DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Sucks To Be You! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Trump says that he is not weighing the economic burden of the Iran war on everyday Americans. Asked to what extent “Americans’ financial situations” were motivating him to make a deal with Iran, he replied: “Not even a little bit,” Trump said. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran — they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”• Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted. Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile. • Dozens of Gulf citizens have been accused of belonging to Iran-linked terrorism cells as the war accelerates a shift toward deeper authoritarianism in the region. Shiite religious leaders in Pakistan also estimate that as many as thousands of Shiite Pakistanis have been deported from the Emirates since mid-April.• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition may collapse next week, after one of his key ultra-Orthodox coalition partners called for the parliament to be dissolved. The political crisis comes after Netanyahu told ultra-Orthodox political leaders that he would not advance legislation to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis from military service.• More than 10,000 times, judges have said ICE detentions, typically carried out with no opportunity for detainees to plead their case, are illegal. That’s roughly 90 percent of all cases — a staggering rejection of a core piece of Trump’s immigration agenda. Presidents’ signature initiatives often end up in court. But this flood of adverse rulings is unique — a never-before-seen reaction to a never-before-seen policy.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Good morning. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Rall and Jamaral Thomas. It is Wednesday, May 13th, 2026. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning, J.T. What's happening, my man? Doing okay this morning? Yes. And here, let me read you a list of classic boneheaded comments made by American politicians over the years. We'll just go quickly. There's Mitt Romney, his 47% remark. Hillary Clinton, the basket of deplorables. There's the Macaca, remark by George Allen of Virginia 10 years ago, it seems so like yesterday. Todd Aiken, legitimate rape, the list goes on, clinging to guns or religion, Barack Obama.

And now Donald Trump, he of the large mouth, I think, has just issued a statement that will rank alongside those in terms of its total cluelessness. Trump said that he is not considering the economic burden of the Iran war on ordinary Americans. Asked to what extent Americans' financial situations were motivating him to make a deal with Iran. He said, not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about Americans' financial situation. I don't think about anybody.

I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Yeah, I played the clip this morning, actually. Oh, I'd love that, please. Let's hear it. Oh, do you want to play the clip? Oh, do you have it? Yeah, I have to clip. Okay, I don't think you can play it through.

You would have to give it to me to play. We're actually moving, let's see, I'll make you an administrator. Well, I can play it. I think you guys have to give me permission, though. Okay, I just gave you the permission, so you should be able to do it. Let me pull this. Oh, I don't know how to do it on this platform. Okay.

All right. Never mind that. It's too complicated. But all right. So we don't want to learn how to do that while we're starting the show here. But anyway, you've heard it. I thought, you know, look, Lord knows Donald Trump has said many extremely incendiary things. To me, this is, it goes to that special place.

I'm going to put in Robbie here because he's probably the only person here who vote. voted for Donald Trump. He said, I did not. And to me, this just like seemed like an exceptionally boneheaded, like fuck you to his base. That's because that's what it was, especially this last time. So in 2016, I voted for him because it was obvious that Hillary Clinton really just was itching for a war against the Russians. For whatever reason, that's what you wanted to do. this last time I did not vote for Trump.

I famously voted for Dr. Shiva. The only vote in Montana that the man got, by the way, is cast for me. But I noticed how people voted for him is because he pretends to care about the working people and to listen to them. And so it was working class, Latinos, blacks, whites, who really just built his coalition. And yesterday, he just crapped on every single person that makes sense. less than $50,000 a year that voted for him. I don't care about you. I don't care about your pain. All I care about are the interests of the Epstein class and of my backers over

in Tel Aviv who say that Iran should ever have a nuclear weapon, which, by the way, Iran agrees they should not have a nuclear weapon because they signed not the nonproliferation treaty. So, Mr. President, Iran agrees with you. So, you know, I mean, it's just that that was his. this is this moment of honesty and clarity, where he has told the American worker, go to hell. I don't care about you.

Do you think others will interpret this as a game-changing moment as well? I mean, I think this is one of those things that even if Democrats, you know, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as they have, they're so good at doing, it's just going to spread because, you know, People go to the gas pump. You know, they, everybody's, they go to the grocery store. Everybody's absorbing this. And then they remember little Lord Fonteroy, who probably hasn't had a driver's license,

a valid driver's license since the 1990s, you know, is not driven anywhere. Has he ever pumped gas since like the 1980s? And he drove around in his purple pimp mobile. I don't know. Do you remember, I don't know if you ever seen pictures? He went on one date with Candice Bergen. He showed up in a purple suit matching his purple car. I believe it was a caddy.

And she said he was such a douche. She never wanted to see him again. You know, I don't know. I mean, I think this is a, I think it's a big deal. I think Republican, if I'm a Democratic member of a Democratic candidate for Congress, I'm running that quote in ads for, you know, for months. No, I would. Why would you?

I mean, I got to be honest, this is not just. against his base. This is against America broadly. You know, I remember when Annalia Barabach, do you remember this, Annalia Barabach during the war? This was Germans, foreign minister. Gorgeous. He was in love with her, her and Kayla's. For some reason, I'm in love with crazy women. But she made the point of saying, I don't care what Germans are going through. Like, basically, we need to keep this war going. I don't care if Germans get hungry. I don't care if they're running out of money. I don't care. I don't care. we need to keep the Ukraine war going.

