DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - The Republic Strikes Back | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss the US/Israeli War Against Iran:• Iran was more prepared for war than the Trump administration anticipated, U.S. officials admit. Three American service members were killed and five seriously wounded by Iran at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. Flights across the Middle East came to a standstill after Iran struck at least four airports, including Dubai. Bahrain sustained minimal damage from a drone. Airports in both Kuwait and the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Irbil, were also hit. Iran hit Zayed Port in Abu Dhabi, where the French navy has a base. Two drones struck a port in Duqm, a port town in Oman. An Iranian bomb struck a shelter in Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, killing at least nine people. Residential towers in Bahrain were also hit. Kuwait accidentally shot down three F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets—$100 million each—down late last night. Six crew members ejected.• The war expanded into Lebanon after Hezbollah claimed a rocket and drone attack on Israel. Israel struck the group’s HQ in Beirut and targeted weapons storage facilities. PM Keir Starmer is reversing his decision to bar the U.S. from using U.K. bases. The war has only sped up the deterioration of the trans-Atlantic relationship.• Trump is publicly warning Americans to gird for a sustained, costly war.“Sadly, there will likely be more [U.S. deaths] before it ends,” the president said. “America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilization.”• Oil futures surged. Brent crude, the international benchmark, spiked 6.2% to trade at $77 a barrel, having briefly surpassed $82 earlier in the trading session. Meanwhile, stock futures fell. Futures for the S&P 500, the Nasdaq and the Dow were all down more than 1%. But Exxon and Chevron shares rose pre-market. Defense stocks, like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, were also up strongly.Also: • Pakistan bombed Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The Taliban is firing at Pakistani fighter jets over Kabul.• A man who fatally shot two people and wounded 14 others at a popular bar on Austin’s Sixth Street, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, wore a hoodie that read “Property of Allah” over a T-shirt bearing an Iranian flag.TO ASK A QUESTION FOR TED AND/OR JOHN BEFORE TODAY’S SHOW AIRS LIVE: https://ahaslides.com/3XL8GMERCH 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. Thank you for watching Deep Program with Ted Rall and John Kariaku. It is 9 a.m. on Monday, March 2nd, 2026. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, John. Morning, Ted. How are you doing? I'm doing well. It was nice seeing you over the weekend. I don't know if we want to make a habit out of it. But maybe you do. I don't know. It wasn't unfun, except for the reason we got together. Yeah, that was a shame. That is a damn shame. So obviously the main topic here today is the war in the Middle East. We also are going to need to talk about this terror attack in Austin, Texas, where a guy who was mentally ill, apparently, killed two people, apparently inspired by the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. The war between Pakistan and Afghanistan is heating up and almost nobody's really noticing.

Kabul is being bombed. Bagram Air Base is being bombed. The Taliban are firing anti-aircraft guns overcomes. at the Pakistan-Pakistani fighter jets. Markets are opening. I literally, John, just before we came on, like a minute ago, I looked at the market summary of crude oil futures on the New York Commodities Exchange. It was even $72 a barrel.

In the last minute, it went from 72 to 72.15. It literally went from 1714 to 1715 while I was watching just as I was saying that sentence. So oil is going to go up. Defense stocks are going up, not surprisingly. Energy stocks are going up. Everything else is going down. So war is only good for part of the economy. And of course, Iran, a lot to talk about there.

I don't think I'm going to summarize everything. As always, please, like, follow and share the show. We're going to be asking you for Rabiade because it's that time of the month. We'll do that a little bit later. John, we have so much to talk about Iran. And let me add real quickly that the Dow Jones futures are down 518. The NASDAQ is down 350 and the S&P down 75 and a quarter. It's going to be a bad economic day today.

Over a full percentage point on the Dow. So, yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's a really rapid response to this. I mean, these events have unfolding are unfolding in just, you know, everything, just. just seems to move at breakneck speed now, just like the show. Yes, indeed. So please, as always, if you're watching live on YouTube and Rumble, please go ahead and post your questions into the live chat. For people who posted into the aha slides,

we will get to your questions first, because those are the questions that came in overnight and before the show. I always just see you know for regular viewers, we post the link to the aha slides into the show description, early in the morning. So you can always get them there. And if I remember, I'm going to start posting. I did it last night.

I'll post them on socials too. I do them on my X and I will do them on the D-programs show X as well. I guess John will also post them on the X. So, all right, with all that, aside, what aspect of this conflict should we get into first, John? Well, we should probably, boy, there's so much that's like major news. we should probably say that that three,

count them, three American F-15s were shot down in friendly fire incidents shot down by the Kuwaiti military. Oops. I guess there's no military We don't have money for school.

We don't have any money for schools or for health care or for homeless people or for poor people or for, as Robbie would say, for guarding the border. We got no money for that shit, but we, well, I guess we do have money for the border, but we don't have money for, but we're, you know, $100 million plus six pilots who all could have died. That's right.

They all safely ejected, fortunately. Yeah, how did this happen, John? I mean, I understand how one, you know, one could happen. I mean, these jets were based in Kuwait, right? Based in Kuwait, shot down by the Kuwaites. I mean, I'm beginning to be a constant in this. where the left hand doesn't talk to what the right hand is doing. So it's analogous to what's been happening in Texas where the FAA isn't notified about the

Defense Department and they don't talk to the Border Patrol and they all got drones up and lasers and they're shooting at this and that and nobody knows what's happening. The FAA wasn't talking to the military a year ago when that helicopter ran into that American Airlines passed. That's right. Nobody's talking to each other. Man, there's so much to go over. So we, Friendly Fire shot down three of our planes in Kuwait, all F-15s. Another American soldier was killed. They won't say where. They won't say how. That's the fourth one that's been killed in the last 24 hours. Terrorist attack in Austin, Texas.

