DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - TACO Tuesday 2.0 | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Tick, tock…8 pm Eastern tonight is Trump’s self-chosen deadline for U.S. forces to begin destroying Iran’s bridges and power plants unless the Islamic Republic agrees to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. With all indications that Iran is not only winning but becoming a major economic player as a result of the Trump-Netanyahu attack, will Trump TACO out again?• Iran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told the AP. In return, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would also impose a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman. Iran would use its share reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by American and Israeli attacks.• Australia charged Ben Roberts-Smith, once Australia’s most decorated soldier, with five counts of “war crime — murder” in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012, A former patrol commander of the Special Air Service Regiment, he received Australia’s top two military honors and was named Australia’s Father of the Year in 2013. In one version of events, one victim was a laborer who was handcuffed and kicked off a cliff.• Another ICE Lie: After an immigration agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis this winter, the federal government cast the injured man as an attempted murderer and the agent as the victim of a brutal beating. A video contradicts the agent’s claim that assailants had beaten him with a shovel and broom before he opened fire. The video lasts about 12 seconds and shows two men struggling with the agent—no shovel. Prosecutors did not watch the footage until nearly three weeks after they filed charges.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall/id1825379504

Good morning. Thanks for tuning in to D-Program with Ted Raul and Jarmal Thomas. It's Tuesday, April 7th. Thanks for tuning in. It is a big deadline in 11 hours from now. Donald Trump says that his deadline will, his only unilaterally imposed deadline for Iran to agree to reopen the Strait of Ormuz expires. And just before we went on the air, the president issued a, I think, One of his most unhinged tweets of all time, or his truth, as he called it, I'll quote it, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows?

We'll find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world, 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. Jamal and I will talk about what all of this means, as well as this question of what the rescue forces looking for that pilot were really actually up to in Iran. Iran turned down a ceasefire proposal. Iran says it actually will reopen the Strait of Armuz, but only in exchange for a $2 million per ship fee that it would split with And also a guaranteed peace deal. Australia is charging one of its most decorated soldiers of all time with war crimes in Afghanistan

from murders that took place 13 years ago. Ice got caught lying again this time about the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis over the winter. New video released. It wasn't new to the prosecutor, but they chose not to watch it. So, you know, at what point do we get to the point where ICE has outworn its welcome? By the way, ICE has arrested 800 people at American airports in recent weeks, all tipped off by TSA. So that's something to bear in mind.

The friendly skies are not so friendly anymore. Good morning, Jamar. How you doing, man? You doing okay today? I am doing good. How are you doing? I cannot complain. that tweet is deranged, but that's like a deranged tweet

and a list of deranged tweets, if that makes sense. It's desperation incarnate. It's a really sustainable. Yeah, and we should be very clear. Like, what he's talking about is a war crime, but the entire war is a crime. If that makes sense. Yeah.

Like, this was a war of aggression. This wasn't a situation where it's like, this war needed to be fought. Starting a war of aggression was one of the major counts at the Nuremberg trials. Yeah. So it's no different than the German invasion of Poland. It's gratuitous. It's unnecessary.

There was no imminent threat by any definition of that term. We can get into what that means, what an imminent threat means for sure. Little housekeeping, please like, follow and share the show. Jermal just started his own show again this morning. kind of semi-soft launch. So you'll want to check that out. That's seven to nine before D-program. As usual, we will answer your questions throughout the show.

So if you're watching live on YouTube or Rumble in the 9 o'clock hour Eastern time when we're here Monday through Friday, please pipe, put it in, and we will get to it the best we can. Anything we don't get to, especially the superchats that get priority, will get kicked into the Q&A shows, which we do Mondays and Wednesday. Wednesdays at 12 noon. Okay. So we've got to talk about this. Let's get Iran out of the way here. Okay, so, well, not literally. So that is a threat of genocide. Even the threat of destroying Iran's bridges and power plants as Trump threatened yesterday, or sorry, threatened on Sunday, is also a war crime.

And what I'm seeing on the right, Jamal, is people who are saying, well, if something's dual use. If a bridge could be used by the Iranian military, that makes it a legitimate target. It doesn't under international law at all make it a legitimate target. Why are they saying that? But see, I don't believe international law exists. Like, you know, like the moment that you get into war, taking down power plants, bridges, energy, those things seem to be, like when the United States winners are all right, that was the first thing that they hit. So it's like, we can't have it both ways. Like it's, look, I agree with you. Those things maybe against international law, those things are pretty cost.

I mean, I take more issue with going after universities, going after hospitals, going after ambulances, schools, after building materials. Like, these are things that we were also doing that hasn't necessarily bubble up in the media per se. But it's something that we were definitely doing. We went after one of the universities, I think it was yesterday. And so we just took that on what it was. their major bridges. Look, it's one thing if it is a legit military target, right? A military base, a missile launching pad.

Yeah, those are get, right? But we are going after this stuff in gratuitous fashion, not because it has military significance, but seemingly just because it's almost as provocation. Like if you're blowing up a hospital, what are you blowing up a hospital for? is it that the thought is that if Iran reciprocates, then you're going to focus on the fact that they blew up a hospital, but ignore the fact that you've blown up hospitals and universities.

Even the Israelis made things up, right? They said they claimed the hospitals in Gaza were secret Hamas facilities. Yeah, that there's a base on the ground. And they were like, hey, we found one gun. I mean, that's evidence. It wasn't true. But yeah, at least they had an excuse. Yeah.

