DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - The Revolution Will Be De-Trumpified | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM Eastern time. Today we discuss:• The Trump administration plans to exile American citizens exposed to Ebola to Kenya rather than bring them home to the US for observation and treatment. In previous outbreaks, health care workers and other US citizens were brought home to be treated at specialized medical units. • As we predicted yesterday, Texas Republican primary voters elected Attorney General Ken Paxton over 5-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn by a 64%-36% landslide. The GOP could find itself diverting millions of dollars to defend Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.• But it’s not all good news for Trump. Defying pressure from Trump and national conservatives to wade into the country’s redistricting wars, the South Carolina Senate adjourned without taking up a new congressional map that aimed to eliminate the state’s lone majority Black district and cement an entirely Republican delegation.• The Ultimate Fighting Championship has released its rendering of the very classy, highly dignified octagonal cage at the White House for a fight scheduled on Trump’s 80th birthday and also America’s, which is 170 years older than Trump. It depicts a star-spangled arch over the cage on the White House South Lawn. Trump is also planning a highly dignified, very classy IndyCar street circuit racing past landmarks including the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol in August.JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLEhttps://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowFOLLOW TED:https://rall.com/https://x.com/tedrallLISTEN ON SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuLISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Good morning you are watching D. Program with Chad Rall and Jamarlem Thomas. And it is Wednesday, May 27th, 2026. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning, J.T. J.T. Do you hear me? Robbie, do you hear me? I do. I hear you loud. It's bumping in and out.

Wait, wait. Can you hear me? It's bumping in and out. Okay. Who side is that on, Robbie? That's on JT's. I think that's mine. Okay. All right.

Okay. Yeah, that's mine. I'm bummed. Oh, it's stabilized. It looks like a stabilizer. Okay, good morning. Maybe the country will stabilize at some point, and just as quickly, although it's too late for that. Thank you so much for joining us.

You're watching Deep Program. And we always encourage you to like, follow, and share the show. Thank you for your support. A little bit of housekeeping notes. TMI show is back at 10 a.m. Q&A show, not on at 12 noon today. We'll be doing the Q&A. Next Q&A is Monday.

at 12 noon. That's my fault. That's on me because I'm on the road and I can't do it. And they're kicking me out of my hotel room. So I'll be, unless I want to do it from like a Wendy's or something, there's just, which you know, I could do, but I'm not going to do. One of the great points of road tripping, by the way, in the United States is that burger joints have pretty good, very free Wi-Fi. That nobody, like McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. Wait, are you on a little road trip or are you just traveling? for some specific reason. Yeah.

You don't have to tell me the reason. I'm curious if it's a road trip. I'm sorry? You don't have to tell me the reason. I'm just curious whether it's a road trip in a proper sense of the term. It is not really. I mean, I am on the road in Pennsylvania,

but yeah, I will be back to, I'll be back home tomorrow or this afternoon more accurately. Yeah, and it's nothing exciting. I do like a real road trip. It's like one of my favorite things, but this is not that. So anyway, we'll be talked today. We have to talk about, obviously, the Texas election results, a big deal. The story out of the Ebola story where U.S. citizens will not be allowed to return home if they've been exposed to or infected by Ebola. That's new. That's never happened before. And it could mean that, according to infectious disease experts,

American citizens are going to die. I'll explain that. also in South Carolina, the ghost of Jim Clyburn refuses to die, and Carolina Republicans basically defied Trump and decided to save Jim Clyburn's congressional district, which I don't know, you and I have to band me about what's going on there. And then the last and definitely least, the UFC has released the images of the of the cage match that will be held on the White House lawn on just for Trump's 80th birthday and for the 250th anniversary of the United States. You're serious.

Pardon? You're serious. They have a cage match. I'm seriously. The White House lawn. Yes, there will be a cage match on the White House lawn. It's an official UFC, very classy, very highly dignified octagonal cage. They've already begun construction.

It's right on the White House lawn. It's like right up against the White House. NJT, I think I'm probably going to be the first to tell you that there will also be, and this is true, a very classy, highly dignified, IndyCar Street Circuit racing past the Washington Monument, U.S. Capitol, and other D.C. landmarks to celebrate America's 250th emancipation from from Great Britain. You know what? It's fitting.

I'm okay with that. It's fitting. I accept that. Like, I mean, that's so ridiculous. Like, when, do you remember when they were having, I think we were at the radio station at the time? At least I think you were. Where they were having like this LGBT parade in front of the White House. And you had people who were like naked women showing their tits and whatnot.

And people were like, oh, that's so indignified to be in front of the White. They were like, oh, this is so horrible. I can't believe why people are doing this and why is nudity associated with the LGBT community? And that's a question I had too. And at the time I was like, yeah, I mean, maybe, I don't know, I'm conflicted. You know what?

I don't care. Well, just be free, right? Lack of dignity seems to be like, you know, something that the left and the right can agree on in this country. Dignity is not really our thing. Right? It should be in the White House. I mean, like, is dignity required for people to, at the very least, give, like, let me ask you, I'll just ask the question.

Should the president be a dignified entity in regards to our politics? I think that answer is yes. Yeah, and I think that's one of the things Obama brought to the table. Yes. You may hate him, like, meaning people may dislike him, but dignified, yes. Presidential, yes. Maybe look like, you know, he played the role, yes. And that's a positive.

