DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Rogue State | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • America’s Coup Against Venezuela: The UN Security Council and many nations, including US allies, criticize Trump for overthrowing and kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro, and Trump threatens a second military attack unless Acting President Delcy Rodriguez collaborates with the US to expel Cubans and Iranians, cracking down on drugs, and ceasing oil sales to US adversaries. Venezuela braces for economic collapse. Oh, and Canada is worried about the effect on its oil industry. Maduro calls himself a POW. • Cuba in Trouble: Venezuelan oil supplies likely to be cut off, but neither Mexico nor Russia is inclined to fill the gap. Will the US intervene militarily in a country likely to resist? • Trump Targets Poor Kids: HHS to cut off Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado—Democratic states—from $7 billion for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.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

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Hello, this is D. Program with Ted Rall and John Kiriaku, and today is Tuesday, January 6th, 2026. Good morning, John. Morning, Ted. How you doing? I'm good. Obviously, still reeling from the news over the weekend about Venezuela and the overthrow of President Maduro by U.S. horses. and the oddity of seeing him appear in a courtroom in New York City. All very strange, very surreal, and the world is reacting, and that's basically what we're going to talk about today, guys. Some housekeeping, please like, follow, and share the show. As always, if you're watching live on Rumble or YouTube, please put your questions up in the chat.

Robbie West, our producer, will feed them up to us, and we will answer all of them if we can. We usually can. Yesterday, I think we missed one accidentally, so we're going to try to get to that early on. Yes, you know what I wanted to say, I'm sorry to, uh, to Sodon. Our apologies. Yes, we, we missed, we missed his question and he is a faithful and loyal follower and contributor and viewer. And I wanted to apologize and we're not going to do that again.

Definitely. Yeah. Well, I can't promise we won't do it again. We won't knowingly, yeah. No, well, we didn't knowingly do it. We'll try not to fuck up again. And if we fuck up, we'll try to fuck up with someone else. Sorry.

So our apologies there, so Don, for sure. And your support is much appreciated. So, yeah, so this is day three of Robbie Aide. I don't know what our numbers are right now for Robbie Aid. But Robbie, please, please to help support Robbie so we can keep him on the show. We seek to get at least a grand every month. from you guys at the top of them of the top of the month and that's been happening and it's been great. I'm going to go ahead and put that URL up there. It's go fund me.com slash

F as in Frank slash D program Robbie. And if you are confused by that URL, which I know I would be, just go to go fund me.com and then just do a search for D program Robbie and he'll come right up. Okay, shall we do that question? Yeah, and then we will... There's a lot to say. Okay, all right, here we go. Two questions. Oh, this is from Ali, right?

And then Sodan, if you can... Robbie, if you can put up Rodman's question, we'll get to it. Two questions for both of us. What do you think OPEC's response ought to be and will be to Venezuela? And secondly, what country has the worst driving etiquette from the ones you've seen? I love that second one in particular. I have opinions. I do, too.

You know, if this were the 1970s, OPEC would cut off all oil sales to the United States and we would be in a state of crisis. But I think that there will not be any OPEC response. I don't think they'll do a doggone thing. OPEC is no longer a political entity in the way it was back in during the oil crisis, during the Ford administration. It's just not. And, you know, the whole idea of like the non-aligned movement

and OPEC kind of, there was a, there was a Venn diagram there. That's over. Everyone's aligned. Right. That's the problem. That's it. And so, right. So Venezuela is kind of on its own, at least when it comes to OPEC.

Driving etiquette, you want to take that one? And then I'll chime in. I'm going to call it like a five-way tie between Athens, Cai, Bangkok, Bangkok, Mexico, city and Sana'a. You take your life into your hands. Listen, the first time I ever went, I got to turn this light off, the first time I ever went to Egypt,

as soon as I arrived, I dumped all my stuff in the hotel, jumped into a cab and said, take me to the pyramids, right? In the drive to the pyramids, we either were hit or we hit other cars five times the fifth time hard enough that it disabled the taxi i was in and so i had

to get out of the taxi hail another taxi on the highway and go the rest of the way to the pyramids and you hit somebody or they hit you you don't even slow down you just keep going I never saw anything like it in my life Cairo and now my insult in Washington is like I'll roll down my window and shout you're not in Cairo anymore that was hard for me to be and I do my own driving when I travel overseas

I do too take a lot of taxis yeah I love driving and yeah well the Afghans are maniacs because they've been driving for a very short time. And until very recently, all you needed to drive, you didn't need a license. You just needed the car.

Yeah, and an Ottoman rifle in the passenger seat next to you. If you had the keys, you were good to go. And, you know, people just floored it. There was a brand new NATO built road in the Hindu Kush where there was a cafe like at a turn. And the entertainment was to sit there. and have a cup of tea and watch the cars fly off the cliff. Or because people would come around the corner flooring it going downhill.

They wanted to see how fast they could go. And, you know, there was a curve. And obviously, you have to slow down on a mountain pass curve. And, you know, they would just be like, there's no way you could be there an hour without seeing a truck or a car going off there, usually multiple. And they were piling up in the ravine. It was actually a danger that they were going to pile up and fill up the mountain, the canyon. It was insane.