And I remember thinking to myself, Jesus, that would never work in an American context because if an American president or political leader said that, there would be consequences. Trump just said that. And he said that about a war in the same way that Joe Biden was talking about the Ukraine war. If you remember when they were talking about Putin's Price Heik and Nancy, what's her name, of Joe Biden's press secretary, Jin Saki, came out and said, our values are not without costs. Her argument was effectively, look, we got to fight the war in Ukraine,

even if it costs us money, even if we go broke doing it, even if we're paying more for gas and more for items in the grocery store. We got to do it because we got to fight Putin. And this is because of our values and our values are not without costs. Trump is doing something very similar here. When the numbers came out for inflation, where it made it clear that the, and by the way, those numbers are even low because those numbers don't really include food and gas and the things that you actually pay for like groceries and those type of things. But whatever, put that to the side. It's effectively eaten away any money that a person got from the standpoint of their wages.

And so it's like Americans are obviously getting poorer as a result of what you're doing and your response. is very similar to the Biden response of, I don't care. This is just what we have to do. This is outrageous. It's treasonous. It's treasonous. The comment that, but the comments that you allude to by the two, by the German and the American woman, right, Jen Saki and the German lady, those at least acknowledge that there is pain. And the argument there is the pain that's going to be borne by the public in the form of higher prices and lower standard of living. It's worth it because we're trying to achieve something more important. We're asking for a big sacrifice here.

Donald Trump's going further than that. He's not saying this is worth it. He's not saying, listen, yeah, we're all going to pay higher prices, but what's the point of lower prices if we're all blown up by an Iranian nuclear weapon? He doesn't make the argument. He literally just says he doesn't care about it. It doesn't matter. You know, obviously, easy for him to say he's a billionaire.

He doesn't have to worry about the price of gas or anything else or the price of anything else. He's been grifting the presidency into those billions that he claimed to be worth before, but now he really is worth as a result of his emoluments. You know, so this is definitely a, I got mine, sucks to be you. And that's, I mean, that's worse than basket of deplorables, right? asking of deplorables is like, well, half the country is like a bunch of like losers and assholes. That's pretty bad. But this is literally the president saying, I don't care about, as Robbie said, about any of you at all.

Like none of you. I don't care. Like my only concern here is to suck up to Israel. That's it. I thought you were going somewhere else with that. Well, I thought so. I thought I was going somewhere else with that. I thought you were going to go to that.

I was like, okay. I was like, well, I'm not caffeinated enough to do that yet. But, you know, the show just began. It's still early. But the point is valid. And the point is, and to make this even worse, right, Trump followed this up with a tweet. And where's my, one of my glasses?

He says, and by the way, he's saying this, because while he's also pointing out, look, man, I don't care about your financial. situation. I don't care. I'm Donald Trump. I'm rich. I don't care. I'm going to build my ballroom. I'm going to continue my war and get people killed. I don't care. He follows us up with the tweet when it became clear that the media was pointing out Trump was lying and that, you know, they leaked the military assessment that effectively pointing out that Trump was lying about Iran's capability, that Iran is like 90% of his capability back, which means you spent $40 billion in two months. You use 50%

of munitions in regards to THAAD missiles and regards to JASM's, regards to all of these other missile systems that you're effective, where we're using, 50, 50, 30, I think, when he got to stand up conditions and those type of things. And they still have 90% of their miscapacity and control of the strata of removes and their boats and everything else. Trump is just lying. When that report came up, Trump comes out and says,

when fake news says that the Iranian enemy is doing well militarily against us, it's virtual treason that it is, such a false and even preposterous statement. He's lied to his teeth. Let's keep going. He said they're aiding and abetting the enemy exclamation point. All it does is give Iran false hopes

when none should exist. These are American cowards that are rooting against our country. Iran is 159 ships in their Navy. Every ship is now resting at the bottom of the sea. They have no Navy. The Air Force is gone. All technology is gone. Their leaders are no longer with us.

And the country is an economic disaster. only losers, ingrates, and fools are able to make the case against America. This is nonsense. Well, I guess if you're going to count the Intelligence Committee as a bunch of ingrates and losers too, right? So the details are that the CIA and other intelligence organizations within the U.S. have assessed that Iran has operational access to 30 out of its 33 missile sites along the straight of. of Moose, that's not counting other missile sites and other parts of the country, and that it still has 70% of its mobile missile launchers, which it moves around in some places underground,

and still has about 70% of its pre-war missile stockpile. That's remarkable, right? I mean, it's like we are seven weeks now into this conflict between the world's biggest military hegemon and Iran, which has been battered by sanctions for 47 years since the revolution, the entire existence of its contemporary form of government. And yet it's still, it's only shot 30% of its Wad. You know, I mean, and I've got to think that the big tasty hypersonics are still in that stockpile, right? So that means the Iranians can easily go another three, four months, easily.