Like you want the president to be a figure that people, all things been equal, look up to as a dignified representative of the U.S. government because he's the figurehead of that government. And when you look at the story that God man, the story knows me. When you look at, I don't know if you saw the tweet that Trump put out yesterday, where he was talking about if Iran puts his hands up, it comes out. And if the fake CNN and the China network, which is. the Wall Street Journal and blah, blah, blah, and you read it and you think to yourself, this guy is the literal representative of America to the world.

I feel that way about having man or man, what often looks like man love when they're on each other and they're like with like an angry sex fight or something like that. It was like, ugh. When you get that on the White House line and you're calling this dignified nonsense, It's nonsense. I'm joking about the dignified thing. He never said that. I know you are, but you're making a point.

What are you say? Yeah, I mean, it's like, I mean, look, it's like when I remember seeing the split screen of Tony Blair with George W. Bush giving, you know, when they were involved in their joint project to decimate Iraq. And, you know, for the record, I think new labor is an abomination. And I hate Tony Blair. But, you know, but you look at the. two of them side by side. And it's like, come on, who's the more articulate leader? Who looks better? Who looks like they're running a real, a proper country? And I mean, we have that. It's like, you know, you would see that. I mean, you know, when Putin, oh my God, when Putin met Trump in Alaska,

holy shit. I mean, that screen, the difference couldn't be starker. I mean, again, do it, you know, think what you want about Vladimir Putin. I wouldn't vote for him. You know, he's way too conservative for me. But if I were Russian, but I get the appeal. And like, no one can say he's not, like, you know, properly representing his country and, you know, he plays the role properly. This is just, yeah. I mean, it's weird. And, you know, I want to, maybe we should talk about that later or we can talk about now, whatever. I mean, I was thinking of writing a column like next week about like, so I'm old enough to remember the bicentennial celebration.

I was a kid in 1776. I was 13 years old. And, you know, it was a big deal. There was a lot of celebrating leading up to it. There was just, there was the tall ships came into New York Harbor. There's still a lot going on. And that, this year just doesn't seem the same thing. The 250 should be as big a deal.

We know from history that the 1926 celebrations held under Calvin Kulis, for the 150th were a big deal. You know, the election of 1876 and for the 100th was a fucking catastrophe. But like basically there's, you know, I mean, you just think that this would be a big deal. And this is sort of like sneaking up on us. It's only in, you know, a couple, it's only in two months. And, you know, less than that. And we don't, nobody seems to really much care.

And I just wonder what that says. I mean, I think I know partly what it says, but I'd like to know completely what it says about the state of the nation. Have you ever read God Emperor Doom? No. Like the film series by Frank Herbert? Mm-hmm. Okay.

So he used to make the God Emperor, Doom. He was a warm God, but God Emperor. He had been allowed for like thousands of years. And he has the memories of all of the generations of people going back even to like other planets and stuff like that. So basically he's, has press, in regards to future and past. And he makes the point of saying governments require a religion to be built into it also for it to work. And I think the reason why I points that out is if you look at our country, when you first start off,

you start off with this revolutionary verve, all countries, South Africa, the ANC is a really good example. They started with this revolutionary verve. And fast forward to 30 years and now they're voting in the same people that were running the apartheid state. So meaning there, this unity government that they've created. Okay, well, what happened? The revolutionary of birth dies off with the generations, meaning the more and further and further you go from generations to generations. What initiated and this kind of energy that you had when you first started the revolution or whatever, and everybody has this belief in the unity of the government, and this is a new project,

and we believe in it, and et cetera, et cetera. Okay, what happens to 20 years later? Well, these people are cynical, and they're just in it to figure out what they can get out of it. And from standpoint of coming up with this fiction of America, in all countries are fictions of sorts. But it's a fiction that allows 320 million people to effectively come together and say that we believe in this fiction. And again, I say all countries are fiction.

So this is not the principle of it. Sure. But our faculty in believing in mythical things is the thing that allows us to come together because otherwise 300 to 20 million people are not coming together. Somewhere along the way that United message broke down or what that message means broke down is different to everybody. I don't know if that's an internet thing. I don't know if that's this kind of breaking of compartmentalization where each person can be in their own bubble and have an idea of America, but neither of these ideas meet. I don't know what it is.

But I agree with you. This should be momentous. It should be every bit as big as Russia is celebrating the victory of. over the Nazis. It should be huge. It should be a quarter of the millennium is a, is a big deal. Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, look, if I were 200 years old or if I were a vampire, I might be able to answer that question of like what happened. I mean, I know what happened in my lifetime that seemed different was that when I was a kid, it seemed like this

country's left right and other factions argued about we didn't, we didn't, we argued about what things mattered and what, if anything, needed to be done about them. Right. Now, we don't even agree that certain things are happening. So we can't even, so like, for example, you know, it was widely accepted by Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the climate change was real and was happening, global warming was happening. It was understood. There was no question about that. Now, whether Gerald Ford was as interested in dedicating natural, you know, the federal budget to doing something about it as

Jimmy Carter was, maybe not, maybe, maybe not. But the point is that, like, Gerald Ford would have never said climate change wasn't real. Reagan introduced this idea that we could live in, in our own realities and say things that we just knew weren't true and make that reality. Climate change, it's not that climate change isn't important or isn't a less of a priority then say job creation for Ronald Reagan. It's like literally not happening. So therefore, you don't have to worry about it at all. And that's revolutionary.

Ketchup is a vegetable. You know, the federal budget is it's black welfare queens who are spending all the federal, you know, causing the deficit. These things that just are not true. And yet, so it gives comfort. It's kind of like the world that Israelis live in, where when they're confronted even by other Jews who are against what's going on in Gaza with what's going on, they say they're shown a picture. And they're like, oh, well, that's AI. Or that's not true.