I mean, this is what, this is what historians, of the Second World War called Total War, where, you know, I mean, it's the difference between traditional war where armies met in a field of battle, usually way outside of a city, settled things, and then the outcome might determine the fate of that city. And then, and total war, where killing civilians and their infrastructure was kind of the point. Right. Yeah. But, I mean, he's going so far as effectively to say the death of an entire civilization. Now, put aside the fact that he doesn't have the capacity to do that. True.

Right? It's obscene, though. It's obscene for a world leader for the presidents of the United States to talk like that. Yes. It's outrageous. I mean, even the last tweet that he put out, it was outrageous. It was derange. I mean, the idea that the president is swearing like some kind of, you know, gutter rat is pretty extreme.

And yet. Tucker Carlson got really freaked. out about the fact that he that Trump dropped an F bomb online on Easter Sunday. He should. Like it's, I don't think people, like, people need to put that in context. Like, what does it mean? What, do you remember, oh, what is the name in a movie where the guy goes into the future idiocracy?

Mm-hmm. It's that. Like, when you get this thing where it seems to be this kind of moral, ethical decline, to where even from the standpoint of the language is debased. Whereas the base language become this kind of normal parlance for the president. I mean, even Joe Biden used to drop

F bombs or not F bombs. He used to say stuff like shit or something like that. But there's something jarring about the president debasing the language in that way where he doesn't have the ability to articulate or to communicate in a way. It doesn't do that. It's just outrageous.

All of this is outrageous. Jamo. Sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. No, I was going to say. So he, so our, our thumbnail today, right, says, you know, basically Taco Tuesday 2.0, referring to, you know, Trump always chickens out or crabs out, whatever. You know, we know that like Trump's schick is to heighten the hysteria, you know, raise the temperature, try to freak everyone out. And he thinks that he can get a better deal, quote unquote, out of it. Is he going to, I mean, it does seem to me like he knows he. he can't close this deal. I mean, let's be really clear here. The goal that this is all about the straight of foremost, the whole thing. Okay. Well, wait a minute. It's about straight of moose now. Right. Didn't start off that way. Right. But it's about the straight of Hormuz now. And the point is

that there's no way for the United States to forcibly reopen it. I mean, even if U.S. forces go in heavy with 50,000 troops and they seize Kargai Island and the Tunes and they take a, buffer zone around, let's say, 100, 200 miles around it, okay? And they occupy that territory. That doesn't secure the Strait of Ormuz, right? Because what international business and the international economy relies upon is not just the delivery of oil. They need the delivery of oil in a timely manner, in a predictable manner, at relatively

predictable costs. that goes away if if there's even a decent credible possibility of one oil tanker every now and then getting hit by the Iranians just you know every few weeks all the insurance rates will go through the roof a lot of a lot of insurance companies will refuse to cover these ships the basic the traffic will slow to a trickle and you will lose access to 30% of the world's oil and then That's not even getting into the whole Gulf of Aden Houthi angle and access to the Red Sea, which, frankly, even if the Houthis taco out, it doesn't matter because the Iranians have missiles that can hit that too. So it's, you know, I mean, I got to say, it's like, to me, this is game Iran. I don't see how there's any world. I mean, you know, Trump can nuke Tehran. This doesn't change the equation. I mean, Iran still can still close the. straight of our moves. In fact, I think it's worse than that. I mean, like, one of the new phases of war that we've entered in from the standpoint of countries. In the old days, like World War II, you would get these armies, like when the Nazis invaded Russia, for example, Soviet Union, they had like a million men that were lined up and just invaded. And today, that is impossible. I mean, if you look at the war in Ukraine and the way that Russia and Ukraine have been fighting the wars, they've been using like penny packets. Like, small groups of men on motorcycles and so forth.

Because what they realize is when you're under a fishbow, if you have a lot of people coming together, those people are going to get hit with drones and missiles. Like you can't put together 100,000 people in one spot and expect those people to be safe from a drone swarm or missile swarm. And with intelligence today

and the ability to look at satellites, you can find those people and say, hey, there's a large number of people there, let's hit those people. And so I don't even know how you would put a million men close to Iran. We don't have them. Well, and we don't have them.

And look at what they did with the boat recently, right? Well, that ship was basically attacking the ship, had to effectively flee to like the Indian Ocean. How do you bring a huge armada or something like that to the shores of Iran and have those boats be safe? It's impossible. Even if we did Operation Overlord 2.0, right? Even if somehow, let's just say we're like, okay,

fuck the Iranians, we're going to spend the next year building up our industrial capacity to World War II levels. We're going to raise a million men under arms. We're going to restore selective service. We're going to have the draft. We're sending a million dudes over to Iran. You still don't do it because even if, let's say, you could occupy one quarter of this huge country, the Iranians still have three quarters and they still can launch missiles. at the, you know, at the, at the, at the, at the, at, at the, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, it's no problem for them. So there's, this is literally an impossibility. You cannot win. You know, the United States picked a fight with an adversary that has an ace in the hole. That's it. I'm super curious about

what happens the Gulf countries after this. They're fucked. Yeah. I mean, because we're talking about Iran owns their ass now, because up until. now. Iran has always left the straight open. And the Gulf countries are completely dependent upon them for their exports. And, you know, I mean, it's kind of funny when you think about it. The Iranians have always owned their ass, but been nice about it. And the Gulf states have sucked up to the wrong side, and they're about to pay a terrible price for it. Well, they've already been paying a terrible price for it. I mean, think about it. Like in the context, like the whole exchange of oil for protection. We will give you oil. We will get protection. And you can put your military bases,

