirates in the country, other Gulf countries, by the count of missiles intercepted? Other question is that reports are showing UAE and Qatar running out of THA. AAD Patriot Missiles. How do you think that will play out? Yeah. So the reports from last night were that the UAE would be out of THAA missiles in seven days

and the gutteries would be out of them in four days. And we can't resupply them quickly enough. So this is a problem. I think that the reason why the UAE has been so disproportionately targeted is that the UAE has been at the forefront of the attacks against the Houthis. And, you know, despite the fact that Dubai is home to thousands of Iranians and Iranian businesses, I think the Iranian government just wants to bloody the Emirati's noses as best they can. What do you make of Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson's suggestions that we attacked, well, we talked about this because Israel was going to attack Iran?

What could possibly be the PR strategy of such statements from such pro-war and pro-Israel leaders? It's really, it is baffling. It's bad PR. I'm interested in crisis management. I mean, they knew they were going to do this, right, for at least months. So why did they, why do they not know how to spin this? John, why is the president still not speaking to the American people? You know, when he announced the attack, the start of the attack, he did it at 2 o'clock in the morning on truth social. He did. did not address the American people. He did not stand at the podium in the east room of the White House and make an announcement that essentially we're at war. He did it on truth social. And you're right, he's only been going between Washington and Mara Lago back and forth. He has not begun crisscrossing the country to explain why he decided to send young American men and women into battle and put their lives at risk. He owes that to the American people. I mean, the only thing I can think of,

John, is that the reason that we haven't seen a primetime Oval Office address to the nation is he wants to do this as kind of a side project. He doesn't want it to become a defining feature of his presidency, right? Right. But you can't, it can't not be. It's so embarrassing this morning on NPR. they were playing all of these clips of him promising, you know, criticizing Obama for attacking Iran, saying, I'll never get you into any wars. These wars are stupid. Why do we spend money on blood and treasure overseas over and over and over? Yeah.

And then this, I mean, the American people aren't that sharp, but they're not that stupid either. No. No. And you've got to talk to the people. You've got to explain the policy. And there's no effort here at all. I mean, maybe he just doesn't think, maybe they don't think that they could, they have a good story to tell. You know, I saw, I saw a clip on, I don't remember if it was BBC yesterday or wherever it was, where it was, where they were interviewing Republican voters.

do you support or oppose the attack against Iran? So it was like a third of Republicans support it, two thirds oppose it. And the supporters, well, why do you support it? Well, these are very bad people. Iran's a bad country or Iran is a bad country. Right. There are a lot of bad countries out there, a lot.

You're going to attack all of them? Like, what are you nuts? It's a good question. I've always wondered that. I used to, in the run up to the war against Iraq, I like used to compile all the lists of dictatorships that the U.S. supports or tolerates around the world. It's a long list. Ted, the markets are now open and they're all crashing and oil is skyrocketing. Okay, let's take a look at that.

Looking at the Dow Jones. Dow Jones Industrial Average is down over a thousand points right now with the market having opened 14 minutes ago. We're down 2.13 percent. I would say this is a free fall. This is a crash. They're going to have to shut down trading. Yeah, I think, well, there's automatic triggers. So that probably will happen.

If they shut down trading, that's going to be a huge signal. I mean, look, this is something that the president can't ignore, right? You know, he's getting calls right now from Fortune 500 CEOs are flooding into the administration. and saying, you're fucking up the economy. You know, Donald Trump doesn't want to fuck up the economy. Right. That's the one thing he can't afford to do. But, Tim, let me ask you, why in the world would gold and silver be crashing?

Gold and silver should be going up. They should be going up. And gold's down three and a third percent, down $178.90. The only thing I can think of is that we're seeing some profit-taking because there's been, you know, people who invest in pressure. metals traditionally do so over a longer period it's not something that they trade in and out of in a day that's true i think you might have like people who bought like a few months ago and thinking like i'm going to get this right now like while the market is it high and and we'll see what i would

watch that um if it keeps go i would that's really going to be strange if it keeps going down later in the day but it could bounce back uh yeah yeah interestingly what's the russ so the The Russell, interestingly, the small cap Russell 2000 index is very small companies. And that's up. That's great. It's up. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's super interesting. Yeah. We are. Okay. Now it's dropping. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Now it's following. Okay. So we shall see what happens here. But, okay, if you're the president, you're sitting there. you're watching the, you know, he's getting this news. How's the administration going to respond to a stock market crash?

Knowing Donald Trump, he is going to, he's going to put on a tough face and he's going to say, stay the course. This is the right thing to do. We're going to fight until we win. We're going to destroy the Iranians and their nuclear program and everybody's going to make money, so just stay the course. What are our thoughts on reports that MBS of Saudi Arabia encouraged Trump to attack Iran? I mean, we know that's true.