Or that can't be true. You know, where there's just in denial. That's the world that, like, we live in. Like, Joe Biden, he's not senile. Now, come on. You can't say that. And if you say that, Donald Trump could be elected. president. You know, Kamala Harris isn't stupid. She's not a bird brain. If you say that, then Donald

Trump will be president. Donald Trump, you know, he's, he's, he's, you know, he's not lying like the day as long about what's true and what's not true. I mean, at all. We're definitely always been at peace with East Asia and we're about to be at peace with Iran or, well, well, no, we were never going to be at peace with Iran. Well, yeah, we, so, I mean, so in a world like that, that's what changed. I mean, We're not agreeing. We don't even have, we don't live in the same realities. So you can't have politics, right? At all.

Are just disagreed upon. You know, it's like, is the earth flat around? And you have half saying it's flat, half saying it's round. Okay, how do we have a conversation about, you know? And it's convenient for people to think that it's flat, for some people to think that it's flat. It's wild. I mean, I agree with you, meaning mythical thinking.

Like, I don't. we can create our own realities and we can live in our own realities. I think there's something else to it too, though. I think it's this idea of whether the government gives a shit about you. I think that matters, like in regards to how people see their relationship with their government. Like, meaning even if I disagree with the guy who's in power, like this old thing, John Wayne, he's not, I didn't vote for him, but he's my president and I hope he does well. Okay, that's gone. And I also think this idea of the country mattering more, meaning this concept of America,

matter more than individual politics, which is, I think, gets to the whole mythical thinking idea. Like, basically, if I believe that the country matters more than me in a political space, then maybe I have to accept basic realities because those things relate to whether a country survives or prosperous. Whereas if I believe that the only thing that matters is my getting ahead politically within the context of my own party or factual politics matters more than the country itself. Then that could say anything. Because at that point, the party matters more than the country or the people within the context of the country. And then you add to the capitalist system in general where cash rules, then the insidivis obviously right themselves. Then, hey, cigarettes don't cause

cancer. All of these doctors recommend cigarettes. They're good for you. And then, of course, you're going to have politicians who are paid by a cigarette industry to come on and say the exact same thing. Like, meaning, no, I agree. I agree with you. I would only add that I think this idea of whether your government gives a shit about you also places. That's also a Reagan thing, right? Like, up until, you know, I think obviously Europeans and other countries have more of a sense that, hey, we pay taxes and we have a right to expect a lot of, you know, services from our government. But the Americans largely believed after the New Deal that they were entitled to some basic stuff, like, you know, old people aren't going to be eating dog food to survive. You know, we're going to have basic retirement.

If you're unemployed, you lose your job through no fault of your own. You're going to get some unemployment insurance, right? Ronald Reagan literally told the American people, no, you don't, you aren't, you don't, you're not owed any. anything at all from the government. Your government owes you nothing. It's up to you. We're all rugged individualists, pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and ideally those we were born into. And that's it. And that's also, I mean, I think, I don't think it's possible to overstate just how radical and revolutionary Reagan really was in terms of changing Americans' relationship to their government.

Yeah. Yeah. See, my memory of this, I was a kid during the Reagan era. I remember some of the things that happened. The Kipper, I have some. In fact, this is probably the first political memory that I had of Reagan basically talking about the Iran contract. That's my first political memory. Like, Colonel Norman.

And that's unusual because he had been a very different, he had never admitted doing anything wrong up until that point. You caught him, you know, you caught late Reagan right before he went senile. Right when he admitted and did something remarkable. It admitted that he had screwed up and took the fall, sort of. He never did that. Like, you know, for, I mean, people, it's like a lot of stuff that Trump does comes out of the Nixon playbook, but a lot of it comes out of the Reagan playbook, too. by the way

did you we have we have another special occasion today at the 250th centennial or whatever they call it the anniversary Esquist quintess

we have crossed the $39 trillion deficit number $39 trillion dollars I remember in the early 80s but no it was the late 80s I think when

it crossed one trillion. So from 1776 to 1980 something, we got up to one trillion. And between 1980 something in 2026, we got to 39. That's astonishing. And the reason why I bring this up is because, as you point out, when the federal government looks at you and says, we owe you nothing, like under the Reagan thing, right?

And that becomes policy. Bill Clinton enacts many of those. policies. Yes. But you, and then you point out, okay, but you're $39 trillion in debt. So I can't get nice things, but you don't get health care. You don't get education. You don't get a $15, $20 minimum wage. You don't get $10. You don't get into the stuff. You don't get Haspy Rill. You don't get those things. And yet, you're $39 in debt. And so the first operative question becomes, what are you spending the money on? If you're not spending it on nice things, like it's one thing. If you had all of those things and you were 13, not trading in debt, then you could be like, okay, fair enough.

I get it. That's how I get it. Look, yeah, if you guys, look, you guys want to do free markets. Look, I'm able-bodied. You know, I mean, we can do free markets. Let's do free markets. I won't pay any taxes at all. I will keep 100% of my income.

And, you know, and I'll pay my local fire brigade personally. I'll tip them to watch out for my house. Okay, fine. But, like, that's not the deal, right? I mean, we're, you know, our tax rate might not be as high as Western Europe's. But we're not getting shit for the 40% of our income that we're paying. You know? I mean, it's like 40% of our income for nothing.

And then versus like, you know, it's 55% in France, but for a lot. You decide. Yeah. I mean, my ex, she used to tell me, she was like, yeah, my government sends me for spas. And I was like, what? She's like, yeah, my government sends for the spa. Or like the health care, like 99% of them have health care. Or like just services going to college, like stuff like that.