So, but I got to say in terms of etiquette, okay, so etiquette, I think the worst people in the country are Minnesota, in the world, are Minnesotans. You know, I will say people have been very rude to me in Minnesota. Well, they don't drive right. So they all drive the same speed in every lane. Yes, that's exactly what the problem is. Yes, that's right. And that fucks everything up. You can have a five lane highway.

You can't pass. And they don't do a zipper, a zipper. merge they don't yet coming new yorkers are the masters of the zipper merge yeah um and yeah and also and san franciscans are fucking assholes too oh they're they're just jerks yeah yeah they're just generally dicks and if you're like stopped on the side of the road no one will help you so no i mean i think americans are kind of like the rudest in comfort for in for rank incompetence and aggression i mean i'd have to go like karachi they're fucking insane Karachi, yeah, you know what, I wasn't even thinking.

Karachi's bad. Peshawar's bad because you get into a little kerfuffle and Peshawar and they'll pull out guns and start shooting. For sure. You know, four or five people just bystanders will start shooting too. I would say the most charming is Beijing where people will literally, like if they get into a road rage incident, a police officer will be there in 30 seconds and he'll adjudicate it on the spot and he'll be like you give him a hundred one like you know and it'll be like

i don't want to give it to him oh my god and it's solved right there it's like sierra law it's taken care of immediately oh my god anyway so yeah etiquette and and skills are two different things okay van katesh uh what happens next if iran acquires nuclear weapons will and i promise we're going to get to venezuela in a sec will israel and america still pursue a hawkish stance um is iran's nuclear ambition a net good for world peace i like that one i think it actually is i think irons should acquire nuclear weapons i think totally agree it needs it would stabilize the middle east it would get the united states and israel out of iran's grill and it would put things and it would be a counterbalance to israel's hegemony i think totally completely

agree i said on the show yesterday i'm going to repeat it if i were the iranian leader I would want a nuclear weapon yesterday. And I think it's in the interest of world peace, ironically. I agree. I mean, of course, what I'd rather see is Israel disarm, but that's not going to happen. Yes. Kevin Cronin, why do Americans like it when we are our leadership do fantastic things like we did at the direction of one man? Yeah.

And, you know, I want to just add to this before you answer it, John. yesterday's USA Today poll became the first poll in asking Americans how they feel about the invasion and overthrow of the government of Venezuela. One out of three Americans, including 60 plus percent of Republicans, say that this is all good. They approve of it.

I mean, they didn't even know where Venezuela was on a map or they couldn't have picked out Nicolas Maduro if they saw him stealing their car like a week ago. And now they're in favor of this thing. I mean, they're basically just in favor of anything that Trump wants to do, right? Or basically any invasion the U.S. wants to do. MAGA is dead. MAGA was a false movement, a fake movement.

The neocons are ascendant because the heart of both the Democratic and Republican parties is a neo-conservative and neoliberal foreign policy. Do you think, I mean, do you think it's too harsh to say that they're, a fake movement, maybe they were, I mean, I know what you mean, and I kind of agree with you, but do you think that, you know, give the devil its due, maybe it's just a defeated movement, right? It was an attempt to take over the GOP and it failed, or maybe they just, they didn't really have a strong ideological core. Is that the problem? I think the answer is yes. Yes, to both. Yes to both. There was never any agreement as to exactly what MAGA was supposed to

mean, especially not on foreign policy. Make America great again. Who could be against that, making America great. I want America to be great. Who doesn't? But in my mind, that means not wantonly invading other countries and overthrowing their governments.

Right. I mean, look at the New York Times today. The New York Times is essentially predicting that the Cuban government will cease to exist in the coming weeks. Yeah, I don't know if I would say weeks, but I would say months. Yeah, it's done.

You called this. All right, let's go ahead and talk about Cuba, right? So that's a major consequence, right? So basically what this boils down to is the Venezuelans have been providing about one-third to one-fourth of all of Cuba's oil imports. Some of it's also been coming from other sources like Russia. And the thing is, the question is, will the Russians continue their current shipments and would they be willing to supplement and increase?

I mean, it seems like the Russians are, you know, they're not. pleased about what just went down in Caracas. But at the same time, they also see the opportunities as it relates to their stance in Ukraine. So they don't want to offend Trump. They don't want to attract attention. Basically, Trump is like a rampaging monster. And they're just trying to like, you know, like when there's a crazy person on the metro or on the subway in New York. Youvert your eyes. It's like that's what they do. That's kind of like what the Russians are doing right now. Yes. So the Cubans are. So did you have to. Go ahead.

Cuba, go ahead. I mean, sorry, John, go ahead. Shoot. Now, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was going to say, did you also happen to see, it was either the journal of the Times this morning, talking about this national debate all of a sudden in China, people are saying, hey, we should take Taiwan.

It's like, yeah, what did you think was going to happen? Of course. Of course. If the United States could just kidnap a president and overthrow his government and lay claim to his territory and his oil, then why can't everybody do that? You know? No, I mean, well, there's a legitimate question. Well, certainly China has far more of a legitimate claim on Taiwan than we do on Venezuela. We have no claims.