Who benefits from spreading such reports? Do they have a net positive or negative effect for MBS or Saudi Arabia? I got to think negative. I would think negative too. It doesn't make sense to me because it was MBS's idea to try to normalize and improve relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. So why attack? I just don't get it. I do want to take this question, even though it's not about Iran.

on. Eastern Congo is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet right now, has been for decades. 80% of women there say they've been raped. There are U.S.-backed agreements. The critics say are designed to legally extract their resources without consent. We hear nothing about it with one out of four people on Earth being African within 50 years. Powerful interests are already playing the long game over the continent while we look away. What's your specific position on U.S. policies toward the Democratic Republic of the Congo? any mission in Africa in the past? I guess that question is for you, John.

One mission in Africa in the past in Kenya that I'm sorry to say I'm not permitted to talk about. I'm not even sure I'm allowed to say I had been in Kenya, but there it is. It was a long time ago. And then when I was with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yeah, I did work in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia. You know, the odd thing is U.S. DRC relations are actually quite good. We buy as much of their rare earth metals as they could possibly dig out of the ground. We make everything from, you know, from chrome bumpers to cell phones to guided missile systems with their rare earth metals. But the DRC government is very weak in the eastern part.

very, very weak versus Rwanda of all countries. Rwanda is like this big. DRC is huge. And the Rwandans just batter them about the face and head at will. It's chaos over there in the east. But this is one of those conflicts that Donald Trump took credit for solving. This was one of his arguments in support of the Nobel Peace Prize, that he brought peace to the eastern Congo.

And the peace lasted a couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, it's interesting because Rwanda and Congo were both Belgian colonies. So it's not like their colonial experience differed that much. They were both raped by King Leopold. I guess, I mean, but why does nobody care? Nobody cares, I think this is because it's very remote. It's hard to get to.

And if you're a reporter who's interested in Congo and like, I want to be stationed out there, I want to go out there for a couple of months. You could never, like if I called everyone I know, I could never get anyone in radio, TV, or the internet, or print to send me to Conco. No fucking way. No one's interested. No one will publish anything about it. It's not the BBC.

American media outlets give no shits about it, which is why the American people, it's completely off their radar. Which is why I watch BBC. 6 o'clock every day on PBS. if you don't have access to the actual BBC. Beats and Meets, thanks for the 99. Do you think Putin will threaten Israel with nukes if they threaten Iran with nukes? This is essentially what Professor Jiang hypothesized a few years ago in his infamous video,

the Iran trap. I don't think so. Honestly, I think the Russians are far more responsible on this issue than the Israelis are. I don't think they'll make any threats like that. Fran Cam, $5. I have a family friend traveling to Europe next week. It's worried about terror attacks because of the Iran war. Would I tourist travel?

I guess I would now. But I'd be more worried in a year than I'd be worried next week. How about you, John? I agree with that. There will always be a threat from lone wolves. And it's true that the Iranians have cells here and there around the world. I mean, if you're talking about traveling in Europe, no, I don't think there's any problem. I think I think Western audiences always kind of think that, you know, there's going to be a quick reaction to this sort of thing.

That's just not how it is, but there will be a reaction. Oh, yes. Thanks for the $2.2 tip on Rumble wallet. We are number eight in the nation right now on Rumble. I think we have like over 2,000 people watching live on YouTube. So thank you to all you guys. will the Kurdish people one day achieve independence and full freedom, Mohammed wants to know?

I believe so. I sure hope so. You know, we've talked about this a minute here and a minute there for a long time. You and I both love the Kurds. You and I both support Kurdish independence. Absolutely. I don't see it happening, you know, not soon. Right.

Right. But I sure hope someday the Kurds have their independence. They deserve it. They deserve it. It's been promised to them. Many times. Yeah. By the biggest powers.

And they need it. Yeah. They really do need it. Let's see. Okay. Let's see. Someone's asking, please try to answer Just Samantha. What did you ask?

Just Samantha? Channel activity. Please answer my super chat question. I don't know. Robbie, try to find Samantha's question. Please. I'm sorry. Things are moving.

Anyone in the scroll knows this is really happening. fast. Meow Meow Meow wants to know, is this happening because Benjamin Netanyahu is up for election this year? Well, it's not, not a reason. It can't hurt. Yeah, it's not a reason. That's it, Ted, yes. Yeah, that and the ongoing felony corruption charges pending against him. So long as he's the prime minister, he's not going to prison. Why would the State Department list Egypt is somewhere where Americans should immediately depart from, or I should say depart two, or depart from. Israel wouldn't be dumb enough to strike it, Trump's favorite dictator, right? No, no, that's not it at all.

That's not it. It's that the Arab Street really doesn't like Americans. And so, sure, while we're buddy, buddy with the military dictatorship that rules Egypt, the average Egyptian is pretty darn angry at us right now. No doubt. No doubt. Tammy, thanks for the question. We'd like to know our opinion on Ayatollah Khomeini as a leader and as a person.