Like they don't have the pressures that we have. And I would all put out to, I mean, dude, you're living in a welfare state. You don't get what it's like to live in America and the pressure that's on people to live in this country. That's exactly. That's why we're all like we have to be on SSRIs. We have to have legalized cannabis. We have to self-medicate. We have a high suicide rate.

It's why people are dropping dead from heart attacks and strokes. It's like, yeah, we're a society under tremendous pressure. And a lot of that pressure is a lot of it. Maybe most of it is financial. How many marriages break apart because of, you know, someone, you know, of someone usually the father losing their job, right? I mean, and it's kind of like, oh, well, it just sucks to be you. Like, I mean, how crazy is it?

that we're all concerned about AI taking our jobs. But neither Trump nor Biden before him, nor any future Democrat, proposes like, hey, we should put together a panel of our best and brightest minds, you know, people who are experts on AI. We can put tech bros on there like Elon and, you know, Sam Altman, but also we'll get some like liberals in there to talk about like, what, you know, Robert Reich, to talk about like, how should we now, navigate this technological transition to ease the pain on the American people.

There's like, yeah, we're just going to do it. Fuck it. You know, like it just sucks to be you. You're just waiting for the tsunami to come. Well, Peter Tushin and his book, In Times, points all of this up. And he points out, meaning his argument is over, let's say, 200 years, governments, basically the public revolts. And the reason that they revolt is very closely associated with the similar elements of a political system where the elites get into power and those elites, it creates an ossified system that is incapable of any kind of change, meaning it's calcified.

It can't respond to environmental circumstances. Those environmental circumstances being the public being pissed off because they're being the emissoration of the working class. And it looks just like this. I mean, do you really think that there's any notion of political change or responding to environmental circumstances? I mean, for God's like, he's engaged in a war that he's losing. And you act, hey, why are you doing that? Hashtag reasons. Okay, so we took this country to war for hashtag reasons that you probably couldn't really articulate because it's not about weapons of mass destruction.

And the reality of it, you can't be honest that the entire point was a smash to state. But you can't say that. and yet $39 trillion in debt. And as you point out, faced with challenges such as AI and the removal of jobs and all of these things, and inability to do anything about it. It's just weird. I mean, we're not even able to, you know, the first step is recognizing we have a problem. We are not even at the first step.

Mm-mm. Mm-mm. I mean, the reality of it is, you're right. We should be thinking to ourselves, as I keep pointing out, the issue with AI and the issue of a technological revolution. It's not the tech and it's not the AI, even though it kind of is. But it's not. It's how does your government

deal with it? It's a political issue. Meaning, I don't want to stop the car because the horseman is paying me a lot of money. I don't want to stop the elevator because the elevator man is going to be aggrieved. I don't want the elevator man doing that job. I would prefer

him doing something else that is a little bit more productive. And I feel the same about people dropping french fries, people in grocery stores. truck drivers going across the country, and I get these people need jobs. But that is a political... They might not need jobs, but they need money. They need money. But I think people need something to do also to make themselves feel self-actualized,

whatever that means for that person. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree with you. They need money, and you need a federal government to be able to deal with political outcomes of AI taking many of these jobs. Right. I mean, this should be, look, you and I are big fans of Star Trek. This should be an incredible moment of celebration for humanity.

Yes. We have like, oh my God, incredible efficiency. We can all like work much shorter hours as a society. It doesn't need nearly as to do as much. Humanity does not need to do as much work to keep what we have and even keep growing the economy. That's fucking fantastic. That's what we should want. It's like we should be like, yay for us, we rule.

Look at us. And now, instead of celebrating, why are we afraid of this? Because we're a bunch of fools who don't recognize like, okay, so we now need to do the logical thing, which is to share the spoils so that people are lifted and not pushed down by this thing. But instead, this technology is being the profits and advantages of this technology. are being monopolized by a tiny elite at the expense of the rest of us, to the point where we would actually all be better off without it. That's very fucked up, and it shows how stupid this version of capitalism is.

Yes. Yeah. But again, from my point of view, this is a political issue. And the capital, like, governments need to be able to respond. You may make an argument to me that at some point capitalism was a necessary stage of development. You can make that argument. I've heard people make that argument. Marks made that argument. Yeah. But at some point, the problem, what it really boils down to is that people, the moment that

you get $100 billion, you don't want that to change. And the moment that you're the politician that got that person, $100 billion that you can profit off of, you don't want it to change. And the moment that you get into politics and people pay you a huge amount of money for you to do what you do, you don't want, meaning you get to a point where you don't want, Meaning you get to a point where there's so many people that benefit from it, even though it may be like a small 0.001% or 0.1%. They don't want it to change, despite the fact that it is not in the best interest to keep it this way for the majority of the population.

You know, the elevator guy was doomed. The horse guy was doomed. And you could hold off for a little while, but, you know. Militarys and police are not going into the winds. There's no point, right? We have some questions we should get to. Quite a few, actually. All right, let's get through them quickly,

and we'll get you on to our other topics. Lucini, Ted, would you fight Trump at the Fourth of July UFC event? Are you going? No. I might go just to be like, okay, I was here. This is insane. I don't like crowds, really.

That's the one. I don't like you. I don't like you. I don't like you. I'm not. I'm not into. pugilism either. But yeah, I would do that. Govman. Clovis is also probably less pro-sexual assault than Tate as well. I don't know what that relates to.