In fact, in the bar that my buddy Steve and I hung out in last time I was in Austin, Texas, The guy was a Senegalese immigrant. He was wearing a hoodie that says property of Allah, and underneath he had wrapped his torso in an Iranian flag. He was mentally ill, they're saying, but still- Quran in his car when they searched it. Yes, Quran in his car. The Pakistanis have been bombing Bagram Air Base and the city of Kabul, so that's spinning out of control.

The Israelis attacked southern Lebanon. the Iranians attacked Israel and killed nine people in a bunker. And this morning, Pete Hegseth refused to say that the United States would not send ground troops. How much worse does it get? Donald Trump warned yesterday on truth social. I guess he still doesn't think that the American people deserve an Oval Office addressed to the nation. Or maybe he's afraid to go to the Oval Office. But anyway, he said, we should gird for a sustained costly war.

That's something we were told by J.D. Vance. days ago. No way know how is going to happen. This is a quote from the president. Sadly, there will be more, there will likely be more U.S. deaths before it ends. America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against basically civilization. Also, John, the Casas-Belai sort of post facto that we're seeing are so reminiscent of 2002, 2003. Like, they were going to develop nuclear weapons. We can't allow that to happen.

They were going to nuke the United States. I mean, this is the same old shit from 23 years ago. We know it was all lies then. Actually, the American people, in this case, already know its lies. It took them a while to figure it out in 2003 when WMDs didn't turn up for first six months, then a year, then two years. We already know this in advance that there's no CIA or other intel assessment that says that any of this stuff. that the president is saying is true. Not to mention he's not exactly Mr.

credibility in general. So, yeah, the Hezbollah, by the way, appears to have formally joined the war against Israel. Yes. I wonder, John, you know, let's talk about that. Hesbola was deemed down and out a year ago

after the pager attacks. And now they don't seem so down and out. What interests me is, Is it possible that the Pager attack kind of sent the message to the surviving leadership? Like, we should have probably gotten involved and helped Hamas in Gaza. Because they're coming for us no matter what. If we sit out, it doesn't matter.

The Israelis come for us either way. I think that's terrific analysis. Yeah. I think the answer is yes, something that we probably wouldn't have concluded a year ago. yeah they probably are kicking themselves listen they're going to fight to the death anyway you might as well fight to the death from the beginning then just waiting a year or two or five and then jumping in yeah not yeah yeah i mean obviously right this is like this is where solidarity a true axis of resistance which didn't materialize except with the hootis um yes it really you know

it it seems to pay off right in general when you have a bully in the neighborhood um the, so Israel bombed Beirut, not the first time they've done that sort of thing. John, I wanted to ask you about Kier Starrmer. The Europe is the, is sitting this out notably. They're not interested in helping us. I mean, I'm sure they're sharing intel, right? Yeah. But Kier Starrmer said he was not going to allow the U.S. to use bases in the UK. Now he says, okay, actually you can. But otherwise, the rest of Europe is kind of like, you didn't bring us in on this. We don't know anything about it. We don't approve of it.

We don't think it's a good idea. You're on your own here. That's right. Why did Keir Starmer change his mind? Because he's weak. Because he's weak. He's a neocon. And he does as he's told.

This is exactly what George Galloway warned us about a week ago. I had George on my show. And he was saying that the likelihood was that Kirstarmer would be out of a job sooner rather than later. because he's weak, he doesn't stand for anything, and he's a neoliberal, just like every other mainstream politician in the United States or in the United Kingdom. That's really what it comes down to. Disappointing.

I mean, I guess you could say the special relationship and all that. Yeah, the special relationship. Exactly. A good joke. And then why do you think the administration underestimated the Iranians? I mean, they're the insider, people highly placed officials have told the New York Times that. Well, we just didn't see that, we just thought that they weren't, you know, we thought they were degraded. We thought, you know, it's because the American intelligence community has only just recently started watching Iran.

So they haven't had enough time to get up to speed and to do proper analysis on Iran. Right. Oh, no, wait a minute. No, we've been watching them since the 1970s. never mind. Only 47 years. I mean, you know, we got a- Talk about bad analysis.

John, but, you know, look, the CIA was unfairly blamed for faulty intel in the run-up to the war against Iraq. That was a lie by the administration. They were given correct intel. They just chose to spin it and ignore it, right? You were there. That seems like, that's probably what happened here, too, isn't it? Most likely.

I have to tell you that I was surprised by a New York Times article. yesterday saying that it was the CIA that collected the locational data on the Iranian leadership and passed that data to the Israelis and the Israelis used it to take out the leadership. I assumed it was the opposite. Why would he have done it that way? Why? That's a mystery to me, Ted. Because it's the Israelis that have Iran infiltrated from top to bottom.

It's the Israelis that have recruited every other Afghan refugee to just stand on a street corner and note down when the general leaves his apartment and when the general returns to his apartment so they know when and where to kill him. But how is it that the Israelis didn't have the information and the CIA did? I have no idea. And also why, let's just say, okay, so the Americans have the targeting intel. They've been watching the Ayatollah for days. They're confident that he's probably in there.

And they know what time he's going to be in there. They followed his routine. Yeah. Why not just from the U.S. Air Force to do the job? Well, I mean, ostensibly it would be because you don't want unnecessary civilian casualties. But I'm going to yell at the late Ayatollah Khamenei right now. Listen, I understand that you wanted to drink the nectar of martyrdom, which is what his death announcement said, that he had drunk of the nectar of martyrdom.