and without, you know, breaking a sweat. That's not even counting for increased production, import, you know, resupplies from China, Russia, whoever. And, you know, there's gray market and black market weaponry. Hell, half the stuff that we sent to Ukraine might end up in Iranian hands through the dark web, right? So what, I mean, okay, it's May 13th. By August 13th, after the,

summer travel season is starting to wind down. I mean, Americans are going to be in a world of pain. I just filled up my car yesterday. I paid $5.5.15 at the bump. Yeah, it was brutal. I mean, you know, it's like my car only has a 15 gallon tank, right? And I'm like, what the fuck? Why am I paying like, you know, $78 for a tank of gas? That's like, you know, I don't have, I don't drive a Ford F-150. This shouldn't be happening to me. And then I see the dude, you know, filling up his Ford F-150 next to me. And I'm like, oh, God, that's like a $200 plus dollar bill. I mean, it's brutal, right? And so, I mean, Donald Trump, right now, it may not fucking matter. But by August, it's going to fucking matter. And people are going to remember

this. And smart Democrats are going to be bringing this up. And it's going to, it's going to be brutal. You can't, like, you can't gerrymander your way out of a disaster this fall. Well, he doesn't seem to care, which is, again, mind-blowing to me. Honestly, it's not mind-blowing to me. It's Trump, right? I mean, he always gave the energy off that he didn't necessarily care. I got to be honest, to me, Trump pulled an Obama in regards to the way that Democrats were regarded, meaning the way that Obama ran in the context of, you know, the race with Democrats, and all of these Democrats full well-believe, oh, my God,

Obama is going to do this, Obama's going to do that. And people bought the hope of change thing. I think Trump ran a hope and change for Republicans. And they believed him. And once he got in, this is what you get. This is what you care. I don't think he cares. I guess the question to you did, do you think it's going to matter?

Meaning, do you think, for one, I thought that Republicans were going to get wiped out regardless. Just to be clear. I think that's true, too. Yeah, I thought that too. But this seems to be just so. There's something deeply problematic with the president that says, I don't care about the pain that the American public is suffering for a war that I cause. Nobody asked to it.

Courtuously. And that most Americans, including many Republicans, didn't support from day one. Yeah. So this is like, this is something he did entirely on his own. And look, to be clear, Americans have been asked to sacrifice for war many times in the past. But that's the tradeoff, right? I mean, I think personally, I think it's retarded to say that, like, oh, you know, to prevent, you know, God forbid Cambodia and Laos should become communist.

Therefore, we must send your child off to Vietnam to die. That's dumb. But at least it's an argument. I think it's dumb to say we have to prevent Saddam Hussein from getting weapon. from having weapons of mass destruction. He didn't have them. It's dumb, but it's an argument. But here there's like literally what nobody really believes, including the CIA, that Iran has nuclear weapons, has the ability to get nuclear weapons, wants nuclear weapons, has the missiles, the means to deliver them, wants the means to deliver them. Nobody believes there's a threat.

Really, nobody. I mean, anybody who says otherwise, It's just like, you know, it's Laura Lumer. It's like liars, professional liars. So there's no credible side. There's no great cause, right? You're not making the world safe for democracy. You're not saving the world from the domino theory of communism. You're not, you're kind of like, you're just being asked to sacrifice by a guy who doesn't

even want to acknowledge, hey, you know, it's like the CEO who says like, guys, I appreciate you working 80 hours a week. We're a team. We're going together. Like, this guy's like, fuck you. You suck. I'm kicking off to the Riviera. You know, hey, you work late. I'm out early. But he's that guy. He's the big asshole. So, yeah, no, I think this is, I mean, I think it's a game changer. I think it's a, I think it's one of those comments that you can't really take back. And he doesn't even seem to be inclined to take it back. If I were him, I'd try to take it back. But I don't think he can't. See, I think Trump is in a world of delusion at this point.

And I think he's psychotic. Yes, I've always studied with psychotic, to be bluntly honest with you. Narcissistic, psychotic, all of those things. And like he just doesn't care about human suffering. That was always my point of view. Right. More to the point, though, it's he is, he has fallen into a world of delusion. And whether he has dementia or whether it's the pressure.

of the job. See, the first time around, I thought Donald Trump dealt with the presidency in the context, like meaning many people aged significantly when they were president. You can look at Bush, you look at Obama, you can look at Bill Clinton, all of these people, like the pressure of the job. And yeah, it's eight years, but it's still the pressure of the job. The first time around I thought Trump dealt with that relatively well, didn't seem to, yeah, bothered him, but it didn't seem to take a chunk out of him. This time around, I thought, It seems like he is under extraordinary pressure for his own failures and for his own incompetence. Whether that's the stupid tariff war that was illegal, by the way, because the president

doesn't have the ability to do tariffs on his own without act of Congress, whether it was going after China, which failed miserably, whether it was continuing the war in Ukraine, which he could have just walked on day one and said, this is Biden's war. I said it was going to walk and walk and this is over with. He didn't do that. This is now his war, and he's going to get the consequences of it. Stupidly. It's stupidly. He could have just.

He ran against it. He ran against it. It like, meaning on day one, he could say, I'm out. That's Biden's war. On day one, he could have, and he could have made nice with Putin, which, by the way, would have, you know, helped him in all sorts of other ways. I mean, considering that Russia has massive energy resources and gold reserves, I mean, Russia could be really, you know, a key player in economic stability for the West.

And it could be leveraged that way. if anyone knew what the fuck they were doing. I can do it. We've got an ad. I should read it, and then we should get into some questions. Let's see here. Okay. Okay.

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Absolutely. All right. We'll comment here from Keep It Real. All after all. After all, those MAGA cried to Trump on TV about the cost of living. He never really cared the whole time. L.O.L. Man child, thanks for the two dollars. Sophtards, you mean to tell me that our Lord and Savior Donald Jaha Sufat Trump lied about this conflict? Doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't give a fuck about us. Color me shocked. Frank Field, thanks for the five bucks. There's enough to get Chump and his cronies thrown out, right? Oh, that's the one. That's the one. That's the big ones. Yeah, that's the operative question.