Wait, right quick, before you go to the next one, if this country wasn't the way it is now, meaning not attacking people, not dragging leaders and throwing them in prison, not starting wars, and something that you could be proud of. Yeah. Would you be more inclined to go? that's a good question and I would think about it but I would not go because I'd be more inclined to go but I wouldn't go because I don't like crowds like when I go I mean like when I used to go to concerts a lot

I didn't like stadium shows I like small venues I'm just crowds really just make they creep me out totally understand so Ari and Gordy member for two months JT and Ted

not sure if this was covered but thoughts on Insight or treating by the orange tard seems totally legitimate. What, he's made billions. Billions. Over the course of the 12 months, that's outrageous. I mean, there's crypto venture. There's that. There's giving himself money.

And not to mention manipulating the oil markets like every fucking day. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's outrageous. I mean, can you have it? To make money was to like click a few. you know, click send on a tweet? It's amazing.

Like, I guess my thing is, it's astonishing that that's not illegal. And more to the point, even if it's illegal, it's that part. And again, I have to, I have to fit this within the context of the larger conversation

we're having on this. If people believe, A, that their government gave a shit about them, and B, was a forceful good in the world, would they be more inclined to celebrate? And I think they answer is yes. I think the same reason that the Russians are able to celebrate the immortal regiment, right?

It's because of pride in that regiment, in which case, the victory in and of itself is something that they celebrate. Whereas this, I think we're off the rails. No, I mean, if you're proud of the United States at this point, I don't know what to say, you know, you're, you know, not smart. Sorry. All right.

Ari and Gordy, thanks for the $9. The cage match represents the direction of this fuck-ass country. Tax money for the rich to watch people fight seems like a bad dystopian movie. Can't believe this was actually allowed. We are a joke. But that's what I said, yes. Do it. It's honest. Oh, yeah. No, it's who we are.

It's President Camacho in Indiocracy. It is. That's exactly what it is. That's what sounded to play. Cameron Pine. Top-tards, Ted, I don't know if you heard, but Massey used a cartoon of yours in his run. Did he? No way. I wish it had.

I wish it had. I wonder which cartoon. Cameron, let me know which cartoon it was, if you know. Sue his ass. Get that money, Ted. It's all right. That's good for him. Maybe blue funk.

Thanks for the $2. Guys, in a way, hasn't the performance of dignity been used to swindle so many of us? Isn't it better to go mask off and see things for what they are? I don't, that's your argument, J.T. Go mask off, yeah. You should see him for where it. That's how I felt about truth. I used to defend him and say, like, it's good for the United States to have a president

who's a fucking buffoon, a fool, an ignoramus, a pig. Because this country has a disgusting foreign policy, in a lot of disgusting domestic policies as well. You know, truth in advertising, right? Katzeratus, thanks for the $5. Been gone a few weeks. What happened to John Kirooku? He ever coming back?

What? I'll answer that question. You still talk to him. I do. So, John is not coming back. He is no longer hosting deep focus. Basically, he is starting his own gig. And he will no longer be doing independent podcasts like he was, what he was before.

like he'll show up as a ghost as a ghost as a guest but as far as as as far as hosting them though he will not be doing that he will be running his uh his own show over on over on uh youtube and i think he was on the hollywood well he is because he's working for c a and so they're the ones who are putting together the podcast oh his own show i see i see yeah okay yeah so but i mean it's it's it's not independent like it's it's wrapped up in the hollywood uh bubble machine. Yeah. Okay. So he's getting an upgrade, basically. Yes. Yes. He has definitely got an upgrade. He's moving on. But for whatever reason, though, he still wants me doing all this stuff. So I'm like, okay, I'll do it. Oh, okay. So, yeah, no, he's not coming back. Okay. Thank you very much, Robbie.

Okay. So thanks for keeping it dignified. Kay, Greg. Thanks for the $5. I appreciate you. Eric Sweet, thanks for the $5. Why has the coverage of the Iran war been so open during the Ukraine war? We got Ukraine is winning. The Russians are fighting with shovels. Not with Iran.

That is a very good question. If I had to guess, it's... Oh, I know. It's kind of hard to hide the fact that you lost the straight of Ramos. No, I know why. What? because it's because it's the media narrative. The media, the media loved, don't forget, like Ukraine was Biden's war.

And Obama started it, right? So it's a democratic war. The media, which is mostly Democratic Party aligned, what loves Ukraine and has been defending Ukraine, you know, all along. And they're Russophobic. And whereas Iran is completely, is completely, Trump's war. And I think given the fact that it was combined, you know, it's done side by side with Israel right after Gaza and even though the world mostly turned a blind eye to Gaza,

by the end, they couldn't. And it just built up too much. So I think, I think that's why. What do you think? But they still don't talk about it in the way that it should be talked about. Like, like the idea that the United States, who's working with Israel, who has unregistered nukes, goes to Iran and says that it wants anything from Iran is rather amazing. And it's like, I remember there was one time where I'm like, who the fuck are you? Like, meaning you're coming, now you're going 10,000 miles to start a war under the premise that they're starting, that they have weapons of mass destruction when Israel has nukes that the media never brings up. they never bring it up.

Like, they make this argument. Well, Iran may get nukes, et cetera. Israel already has noots. And they've been murdering people in mass. How are you talking about Iran? And yet the media, they make it as if, well, they're negotiations. Okay, there shouldn't be negotiations. The United States is dealing with a sovereign nation.