and those military bases effectively ensure that we'll be protected. Like, meaning this is the model of logic that they've gone with for decades. And within the course of, what, six weeks, up in smoke. I mean, I have to say, you know, there's like the Hamilton thing, the room where it happened. I really would love once again to have been to fly on the wall when on the wall, when all this shit was being planned between like Hegset, BB, you know, Trump, what have you. How did, you know, what was the thinking? I mean, was there no one in the room who said, you know, like my father did, who was a, he was a military strategist. He was in the room. My father was in the room where in, during the, right after the TED offensive. And there was, and there was a

consideration to launch a nuclear weapon against Hanoi in 1968. And, everybody talked and then my dad of not a liberal by any means pointed out the fact that the Soviet Union had a mutual defense treaty with North Vietnam and that it would feel obligated politically and morally and legally to retaliate with the nuclear weapon and it would mean World War III if we were to New Kanoi and Lyndon Johnson even though he lived at the bottom of a of a bottle most of his presidency was like still like lucid enough to say, yeah, we're not going to go that direction, right? And so that's why we're still here having this conversation,

and we have, you know, running water and electricity. So instead of like, you know, being hunter-gatherers and eating our cats and dogs, this is, I mean, so I just wonder, was there no one, was there no one like my dad in the room who said, guys, straight to foremost, it can't be secured. See, I don't, I mean, that's an interesting question because I don't have an answer for it. Because some of the stuff, I used to ask the question of like, Israel knows it's going to get hit, right?

Like, meaning the moment that you start this war, they have to know that Israel is going to be the primary target and it doesn't have the capability of defending itself. They're getting hit harder than we're being told because of their censorship. Yes. Like I've been looking at some of the pictures that have been coming up. out, they're being in the trash. And, you know, it's like their capability of defending themselves seems to be getting less and less the further we get into this. And which gets into the whole 45-day ceasefire thing, where obviously the U.S.

is beating down their door through third-party actors to try to get Iran to effectively sign on to something that they're never going to sign on to. Yeah. At least I don't think they will, but, you mean, what you think? No, I mean, look, the Iranians are in the catbird seat and they know it, you know. I mean, the thing is they're sitting pretty. I mean, yeah, stuff is getting blown up. I mean, the Americans are, they keep promoting this.

We've hit 8,000 targets or whatever, you know, military dominance, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, none of that matters. I'm writing my syndicated column, literally. It's going to probably go out today about this. The U.S. made the same exact mistake in Vietnam. It thought, like, you know, they were, as Henry Kissinger famously said, in the 70s, the Vietnamese were fighting, we were fighting a military war, but that wasn't the war. It was a political war.

And we never understood it. They had to outlast us. And that's all they had to do. Again, we made the same mistake in Afghanistan and Iraq. You know, tactically, the U.S. always wins. Of course. We have a formidable, you know, we have the biggest, most potent, most lethal military force on the planet. But it doesn't matter.

You know, when a regime is in an existential battle for its survival and for its country, it's not going to, it's kind of like we hate seeing our citizens and buildings and infrastructure blown up, but we've got to let that go because, you know, we're going to have to outlast the Americans. It just doesn't matter. I don't know why Americans don't get that. I'm curious, what do you think? I mean, I would imagine.

Trump is military advisors. And when he comes out and puts these insane tweets out, you would think that if I put something out like that, I'm going to have to somehow back whatever that thing is up. Meaning if I say, I'm going to destroy an entire civilization. Okay, that's pretty outlandish, but okay, what do you have in mind in regards to destroying that entire civilization? Do you think there's any teeth to this? And I don't mean teeth in a sense that he can effectuate his military objective, but teeth in the sense of being able to, he has something in mind. That's the part that I don't quite know. Well, this is a man who has launch codes, right?

So, and he has the unilateral right to use them. So, I mean, you have to take it seriously, even though he's not a serious man. But look, if tomorrow morning we woke up and Tehran had been nuked, we'd be surprised. We'd be shocked, but we couldn't really say we were surprised, right? So it's like that. So we have to, I think he's bluffing because he's always bluffed a lot. But once you start, you go down the path and you're using this kind of rhetoric, at a certain point you might feel like you have to stand and deliver.

And that's the danger. Look, in terms of your question, is anybody, you know, in the room telling him, Donald, you might want to think twice about that. You and I both know no one dares to talk back to him. I mean, he doesn't, if I were the president, I would hire people and I would say, look, when I'm fucking up, I expect you to tell me I'm fucking up.

Right. In no uncertain language. But I know he fires people who, you know, there's been no reporting from any time in his first or second term of someone disagreeing with him and having the president be okay with it. Yeah. Yeah.

We have some questions. Do you want to get to them? Sure. And Robbie, we are ready for that ad whenever you have it for me. All right. Here we go. Okay, so let's go through some questions and we'll move on. Mustafa, thanks for the $4.99.

Mr. Ted, your sincerity and your sensitivity can often be mislabeled and misunderstood, but they're your strengths. Stay strong. Stay hungry. Stay you. Thank you. Seriously. Thank you, Mustafa. Craig advance.

So if this is going to happen, don't they make a big deal about clearing all the airspace and whatnot before? Before what? Before, I guess, before attacking Iran. I mean, they would certainly, I think, notify the Gulf states to get out of the way and stuff. Look, yeah, yeah. The Gulf states will work with the United States and those attacks. And they started to act as if they weren't involved. But obviously, they were knocking down.