That is the $10 trillion question. Well, beyond that, giving a shit about Americans, he should care about America's placement in the world, if that makes sense. Like, even if you don't care about Americans, you should at least care that you don't fall into a military blunder. I mean, because if you remember the whole thing of Trump was, well, Trump is going to keep us out of large military blunders. He may fight smaller wars, meaning he may go after Venezuela, but he's not going to get us embroiled into a larger war. That was the argument that was being presented for Trump. Yeah. Not so much.

That's a much. No, I mean, it's such a betrayal of everything that he claimed to stand for. P.W. Walker, thanks for the donation. I've been calling Trump the Obama of the right since 2019. Campaign on hope and change, deliver neither, then have his fanboys go online and pretend he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yep. That's about the size of it.

Yeah, it is. I think it fits hope and change just for the Republican context. Yeah. And they believed it, just like many lefties believe Obama. They still do. Oh, you mean for Obama, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, you know, because now Obama is doing a lot of,

of media appearances because of the opening of his library in Chicago, which might have the distinction of being the ugliest new building in the United States. Oh, I need to check it out. Oh, my God. It's, you know, it's, it's, it would be a, an extreme version of Soviet brutalism, you know, and not in a good way, because I kind of like Soviet brutalism. Same here. I think.

I like it, like the art, the blog. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. It's cool. But American brutalism is brutaler. Anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about dozens of citizens of Gulf states are being basically rounded up, arrested, deported. Thousands of Shiite, Pakistanis have been deported from the Emirates.

Basically, Shiites are being cracked down upon because of the war in basically all of the Gulf states, which, let's face it, we're not democracies. are moving towards even deeper authoritarianism as a result of the war. And the Sunni leaderships of these countries, they're all majority Sunni except for Bahrain, right, are cracking down on Shias and subjecting them to the death penalty. I mean, you kind of expect to see more of this kind of behavior during wartime. You know, that's when we sent the Japanese Americans to internment camps and so on. war radicalizes nations. But what I think is interesting here is that the Gulf states don't seem

to understand their geographic position, despite everything that's happened over the last seven weeks. They really need to make nice with the Iranians. They need to get along with the Iranians. Otherwise, they're not going to be able to use the Strait of Ormuz. And they also can't, And as part of that, they can't really be seen as taking a shit on Shia Islam. And yet that's exactly what they're doing. I mean, is this, is it me or is this incredibly short-sighted? It's worse than that. I mean, the reporting came out that UAE and Saudi Arabia have been attacking Iran under the cover,

basically unacknowledged attacks on Iran. Now, obviously Iran knew that, which is why they were pounding the shit out of the UAE and pounding, you know, they had a lot of Saudi Arabia and, you know, Gulf states. It's like you are hosting U.S. military bases, the same United States that is attacking Iran and did so in a war of aggression. Put it in context. This is the second time that the U.S. has attacked Iran directly with the first time being in the middle of negotiations with that same Iran. So it's like, what do you expect, right? Like, you are hosting U.S. military bases that is attacking the country and did so, you know, unprovoked.

When they attack back and they're hitting those bases, you can't complain, considering that you are hosting those same bases that are attacking Iran. I hope you get my point, right? Like, yeah, it's short-sighted. The reality of it is you're going to have to deal with the regional hegemon. which it's not Israel in this case. Not anymore. Not anymore, not the Gulf states. It's Iran.

They've established themselves. And the fact that... Which I've been saying for years, it was always, it was destiny. It had to be. It had to be. And so now this is just reality asserting itself. Yeah. But with one catch, it might have been the case,

but Iran never used that power until they were forced to use it. Meaning they never expended their capabilities in this way. They were always pragmatic. They were always, okay, we just want to make, you know, we want to make nice. We don't want to get into wars, leave us to our devices. Pragmatism is not weakness. It's just pragmatism. And then it's like, okay, you push me in a corner.

Now I'm expending my powers. Yeah, you know what happened to Iran, I think, right? I mean, look, this is, events are still playing themselves out. And obviously, we have to hedge our bets and say, like, look, anything's possible. And three months from now, we might be saying, holy shit, look at Iran. They're fucked. I don't think that's going to happen.

But, but, you know, but it reminds me of kind of like, you know, sometimes you get fired from a job and you're so sad and you're so worried and you don't know where you're, how you're going to pay your bills. But it turned, looking back years later, you're like, that was the best thing. That job was no good for me. I ended up, you know, it forced me to, I got kicked out of the nest. I ended up forced to go look for something better. and then I did find something better.

That's what happened to Iran. Their policy was not smart for them. This war, of course, obviously, they now have thousands of people killed, including women and children, so it's not pretty. And I don't mean to give that short trip. But geopolitically, this definitely has massively improved their standing. And it wouldn't have happened. of their own accord.

It's not something they didn't suddenly decide to flex. They were forced, they were backed up into a corner and, you know, and they bit back. You know, to be fair, though, and just to be clear, and again, I don't want to minimize the fact that the U.S. is murdering thousands, right? It's unprovoked attacks. But this was always coming. There was no way out this box. This meaning the entire plan was always to go after Iran.