The Monroe Doctrine is just some. John, when you were taught about the Monroe Doctrine in school, Yeah. Did you get taught the way I was where it was basically just like, yeah, so we asserted control over Latin America. And that's been pretty much our stance ever since. And but no context about like this has no legal basis. There's no reason for this. They never taught me any of that. No. It was all in the name of keeping the peace. This was good because we're the good guys. And we keep the bad foreigners out of our hemisphere. So it was good for peace. and then there's and then there's the other aspect of this was that we were always taught that the that remember the main was a real thing yes absolutely we all we never we were never taught that it was bullshit mrs or mrs stewart my fifth grade teacher she could have taught the entire the entire year long class about about the spanish-american war and remember the main and she was a true believer we were never taught that it was bullshit it was until I was in college that I was taught it was all bullshit me too yeah it's and so I think most Americans they you know they but they really believe that they don't see anything strange about the assertion that you know American that we that American law would apply outside of the United States yes I mean exactly imagine I mean let's just say Iran kidnapped Donald Trump

and put him on trial and tear right by the way they'd have a pretty legit they'd have a pretty legit. Absolutely. I mean, it's like, but still, Iranian law doesn't apply in the United States. It's just that's, it's that simple, right? I mean, so these are outlandish, completely absurd, you know, constructions that we're dealing with here. Yep. All right, so Cuba, let's talk about the geopolitical aspect here. So, Cuba, let's just say, so what's, so what will happen is that the Cuban government, the Cuban economy, which is already under tremendous stress, I wouldn't say it's a fucking catastrophe, but it's been under stress for decades.

Yes. You know, what is in danger of collapse? You would see widespread hunger. You'd see social services collapse. You might see political instability, although I suspect maybe not. You know, I think you'd probably just see more like failed state. It's not going to become Haiti, but it's like the thing will circle the drain, right?

they don't the cubans don't want us there even the ones who don't like the government don't want the u.s to invade so i i'm sorry to interrupt you i think i've told you that when i went to cuba last year i guess it was or no it was two years ago that every meal this is one of the first things i noticed every meal there was squash and i'm not i'm not really a squash fan i'll eat it if it served to me i suppose but not every meal of every day. And finally, I said, you know, what's up with the squash? There's got to be something more than squash.

And the host said, no, actually, even food falls under the U.S. embargo. And so they only eat whatever they can grow, and this is squash season. So even food, we don't allow them to import. Look, I was there a lot longer ago than you. I was there 25 years ago, John. And it was very similar in terms of the food situation. I mean, it was really disappointing as a New Yorker where, you know, we have amazing Cuban restaurants to go to Cuba and find that the food sucked.

It's awful. It's a lot of chicken. Yeah. A lot of chicken. A lot of beans. Flavorless. Yeah. Flavorless.

Yes. It was, it was blandish shit. And I was like, what the fuck? You know, I mean, normally, like, to get the real shit, you have to go to that country. and like yeah not not in this case no and so so yeah they're in so they're um i guess what would that look like and i mean i can't imagine the united states thinking okay we can do bay of pigs 2.0 but maybe i mean this president's really rolling you know cold war 20th century style yeah i think that's exactly right and and you know if you're the cuban leader

what do you do to protect yourself there's nothing you got no friends you're you've got no friends and you're 90 miles away from from the hegemon of the region so there's there's there's nothing you can do except prepare your departure plans and hope you can make it to to madrid i mean that's pretty much it would the cubans um prepare an indigenous um uprising i mean you know when Iraq was invaded, the Iraqi troops went into a lot of villages and dropped off guns and said, bury these and use these for the subsequent guerrilla uprising. And they did. The French government did the same thing in 1940 when they were being overrun by the Germans, although French people have a lot of guns because they hunt. Sure. It's like, so what, I mean, you know, would the Cubans

prepare for a resistance, or would it basically, is it doomed to become an American colony? I mean, assuming, I mean, if the Cubans can outlast Donald Trump's second term, I think they live to see another day, right? Agreed. Just like if the Danes can withstand threats of an invasion of Greenland for the next three years they'll be okay let's talk about that you brought that up right before we went on the air well Steve Bannon had some stuff to say about no no no it was it wasn't Steve Bannon it was oh it was Stephen Miller oh I always which is even more more dangerous right that's right I always confused Steve Miller with the Steve Miller band guy but yeah right right right abrad

dab right so Steve Stephen Miller is counselor to the president and deputy chief of staff he's also he's also one of the the intellectual sort of fathers of of maga purportedly but he gave second term than first term or am i mistaken about that more second term than first term yeah um he gave an interview yesterday to jake tapper on cnn in which he said some incredibly provocative things. He called treaty, he called international treaties where countries, you know, promise not to invade each other. International niceties. International niceties that can be ignored. These are solemn promises that literally have been the basis of international affairs for, you know, thousands of years really. Yes. I mean, that's exactly right. So he also said,

in the context of the conversation that you and I are having right now, that the United States will invade Greenland. We will take Greenland. He called it an integral part of the United States, which is preposterous, but it's an integral part of the United States, and it is a necessity for the security and safety of the United States. We already have a military base there.

we have for decades and the danes those are international waters that he's talking about anyway right like even if we occupied greenland the ships that he's supposed so worried about would remain unimpeded in those in in those waters that's exactly right Russian and chinese ships are not in Danish slash greenlander waters no no they're not they never have been and um and so it's like he's preparing us for an American invasion of a NATO country, a NATO country. This is unprecedented. It's, it's territory that's never been, that's never been sort of forded before. So what do we do? Does that mean that NATO is going to have to attack the United States in order to save Greenland for the Danes? I mean, that's really, that's what the treaty says.