That shouldn't have to give the United States anything. Agreed. Iran doesn't owe the U.S. anything. But I mean, in terms of the question, I mean, like, why does the, you know, why is there more transparency here? Look, they're still bullshitting us about Ukraine and claiming that like Russia, any day now the Russians are going to admit that they lost. It's like, yeah, that's still bullshit, right? And the, but with Iran, they were never in the, you know, they were never, they never had the buy-in. They never were in the bag.

This was this was Trump's thing. I mean, it's like, look at the Vietnam War. When it was Johnson's war, the media was all in. When it was Nixon's war, they started to sour on it. But is that because they were reporting it more honestly under Nixon? Because it's not like the U.S. media loves Iran. No, there was like, there was incredibly honest reporting in the final year, in like LBJ's final year, which is part of why he had to leave.

Hey, hey, LFJ, how many kids did you kill today? Yeah, yeah. And also, that's why, yeah, like when you had Walter Cronkite go, you know, go to Vietnam and come back and say, like, based on what I've seen, there's no fucking way we can win. And by the way, it could also be polling, like, the fact that gas prices are going up to 450, the fact that, because even their new country. Only 27% of the American voters are for it. But if the, if the media got behind it, the numbers for that war would go up to, like, Ukraine levels, you know? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I just never. considered the media be on the side of Iran. And even in the reporting of it, it's still... They're not on the side of Iran. There's just like not on the side of Trump.

Right. Yeah. I think... I mean, you know, Zelensky is such the little media darling. He was at least. I mean... Yeah, he was. Yeah, yeah. The thing is, even when they're reporting on the Iran war, they're reporting it in a way as if America, meaning they're not calling it a war of aggression, which is what it is. they're acting as if negotiations should take place. And it's like, but dude, it's a war of aggression where the United States is trying to effectively crash a government. They're not reporting it with stark terms that it deserves.

They're still putting it within the context of this kind of American exceptionalism stuff like Iran should negotiate. Iran may be trying to get nukes. Iran is blah, blah, blah. It's like none of those things are true. No. No, not arguing with you. You're right. Frank Field thinks for the $5.

I wish I could see video of Kamala Harris arguing a case in court. She defeats herself in her own speeches. Yeah, and, you know, there must be such video because California does allow cameras in the courtroom. So there must be some footage. That footage must be extant somewhere, right? No ads just went in to check that. We have other topics to cover. Let's talk about, if you're okay with it, let's talk about this Ebola thing.

Yeah, weird. So Americans, so obviously, so Ebola is really out of control. The main media narrative has involved Trump's doge cuts in eliminating USAID and saying that part of what happened here was that there wasn't early detection for the outbreak because a lot of the, staff, U.S. staff that would have been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, would have been in a position to see it. They didn't. They missed it for months. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what they're saying. And now, basically, Trump is taking a hard line against letting anyone who's been infected come back to the United States. The hanta virus dudes got sort of forcibly sent to Nebraska from the cruise ship. But the Ebola, the Trump administration says

they're not going to let, in past practice, and we know this because there was the Brooklyn doctor who came back to Brooklyn from the first Ebola outbreak years ago. And he had it. He didn't spread it. He went to my favorite bowling alley, which was a little disturbing to me, every time I went to pick up a ball there. But anyway, the thing is, you know, it's your U.S. citizen, you're allowed to come home. You have a U.S. passport. You can come home. This would be the first time I can think of in a long, long time that a U.S. citizens being told, no, you got a bug or you were exposed to a bug. So we're going to send you to Kenya. And according to the experts, the Kenyan facility does not have nearly as much, it's not as, it's not as, it's not

good as the American facilities that would normally be used in a situation like this. Needless to say, you'd be under quarantine even in the U.S., but you'd be getting better treatment. So your chances as a U.S. citizen of dying from Ebola, which has a 50% fatality rate, is higher. That's really disturbing to me. That is disturbing. This administration over and over again has taken actions that have, let me ask you this. Is there a chance? I mean, in old policy, from my understanding and reading the article, was that the policy beforehand

was to bring the people home and have some kind of specialized medical care. Yeah. And now Trump is like, yeah, just don't let them in the country, even Americans, which is kind of wild to me. This is, to me, this is more of a medical decision, not a policy decision. a policy decision based upon medical advice. And if the medical advice, and they come to the conclusion, hey, the chance of its spreading is minimum or non-existent,

and we are able to treat this person better here than they are elsewhere. Then you should bring them home. That's what I mean when I said it's medical policy choice. It's not for Trump to just think it up, if that makes sense. He's like, yeah, I just don't want them in the country because I feel some kind of way. Okay, that's not the way that should. work. That's not the initial way. I understand that as an initial impulse, right? Like, sort of like, oh, they have a freaking really dangerous fatal disease that's extremely virulent.

Let's just keep them out. And until they get better, then we'll let them back in. But then you're like, okay, I'm not seven years old. And like, these are U.S. citizens. So, you know, we can't just leave them to the tender mercies. I mean, I think I might feel differently. if, let's say, New York, you know, American ports of entry, like New York, New York City or, you know, Houston or Miami had special facilities on site at the airport where they're like, you can arrive home, they take care of you there, then you know, make sure you're okay before they release you. I could see that. But saying, we're going to send you to another African country where facilities are like, eh, it's okay. Also, it's legally racist. I mean, he keeps... Totally racist. Well, I mean, A, sitting in people who get infected with Ebola, almost all of them are American doctors who are there in Congo to help local people. These are not like reprobates or scumbags. These are really good people. But this is the same thing that they were doing with immigration. Like we're going to send them to some African country. We're going to send them to the gulags in South America, what is that country? Like, the idea that we're sending people to the, and by the way, Britain was doing this too, if you remember, where they were like, yeah, we're going to send people to Africa who are immigrants who have nothing to do with Africa because we're just using it as a waiting location.