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coins. And yesterday, I was reading about some guy, he went to his local bank and he said, oh, do you have any half dollars in your fault? And they said, yeah. So he bought $500 worth of half dollars. They were all silver. They're all from the 60s. So when you, the melt value alone, he calculated, at present prices of those coins is currently about $55,000.

What? What a haul. Is that true? Is that true? That's 500. Yeah, he had photos and everything. Amazing. They were like all in the original wrapping from the Federal Reserve Bank from the 60s.

They just been sitting there because nobody ever gets half dollars, you know? So mental note, go get half dollars. Yeah, yeah. Alexander Keane, thanks for the five euros. Indolge my conspiracy for a moment. Is there any possibility John was given his deal, his Hollywood deal, because he had free reign on YouTube and other places. Thanks, guys. Oh, like Jess Ventura.

What happened with Jesse Ventura? Yeah. Oh, you know, where Jess Ventura came out against the war. in Iraq and they effectively bought his contract up and set him down for X number of years. So it's almost like saying, okay, we're going to bite you out. And we don't want you to talk because we don't want you going against the war. So we're just going to put you on ice. And because he was technically under contract because they were just buying his contract out,

basically they were putting in him on ice for X number years during the course of the war. But not putting him out of air. Yeah, they wanted him off air. They got rid of Donoghue and Simulow. They just canceled Donogue show. I don't think so, but Ted, I mean, you know better you were closer to it than I was. Look, I think John wouldn't know, right, if that were the case. You know, it's like, you know, as far as he's concerned, you know, these are people who saw how hot he was on the internet.

They were like, okay, well, let's strike while they aren't hot. And we can all make some money and put out a movie or a TV show. And it'll be great. and we'll get a sure thing because he's got this built-in audience. It's probably just as simple as that, but I have seen this thought expressed elsewhere. I wonder if John gave that any thought, if that was something that he felt like, I think he could have probably avoided that concern by continuing to do his shows here and deep focus instead of quitting them both as he's done.

very precipitously. It's a look that I don't know if he thought through or maybe he just didn't have a choice. I doubt, I kind of tend to doubt that there's like vast conspiracies to, you know, take like critics of Zionists off the air and stuff like that. And if so, operators are standing by,

I need $10 million to shut up about Israel. I know, right? I mean, look, John... I actually wouldn't have done it, to be honest. I like I don't like anyone who tells me I have to shut up

in any respect I'm not going to like it yeah you can feel some kind of about it I mean John got what 7.8 million views on Joe Roggan he can pull up

he 1.2 billion on that TikTok that's amazing it's amazing like that's an incentive right there by itself is like oh this guy I can pull in

this numbers yeah no I mean the incentive structure makes sense I mean you know I mean the other I'm not sure about all the rest

because it's like it's not a show, it's an option. Right. I mean, you and I both know. I mean, basically when a TV show is, so when you, I mean, John and I have both been optioned before. It's like, so an option just means that you get paid a certain amount of money for them to have the right to develop your book or whatever. In this case, it's a book.

Then if they choose to exercise the option, then it goes into development, which is basically the next step. And you get some money for being in development. And then if they green light the show, then it goes on the air. But then it has to do well in order to stay on the air and be renewed. So it's basically like, you know, there's a thousand tadpoles, but, you know, 999 of them end up in the belly of a fish. And, you know, it's hard.

So I got to say, like, I don't think honestly, I mean, this kind of reminds me of, I was talking to Scott Stantis, who does DMZ America, podcast with me. He's a cartoonist about Mark Allen Stamity. Mark Allen Stamity, he had a cartoon called Washington that was in the village voice. It was all over the place. It was a big deal. Okay. So he was in well over 120 papers. That meant he was making probably close to half a million dollars a year in the 90s. For a cartoonist, that's good, especially because it's an alt cartoon. Anyway, the point is, Time magazine came to him and said, dude, you got to quit your syndication. We want you exclusively and we will pay you for that privilege.

Now at the time, now Time Magazine and the kids are like, what's that? But Time Magazine was a colossus, as you know. I mean, at one point it had a circulation of 15 million copies a week. So he's like, Time fucking Magazine. I used to be in Time Magazine after Mark. So it's like it was a big deal. He took the deal. And I think it was about six months later.

They just decided to go in a new direction, Mark Stamity list direction. And he was shit out of luck. And of course, you know, he couldn't get his syndication back. That was the end of his career. Done. And so I get very scared of any attempt to say, oh, like if I got an offer to a big Hollywood offer, I'd cut back some things.

I might go from three cartoons to two cartoons a week. I might go from one column every week to one column every two weeks. I might go from like 10 pod. podcasts a week to five. But I wouldn't get rid of, I wouldn't get rid of anything. You know what I mean? Like I'd want to keep my, like Matt, you know, I know Matt Graney. Matt Graney kept doing life in hell, his newspaper comic strip, for decades after he got

the Simpsons. You know, he didn't need it, but he just felt like he wanted to still be, he wanted to be in touch with his roots. He wanted to have that means of expression. I get that. That's more how I am. See, I made a mistake when. I was at the network and I stopped doing my channel.

Like I, because I don't know, it's like I ended up, I kept doing it for a while, but after a while I effectively stopped doing the channel and then just focused on the network. And so when the network went belly up, it's like you have to start almost over from scratch. No, I agree with you. I mean, it's, John will be missed. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Okay, so Manchild 5,000. Thanks for the donation. It feels like we've been dragged through some ass backwards holy war. Israel is holocausting Arabs and U.S. military leaders are reportedly framing Iran as a divinely sanctioned event. What gives? It's true. We have policy. It's U.S. policy. I mean, like, again, let's put it in perspective, right? When we're taking down Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. That is going in a particular direction. Somalia was one of the other ones.