And as I was joking with you before, under Article 5, the United States would be obligated to come to Greenland's defense against the United States. Yeah, we would have to attack ourselves, according to the treaty. Now, the advantage is we have a good shot at this. I think this is a war we can win. Yeah. We know where all the targets are. We have excellent intelligence about us. Unbelievable.

We can kick our own ass as, as, as, as, as, as, as, we know. Rudy Ray Moore used to say, we can kick our own ass twice a day. This got so bad that yesterday afternoon, Kirstarmer, the British Prime Minister, had to come out and say, look, you guys have to stop. You can't have Greenland. You can't invade Greenland. You can't attack Denmark. We've got to come down on the side of the Danes.

They're a little slow to this. Yes, a little bit. I think that the Brits and others thought that they could handle. this directly with the Trump administration in through back channels yeah but then with this with this uh interview by stepan miller you know back channels aren't working i mean there's so much to to i mean so okay how serious do you think the threat to greenland is before we go back to venezuelan and take and answer some more questions yesterday i was asked about this in a podcast and i made a face and just went now i said we're not going to

take Greenland. And then an hour later, Stephen Miller's on CNN saying, we're going to take Greenland. So I think this is, this is like a legit problem. I mean, have to deal with. So what's the solution for the, from the Danish point of view? They have to go to NATO. Yeah. Say we have a threat from one of our, from our lead member. Yes. And, um, yes. Who's the, who's the adult in the room. Exactly. Is it Emmanuel Macron? Maybe. I'm not even kidding. I'm thinking that it is, actually. Because he's the one who's been speaking intelligently about Venezuela. And Donald Trump likes him. Mm-hmm. You know, I don't think Trump feels one way or the other about Kirstarmer, but I think Trump likes and respects Macron. And so maybe it's going to be up to Macron to say,

come on, you guys, you have to stop. I mean, the funny thing about Macron, psychology is that okay so he honestly he's in an abusive relationship he's obviously a child of abuse and I'm not saying this to be snotty but it's true and having I know something about that myself from my own upbringing and one thing that people like he and I are able to do is we're able to keep things calm when people are acting crazy we're able to not get riled up and and keep our voice steady and and talk like the crazy alcoholic who's going to hit you down right um Macron is is kind of dealing with it not an alcohol well kind of an alcoholic but he's dealing with a crazy this is Donald Trump is acting crazy um this doesn't make sense to me I don't understand

I I I you know like I said yesterday Ted I believed probably foolishly at this point that maga was something that parts of maga elements of maga were things that people on the left and people on the right could agree like anti-war and and maga now we see is is not at all anti-war it's not Robbie I know stepped away for a second but Robbie when you come back please feed up on the ads that we have just a reminder we need to get a thousand dollars for Robbie to stay on the show every month. So gofundme.com. Go to search for deep program, Robbie. Once we get to $1,000, I'll stop asking for this month for the month of January. By the way, thank you very much for the support from yesterday. We have amazing watch hours right now. Amazing, amazing watch

hours. It's incredible to me. Okay. Let's do some. Oh, I guess before we move on to the questions, John, I want to ask you. So what do you make of the fact that we're We haven't occupied Venezuela. We don't have a single boot on the ground as far as we know. There might be covert, actually it's two-part question. Do you think we have covert operatives in remote parts of Venezuela on the ground? That's the way that we did in the early days

of the invasion of Afghanistan. Yeah. And absolutely, yes. And then part B is, part two is, do we now go ahead and, I mean, should we assume that there will be a second wave boots on the ground because inevitably the Rubio model isn't going to work. The Rubio model says we are going to stay offshore and hover over the acting the interim president's shoulder, President Rodriguez. And if she doesn't do everything we say, like kick out all the Cubans,

kick out all the Iranians, stop selling oil to the Cubans and so on. If she doesn't do everything that we say and she doesn't jump high enough when we say jump that we're going to invade. I mean, that doesn't seem like much of a way to run a, you know, basically you want, they're trying to run a puppet state. This is a Vichy thing, right? The Germans learned the hard way. The Germans didn't have enough troops to occupy all of France during the war. So they set up a Vichy collaborationist regime. Yeah.