But if you remain in your office, after having said, I'm not going to a bunker, because the Iranian people don't have bunkers, and I will face the same threats that the Iranian people are facing. Why, in God's name, would you allow your daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, or grandson, whatever it was, to be in the freaking office with you? Why wouldn't you send them into hiding? And now your granddaughter's dead.

I saw a picture of her body yesterday that's been circulating in the Iranian media. Why would you do something? Go ahead and drink the nectar of it. martyrdom if you want but why subject your family to that and i have to say too the cia and the iranians i'm sorry the cia and the israelis are absolutely freaking brutal by going so far as to take out the former presidents of iran president akmedinajad yeah yeah just because you don't want somebody with experience in managing the country to come back and and and sort of take over.

Yeah, I mean, come on. It's like, like you said, John, 92 million people, they're not going to have any trouble finding people to, you know, who are intelligent, educated, and qualified, and experienced to run the country. I mean, exactly right. Ridiculous. It's like the same thing happened here.

And Ted, what do you think of the idea that this is going to be a longer term war? That actually makes sense to me. You and I called it, you know, when this started on Saturday and Sunday, when we had our special shows. And by the way, thank you, everyone, for watching those. We're now, by the way,

at 22,000 subscribers on YouTube. And so thank you for your support for the show. I think, look, I think we were, you know, we've been wrong about some things, but we were totally, but we were, I think we're right here. I don't want to be right. I think the Iranians are going to keep this going. John, you and I both said,

this is existential for the Iranians. They, and the other thing is, they kept a lot of their powder dry. We haven't seen those hypersonic missiles. No. So we know they have them. No, we haven't. And I'm seeing these slobs on YouTube like, they don't have hypersonic missiles.

They would have used them by now. Hey, there was this one guy, one of our viewers and shout out, I won't name them, I don't want to embarrass him, but one of our viewers emailed me and said, hey, there's this guy talking trash about you on his YouTube channel. So he sent me a link. So I'm watching the link and they're like, this guy, this is the day before the attack. guy says that he has a source inside the White House that says we're going to attack Iran. He was wrong.

What are we supposed to believe that the White House just calls this disgraced former CIA guy to tell them their plans? No, number one, I'm not a fucking idiot. That's not what you said either. That's not what I said. So number one, I'm not an idiot. Number two, like any journalist or quasi-journalists based in Washington, I have access to people who have access to information.

And third, anybody with two eyes who can read the media knows that there were plans to attack Iran. Well, that's true. And look, the thing is what you said was that your source told you that it would look like it was going to probably happen last Monday or Tuesday. Yes. Okay. So it happened Friday. I was a couple of days off. Yeah, I'm sorry.

So like you're wrong? I don't think that makes you wrong. It's like, not to mention, it's very well possible that your source was 100% correct. Yeah. And then something came up. I mean, D-A didn't happen on this day that it was supposed to. No. The weather was bad.

The weather didn't allow. Yeah. That's right. So, I mean, often, I think, you know, 9-11 didn't happen on the day that it was supposed to happen. So there's all sorts of stuff like that where, it's right. I mean, it's like, give me a break. It's like, it's like, you know, talk about like nitpicking, right?

Like, well, you know, seriously. John thought it might happen at 11 in the morning, but actually it was like closer to noon. So what the fuck does he know? Ridiculous. No, ridiculous. You know, well, you know, people just like to talk shit.

I can believe the mean shit that I read about, I don't know, whatever. I'm not going to get into that. It's not about me. Okay. All right. So let's talk about the economic aspect of this. I mean, oil, the oil futures are surging, like I said. We are now at seven.

to, okay, well, actually, things have kind of flattened out. But analysts are saying that they could see oil, they could see, if this is prolonged, oil hit $100 a barrel. The economy, this would really fuck up the global economy in a big way, if this is straight of Ormuz is obviously, whether it's formally closed or not, doesn't matter. No one with a brain is sending their ships through there. Like you said, they won't be insured. They can get blown up.

I mean, you're sitting tight. Nothing's moving through there. So that's 20% of the oil supply. And I think people don't necessarily know, like, if you put a kink in 20% of the oil supply, you're not going to see a 20% spike in oil prices. You'll see like a 50% spike in oil prices. That's right. You know, it's exponential that way.

It is indeed. Should we take some questions? Because there's a lot of people who have a lot of stuff to ask us. That sounds great. Okay. Some nice comments. I'm going to just someone saying they like

the over we always watch the show but barely rarely live because it's the middle of the night here. This makes those of us in other time zones feel more a part of the show please keep the aha slides. Okay, we will do that. John, this is from her majesty Lindsay Graham. John,

you've said a few times that no one in Iran wants Pallavi and he wouldn't survive the walk off the plane. How do you account for what seems to be a massive proliferation of people claiming to be Iranians on social media voicing vehement support for him. Is it propaganda? Do you all see better options now that we've done what we've done?

Love the show and hashtag Pardon John. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Those Iranians tend to be Jewish and they tend to be U.S.-based, specifically Los Angeles-based. I've not seen anybody physically in Iran calling for the return of the Pahlavi family. Nobody. Don't forget that the Shah was just as brutal as the Ayatollahs were. You mentioned Savak yesterday.

When I got to the CIA and, you know, I sat there to go through thousands and thousands of files just to sort of, you know, get caught up to speed when I started my career, I can't tell you how many old Savak files I went through. And they were brutal beyond description. Nobody wants the Savak back. of the son, and it went viral yesterday, so I'll just repeat it quickly. My mother attended Wright State University in the early 70s to become a teacher. And she became friends with this guy named Parviz, who was an Iranian student studying in the U.S. And he was, like many students,

liberal students, hated the Shah. And there were protests here back in the 70s against the Shah of Iran, like at the Iranian embassy and stuff like that. Anyway, he did that. He went home on a vacation, you know, either summer or winter break. See where this is going. Shows up at Tehran Airport. He was supposed to take a cab to his parents' house. Instead, he never showed up. Savak intercepted him, kidnapped him, took him to that notorious prison in Tehran,

tortured him, amputated his legs, and dumped his bleeding body with the two stumps off at his parents' front door and rang the doorbell and left. That's Savak for you. That's what they did. He was, he survived. And he made it. His parents were able to get him back to the United States. They, and he, you know, he never went back.