Iran was always on that list. Whether it took 20 years or whether it took five years or whatever, they were always on that list. And so it's like, as backwards holy war, maybe, but I think these wars aren't necessarily holy. I think these things are basically based on land and geopolitical, let's say strategic thinking and strategic action. It's just astonishing. how bad they are at. Like the idea that this war was going to turn out in the United States favor and that Iran wasn't necessarily going to respond vigorously, that seems to be what they convinced themselves of, which I don't quite know why they convinced themselves of that.

I think they, well, I think they convinced themselves of that because the, like, Iran's previous responses have been so measured. And so, you know, they kind of confused, measured, tempered, a calm temperament, which is a very Iranian thing with weakness. And, I mean, they were just mistaken. So when are the Alien Federation going to jump in and save us humans from ourselves?

Or is there a prime directive? They are not. I don't believe anything that's going to save us. Like we are. Like, there are some people who have this belief that if there's a nuclear war, that aliens would get involved. And it's like, dude, is that really what you want to bet your money on, right? Talk about desperate. Yeah, that's like, that's a level of desperation.

Oh, my God. That is just breathtaking. Crazy. Yeah, man, I don't think we're getting, yeah, I think we're on now. Good morning, Ted and Jermal, looking fresh, Jamal, and love the new intro fellas. because Carg Island attacked ahead of schedule. Yeah, that happened. That's true.

What the fuck is this orange tarto doing? Mr. Jamal. I also wonder your thoughts on some of the understated, ongoing wars. Thank you, goats. And by the way, thank you for the very generous $20 donation. Oh, Kulam, thank you. I think these things are interrelated. Like, if you think about it, all of these countries are important countries, right?

Russia, China, Iran. And these are the countries that have been effectively tested. When Donald Trump goes up against China and the economic war, when he goes up against Russia and the Ukraine war, and now he's going up against a Iran in this war and loss and is losing all of them. It's like a canary in the coal mine. It just doesn't seem like we're getting the message. At least that's my thought. Give me your take on this. I mean, and in Yemen, et cetera, et cetera.

So, you know, I used to find a lot of, not comfort, but explanation. in the think tank Stratfor's analysis of the, I recommend anyone to look it up. They have country profiles of every country, including the United States. And they say sort of offhandedly that their theory is that the United States military posture is not about winning conflicts.

It's about disrupting, emerging regional superpowers. So, you know, for example, if Brazil is starting to become too dominant in South America, like we got to do something to fuck up the Brazilians and so on. Iran is a regional emerging possible superpower now because of the war more emerging than ever. And so basically this is about that. But Trump is taking it to a higher level because of this, you know, this partnership with Israel, which has always been too important. But now it is a, you know, it's a bear hug.

And it's really, it's gone too far. So I think, yeah, by the way, I think the Carg Island is a fakeout. I think these attacks on Carg Island is like meant to make us think that like we're going to land troops there in significant numbers. We may land troops there. We probably will. But I don't think we can or will do a mass occupation of anywhere near the Strait of our moose just because archives are going to get wiped out. I mean. Right.

That's the danger that just fled. is a really good indication. Like if you're putting up, like in the war in Ukraine, for example, Russia was putting up like 900 drones and missiles and things like that. It's like Jesus Christ, like the numbers are just goofy. Even if Veronica put up half of those,

let's say they put up 300. It can a tanker really defend itself against something like that. Maybe. No, not really. But probably not. Yeah. Agreed. Dacel Rendon, thanks for the $5. a.k.a. Bruce. Thank you very much for joining the program as a member. U.S. Triple X. A. Rod,

thanks for the donation. At this point, how much damage do you think Trump has done to the U.S. and are standing in the world? How long to get back to where we were. Oh, Jesus. I don't think we do. It's a lot. I mean, because look, I think we're a failing empire. And I think this action by Donald Trump is this kind of last gas. this belligerence. And even that would even go so far and get, I want your take on this that the election of Donald Trump in and of itself is symbolic of a country that is losing or has lost this mojo and has its own self-conception understands it lost his mojo and is looking for a hype man to make it feel better about itself. Like it's one thing like you go from

Obama who's, you know, no drama, Obama, et cetera. Then you go to Donald Trump. These things seem like they're opposing forces and essentially. but they're not entirely opposing forces. There's just different flavors cut from the one lens to the other in regards to either left lens or a right lens in the Democratic Republican context. I agree with that. Think about the kind of people who used to be in, like, my lifetime, presidential nominees of major parties, right?

I mean, you know, whether you like them or not, you look at someone like, say, Lyndon Johnson, who was the longtime, very powerful speaker of the majority leader of the United States Senate. and served as vice president before he ran. Richard Nixon also served as vice president. Also was incredibly powerful with a long political career, very thoughtful, intellectual guy. And then you start getting into, like, I think the kind of country that would have two parties

and would nominate figures like Trump, Biden, Harris, even Hillary Clinton to, because basically Hillary Clinton only rose to national prominence as first lady, you know, is sort of circling the drain. And if you could look at someone like Obama, you're like, okay, he's really, he's, you know, obviously he had a lot of charisma and so on. But he was also just a constitutional law professor with a very short political career, right? Right.