Yeah, and the Australians had their own, no strangers to racism themselves. They did it with their migrants, sending them to Papua New Guinea also, like racial coding much. What the hell? how is Africa a staging ground for deadly viruses in regards to us sending people there? I mean, there's nothing to do with Ebola, really. I mean, yeah. Norobi is a gorgeous, beautiful country. Yeah, I mean, it's like, but you know what I mean?

I've never been, but like, yeah, I mean, you know, I hope to go someday. It's nice. Yeah, I mean, it's like, but it's like sort of, yeah, it's totally racist. I mean, it also seems to me like, you could. easily mount a constitutional challenge to this prohibition. I mean, there's nothing in law or in the constitution that permits this. U.S. passport, you're a U.S. citizen. You're allowed back, period. The end. Well, I am very curious. Because I think the article talked about two people that they were effectively doing this too. I suppose we'll see if they challenge it in court. I mean, if you have

Ebola, I don't know if that's the moment that you're going to be trying to challenge anything in court, to be honest. But maybe they have representation that would do it on their behalf. I don't know. This feels outrageous. Like you say, I get the feeling, the knee-jerk feeling. Like, ugh. Keep away. Yeah, yeah.

I get it. It's not like, I don't understand this impulse. I understand it. Perfect. Yeah. That's not the president's job. And you have doctors and medical personnel giving advice. to help with policy to discern what is in the best interest of A, the country, and B, the people

that you're bringing in. And if indeed you can get those people in the country safely, and if indeed the chances of living is 50% higher, you bring them home. And also, if they're fucking dangerous, how is it fair to the Kenyans to send them there? I mean, we basically have like Fortress America where we're like, you know, for Trump, everybody who's not American is, like, they're all fungible, right? So if you're an undocumented worker, illegal immigrant, whatever you want to call them from, let's say, Venezuela, well, we can send, you know, we can send you to South Sudan. And what's the difference?

As long as you're not here, who fucking cares? I mean, you know, like, we're like the people who we kidnapped and sent to Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror. And it's like, oh, well, they can't go back home because, you know, in many cases, they are political dissidents in their home countries and they would be killed. well instead of taking growing up and putting on our man pants and saying maybe we should you know let them live in the u.s. since we kidnap them and they can't go home again send them to fucking albania like you know or find some other country to take them why not us we fucking you know this is like something your parents teach you when you're like six you broke it you fix it you spilled it you you clean it up you clean up your mess the u.s doesn't want to do that

we make messes and we just want other we want you know This is like Kenya's gain? Like, what do Kenya do to deserve this? Yeah. Yeah. It's very strange. I mean, it's very nativistic in the way that he behaves. It's like a meandah.

A lot of America, and what's disturbing to me is not so much that a lot of Americans don't see through it, but that the media doesn't call him out on it. There's no editorials about it. No one says like, oh, this is very strange. Like, you know, like. Well, even though, I mean, like, as I point out, there's really missile thing, nooks. They never bring it up. Meaning, the president of the United States has literally started a war under the guise of weapons of mass destruction, working with the country with unregistered news. And the media doesn't seem to think this is a big deal to call out.

And I guess I'm pointing out, if they are not going to do that, when that's so on the nose, then this stuff flies by the radar. Totally, totally. Let me get through some more comments and we'll move on. John D. Cackelfeller, the U.S. is kind of like my child. I might be disappointed in what it's doing right now, but I'll always love it. Yes, agree. Yeah, I guess that's right. I guess when I make the argument of being a patriot,

I feel like it's more important to point out things that your country is doing. This is kind of a Nenom Shomsky argument, right? It's like, yeah, other countries do stuff, but I don't really have any power over them. I have power over this. I care about my behavior. Yes, I care about other people, but I care about my behavior and by extension, country. Agreed. Yeah.

G.V. Man. Oh, well, John Gone. De-programm forever. Who cares? That's the correct answer. E.O. 43. It is a war-torn country with a lot of forced migration and a non-Zaire or Marburg strain. All adds to nearly impossible to detect. Add other social issues makes it difficult to control. Yeah, that in those crazy corpse handling practices, right? Like, you know, the, no, I mean, they wash the bodies. but that's common around the world. But then they often spend time in the same home with the bodies, in the tropics, on air conditioned. You know, it's like not really a best practice, right?

I'm not John D. Cockfeller, I'm not worried about people with Ebola. It's actually quite difficult to catch Ebola from someone. They're quite visibly ill, and you're not going to go near them. It's not like, say, the flu. John D. Cacfele, said Ebola spreads like wildfire in these African communities due to one poor hygiene and two those funerary practices I referred to. It's common in these communities to handle the dead and also divide belongings. And okay, and that's it for now. We should, we only have nine minutes left. We've got to talk about the elections. So we called

it yesterday here on the show. Ken Paxton delivered a drubbing to John Cornyn, 64 to 36 percent, a landslide by a landslide by any account. And basically the democratically aligned media is saying that James Tolariko now is now within a spitting distance. The Hill moved the ranking, sorry, the Cook political report moved it from strongly Republican to now a mostly, you know, you know, leaning Republican race. I don't know.

I think I think Democrats are bluffing here. I don't think they can catch that seat. I don't think they can beat Ken Paxton with Tala Rico, not in fucking Texas under Trump. But what do you think? I think in the midterms, what we're going to see is the all of the elections are going to be a referendum on Trump.