And he was in a wheelchair, of course, obviously the rest of his life. But I say he's still alive, but, you know, it's, that's what Savak was. I mean, anyone alive at that time remembers these stories. I mean, this isn't outlandish. That's what the Pallavi family was all about. And, you know, I see, but Reza Pahlavi's kidding all this play like on CNN. He was interviewed on 60 minutes. Yeah.

Disgusting. And he's like, I mean, he doesn't have the, he doesn't have the credibility of Ahmed Chalabi. No, he doesn't. He doesn't. And this is a guy who, whose brother committed suicide, in part because Reza Pallavi banged his wife. Yeah, that's the next question. And someone's questioning that. When I looked this up to find more information about it, I couldn't find anything.

They said he's depressed because of the exile and he had a drug problem. Yeah. And his brother banged his wife. Google says it's part of an unverified malicious smear campaign. Yeah, sure. Sure. I'm going with it. Okay.

Love the show. Thanks for letting us ask questions beforehand. John, you've previously listed the language. people should learn they want a job and intelligence. Would it be the same list for diplomatic careers after the war? Do you think there will still be a large demand for Farsi? Also, how valuable is Indonesian and Malay? That's a great question.

So I'll answer the first one first. If you're interested in intelligence, yes, it's those specific languages. Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Pashtu, Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, Uzbek, Tajik, Korean, Mandarin, and Russian. for the foreign service it's different they will train you in whatever language they need for you to speak but it could just as well be Spanish or French as it is Uzbek but they have a renowned language school where they'll send you for one year here and one year overseas if it's one of the hard languages or just one year here if it's one of the Indo-European languages it's different Indonesian, Malay, sure, in the State Department that's going to be very important, a little less so in the CIA.

It would be a second tier, they would be second tier languages, but sure. The bottom line here is that languages, foreign languages are very, very important. And we are almost as bad as the Brits in our apparent national unwillingness to learn other languages. You know, Ted, I've seen a, I've seen a video clip that I love and I've sent to friends many times. I'm sure you've seen it too. And it was a video from a school board meeting in Texas where the school board is considering doing away with Spanish language classes in the school district. And a woman gets up and she says, if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough to my children. That's awesome.

Texas. I think you could, I think Spanish, I mean, well, Spanish is the OG language of Texas, right? It is actually. Yeah, no, that's really funny. Yeah. Okay, well, that reminds me of a story, but I won't say it. Okay, so we have one more question. Then we have, we're bringing Robbie to do some housekeeping here. Thanks for the show. You've become my main source of news. My question is about is whether Iran is holding back. And if so, why? Yeah, I think they are. The news talks about thousands of Iranian drones, it seems that they would want to send as many as possible at once to overwhelm air defense systems. Perhaps they have less than as being reported. I think they might have less than as being reported. We don't know what they have. But they also manufacture a lot of their own drones. They don't get them all from China and Russia. I think, look, John, my take on this is that this is

asymmetrical warfare, even though it's between nation states. And so the Iranians know that they have to drag this out as long as possible. You know, if you look at the wars that the United States has lost, it's because they've gone on a long time, right? The Gulf War ended successfully because it was very quick. They flooded the, Colin Powell flooded the zone. It was, you know, victory was quickly achieved. Kuwait was liberated. There was a big ticker tape parade down Broadway. Everyone's happy. George H.W. Bush has a 90% approval rating. Yeah, if the election had been that year, he would have been reelected. This time, so Vietnam dragged on.

Iran needs to make this as close to Vietnam as it can. It needs to prolong this. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And, you know, we're getting a lot of questions about boots on the ground. If they're able to prolong this and we're forced to put boots on the ground, this is going to be Iraq or Afghanistan all over again. Well, we'll go from the big 27% approval for the war,

too less than that. Yeah. Yeah, this is going to be, you know, and we should talk about this eventually, too, not necessarily today, but this is going to be very bad for Republicans as we come up to the midterms because Republicans were already split on the issue. It's political suicide. It is. It's bad. Robbie West, before we, Bobby Bobby says what he has to say, just a reminder. Okay, so it's the beginning of March, the first official March day of the show. And so at the beginning of every month, we ask everybody to please donate to what we call Robbie Aid. We need to raise $1,000 through Robby's GoFundMe so that he can continue to work as our producer. There's no way the show could grow or keep going or be functional or even be able to get to all of your questions in any kind of meaningful way without Robbie.

We saw that last week when he had to take care of his wife who was having surgery. and I had to man the board, and it's just not the same without Robbie. So there's the GoFundMe. It's GoFundMe.com slash F slash D-Program Robbie, or you can just go to GoFundMe.com and just search for deprogram, Robbie. Every month we ask you, and you guys have done this every single month so far. So thank you, thank you, thank you. But if we get $1,000 from you guys,

we will shut up and not worry about this until April. John and I each kick in $500 of our own money to do this, So it's not like we have no skin in the game. And so I'm going to leave that GoFundMe up there. This is whether you agree with Robbie's politics or not is neither here nor there. This is about supporting the show because no Robbie, no show. Seriously. So anyway, Robbie, please go ahead and tell us what you got to tell us.