He wasn't, you know, important. He wasn't a colossus. He was more like a star. And so the razzle-dazzle kind of is why we're at where we're at. I mean, I agree with you. I think it's a sign of a dysfunctional country that is a declining, collapsing empire. Trump is as much of a symptom. He's more of a symptom than he is of a cause, even though these things feed upon themselves.

Before we take some more questions, and I do want to, you mentioned before the show, Iran's allegation that this massive armada that the United States sent in to allegedly try to capture, to retrieve, rescue this downed U.S. pilot may have been a cover operation for an attempt to recover the enriched uranium supply that's buried under all that rubble at Ishfahan. After we talked about this, I went online and looked at the map. and figured, you know, the geography. So like the, so the pilot, the rescue operation was conducted,

closed, not far from Ishfahan and these other facilities, whereas the pilot, the plane went down up about 400 kilometers away. Now, the thing is, the pilot was rescued two days after he went down. No human being can walk 400 miles. in two days. It's not possible. The guy was wounded. And the Zabros, the Zagros Mountains range is there. So basically these are peaks of 13,000 feet.

It would basically be like the guys from alive in the Andes, like walking through the ant, like 400 miles of big ass mountains. Two days. Yeah. In two days. It's like, it's just not physically possible. It makes no sense. So what, yeah, I mean.

But, of course, you know, the, you know, the first, truth is the first casualty of war. The Iranians could be lying too. I mean, and, you know, they're just speculating. So what do you think? I think it's a cover-up. I think for all intents and purposes, there's a major operation. Because what they're saying is that one pilot went down. I think it was at 15.

And then there was another pallet that went down in like a wardhog. Yeah. And that in order to recover the pallets, because according to Trump, they recovered them without cash or without anybody being killed. According to Iran, five Americans were killed. Right. And what, 16 aircraft or 12 aircraft? Yeah, the Iranians have the pictures. Yeah, I was showing the pictures earlier today.

And so you had this entire area just littered with crafts. And you even have video footage of what seems to be battles and clashes that was taking place to take this stuff down. Now, the Americans are saying, well, we blew our own stuff up. that the helicopters and the equipment either crashed or got stuck. And they do do that, right? Like a helicopter got disabled in the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. And they blew it up as they left.

But that was one. There's a 12. Right. Yeah. Why can't you just fly them away? Yeah. And that's the rub, right? Iran is effective to say, we unleashed hell on this area.

And America's up basically saying, well, some of it crashed, some of it we blew up. And they're talking about like hundreds of special forces, all of these heavy equipment. And it's like, wait a minute, you did all of this to get two people. Yeah, and why would you? I mean, why wouldn't, I mean, like you would be, I mean, you would make the mission so high profile. It would be far less likely to work, right? I mean, you're all, you're lighting up Iranian radar. What's the point of that?

And all of the stuff is taking place at Ishfahan. So there's a belief. But the other thing is, how would they have, I mean, you know, I've been investing, I'm talking to two professors. I'm hoping we'll come on, one of them will come on the show and talk about the logistical challenges of recovering the enriched uranium from where it may be buried. I don't see, let's just say that it's a cover up, though. It's doomed to failure, right?

I mean, this would be, let's just say the Iranians invited us to go and recover the depleted uranium and said, we will not shoot at you. I think it would take weeks, if not months, to pull off, to dig up all that rubble, isolated, and handle it in a way that's not going to, you know, blow up and irradiate all our guys. I mean, so, I mean, it's dangerous material. They couldn't do this in a day or two. Then what else were you doing? Well, maybe they were trying, or maybe they were, you know, checking it out.

scoping it out to see for future reference, kind of like a spy mission, but why do you need this giant force? Well, it's that part, right? And then to have that force effectively seemingly fail at the test.

And then, I mean, because they were trying to do something and then they turned around and they said, okay, we failed at this. However, we got two people.

Okay, for one, we haven't seen any pictures. Yeah, maybe you did. Yeah. Yeah, maybe, right?

It sounds like a cover story over top of, something else in whatever the hell they were trying to do. It does. So it's kind of like, do you remember that mission in Ukraine where all of those Ukrainian soldiers got killed and some kind of operation inside it? Oh, what was the name of that mission? They were saying that they were trying to get somebody from the ground and they kept doing it. And Russia kept creating this kind of firebag. It feels like that. Like you guys are trying to do something. You failed at doing it in some kind

of incursion or some kind of special operation where you have all of these people's social with it. And in order to cover the fact that you failed, you use this idea of, hey, we rescued these people who were shot down in Iran. It's hard to know what's true, because as you point out, Iran is every reason to lie just like the United States is every reason to lie. But the difference is you have a huge amount of equipment that seems to be burning on the ground in Iran. So far, yeah, so far the credibility seems to rest more with team Iran. But yes, that can change. any second. Johnny come lately. Thanks for the 10 Australian dollars. Trump told everyone to watch Mark Levin on the weekend, possibly knowing what was coming. Levin invoked repeatedly Truman using

nukes to avoid a ground war in mainland Japan. Be afraid, friends. That seems so provocative, though. Like, it's one thing to lose. Donald Trump can always say, okay, we've accomplished our objectives, them out. Whether that works or not. By the way, it's why I hate Harry Truman. is for a variety of reasons. Taff Hartley Act among among them, his role in McCarthyism, which we don't talk about. But yeah, I mean, he never should have nuked Hiroshima or Nagasaki. No, he shouldn't have dropped the nuke.