John was, I mean, I remember when John was on the show once, John told me that he was sitting in a meeting and when they were going after Iraq. And Dick Cheney comes on to the camera and says something like, within a few weeks we're going to be in Iran. It was always the goal. Like Wesley Clark, we're going to take out seven countries in X number of years. And Iran is going to be the final. Iran was in George W. Bush's Axis of Evil, right? Exactly. And so it's like

this monster was always going to eventually get to that door. And this monster, meaning the only way for Iran to ever solidify its sovereignty was to have this fight. Meaning this fight, it's kind of like the school yard bully, right?

It's like they're going to keep messing with me until I finally smash him in the nose for it to be clear. I am not the one for you. You can't do this. This is not something that you can do. This is not something I can count. I always told my son. Never start a fight. Always finish it. Yeah. And that's effectively what was going to take place. In order for Iran to establish his sovereignty, they were always going to have this fight. It was always coming. There was no way out this box. The United States is

full of sociopaths. They were always going to attempt to take them down. So this was always necessary. There was no way out of this. Yeah. I agree with that. At one. I'll believe. Let's talk about the, since we're in the Middle East still, Netanyahu's governing coalition, this is a story with so much going on that one could easily miss, but I think it's super important. So part of his governing coalition, a key part, are these super ultra-Orthodox parties that basically their whole deal with the ultra-Orthodox is the guys. they don't work. They study the Torah. And they've always been exempt from the draft.

Now, it hasn't really been law. It's been more like a series of constantly renewed executive orders that has constantly done that. Under Israeli law, everybody, men and women of adult age, I think 18 could be wrong about that, but thereabouts is subject to conscription. But it's always been controversial, and it's been non-Alter Orthodox, Israelis have always resented these guys and been like, you guys are basically welfare recipients. And all you do is sit around and study the Torah and like, you know, and now we have to go out and, you know, those Muslims aren't going to kill themselves. We have to do that. So, so, so,

so now it turns out that Netanyahu is not going to put forward a law that would, that would extend, that would extend basically that grace to the ultra-Orthodox. And starting next week, they could be subject to the draft. So the ultra-Orthodox party said, fuck you, Bibi, we're out. Your governing coalition is gone. This is a parliamentary system, which means new elections have to be called. Parliament will be dissolved. How does that play out? The issue with Israel is not Nanyahu. The issue with Israel is that they're lunatics and they're fascists. And they're a racist. apartheid state. Whether Netahu is in power or whether

some other lunatic is in power, it's still a fascist state. I understand your point, right? You may get somebody like Yair Lepid or somebody like that that may take over. But will it be... Or more to the point. Are we done? Yes, I agree. Look, getting rid...

I mean, look, getting rid of Hitler... Would getting rid... I mean, Germany was going to lose whether Hitler blew his brains out or not. He blew his brains off because Germany was going to lose. I guess the question is getting rid of Netanyahu doesn't change anything. Israel will continue to be Israel. I mean, it was the same way before he came along. He's a symptom as much as he has a cause, right?

But what about, but could this, what will Netanyahu do? I mean, could he have to go? He's going to jail. Or would he, or would he, I mean, I guess the point is, would he change his mind on this conscription bill, that would probably be the easiest way out for him. Or he has to reach a little bit to his left to more moderate parties. But there's not really much moderate space in Israeli politics anymore. I mean, the tradition, the 1970s, 80s, Shimon Perres, you know, moderate Israeli model, the liberal moderate is gone. They just don't exist in Israeli politics, something that we sort of saw

yesterday when they passed this new bill saying we're going to have mass trials with mandatory death penalties with evidence extracted under torture, totally a-okay for October 7th suspects. You know, basically, and it passed unanimously. The opposition such as it was in the Knesset was just in the form of abstentions, which to me indicates this is a society that has moved so far to the right. that those who are opposed to government policy are afraid to actually go on the record and say no. So, I mean, I just, you know, it's fascinating. This is like if Nazism had become like a democracy after, and had won after 1945,

it would have been like, okay, so is Rommel going to reach out to gerbils or how is that going to look? That's where we're at here. Yeah, I mean, but I don't think Israel is a democracy. I mean, like, how can it be a democracy when you have a huge underclass in the country that is not included in it? Like, it's almost like blacks in America, right? I was just going to say it was America technically a democracy. Okay, well, they had. Wasn't a democracy before women's suffrage?

Right. And I guess that's what I'm asking. Is it a democracy now with only two parties? Yeah, but can you be a democracy when you have a huge underclass that is not allowed in your political? Not a real democracy. Yeah, it's that part. It's hard for me to kind of wrap my head around this idea of them being democracy,

unless it's a democracy for it. Well, it's an apartheid state, right? I mean, South Africa had elections before apartheid, I mean, during apartheid. So there is no left. And I think your point is apt. Hey, we're going to use torture in order to get confessions from people.

How do you guys feel about that? and you have a group of people saying, I don't dare vote against this because this will be against my interest when I'm running in elections. That's amazing. Right? Like that gives you a real good picture

of what the society is. And yeah. Why would he pick this fight with the ultra-Orthodox? Why not just, I mean, is he getting so much pressure from the rest of society? Yeah, he's getting pressure. I mean, Israel has been at war for, what, two years?

And it's a military. that is built for quick skirmishes, not for this kind of long-term war of attrition where people are blowing their brains out because of, you know, the horrors that they were committing in the context of that war. And so that's your society. And you have this huge class of people who are privileged of, we're just reading the Torah, right? We're reading myths and legends. That's what we're doing. I'm just reading graphic novels. I can't still fight. And the state is paying me to do this, right? Okay, maybe if I'm a soldier, I have feelings about that.