Yeah, there are just a few things. Have a lot of people who have asked how they can become a channel. subscriber on Rumble because if you become a subscriber on Rumble, you and John keep 100% of that subscriber revenue. We have to be live. It has to be during a live stream. Go to Rumble.com, click on the show. And then on the live stream tab at the very bottom, there's a little option that says, that says subscribe.

Or yes, it says subscribe. Click on that. It's five bucks a month. If you do that, John and Ted, keep 100% of that $5. Rumble does not take a cut. That belongs to them. and you can also see all the premium content. Second, I lied to y'all.

Me and John decided that it does not make sense to make a TikTok account for him and said all of his shorts will be here on Rumble on his official Rumble channel. There's just so many people on TikTok pretending to be him, it would be like trying to piss up stream or spit in the wind. It's just not worth it. So we're just going to do it here on Rumble besides Rumble pays him. Lastly, if you spam the same question more than seven times, I will take your question out of the queue.

So three, four, five times is enough in case I miss it. But don't spam it. The standing rule is don't be a dick. It's pretty easy to do. Lastly, I have a question for you, John. If the Afghans are working for the Israelis there in Iran, well, the Iranians go team Robbie and just deport the bastards to be done. And that's all I've got for you.

You know, they started deporting Afghans. I'm going to say about six months ago. There are millions of them. don't have the wherewithal to round them up and deport them. I'm sure that they would like to. Not to mention they're a source of cheap labor. Sound familiar? Yeah, seriously. Well, then send them to go fight the Israelis first, but problem solved. You know, I don't think that they would because they literally don't get any benefits at all. You know, there's free medical care in Iran, not for Afghans. There's housing assistance in Iran, not for Afghans, no job placement. There's this,

there's this sub-economy where people get, you know, just a couple of bucks a day or a week. They're oppressed. They're undocumented. I know, Robbie, you're going to shed a tear for them. Okay, I'm going to take you out here. Okay, so how do you think this next, another question from Matt F? How do we think this current conflict will reshape the region over the next 10 to 20 years in terms of Iran's internal stability, the risk of terrorism and proxy,

wars and the likelihood that future states will see nuclear weapons as their only protection against regime change based on what you saw in set of the CIA. You know, I think it's impossible to say at this early stage because we don't know how long this is going to go on. We don't know what the government is going to look like once it's over. My guess is it's probably not going to be terribly different from the government that was in power two days ago. Agreed. So I think it's impossible to say.

I will, though, say that any improvement in relations between Iran and the Arab Gulf states is gone. It'll take a generation to repair it. Risk of terrorism is up for sure, right? Also, the nuclear weapons thing. I mean, come on, you're a fool. If you can get nuclear weapons in a world where the U.S. exists, you should. You have to, to protect yourself. Like you said a couple of weeks ago, why aren't we talking about North Korea?

Because North Korea has nuclear weapons. That's why. Exactly. John, from Yihor Huskoff, when you say that the Iranian defense is suffering from systemic incompetence and internal corruption, the U.S. and Israeli strikes seem to be very precise, suggesting no GPS jamming of glide bombs by the Iranians, a trivial thing to implement nationwide, given that off-the-shelf wide-banned RF noise generators are available from Alibaba for a couple thousand dollars that's a tough one um yeah i think so um i think i think actually i think what we're going to see in the aftermath of this is no matter who ends up leading

iran we're going to see vastly closer relations between iran and the russians and iran and the Chinese. And so the Russians and the Chinese will appropriately arm Iran, not just with offensive weapons, but certainly with defensive systems, radars, for example, so that this just simply doesn't happen again. This is a very short-sighted policy on the part of the United States and Israel. Every American, thanks for the five bucks. What's the absolute best possible outcome of this whole situation. I feel at least some kind of good can happen, I hope. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the fantasy at the White House and the Pentagon is that it becomes the land of milk and honey and a robust participatory democracy takes root and everybody. It worked great in Iraq. Yeah.

It worked great in Iraq. Yeah, exactly. And that's great in Afghanistan, yeah. Um, Ezra, well, so I mean, I do want to answer the question. I mean, honestly, I think a, a defeat of Israel would be a huge boon to the world. I agree with you. They would be discredited. I mean, already their, their international approval is way down. They nobody, they need to become a pariah. They need to, nobody should be doing business with Israel. No. And then Israel pulling us into a war where, Americans are being killed. Like, is the president going to call the families of these four Americans killed and say,

your child died utterly unnecessarily for Israel? Yeah, BB says his, thanks. Yeah, BB sends his thanks. They get their coffins with Israeli flags. Yeah, monster. Ezra, PR, thanks for the $10. What degree of economic trouble will this war put on Russia and China? How long until their hand is forced to intervene?

and John, will you do any book signings or appearances for those of us in the DMV area? So in terms of the Russia-China thing, you and I were just talking about this with Robbie before the show. Robbie brought it up. You know, basically the oil prices go up. That's great news for Russia. It sure is. And the Chinese are going to sit this out. Like that onion, I keep coming back to the onion headline.

Chinese content to sit back and watch U.S. destroy itself. Yeah, they're like popcorn. There it is. Popcorn. John, what about any books? Any appearances in the D.C. metro area? Not scheduled yet, but I expect to, yeah, in a couple of places. Probably politics and pros, and the Clarendon, the Clarendon Barnes & Noble, they always do a book thing for me. I sell a lot of books there.