That's the way wrong. And yes, politics can be left. local, but all things been equal. Because look, when I grew up, it used to be this thing of vote blue no matter who. Like, it is, it's the African American community. It was, well, you don't really need to know who's in the election. Just vote the Democrat. And that used to be the way we used to think. It's keep the, what is it, keep the monsters at bay. And the monsters were effectively in the other party. Now that I am an adult, I know that's not quite true. There's two monsters at least. Yeah, keep, right, right. The monsters are

in both, right? I get the sense, though, that all of these elections are on some level going to be a referendum on Trump. I could be wrong on this, but when the president is doing a horrible job, when the president is drowning at a 30% approval. I mean, I don't know if he saw the polls that recently came out. Trump is in Nixonian levels of dislike by the American public. And this was Nixon during Wardigate.

This is the highest disapproval rating since Nixon. It's insane. And this came up today. And I guess my thing is it will color all of these elections. Give me your take on that, by the way. Do you agree with that, disagree with that? You have a longer political history than I do. I agree with what you said.

I mean, look, yeah, that's what these elections are going to be about. And a lot of people do vote by shorthand, right? So I was watching a lot of comments from Texas Republicans who said, you know, I don't really know the difference between Ken Paxton and John Cornyn, but I like Donald Trump, Donald Trump endorsed Paxon, and so I'm going to vote for him. And that's what happened. Okay, but it's a different animal this fall, right? A lot of people, more people are going to be following the race by then.

There's going to definitely be a lot of Democratic money pouring in from the National Committee into supporting Tala Rico, who they seem to be invested in, So, you know, at that point, it's going to be like, well, you know, Paxton is a stand-in for Trump and for MAGA. And how do I feel when I, about MAGA, is going to determine whether I give Tala Rico a chance? I am going to stay, I mean, stipulate that it's not, Texas could be theoretically blue someday.

You know, I mean, there's been demographic changes. It's not like it's never happened before. You know, I still remember Ann Richards, the, a Democratic governor of the state of Texas, who used to drive to work on her motorcycle. You know, you need that, to win in Texas, you have to be that kind of Democrat. You have to be like butch, lone starry, rugged individualistic.

You can't be like, you know, talking about trans shit. And, you know, there's just no way. But they have those kind of Democrats down there. So, I mean, if Tala Rico, it's possible. But I just think it's like, I still think that's going to win it. I mean, like, most of it, it's Texas, from my point of view. I mean, it's not like Georgia, where Aalsef and the Reverend, what's his name one, during that election. I mean, it could be, but to me, it's Texas.

So Democrats have an uphill battle either way. That's what I think. I mean, I think, is it, let me put this way. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? absolutely not. Let me actually

let me ask you. So Cornyn-Rann ran again, do you think Corning will win? Oh, like as an independent? Well, that would be very... No, no, as a Republican. Let's say he won this race. And he ran again. Do you think his seat would be safe?

Because I think that's... Oh, I think he would have won. I mean, he was a five-term incumbent. Yeah, I think Paxon win there. Yeah. I don't think it would change. Yeah. I could be wrong, but I don't know.

Like, I think Cornyn would even have been a stand-in for Trump in that race. That's what I'm saying. I think that Paxton would win either way it's Texas. I could be wrong. Trump doesn't like, and the thing is, Trump doesn't endorse you because he likes you. He endorses you because he thinks you're going to win,

and he held back until the last minute because he really, he wanted to make sure. Trump's endorsement clearly comes from inside tracking polls, and he thinks not only that Paxton likely was going to win this primary, but also the score was going to win. I mean, Paxton would have won the primary anyway without Trump. And I think he would have won this fall again without Trump. So it's an easy endorsement for Trump to make.

I wish Trump was as good at choosing his wars as he is at choosing his endorsements. Last, so James Clyburn's district appears to be safe for now. The South Carolina Senate was one of the few groups of Republicans who are, but we're seeing this now. Like, MAGA, you know, Maga World. is starting to resist Donald Trump to say no to him. They're like, okay, we don't have to necessarily do what he, you know, what he wants us to do.

And he was dying for James Clyburn's district to be eliminated. That doesn't seem so it's not going to happen now. So obviously, to me, this tells me that, you know, we're seeing vulnerabilities in Trump. I mean, Trump is still riding high, but not. as high. Well, the reason is straightforward. I mean, I can't show this thing, but if you're sitting at 62% disapproval, if you remember, Trump's strength didn't necessarily come from political, internal political dynamics. Trump's political strength came because he had people who would crawl

on hot glass under where lasers are flying all over the place to vote for him, in which case, that gives a big amount of political power. If your polling drops where you're Nixonian levels of dislike, then your political club goes with it because that's where your political cloud ultimately came from, especially white working class voters. Like when they were looking at Trump's base and he said, hey, his base is peeling off because, A, they don't like the wars. They don't like the gas prices. They don't like pick any random number of things that Donald Trump did. They don't like the fact that he's defending Epstein. That's a big one.

Like you're defending a pedophile. that stuff eats into your numbers. And when it eats into your numbers, it also eats into your, let's say, political clout and power in order to bully other people around. Because what's the basis of your power? I can get people to not vote for you. I can get people to put money against you,

and that can make you lose. Okay, what happens when you become radio active? Right. Yeah. All right. Well, with that, we're going to leave that for today. We'll be back tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. We're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time.

Thanks so much tomorrow. Always a pleasure. See tomorrow. No Q&A again, 12 noon. If you're just joining us, we will do the Q&A show on Monday of next week and Wednesday of next week. TMI show coming on right now. Thanks, everyone. And take care. Have it going on. Be safe.