And you have a huge society where all of these people are basically under conscription. You may feel some kind of way. Yeah, a lot of people, it's not even a question. It's not even just the risk of death, which, frankly, for the IDF is not terribly high, right? It's really the risk of PTSD. And also their businesses are getting fucked up. A lot of people, they go to work and they're drafted for six months. They come back and their little shop is closed because no one was able to keep it running.

That sucks for them. And let's be honest, they were getting eaten in the lab in Gaza. I mean, yeah, Israel has the capability of murdering a large number of people from air and using AI that would kill people with drones and missiles and all the stuff and stuff. But when it got down to, we have to go into Gaza again. We have to clear out the space that we cleared out a week ago again. We're in Lebanon and they're using drones to kill us over and over again. They're blowing up.

Like, meaning, if you are the Israeli society and you're looking at that and you realize, well, there's an underclass or there's a class of people that are effectively barred or protected from that hell, how do you feel about that as a larger society? And obviously, those people are going to be putting pressure on the island and saying, this isn't right. You need to fix this. meaning he's in a he's in a pinch. A, I need these people in order to maintain my political,

my political position. By the same token, the rest of society is very angry at the fact that these people are prized in this particular political position. He's in a box. He's in a box. Yeah, yeah, he is in a box. Let's do some, let's do some, let's get through some comments here. P.W. Walker, the official theme for the Obama, new Obama library,

should be the Imperial March from Star Wars. Don, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. John Dean Cockfeller, instead of renaming the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center, maybe we can make that ugly piece of shit, the Trump Obama Library. Poor Donald Trump, he doesn't deserve that.

Manchild, thanks for the dollar, if Netanyahu isn't pushed out of the game, is pushed out of the game, my apologies. Is this an opportunity for the international criminal court to fly in and haul his ass all the way to the hay. How would they get him? They wouldn't, yeah, they wouldn't do that. Unless, like, somehow his domestic enemies had it with him.

I mean, once he leaves office, it's like here. The prime minister loses his protection, yeah. So he has to be prosecuted. I mean, keep in mind, there's a case that's going on that have been trying to prosecute Nanyahu for a very long time. And when he's out of office, or if he's out of office, he is fair game. Ironically, there's a lot of Israelis hate Netanyahu because they think he hasn't been hard enough on Gaza. Go figure.

Yeah, it's sort of like about ISIS K. And it was like, ISIS K, they're the Afghans who think that the Taliban are pussies. Yeah, it's like Netanyahu is a moderate in Israeli politics, put that in perspective. That's right. That's how that is. Frank Field, thanks for the two bucks. Israel is the Harkonans from Dune. People may not get that reference.

Anyhow is Bernd Harkonan. It's like he's so fat. So, Bern Harkonan in the books was like a fat pedophile who was so fat that he couldn't even walk. He had to have these suspicions. He's like Java. Yeah. Yeah, he was smart, though.

Smart as a whip, but evil as can be. Smart as a whip, but an evil mofo. So I'm glad that we're getting through stuff more quickly than usual. I tend to not time out this stuff very well. But, okay, so ICE. So Politico did an analysis of all trials related to illegal or allegedly illegal ICE detentions under Donald Trump's second term. Over 10,000 cases have come to trial so far or have been ruled upon. About 90% of these cases have gone against the administration.

So there's no... It's absurd. I mean, Obama deported. Look, I never understood why Republicans didn't use Obama as the benchmark for deportations because he was the deporter-in-chief, as we were called him. He did it at the border. That was the difference. He basically kept the border closed and kicked people out at the border

and did kids in cages at the border. That was the difference. Whereas. Biden just threw the border open, left people in willy-nilly. I still don't fucking understand what the fuck was, what the fuck that administration was thinking. I'm not going to say Biden because, You know, there is no Joseph Biden.

There was no President Biden. I mean, in other words, he didn't exist. There was an administration with him as a figurehead. But, you know, he wasn't really making decisions. I don't know. I am not taking away his agency. Because look, the reality of it is when Joe Biden got in office, what was the issue? He was trying to repudiate everything that Trump did.

And Trump was the hard man at the border. He was the hard ass. He was a person who, you know, was against immigrants and migrants. and he was racist, et cetera. And so what did Joe Biden do? We're opening the border. We're not going to have Trump's policy at the border anymore. We're going to do something fundamentally different at the border.

And what happened? All of those people effectively came in because they thought, well, Joe Biden is a lovable grandfather who allows kids into the country, et cetera, et cetera. It was that nonsense. And even the idea of it was bizarre. I mean, like, even the idea. Do you remember when Kamala Harris was like,

Don't come. Don't come. And it's like, okay, that's totally going to be the policy, right? That's so absurd. A, it didn't work. Totally absurd. He had some app that people would sign when they got to the border. Like, it was very strange.

Yeah, CBP. It wasn't called like CBP 1 or something like that? Yeah, it was bizarre. It was very strange. Yeah, literally, like you appeared at the, it was kind of like Zoc Doc. You appeared at the border. you made your appointment and then you appeared

like, oh, your next available is Tuesday, two Tuesdays from now at 1 o'clock, you present yourself what Eagle passed, you get into a little line, and then as long as you don't seem to be, you know, have three legs and fangs, you're let in.