Why would Iran attack so many of its neighbors? have gone into this yesterday. I don't think we should talk about it more unless you want to. No, it's pretty clear. They're attacking their neighbors because the U.S. is using their neighbor's territory to launch offensive strikes. Pink Lady, happy Monday, host, Hotties. Is Trump going to declare martial law in the U.S. because of what's going on? Thanks, honks. Better not. You know, I have to say, I can't decide whether Donald Trump is a moron or a genius in this. You know, he and B.B. Net and Yahoo have the same problem. They go to prison if they leave office, right? So if, you know, if you or I were in that situation, we'd be thinking, how could we remain in office? And those elections aren't looking good. And not to mention, Trump's being term limited out.

Yeah. What if you were to, I know this is all conspiratorial, right? And hopefully all bullshit. I hope. I hope. I hope. But, okay, I could really, I mean, there's literally no better excuse than a war. ask President Zelensky to cancel elections, right? It's the best of all possible excuses. There was a lot of talk during 2002 of canceling the midterms after 9-11. Even in 2004, because of 9-11 and Iraq,

what if there's terrorists at the polling stations? It could happen. It could. It absolutely could happen. Or even if it doesn't happen or can't happen, he could certainly try. Yes. Yeah, that's what I would have.

expect. I would expect him to try. Hi, Ted, John Larabi. Thanks for all you guys do from Jaby. I love the show and tell my friends about it all the time. Thank you. Ursula von der Leyen, who I personally defined to be absolutely reprehensible. Me too. She tweeted that she was convening a security college on Monday. It's turned into a meme. And I saw a European diplomat respond defending it, saying that since the Europeans weren't consulted, they shouldn't rush to respond. Europeans are asleep at the wheel when it comes to their own defense and policy. What do we think Europe's role should be here?

Thank you and have a great week. I'm ashamed to say that the Greeks announced this morning that they're sending F-16s and hospital ships. They always send hospital ships, and they sent ambulances and ambulance attendance to Afghanistan. But I wish the Greeks would just stay the fuck out of it. I mean, appropriate European role, right? It should be none.

None, no role at all. It's like this, John, if I'm like, hey, I have a big party, I'd like you to co-host. You know, I got to call you. I got to explain who were inviting. You know, I got to bring you on board. Well, the U.S. and Israel decided to have their own little party. Well, why should the Europeans pay for the Dixie Cubs? Yeah, exactly.

Ridiculous. And it's true that we just didn't consult the Europeans. We may have possibly have consulted the Brits. but that's it. Hey, John and Ted, I've been watching every, this is from Jacob Lourou. I've been watching every episode for the last few weeks.

Love how authentic you are. I'm glad we get to have an intelligent conversation almost every day about important matters. Question, how do you schedule your current and future weeks? Do you use Excel, Google Docs, or something else to manage your professional and busy lifestyle? I was wondering what program you use to manage your busy life. Thanks for everything and for your service.

Thank you. You know what? I have an iPhone. I use whatever it is on here. It's a calendar. And you can't really see that. It's all anyway, it's going to be another busy day. And I just recently in the last few weeks got a manager and an agent.

And now I am thrilled to say that I just send everything to them and they schedule things for me. They've been turning down, I'm going to say about 75% of what I get and saying yes to about 25%, which makes for a jam-packed day. But I'm getting like hundreds of emails every day and requests from all over the world. And I just can't say yes to everybody anymore. I've always had this personal policy of always saying yes to students. but I got like five students yesterday who said please please let me interview you for my senior paper and I just can't I can't get through it all yeah I use the I use the phone also same yeah it's because you always have it with you that and also always cross pollinates across your

other platforms and stuff so if you don't if you're at home on your desktop whatever um okay so let me interrupt you real quick so Robbie just highlighted cypress is under attack that's what I wanted to ask What does he know? And it is under attack as of between 12 and 20 minutes ago. It is the British base at Akrotiri that is under attack by Iranian drones. And I'll add, too, that I have a friend, well, Robbie and I both have a friend, Susie Abdomalek, who texted me this morning. Actually, I think it's on my phone.

She texted me this morning to say, and I will tell you, wherever it is, that she got a text from her children's school saying that they're on high alert at the school, drop your kid off by 7.15, not by 8 o'clock so they can hunker down. And they're not allowing anybody who's not part of the school family into the school. They got to keep the kids, you know, protected, et cetera, et cetera. Got some breaking news. Hassan Khomeini, 53-year-old grandson of Ayatollah Roula Khomeini, of course, the founder of the Islamic Republic. He is figuring to be going to be a kingmaker in the decisions for what the successor to Ali Kameini is going to be.

Of course, Kolmany died in 89, is that right? 189, yeah. Yeah, so that's, you know, everywhere you go in Iran, you always see, it's always confusing for Westerners. There's Kolmeny and there's Kameni side by side, both with their big beards in their black get-ups. Pete Hagseth, again, reconfirming

that there's room for boots on the ground in the United States, I mean, in Iran. Dan Kane, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Raisin-Kane says that the U.S. expects there to be more casualties. A fourth U.S. service member has died. He refuses to say how long this might go on. So it's very rapidly moving. All right, so we have more questions to answer.

Thank you, John Kopp, for joining the show and enlisting, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. John, what's the off-ramp for the U.S. here? Thanks for the two Canadian dollars from them all. We're in deep enough now that I think really the only off-ramp is two different things, and one to just declare victory and go home, which I think now is unlikely. And the other is to just keep bombing the shit out of Iran to the point where they cry uncle. Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen. What a death guy, 556, thanks for the donation. How true are the reports that Israel knocked out 50% of missile launchers?

You know, I was kind of surprised that they hadn't knocked out more than 50%. Because we're already, you know, two and a half days into this. I would have expected more. Alex Stevens, thanks for the donation, $10 donation. Supposing the Restore Trust in Congress Act passes, do you believe that that's That's the one where they can't do insider trading, right? Do you believe that our relationship with Israel will change, or might it require reform on lobbying?