Because it creates exactly this kind of precedent to say it's okay. Yeah, he shouldn't have dropped a nuke. I mean, Japan was, Russia had just attacked that they were already reeling, yeah. They would, we would have won. They would have surrendered. You think nuclear possibility in this? 100%. There's a nuclear.

I mean, probability, no. Possibility, yes. And I think, you know, is there, I'd have to put that possibility now at maybe 20%, which terrifies me. What about you? See, I don't know. I mean, it's hard for me to wrap my head around, I'm dropping a nuke, but by the same token, it was hard for me to bring my head around Gaza.

Yeah. or the Ukraine. Even now when I still see the videos of like, you know, there's that one online right now which shows like the windshield wiper going across before and after in Gaza, it's still shocking. It is.

P.W. Walker, Democrats only oppose the Iran war simply because Trump started it and vice versa when you look back on at Libya. I'm not sure that Democrats even really oppose the Iran war. The liberals. I don't know if they care of them. I mean, from there, like, because it seems like we create this cult of personality where it's like these people are evil. And then at the point where you define a group evil, you can pretty much justify anything. So it's like Michelle Assad is a bad guy.

So it's okay if we, you know, kill all of these series and process of over-thoron, Bashar al-Assad. I feel the same, it's this kind of similar sentiment towards Iran, kind of, in the way that the American public may see it, where they, I don't know. I don't know. It's complicated because Donald Trump numbers have taken a hit over doing this. Why do you think his numbers sick of hit if liberals aren't on board for it? If the public is not on board for it. Which they're not. Right. Exactly. That's my point. They're not on board for it. I mean, whether. Well, it's bizarre. I mean, one of the things you need, like, look, to the thing that went wrong in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And I guess for the French in Algeria and also for the French in Indochina was a lack of clear, realistic war aims that were popular with their native

publics, right? We don't have that here. We have none of that here. And, you know, I've never, I mean, there's never been a war that American president started out of a clear blue sky with 20%, 27% approval for the war, 35% approval for himself. I mean, you're doomed. I mean, like George W. Bush ended up disgraced, but he started out with his invasion of Iran with a 90% approval rating. I mean, Iraq. No, I mean, it's absolutely mystifying.

He's all alone here. I mean, Emmanuel Macron yesterday pointed out, like, this is completely unwinnable. Like, it's not possible. He said that's the reason that France didn't want to have anything to do with it. It never even got past the point of the morality or the legal side. It's just like, this can't be done. So, I mean, and the French know a lot.

That's closer to their neck of the woods. Magical Unicorn Cat, thanks so much for the $5 donation. Also, thanks for the $1.99. Magical says, I'm scared, genuinely scared. Me too. And Lacey, Melton Moles, thanks so much for the 20 bucks on Rumble. Promise to stay loyal after John left, keeping my loyalty to you and Robbie. Thank you so much.

Kay Gregg, thanks so much for the $10 donation. Much appreciated. Let's see. Arienne Gordy, thanks for the $1.99. Ray has a question for you, Jamal. wondering if you heard anything about Shane's dad Lee Stranahan and how he's doing. Some of us were longtime fault lines listeners. Yeah, so Lee apparently had another stroke.

Last I heard he was in like an adult home or something like that. Shane had put a tweet out, effectively saying that he's awake and aware, even though he wasn't necessarily communicative in regards to talking. That was the last I heard. That was maybe two months ago, two or three months ago. So yeah. Let's talk about Australia if you're okay with that. This doesn't need to be a long conversation.

The case is wild. It's a wild case, right? So this guy, Ben Robert Smith was kind of like an Aussie soldier star. Good looking tall. And he was at one point the country's most decorated soldier. He was declared Australia's dad of the year back in 2013. Was he? Dad of the year.

Yeah, dad of the year. And so now he stands accused of five war crime, four, five war crime murders in Afghanistan back in 2009 to 2012. In basically he kept ordering his men to kill Afghans for fun. One case was a laborer, a manual laborer who the Aussies handcuffed and kicked off a cliff just, you know, just because. So, you know, as someone who has written a lot about Afghanistan, spent a lot of time there. And look, I strongly recommend this movie called Afghan Massacre. It's about an incident that happened in 2001 in a place called Dashed I-Lay-Lee in northern Afghanistan, where basically about 8,000 Taliban POWs were transported.

by the Northern Alliance and U.S. Special Forces to this scrub. And they were basically shot. They were shot in the ones who didn't die in the shipping containers that they were brought in in the heat were then dumped and executed and massacred in a field. I went there a few days after this happened. I was tipped off. I won't say by whom. and I'll just say it's one of the most horrific things I think that I mean, certainly that I, but I think anyone could see.

It's on par with, you know, probably liberating a death camp. There were bodies and scraps of flesh and bone and scraps of scraps of clothes and shell casings as far as the eye could see. And the smell. You know, it was 100 degrees. So, and you saw that. You went, like you actually.

I have the photos. I have video. So the thing is that's, and it's been covered up, that, that, you know, Obama promised that he was going to open an investigation. He lied. He never did. Why do you think this 13 years later, you know, more more, it took, this is finally, Australia seems to finally be taken.

an interest in these kinds of, you know, if it happens in Afghanistan, we don't really care kind of incidents. I don't have an answer for that. I mean, because it's such an anomaly. Like, it's very rare where you see, like, if you think of the wars that have taken place, atrocities take place in all wars. It's not like there's sanitized war, right? And so it just becomes, where does, does a country focus on what their own soldiers are doing in the context of that war in regards to try to keep these guys online. I don't believe this guy is a rare bird. I just have a hard time believe in that.