And then, oh, and they gave you a phone, and they're like, use this phone. The whole thing was so fucking bizarre. Especially coming out of a pandemic, where we have raging unemployment and a lot of businesses that went under that never recovered. It's like we really didn't have a labor shortage. It made no sense at all. Yeah, it's like, why are we doing this? But I want to focus on this.

So here you have an administration that's promulgating an aggressive policy, setting aside whether that policy is valid or not, the mass deportations. It's certainly legal to do it. But the way that they've done it has been, you know, appalling to, comp to most people. And, you know, and the, and the methodology, the brutality, the, the running roughshod over people's rights. And, you know, and they've even, they've even deported a few U.S. citizens, right? Yes. So, so they're maniacs. And they don't, you know, it's always like, not just necessarily what you do, it's how you do it. Anyway, the courts hate the way that the Trump administration

is proceeding. And they've sent a loud and clear message. And the judges are exasperated by the flow of people clogging up their courtrooms in already short-staffed courtrooms all across the nation. Question, should we, I'm going to put Robbie in here too because he has feelings about immigration, but this is a constitutional question first. I promise you guys can have added about mass deportations. But constitutionally, do we need, should America have some kind of trigger in our system where if it is assessed that something is repeatedly ruled against in courts, that the policy has to be rolled back. In other words, this is the fucking waste of taxpayer money.

It's an abuse of the courts. It's an abuse of the defendants in these cases who are, you know, the only people who are winning are the trial lawyers who are raking in coin. But like this is a, I mean, should there be a requirement that an administration get a ruling from a judge that says, this is actually constitutional. You can proceed with this policy. You can't just pass an executive order,

do whatever the fuck you want, like run roughshod over the system. Shouldn't you have to like sort of check it out and make sure it's okay or probably okay before you do it? I would say that, oh, go ahead, JT, I'm sorry. No, no, I was just asking,

how would that work? No, Robbie, go ahead. Well, the way it would work. I mean, the way it would work would be, like, for example, okay, so President Thomas, you're like, okay, so I have this new policy, I want to do blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, and I'm like your advisor, your consigliary.

And I say, okay, Mr. President, that's fine. But we have some concerns here about constitutionality. We're going to go to our legal expert, our attorney Robbie here, Attorney West, and ask him for an opinion, like White House counsel that says, like, we, you know, I've checked with some judges. We think this will probably pass legal muster. Okay, go ahead and do it. But if he comes back and says, sort of like the Senate parliamentarian, the House parliamentarian, yeah, this is probably not going to pass the smell test. Go back, do better. Yeah, you can fire the House parliamentarian if you need to.

Yeah. No system is perfect. I don't know. We need something. But, I mean, there's got to be some sort of work around here. I mean, this is like, this is not a good, this is no way to run a railroad. I get that. And usually the court would just pass a law against something, the basic thing the president

can't do this. I mean, Robbie, give me a... It's going to go to the Supreme Court, of course. Yeah. Well, I would say the Supreme Court just changed. Sorry, Robbie. Supreme Court recently, this is a ruling that is massive. They changed their, they had a ruling about a year or two ago that basically changes the way that, that the status of a case applies to everyone. So let's say, so let's say it applies to you go to court, you win in the Supreme Court. You win in the Supreme Court. court. But not everyone in your class necessarily gets to benefit from that ruling. They all have to go individually and get their own rulings from the Supreme Court. That's not the way it's the word. No, it's a radical change. And I think that's a huge problem. Anyway, Robbie. I would say no,

because it's going to give too much power to the judiciary. Because if anything that you do, if you're going to run it through a panel of judges and a big problem that we already have is that our government lobotomizes itself every four to eight years, all you're doing just adding another layer to the deep state wrapped in a legalistic cloth that controls everything. So at that point, we have elections. If you're going to be governed by a panel of judges, why have a president? Why have a Congress? What's the entire point? Especially since those people are unelected, I think that would be the dumbest thing we could possibly ever do. So there's nothing we can do here? of well there is something you could do like for example if if if if I was president instead of your

instead of the attorney uh I would do mass peace I would do mass deportations the right way I would require warrants and if the judges said well president west you can't do this I would 100% pull Andrew Jackson and ignore the courts I would go through I would drag that's what Donald Trump is doing is he's ignoring the courts but what he's doing though he's doing it though in a blatantly unconstitutional way like you can't just break into someone's house without a a warrant. I mean, that's a lot too far. Using a private army to do it is a line too far. There's a right way and a wrong way to do the right thing. And using your private army ICE to intimidate local lawmakers, for example, like the way that they're doing, they're threatening

New York, which New York has an anti-mask rule for ICE. And they're saying, well, now we're going to, we're going to go in and retaliate by sending in goons to New York. York. Yeah. So like, for example, with New York, if you want, if you're going to nullify federal law, if you're going to thumb your nose at federal immigration law, then what I will do, I mean, if I was president, I would just cut off all federal funding to your state. So if you want you illegal as that bad. What about the Robbie's talking about the sheriffs and all that and how they can enforce local law at the expense of federal law? Well, they can. That's a constitutional power that the sheriff has. People don't realize how powerful your local sheriff actually is.

and that's a big part of a problem. Americans don't understand how our government works. And one thing I'm going to push back on a little bit. You know, y'all earlier asking, is the United States a democracy? The answer is no. It's never been the word democracy is not the Constitution or we are a republic. But the overwhelming majority of Americans want deportations. They want to close borders.