For the very first time, more people support the Arabs than support the Israelis. For the very first time since the creation of Israel here in the United States. And if the Israelis continue to maintain a policy of just kill, everybody, those numbers are only going to get worse for them. We're being asked about the shooting in Austin. We talked a little bit about it. But I mean, look, we kind of know that mentally ill people read the news. And they have been inspired in the past by news events.

And so in this guy's mind, you know, I think he thought he was, I mean, there's a lot of Muslims in Senegal. You know, I mean, he's pissed off. And, you know, I mean, that's it. Keep it real. Thanks for the 499. Saludas. Do you believe Yemen will join the war? Well, the Houthis. No, I don't. The Houthis only control the northwestern corner of Yemen and then into Sanaa. The country is in a state of civil war.

They can't even protect themselves. They're not going to join up with the Iranians. Although they were firing. Not in a meaningful way. They were firing at oil tankers instead. Yeah, they were. But don't forget that the U.S. negotiated a private deal with the Houthis, not to attack American ships.

Yeah, so I think the U.S. is okay there. Kurgula, thanks for the five Australian dollars. I'd be curious to know the differences between the Gulf War and this, John and Ted. Oh, it's all the differences in the world, John Go. Literally nothing is the same as it was in the Gulf War. In the Gulf War, we had six carrier battle groups, or strike forces, whatever they're calling them today. Six, with 12 ships each or 11, depending on which strike force it is, either in the Gulf or in the Arabian Sea.

We had, what, 500-something thousand troops on the ground, mostly in Saudi Arabia. There's no resemblance this time to what it was like that. We flooded the zone. We had boots on the ground. The objectives were extremely achievable. and limited. Liberates to wait. President Bush at the first was encouraged to go straight to Baghdad and try to overthrow Saddam Hussein. He decided not to do so, even though he did, there was the highway of death where they pursued the retreating Iraqis. But they, that's,

I mean, fewer than 100 Americans died, most of them in like forklift accidents. Yeah, they were mostly car accidents. Hey, before we lose it, We've got an ad. Okay, let's do it. Robbie, did you put it up? Robbie, can we have that up? Yep. Okay, thank you.

Okay, so, before he, okay, I think I just saw that. Well, it's coming up. Okay, there it is. Okay. Still haven't tried, 1775 coffee, now's your shot. The 1775 starter kit just dropped. Only 1,000 units.

You're getting the bowl. dark roast that hits hard, the smooth, medium roast, and the vitality mushroom coffee for clean energy and laser focus, no crash. All single origin, small batch, toxin-free, and mold-free. Plus, you're also getting a gold spoon clip because freedom isn't scooped with plastic. A father is strong enough to stir up your coffee and your mother-in-law's opinions in a black 1775 tumbler. That's $170 worth of coffee and gear. Yours for $99. It's for the ones who've been watching 1775 blow up on Rumble, wondering if it's actually worth. it. Spoiler, it is. Producer Robbie drinks it every day. Go to 1775 coffee.com slash studio and grab

your starter kit before they're gone. Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. Thanks for that, Robbie. Okay, thanks for the $5 from Yehor. John, could you explain what's preventing Iran from invading Iraq now, closing the distance to Israel, using their biggest advantage that Iran has over Israel and USA, their infantry army size. The Iranians and the Iraqis have very good, close, friendly relations. They're both Shia Muslims now, and they've got, you know, large, strong operating embassies in each other's in each other's capitals. The Iraqis want to stay out of this. Even though they're very friendly with Iran, they want to stay out because they are just now starting

to rebuild after the destruction caused by the U.S. invasion. So they can't risk going to war with Israel and the United States. Again, it's just not worth it for them. Waterways, thanks for the $5. Thanks for the extra shows this weekend. Ted, any thoughts on Punk in the Park, 2026 festival shows all being canceled? So this was a punk festival for a bunch of old and new punk bands in San Francisco.

And basically bands like the Dead Kennedys, the Addict. go on. And I, this is the kind of thing I totally would have gone to, even though I hate rock festivals. And I've been to see more of those shows back in the day than I could count.

That said, basically they got, it got canceled because band started pulling out because one of the organizers is a Trumpie and supported. That's the reason? That's why. Yeah.

And so, I mean, I'm torn about it. On the one hand, I'm kind of like, so fucking what. Oh, my God. I mean, are you,

if he was donated to to Kamala Harris, I'd still say that's a bad life choice. You know, I hate both parties equally. Excuse me. That's ridiculous. On the other hand, it kind of shows maybe punk is dead, but not punk, you know, punk politics. It really brought me back to 1982. I'm like, oh, here we go again.

Look, what's punk without political principles, right? I mean, they're not my principles. Those are not my principles, because to me, both parties are the, same, but, you know, that's my answer. Okay, let's see. Thank you for the 99, I guess Santimes, you would call that, you know, the cents in Euro. Much appreciated Philip. And thanks Khalifa for subscribing. John, can you reiterate the reason Trump went ahead with this operation? I remember you mentioned something on the Julian Dori podcast, and thanks Arii Ang for the $499 donation.

Yeah, I believe Trump was just convinced by Benjamin Netanyahu. People have said that Trump has a very bad habit of focusing on what the last person that he spoke with has said to him. And I think that Netanyahu knows and understands that. And that's why Netanyahu has been here seven times in the last 11 months. and it's to lobby, lobby, lobby over and over again. And don't forget that Trump is taking advice from neocon, Marco Rubio, who's both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

He's got Whitkoff, who's a Zionist neocon whispering in his ear. His own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is, you know, a Zionist neocon. So the anti-war mega people, yeah. The anti-war mega people don't have a voice inside the White House. Nate Lannin, I've seen multiple posts saying that the bombing of the school was a false flag operation. By the way, I think at least 200 kids were killed there or a failed missile launch by the IRGC. I've also seen that this has shown as overwhelming support from Iranian women for the U.S. in this operation. What's real, what's false?