Why? Exactly. And I don't have an answer for that. Why is Australia's favorite dad being put up for war crime charges, right? Like, what does that say about Australia's dad? When he tells you to cut the lawn, you better fucking cut the lawn. Right, right. Cut it, goddammit.

Yeah, man, I don't know. I don't know the motivation for them to look at this 13 years later. It just seems strange and anomalous. And speaking of lies and cover-ups, you know, we all focused on the killings, the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in by ICE in Minnesota earlier this year. But there were a bunch of other incidents that we haven't talked about. I mean, ISIS killed at least 34 detainees in custody. And there was this incident with involving a Venezuelan dude.

Basically, as usual, Christy Noam said that he was a bad guy. And he attempted to kill an ice agent with a shovel, they claimed. And now this video has surfaced that shows that, yeah, the dude had a shovel before the ice guy attacked him. The ice guy attacked him. The guy threw away his shovel. And then he was trying to get away from the ice guy. this whole case against him and another co-defendant fell apart. And so, you know, the ice guys might face charges. This to me was less about the case itself than reminding me of the fact,

Jamal, that there has not been, I mean, I've never heard of such a thing. You have two homicides. They might be justified against Renee. I don't think they are. Renée Good and Alex Prady, but theoretically, they could be justified. There's never been a federal, state, or local investigation into two homicides that were videotaped on national television. How can that be? I know the state and local authorities, their excuse is, well, you know, we didn't get the information, all the, all the material, all the evidence was swept up by the feds and they won't share. Okay, you can still have an investigation the best you can't.

You can interview witnesses. You can, you know, you can depose suspects. You can file subpoenas. I mean, there's stuff you can try. try to do, but you're just like, oh, sorry, what can we do? I mean, to me, that's extremely terrifying. All of it is terrifying. I mean, I have to be honest with you. Like, one of the things that I think becomes clear, especially with the wars and everything else that are taking place, is that laws only matter if they're in force. If they're not in force, they don't really exist.

And when you get this kind of people wondering, like, how do you get this kind of fascist state that takes place. It's stuff like this. Where it's like this obviously should be investigated. These people were obviously killed. Now, you may come to a conclusion that it was justifiable, but that's something that is meted out at a trial, not necessarily this, as you point out, oh, well, G, Gali G, they sweep up all their evidence, so we can't necessarily do the case. I remember I had Garland on one day and asked, and Garland used to be a police officer.

He used to be, used to run investigations and stuff like that. And I was asking one day, like, if I am a legal citizen of this country and an ICE agent is coming after me and there's a cop right beside me, will the cop do anything to protect my rights? And Garland was like, probably not. He's probably not going to want to get involved because of this kind of weird gray area that ICE effectively floats in. And you've effectively militarized these people and put them all throughout the United States in all of these various states with seemingly. God-like power or capability, meaning they do stuff that doesn't necessarily seemingly have a consequence when they do those things even and up to the point of murder. And even when they're dealing with people who are Americans, not even people who are illegal to this particular country. It's outrageous. It's terrified. And it doesn't necessarily seem to be relenting at any particular point. And I don't even see like a massive public backlash, if that makes sense.

Like at least not at the scale that I would think over this kind of militarization. No, I mean, no, there's been, I mean, you know, my theory for that is that there's just no left and that you would need a left to organize that. What we have instead is no kings rallies, which are bullshit. Thanks for the $10 donation from K, Greg. We have a question that I think we need to address in our last minute or two here. Random, to be clear, you want Trump to destroy all Iranian civil infrastructure today. Otherwise, taunting him with the taco shit makes no sense. You're bullying Trump to carry out his apocalyptic attack.

Look, I appreciate the take. It's a novel one, I have to admit, the idea like the historians will look back at the nukeying of Iran and say, you know, it was this podcast. Ted Raul did it. It was this fucking cartoonist and Jamal Thomas, and, you know, they were taunting, and Trent and his thumbnail, and it just pushed the president over the edge into Hiroshima. Shuma 2.0. Now, honestly, I mean, I can laugh about it. Look, I take the point in all seriousness. And it's true that part of what Trump is dealing with is I think the perception that he needs to

look butch, right? Like, that's always been his thing. He's actually kind of like in private, kind of like a, and I know, because I've been in private with him, he's kind of a silly, goofy man. And so he practices this like, gal. It's all bull. It's all bull. It's just like in the same way that George W. Bush doesn't really have a Texas accent. It's bullshit. But, yeah, so I guess I worry that might be a valid concern, not from this show, really, but like the fact that he feels like he has to compensate for a small dick situation. I don't know. Yeah, small penis compensation. I mean, look, I didn't tell Trump to invade the country. I didn't tell Trump to bomb in this way. I didn't do any of those things. And if we're pointing out behavior that seems to be something that's associated with his personality of threat and then backing down from that threat, that's not our fault.

No. And look, if you want to take Ted Rawls' advice on this, call Iran and seriously offer to come there and make nice, they really will appreciate it. And you'll get out of this. You really could win the peace, then get the Nobel Peace Prize, that you would enjoy. All right, we're done here. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with Ted Rale and Manila Chan coming up in a minute right here. Rumble's going to raid right over.

Jamal and I will be back tomorrow right here at D program 9 a.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. Also, Q&A exclusive show tomorrow at 12 noon. Jamal, see you tomorrow. Stay safe. Have a good one. Bye.