But after two years, they found that they couldn't work with the Vichy. Vichy wasn't jumping high enough. So they invaded all of Vichy and took that over too. isn't that kind of the place where, you know, inevitably the U.S. will find itself to? I think so, Ted. And that's a really great analogy, too. I wouldn't have thought to compare it to Vichy, but yeah, I think that's, I think that's right on. And, you know, this is another thing. It's that we're just not good at this. We've never been good at it. And yet we keep trying. We keep trying and we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. It doesn't matter

what decade we happen to be in. It's always the same mistakes. And I just don't know. understand why we don't learn our lesson. This is a right here is a, oh, by the way, I wanted to mention one thing about the driving question that I thought you would like, so I don't know if this is still true, but for many years, the Turks have the highest fatality rate for mile driven of any country in the world. Oh my God. I just thought you'd like that. I did not know that. So that's very funny too. But per mile driven, Turkey's dangerous. You take your life into your hands when you get on a Turkish highway. Frasmataz wants to know, just a comment,

Bibi's wife has moved permanently to Miami. Next war, Bibi consolidating power. Was she worried about getting indicted for corruption, too? I did not know that. I was in Miami a couple of weeks ago, and I went to Miami Beach. I like Miami Beach very much. But I guess I just didn't realize

that it's the most heavily Jewish place in America, North Miami Beach. I didn't know that. I thought that was New York City. More, it's more heavily concentrated in Miami. To the point where when I got to North Miami Beach, I saw more Israeli flags than I saw American flags on display. Like every restaurant, every diner, even real estate offices

had Israeli flags hanging in the windows. That's insane. I was shocked. Yeah. It's insane. Robbie, let me know when you're ready for that, to feed up that ad. Thanks, Robbie. Oh, let's bring in Robbie to just talk about Robbie Aid, and then we'll move on here.

Sounds like a plan. Okay, Robbie. How about your way. All right, yeah. So, no, basically what Robbie where it is is a way to keep me working for these two wonderful people full time. So I really do appreciate y'all doing that. And another huge way that you're able to help that doesn't cost you a dime is come over and watch us on Rumble because, rumble pays us based off of watch hours and literally that for every for every nickel YouTube

pays us about 94 cents and you're doing the exact same thing so come on over no censorship the weather's fine yeah you got some right wingers like me but I promise you we're not all like Stephen Miller now and the check the check's clear yeah for sure thanks Robbie um okay so uh let's see um Katie catastrophe do we think there's any validity to Nick Shirley's claim He's the young internet journalist who is active in Minnesota. Do we think daycares should have to allow random people into the facilities? My MAGA parents seem to think that he's in the right. Well, Tim Walt seems to think that there's something to it.

Yeah, Tim Walts announced yesterday that he will discontinue his campaign for re-election and will no longer be the governor of Minnesota. I have become a serious Tim Wall's detractor, and I'm sickened that the likes of CNN and MS now, formerly known as MSNBC, have pretended that this is not a scandal in Minnesota, where these phony daycares, daycares that have been set up that are taking both federal and state aid and don't have a single child in them. And then are transferring the money to Somalia, allegedly, where it's ending up with Shabab, the terrorist group. This is one of those siloed stories like Benghazi, like the Biden's senility scandal, all that stuff. Yeah, let me read this ad, John. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. You're building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech.

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That's the deal. can also pay $5 a month and just watch us. So save a few bucks there. Yeah, so Tim Walsz. First of all, I don't understand why Minnesota doesn't have term limits. Three terms is too much for a governor. Agreed. Agreed. I was kind of surprised when I learned that Minnesota didn't have state term limits. But yeah, agreed. I think he's been, you know, I guess a decent enough governor, but you can't pretend that these crimes aren't taking place. And my big beef with Walls is he did know that this was happening. And instead of ordering a Minnesota Bureau of Investigation,

investigation, he fired the whistleblowers. Yep. Which is a violation of federal law. So Wall's got to go. Wall's got to go. And to answer that question more specifically, do I think anybody should randomly be able to come? and go from a daycare? No, but on the other hand, A, these weren't really daycares.

No, they weren't these scam operations. There was no daycareing happening. And also, sometimes, you know, you got to bend some rules if, like, the law is being broken. If no one's, no one's enforcing the law and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, someone's got to fucking do something. So, you know, good for this kid. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I saw complaints in the Washington Post over the weekend, like, oh, this kid, he's a right-wing activist. Yes, he is. So?

Yeah, is he wrong? So what? Exactly. Is he wrong? It's not wrong. It's an admonim attack. That's stupid. I give the guy the Polk Award for investigative journalism.

He's the one who broke the story. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the question is, is he right? Nitzki 3403, sorry. What's something that you both changed your mind on politically as you got older? Also, is Robbie open to the idea that some socialized systems are needed for healthy government and economy? I'll let Robbie answer that question himself. But, John, something you changed your mind on politically as you got older.

Yeah, there's a lot. I think the most important thing that I changed my mind on as I got older was American exceptionalism. That's the big one for me. For me, it was the idea that the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party. party was trying to fight for ordinary working Jane and Joe. I just know that not to be true. Yeah. You're exactly right about that as well. Let me let's bring in Robbie and he can answer I'm not going to answer for him. He is fluent in the English language, albeit with a very strange accent. Go ahead, Robbie. Hey, y'all sound strange to me. I sound normal. But I know, but I mean,

I've changed my mind a lot of things. I used to think that Sean Hannity was actually an American patriot. That is not true as far as as socialism goes. I worked in health care for eight years. It's really a hybrid socialized capitalist system where they privatize the profits and socialize the loss. So if you're going to have that kind of system, we should 100% nationalize the insurance companies. We should 100% nationalize health care and things along those lines. if you receive a dime from the government, then the government owns your ass.