They want, they want these people gone. They want this issue. They certainly want controlled borders, whether they're not deportations or not, especially of this kind. Well, we voted more is a little more. Trump won the popular vote. So I think it's probably a safe thing to say that the majority of people want, no, they want deportations. In November of 2024, they wanted. But a lot has happened since then.

But again, though, it has been done the right way. Well, to be fair, I think people will be okay with, put it this way, when Trump got elected, I think what they wanted was, get rid of valid, quote unquote, immigrants. Like, meaning people who are here either illegally or people who are here who are doing balance. I don't think there's any disagreement with that. Everybody. Everybody wants that, right? Like, if the guy's rapists, get the guy out of the country.

If the guys here illegally, okay, we don't have the initiative. We need our own domestic rapists and kind of- Right, right. Right. Right. We need our own domestic racists, right? But kicking, you know, like having kids wonder where their parents are because Trump raided a company or factory and kick people out the country. Okay, that's a little weird.

And that's not only what people. Or picking up parents when they're dropping off their kids at elementary school. It ain't school. So the two of you, listen, y'all have been on this show numerous times addressing the fact that wages need to be addressed. and that one of the reasons why immigration is so attractive is because they drive wages down. You cannot have it both ways. If you want higher wages, you've got to make labor scarce.

You don't make labor scarce by importing the entire freaking third world. So you can't have it with place. You've got to pick aside here. Are you four wages for Americans or are you for welfare for immigrants? Look, my problem here, look, I agree with you. I just, borders should be controlled carefully. And obviously, you're not a nation state unless you do that. that. But my problem here is we basically both parties told these quote unquote

illegals come on in for years tacitly or not to or directly under Biden. And then it's like, oh, now we're pulling out the rug and saying, oh, now you're no longer welcome. That's my problem here. It's like, yeah. I mean, we've been blowing up those countries left and right. I mean, we've literally told them come on in. Yeah. And we literally. And we literally. destroyed those countries. I mean, the United States spent decades in kill squads

and everything else in South America, destroying and demolishing those countries. Even in Honduras, where they grab, what is it? The guy, we put the guy in office, we pulls Elias out. That was during a lot of administration. Yeah. I mean, like, meaning we can't have it both ways.

We broke. I agree. I agree. But here's the thing that I don't, while you're talking about it is real, and that's, again, one of the reasons about people voted for Trump, because he promised no more of these stupid wars. Talk about immigration in Europe.

Immigration into here. Rightly pointing out that these wars are, that they're a major cause of this stuff. Yeah. And so you're 100% correct. So that's one of the reasons why, as an America first right winger, at this point in America only right winger,

we should pull out of NATO. We should take care of the 50 states here in the Union. The rest of the world will trade with you, but we're not your global policeman. We are not your daddy. We are not going to babysit you. Europe, you're on your own. Asia, you're on your own.

Figure it out. Japan, you want to go fight China? Go with God. I don't think it's going to work with it, the same way he did last time. Do as you will. And Remrod, I want to point out what a question that he asked. Robbie, I've listened to you to talk about immigration.

Why is your takeaway always get rid of the migrants and never arrest the CEOs? I assure you, I want the CEOs to pay the highest price possible because they're the ones profiting the most off of the scam. They should be deported. They should be deported to South Sudan. Or if that's too hard. It's always Guantanamo. No, put them in prison.

The CEOs who are making bank off of this, they need to pay the ultimate price because one of the reasons by guys, we've got two comments we've got a hit. We have two minutes to do it. All right. So let's do it. Okay, thanks for the very generous $10 donation.

Sam Paulson, how do we feel about the majority of founding fathers being Freemasons, e.g., the first third party in America, was the anti-Masonic party? I don't have feelings one way to the other. I mean, it's... I don't know. Yeah, I don't have a feeling about it. Okay. The Jack Samuels, thanks for the 499. Thoughts on that the Army is facing a sudden budget crunch, forcing broad training cuts across the force per internal documents, and U.S. officials. How much grift must there be in the military? I mean, it's a trillion dollars.

It's over 54% of the federal budget. It's now they want $1.5 trillion a year. The money is rolling in. I mean, every soldier should be making $200,000 a year and living in a gold-plated house with their own gold statue of themselves. Every soldier should have a free SUV. with free gas in it.

I mean, I don't understand. Every soldier should be firing gold bullets, you know, at brown people. I don't fucking get it. What the fuck is going on? There's a budget shortfall in the military. Don't tell me that. I mean, how is that possible? Don't tell me that.

It's called good. It's called worship. That's how it's possible. Massively, right? It's got to be. All right. That's outrageous. That means just something.

Yeah, don't tell me that. No, it's like, oh, so, all right. Well, guys, I'm going to say something about this while I hit the button for TMI because I've got to do that. It'll take me a second. You'll me close it? Yeah, why don't you close this out here? You have been listening to D-Program with Jamal Thomas, Ted Rawl, Robbie West.

We will see you right early tomorrow morning. Actually, we have a Q&A today at 12 o'clock. That is correct. at 12 o'clock, 12 noon Eastern time today. We'll have the extra Q&A show with the three of us. So you've got a question for one, two, or all three of us, or just want to rant. You can do that.

That's the time, 12 noon. Keep it right here. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in, and we will see you for the regular show tomorrow. TMI show coming up right now with Ted Roll and Manilacian, Robbie filling in. We have some fun stories about big tech. So keep it here. Bye, all. Thank you.