I'm currently looking for some guidance. were very honorable men in my eyes. So I wanted to come to you about this. I don't think there's any doubt that the school bombing was caused by probably Israel, but certainly the U.S. or Israel, right? Yeah. Because the U.S. hasn't denied it. No, it hasn't denied it.

And in fact, the American media have been saying from the get-go that this was an Israeli rocket that did it. And the Israelis aren't denying it either. So therefore, there's no, that's just that makes it a really easy call. as for the overwhelming support. Like, nobody's polling Iranian women in the U.S. But, you know, the thing is that people are exiled from a country usually because they don't like the way things are going in that country. So it's like if you want to know what Cuban people think, don't poll, you know, Miami Cubans exiles. I mean, you know, CNN.

But they're not the, they're a minority voice. I have a particular beef with CNN over the last three or four days is they keep coming back to. you know, these, this demonstration in Los Angeles that had between two and three hundred people. Okay, big deal. I could put that together in my own neighborhood, first of all. Secondly, they've got, they're flying the old Shaw's flag. And the Los Angeles Iranian community is not just Jewish, but it's very wealthy Jewish, Iranian Jews, who fled Iran in 1979 and took all their money with them. Of course they want the Shah, the Shah's family to come back.

That's how they got rich. That is not at all indicative of the broader international Iranian community. No, that's true. No, I mean, yeah. I mean, look, seriously, I 100% agree with your assessment about Reza Polavi. And I mean, he's just grifting. He's just trying to. That's it.

That's all this is. That's it. It's all bullshit. I mean, even, you know, the Trump administration knows Razapalavi is not going to be the leader of post-war Iran. They know that. Yes. Should China get involved in diffusing the war, in part because they normalized ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran back in 2023? I mean, China does like to play the peacekeeping role.

Yeah, I could see that happening. Sure. Inviting the multiple sides to talks. sure in Beijing. I love this question from Amanda Rose. We only have four minutes left. Trump loves winning. So what does a win look like for him

versus what a win for the U.S. looks like? Well, that's a great question, man. Like not having to risk losing in an election. Yeah, if he can somehow spin this by, let's say, the end of the summer, that this was the right thing to do, we came out ahead, the Iranians have some new leader and they're offering us, you know, oil at one third discount or

whatever. Just like Venezuela. That's a Trump win. I don't think Venezuela is a win, though. Venezuela has not, I don't think it's a loss. I think it's like no one cares. Yeah, I agree with you. Biden was a much more devout designist than Trump, says Rodnagu, and thanks for the 10

euros. Yet he never allowed Miliyoski to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran. Who's Miliowski? I don't know. Is Trump compromised? Isn't the CIA's job to vet presidential candidates for foreign influence? No one vets the president or anything.

No, the job of the CIA is to recruit foreign spies to steal secrets. I mean, sadly, we don't vet. We don't even like, we don't even ask American presidents if they know, like, about the Constitution or, you know, or if they're in good health or anything. No, we don't know. I mean, thus Joe Biden in 2020. If Russia wasn't distracted in Ukraine, could we have seen a more aggressive response to help Iran, asks Jacob, and thanks for the 10 bucks.

Oh, you know what? Robbie says that's Netanyahu's original family name. I had forgotten that. His grandfather changed his name to Netanyahu. I had totally forgotten that. Thank you, Robbie. So I don't think Russia's distraction in Ukraine has anything to do with this. If they had no war, I mean, I think they'd be, they just don't, I mean, Russia's not going to get,

it's not going to come to the aid of Iran against the United fucking states and risk World War III. I agree. I agree. It doesn't make any sense for them. It's just fucking terrifying. All right. Good strength this lent, John. God bless.

Thanks to James Kota, Kota, Kutarite, and the $2. Let's see. There's a few more here that I need to. Oh, so I'm trying to think, do we need to talk about anything else? And, you know, basically the Iranians are, so I want to really be clear here. I really, before we wrap up, I think we, the Iranians are keeping their powder dry because, I mean, they need this to go on, right? They need to drag this out as long as they possibly can, because if they can put the hurt to the United States and still, and still be able to bomb Kuwait, Bahrain, gutter, you know, the UAE.

They made a mistake bombing Oman. That was a mistake. But if they can keep up the hurt, they'll come out ahead in this. Well, because the thing is also, right, John, like let's say you have an arsenal of very sophisticated weapons that are very effective and less effective weapons. You should use, like in chess,

you use the pawns first, right? That's right. You know, basically you want to spend those because the thing is otherwise the trend line is, let's say you start out with the Big Bang, And then, you know, they're getting less effective as time goes on. You're giving your adversary hope. What you want to do is like make your adversary think, this keeps getting worse, right?

That's right. I mean. That is exactly right. And I think that's why we haven't seen any hypersonic missiles yet. Yeah. It's totally like, but wait. It's like the consume knife commercial. But wait.

There's more. And with that, I think we can like wrap it up here. everyone please don't forget Robbie aid very important go to GoFund me search for deprogram Robbie we need that thousand dollars we get to that thousand dollars we'll stop asking thank you everyone for liking watching supporting the show please subscribe then you'll get the updates automatically and thanks for your donations as always we will post the link so you can ask questions ahead of the show again tonight on social media on my ex and on the deep program show X and on John's X

please stay tuned for the TMI show with Manila Chan and myself coming up right now and John I will see you tomorrow we're here Monday through yes sir 9 a.m. Eastern time and with that bye