Lock, stock, and barrel, and then the American taxpayers should get a rebate at the end of the year based on the savings that you get as a result. That's how it's... Right. Right. I have to admit, I don't know, this probably wouldn't work,

but I, under-representative government, but I would love to have a la carte voting for the federal budget, where you can say, you know, like with a sliding scale, like I want 16% of my budget of the federal budget my federal budget to go to this i want 22 percent to go to that well the way that you would do it one thing is i would advocate for is instead every single person having a vote it would be

one household and but that would do is i was strengthened tuition of marriage that was strengthened families and it would just cut back on so much of the corruption i don't know man well what about the line what about the line item veto we remember we had the line item veto for a minute during the the clinton administration and he was vetoing all kinds of different you you know, little specific things. And then the Supreme Court said, no, no, no, you can't do that. Yeah, by the way, I never understood the Supreme Court ruling. You know, what is the constitutional basis for that ruling?

Yeah, just because they didn't like it is what it was. It's kind of like, no, that's too confusing. Where does it say in the Constitution or any of its amendments that you, you know, that like a bill has to be like, you either, it's, you take it all or you take, or you take none of it. Yeah, well, I don't know. Well, that are just ban omnibus bills. every just right every spending bill has be done individually right instead of these these these uh

these these these lump bills that have the the the must pass thing yeah no i'm i'm with you on that i i think i mean of course it's hard to say like what is an omnibus bill right how could you define it like if you if you put two things you know two things together is that an does that make it omnibus yes yes keep it simple listen i have a very smooth brain this incredibly aerodynamic so the easier things are the better off the better off the better but also do you want to have roll call votes for uh you know 10 000 line items um i'm not in congress and if you're there and if you're making your millions off the stock market then you should be able to work a full eight hour day just like we do by the way now having just mentioned that john bobby why the fuck do they have to read the roll call

why why don't they have buttons at their desk where they just put a green and a red button and just hit the button it's all tradition you're you're talking about the senate because in the house they do have the you have a voting card you stick your card in the machine you vote yes no or present and it pops up you know green red or yellow um but yeah you're right in the senate um it it's all about tradition and and they call the names one at a time and then after they call the names then they call all the names all over again for those who missed the vote it's so dumb It's so inefficient hours and hours. Yeah, it's bad. It's stupid. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's a good thing the account. It's a good thing the house is limited to 454. Oh, and a big shout out. 430. Yeah, 435 plus the others. Yeah, 435. I don't know why. Anyway, Poonbanger over there on Rumble gifted five subs to five lucky humans. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rumble has the best names because they don't censor you. I mean, you just.

come on over and just just have fun with it. It's awesome. Speaking of Rumble, we are currently number seven in the country. Wow. And we have got our highest numbers to date. We broke yesterday's record by a mile. Wow. What the fun. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Seriously. Seven in the country, we're bumping up against the likes of Fox News. That's true. Yeah. That's amazing. Thank you for that. No, seriously. We, it's an honor. It is. All right, Bobby, putting you back into the back. You'll be back, I'm sure. Thank you, Robbie. All right.

So, F-U-S-O, Dollar, thank you very much. The Somali story is an Israeli sci-op. Check out James Lee. I don't know who that is at 51-49. That would be interesting. It would be. And, you know, just with, that's the extent of my knowledge of it, was that one sentence just now, but sounds plausible.

Yeah, let's check that out. So, all right, so let's see. What else do we want to talk about here? I mean, we have a lot of stuff to talk about. So, oh, I do want to mention this one aftermath of the Tim Wall situation. So the Department of Health and Human Services under Trump has announced that it's cutting off $7 billion of temporary assistance for needy families, which is basically a welfare program for families with kids. Yes. For Minnesota, I could see that.

They're pausing it, I should say. New York, California, Illinois, and Colorado. Now, there's no evidence that's been presented that these other four states have any kind of fraud on the level of Minnesota. But the Trump administration is asserting that they do, but they're not saying anything. I mean, I feel like they should put up or shut up.

It seems like a bad optic to me. to be, I mean, like, in the first trumpet, this is, of course, the opposite victims here, but during the first Trump administration, and in fairness to Trump, Biden continued the policy, they kept the mortgage interest deduction to over $10,000, which they knew would disproportionately affect the blue states instead of the right states. And it has. And Donald Trump, if nothing else, he's killed that tradition that, you know, to say that I'm the president's Like Mamdani said, I'm the president, I'm the mayor of all New Yorkers, not just the people who voted for me.