Thank you for your reply. That's a good question. You know, Ted, yesterday I did an interview. I don't even remember. I've done so many. I can't remember with whom. I did one last night. And I stole one of your lines that really went over well.

Okay. Killing, killing, Khamenei is like killing the Pope. You kill the Pope. you don't bring down Catholicism. They just pick another pope. Well, killing Khamanai is not going to bring down Iran or Shiism. They're just going to pick another grand Ayatollah. And he may be worse.

Yeah, that is 100% right. Do we think Trump had the foresight to seize control of Venezuela's oil before destabilizing the Middle East? Yes. Yes. I believe that is indeed the case. That's crazy. Just in case we screw things up and the Straits of Hormoos are closed,

which they could be closed in the next, you know, eight hours. Hello from Vietnam. Thank you for the show. Saw the notice from the State Department for Americans to get out of the Middle East by any means necessary. How should average Americans try to get out in such a situation? The economic fallout is going to be massive. Which dominoes do we see falling first and how will it affect the rest of the globe? I have a lot of experience

escaping places that are going tits up. I would say, first of all, I like land crossings. Land crossings are better as a rule. But if you're not sure... Oh, travel with locals.

That's also one of my big pieces of advice. Like, offer, if you know some locals who want to go somewhere, go with them in their shitty local vehicle is always a way to go. That's how you get out of Afghanistan. That's how I got out of Afghanistan. Yeah.

I was like all wrapped up in scarves in the back of an old Soviet pickup truck. And, you know, we offered like the locals like, hey, you know, you want to go? Free ride. Come on. More than merrier. But also, you might want to hunker down. I think you're more of a target when you're in motion. Yeah.

That's a good point. Which economic dominoes will follow for, will. follow first. I don't know, Trump's chances in the midterm elections. Yeah, you know, we should talk about that, actually. If only one third of Republicans think this is a good idea, and if this thing extends beyond, you know, the next three or four weeks, we're potentially looking at an anti-Republican bloodbath coming in in November. John, you know, I wrote my column this week, and you've kept your counsel about what you think of it, about the possibility of a canceled election. But I'm not alone now in my paranoia. The Atlantic

and NPR both are entertaining the same possibility. Yes, that is true. More and more people talking about it. I'll tell you, it's never happened before in American history. No. Never. But elections have been delayed. Yes. The New York mayor, Rural race was late 9-11. And it changed the outcome. And it changed the outcome.

And Mike Bloomberg won. Yeah, it would have been Mark Green otherwise. And everyone's like, who? No, Mark Green was great. Oh, he would have been a fantastic mayor of New York.

Would have been absolutely. It would have been changed. Totally. He was great. He was great. You know, he was consumer advocate for New York City. And among the two things that he did is,

he said women get overcharged for haircuts. Why should women get charged more for haircuts than men? So he passed a law to make it the same. And he said, why should a woman's blouse cost more to dry clean than a man's shirt? It's the same exact object. Yes. But then all that was reversed under Bloomberg. Kieran, thanks for the five pounds.

We see the BBC as biased in the UK. But in the U.S. it seems as a less bias. I find that crazy. How bad the propaganda is in the U.S. My take on that, John, is that the B.S. BBC is less trustworthy about things in the UK. Oh, yeah. But, you know, in other words, if I were in England,

I'd want to watch non-English news about domestic British stuff. Yes. But, you know, but the BBC is less biased about the U.S. It is. It is. The BBC has a long history of offering both sides, which we don't do here in the United States. And you know what? When I was in the CIA and we were getting ready to,

to liberate Kuwait, it would drive me crazy to watch the BBC and they say, yeah, the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, but the poor starving Iraqi children, the sanctions are killing them. And it's like, but food's not sanctioned. It's just that Saddam won't distribute the food that drove me nuts. Soden, thanks. Speaking of Saddam, Sodan with just a minute or two left, thanks. 4999. Very generous.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, someone. Was Saddam and Qaddafi the buffer for us with Iran? Yes. Yeah, they were the counterbalance. The user, thanks for the 219 Turkish Lera. What's the end game for Israel? No country active besides Turkey in terms of what's ahead in the region.

Europe is asleep in other Gulf countries are just not as effective. I mean, Israel is, they're on the fucking warpath, man. They are. It's like there's a cruising for a bruson, too. You know, we're the only. only ones who can tell them stop, and we just won't do it. No, that's what's needed. We need to elect a president who would just cut them off once in overall.

We are at now 9-59. I am very apologetic. There was just no way to get to all of your questions, many of which were really great and deserved to be answered today. But the good news is we're back tomorrow and Thursday and Friday. And we will have Achilles Lera with us at 915 Eastern Times. tomorrow. We're here at 9 a.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. We'll be back tomorrow at 9. Thanks for tuning in. Please like, follow, and share the show. Thank you once again for your generous

support of Robbie Aid, allowing us to do this show together. John, always great to see you. Please take tuned for the TMI show with me and Manila Chan. That's coming up right now.