Donald Trump doesn't feel that way. He doesn't feel like if you didn't vote for him, you are not, he's not your president. Yeah, you get punished. And so that's what this is about. Is there going to be any political blowback, or would the Democrats be able to make some interesting ads in the midterms to talk about targeting poor kids for political retribution? or because are they they're poor and maybe minority nobody cares i i think the latter i think for the most part people don't care i think for the most part most democrats don't care you know i keep coming back to something that you said the other day ted and it was i forget what issue we were talking about but what you said was that joe biden had four had four years to change things back and he and he didn't you know joe biden had four years to dismiss charges against Medoro and he didn't Joe Biden had four years to ensure that hungry children don't go hungry

and he didn't nope so I don't know why we should expect miracles from them from the democrats now I don't think they're going to do anything I hope my blood always boils when I get these democratic mailers that were that are addressed to my dead mom and she was an avid democrat and had foolishly donated to them and and you know they they always say things like send money so we can fight if only i mean you guys never do and at a certain point i just wonder that's it when are people going to figure that out yeah that's it they're all for they're all frauds i really believe that these mainstream democrats i i have zero love for them they i think they're all phonies i would go further and say even the progressive democrats i don't have much just i mean

sometimes rocana says something that i like or sometimes aOC says something that i like But in the end, you know, they all vote the wrong way all the time. Yeah, they do. They do. I mean, that's why I especially- Has he said anything about your pardon? You know what I mean? Are you kidding?

She would run screaming from the room if I walked in. And the worst of them all is that criminal H. Jeffreys. He's horrible. The worst. She has the worst. What do we think about the, I like this question a lot. What do you think about the timing of the Maduro capture

coinciding? with Mamdani's inauguration, and how will this affect Trump and his relationship going forward? John, my take on this is that it was not the main impetus for the timing. I think the main impetus for the timing was the holidays and the media and burying it in the media because it was gonna be hard for like any protest movement

to get going, but I think it's a happy coincidence for them and I think they're happy, they like it. John, I saw on X various right-wing influencers like Ben Shapiro types, arguing that this was a showing images of, you know, the Maduro caravan being, you know, taken to the house of detention there in Brooklyn and saying, look, the big boys are in town. Look, we're trolling you, Mamdani. There's nothing you can do.

The feds can come and go out of your city as much as we want. And look, we did this and we're rubbing your nose in it. I doubt Mamdani cares, but, you know, I mean, that's the optics. Yes, that is the optics. And I think that's, I think that's what we, we should have expected. I thought it was very well planned out. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's not really, it doesn't really humiliate Democrats.

No. But it's a little bit of, you know, shredded red meat for the base. See, but this is, we come back to this idea again, that the Democrats have consistently underestimated Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a master politician, and he's far smarter than the Democrats have ever given him credit for being. That's true. And that's why they keep getting burned because they underestimate him. He has the sharpest showman instincts of any politician of our lives.

Yes, he does. And he understands, basically, you know, the brief against him is that he's turned politics into a circus. I would argue that politics was always a circus and that he just recognized it and played into it. And look what it's gotten him. He's won twice, at least. He would, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

It's true. I mean, and the thing is, you know, it's kind of like, let us entertain you, as Nirvana said, right? That's right. The American people want to be entertained. I mean, I wish that they wanted to be taken care of, but apparently they don't care about that. No, I think not.

F-U-S-O, oligarchs don't want us to have health care because they want us dead. Then the unwashed masses heard because of AI and automation. I don't think they want us dead because then they don't get any money out of us. Yeah, true. True. But they definitely don't want us to have health care. No, that they don't. No, it's gross and disgusting.

Venezuela. What next, John? I mean, they're going to, we are, I think my instinct is better. I'd say at least 50-50. There's going to be more military action. I think this, I think Vice President Rodriguez, now acting president, her days are number. I don't know if she can even make it 30 days.

They're going to get rid of her. I mean, I think they are. Ted, last night I was on an Australian. news channel broadcast news ABC the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and while I was on they broke into the news show to say that there was gunfire in Caracas and then they cut to their to their correspondent in Caracas or it wasn't a correspondent so much as a strigger and he showed this video of very long lines of cars stopped at checkpoints. And Venezuelan soldiers were pulling people out of their cars. I saw it with my own eyes, pulling people out of cars and checking people's

phones, looking at their text messages to see if they criticized Maduro. Oh boy. And if there was criticism of Maduro, they were being arrested. And then they were checking the trunks of the cars looking for weapons, explosives, any evidence that these people were pro-American. I think that is the near-term future for Venezuela. It's going to get way worse before it gets better, and they're going to turn on each other. And that's what I think we're already saying. It's a deep, yeah, I mean, that's what happens when you take away the center, when you take away the center of power in any society.

This is a, I mean, it's hard to say reliable polling hasn't really ever been, you know, available for Venezuela. Yeah. But my gut tells me it's basically a 60-40, you know, pro-social, left versus right country. Yeah. And so they're going to, that's evenly divided enough for them to turn on each other. And what the right doesn't have in numbers, they have in connections, external connections, power, and the ability to buy violence, right? So, Ted, what do you think of the idea that part of the.

original Trump plan was that once once Maduro was gone, all these all these Venezuelan immigrants and refugees in the United States would then be forcibly returned to Venezuela to go rebuild your own doggone country. Well, I mean, that's that is certainly, I think again, that's a happy, you know, side effect. the Mamdani thing. I think it plays into it. I don't think it's a major thing. I think it's like

number four on their list. I mean, the thing is what I don't get, oh, it's about the oil. So right now, I'm in Quebec City, right? Yes. And the Canadian news here is all full of the impact of Venezuela on Canada's oil industry, which is mainly in Alberta and British Columbia. And it turns out that the Canadians, they drill the same kind of heavy crude as the Venezuelans do. And they're, like, deeply concerned that this is also a way of fucking over the Canadians. Because oil prices, if they ramp up production down there in Venezuela, that means there's less demand overall for this particular type of oil. There's all these other ramifications, right?

I mean, I do think Trump's plan has, like, a laundry list of, you know, happy, you know, be side effects from the administration's point of view. And that's one of them. You know, we can kick the Venezuelans out. Like, hey, you have no excuse. You no longer, this reminds me, I worked at the admissions office at Columbia in the early 90s. And in 1992 or 1993, we had people coming in on a federal program as political asylum.

They had received political asylum from the Soviet Union. And I'm like, how do you, how can you be able to. How can you be a refugee from a country that no longer exists? Well, similarly, how can you be a refugee for Maduro's socialist healthcape? If Maduro's socialist healthcape no longer exists, you can go back, right? Right, right, right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Now, what do you think about the Canada side of this?

I mean, the U.S. attention to the U.S. and Canada. I've never seen, by the way, so much nationalism in Canada. When you watch TV here, you see all of the... All of the ads say, like, made here in Canada with the maple leaf, like, you know, Canada made. I never saw that when I used to come to Canada. You know, I've heard that it's especially prominent in the Canadian alcohol industry, that there are active and successful campaigns to boycott American alcohol. They're just not buying it.

Well, Jim Beam just had to suspend all of their production for the entire 2026, because, largely, because of this. I mean, there's other problems inside the, inside the, you know, liquor, you know, the bourbon market. Yeah. There's been a, they overproduced, but still. Wow. You know, speaking of five eyes countries angry at us, I was supposed to be in Australia from December 27th to January 3rd. And obviously, I wasn't in Australia. I couldn't get a visa.

It was just stuck in limbo. And yesterday, after the show ended, I got my rejection from my Australian visa. And the rejection puzzled me. I wasn't rejected because of who I am or what I've done. I was rejected because they believe that I am an intending immigrant and that I intend to remain in Australia as an illegal immigrant. What? And they actually put that in writing, the idiots.

that's absurd you would go to greece i know right if you wanted to leave you you can an intending immigrant it's like you assholes you know if i were still if i still had my consular certification and i were working in an american embassy i would just on principle reject every australian for the next week jesus which i actually once did to the saudis what a bunch of twats i don't even understand. All right, let's hit some questions on the way out here. Within a few minutes we have remaining. Ham Hawk, thanks for the five bucks. Do you see the bullion heist behind the scenes in Venezuela? I did not. I did not either. Okay, we'll check that out. A bullion, a bullion heist? I guess so. Thoughts on Mark Kelly potentially losing a proportion of his military pension

due to practicing free speech. Yeah, they're talking about, heck Seth yesterday said that he would begin the paperwork to to demote mark kelly see this is the thing when when listen i i i'm i'm all about free speech totally i really am but mark kelly is still in the military i don't care if the guy's a senator he's still in the military and when you have free speech yeah exactly it's like what did you think was going to happen you signed it away exactly so John, for you, Great Mosses. Why are the Gulf Arab states so close to the U.S.? Why does the U.S. allow them to prosper

while attacking other oil-producing states? Are they puppets of the U.S.? That shouldn't take long for you to answer. It's not a very nice way to say it, but yeah, pretty much they're puppets for the United States. And think of it this way, too. There are, what, half a dozen American bases in Saudi Arabia. There's an enormous army base in Kuwait.

the headquarters of the Navy for the United States in the Middle East in Bahrain and the world's largest Air Force base in Qatar. So there's your response right there. Yeah, I will leave that. Timeless prestige. What are our opinions on Finland's President Alexander Stubb and the damaged cables close to Finland and Latvia?

It seems to me, actually, I'm going to go so far as to say, it seems pretty clear to me that this was a Russian sabotage. operation and they got caught literally every crew member on the ship was russian or you think it's revenge for north stream yes i do um yeah the revenge and and in russia uh you know they go together uh young courthouse five bucks thanks very much come on john don't dangle that south saudi embassy story without telling us that's got to be the last comment which saudi embassy story oh that oh listen okay so when i was when i was stationed in bahrain um there was this joke in the embassy that i should

be named the minister of tourism because i was all about taking everybody if you want to drive to saudi arabia john will do the driving i'll show you the eastern province i was an expert so every time somebody knew would come to the embassy i would take them to saudi arabia for the weekend you go shopping and we have dinner and we go to the souk and then we drive back across the the cause weight of Bahrain. So I had done this six or seven times. And there was a group of women who came to the embassy. The Saudis rejected my visa because they said I was promoting prostitution. And so it just so happened. I was assigned to the consulate that week. And I rejected every Saudi that applied for a visa. That's going to do it for today. See you tomorrow. I'm not on

TMI, but you still stay tuned for TMI. Robbie's going to be filling in for me with Manila Chan. see you tomorrow on both TMI and right here at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Bye, John. Thanks, everyone. Bye, Ted. Bye, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.