DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - The Trumpire Strikes Back | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Trump flexed his strength in primary elections, continuing the process of eliminating political enemies within the GOP. At the same time, his low ratings and the war have raised red flags among base voters who supported his “America First” agenda. The biggest win for the White House is defeating Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who opposed Trump on key issues, including on the “big, beautiful bill” and on pushing for the release of files related to Epstein. Massie lost to Ed Gallrein, who got 54%.• Senate Majority Leader John Thune — and most of the GOP conference — is reeling from Trump's snap endorsement of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Texas GOP Senate runoff on May 26th.• Trump sounds increasingly unhinged: “I thought the market would go down 25 percent, and I was OK with that to get rid of a nuclear potential holocaust. Would have been a nuclear holocaust. So, going down 25 percent’s OK when you get rid of a nuclear holocaust, so, uh, most people agree with me…Everyone tells me [the war] is unpopular, but I think it’s very popular. When they hear that it’s having to do with nuclear weapons, weapons that could take out Los Angeles, could take out major cities, very quick, when they hear that—I tell you what, when we explain it to people, I don’t really have enough time to explain to people. I’m too busy getting it done,” Trump said. “I think it’s frankly very popular, but whether it’s popular or not popular, I have to do it, because I’m not going to let the world be blown up on my watch. Not gonna happen.”MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Good morning you are watching D program with Ted Rawlin. Jamarle Thomas. It is Wednesday, May 20, 20, 26. Good morning. J.T. How are you doing this morning? This is a dark day. A little thing. It is definitely a dark day.

Anyway, we will be talking about the election results from Kentucky and around the country. That's obviously the main story here today. We will also be talking about. It's going to be all things domestic. Trump's sounding a little bit like a lunatic when talking about the war and the way that it's perceived. And the endorsement of Trump of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Senate runoff coming up a week from yesterday, six days from today. So a lot to talk about. I think producer Robbie West will have some thoughts, especially about the Thomas Massey story.

If you are so inclined, please like, follow, and share the show. Even if you're not so inclined, we would appreciate you doing so. We appreciate your support. If you have a question or a comment, please put it in a live chat if you're watching in the 9 o'clock hour in the AM. Just a reminder, today is the Q&A show as well at 12 noon. We especially appreciate your support during those shows, too. Priorities for questions and comments. We'll go to Rumble Rants and Super chats on YouTube, but we try to get to all the

questions, so it's not totally classist. Let's see, what else? There was a, well, okay, I'll get into that later. Shall we just get into this Thomas Massey story? Please. I, like, I, you know, I saw the story on air. I didn't even see this, like, last night, I dozed off early. I just difficult, it wasn't difficult even, but I wasn't feeling great. And I woke up this morning, also having difficulties. I had a show this one. I'm running 8 o'clock. So I started the channel a bit later than normal. I see the Thomas Massey thing while I'm on air.

So I did, because it came in, I was like, oh, right, the Kentucky race. Let me check it out. And as I'm on air, I look it up. And like, I'm not even a Republican. And it's not about the Republican issue or Democrat issue. As somebody pointed out in my chat this morning, it was like, well, all it means is Kentucky is a bit poor,

and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But as I pointed out, on a terrestrial level, it's that, meaning it purely, from a local point of view, true. Kentuckians will remain poorer for the foreseeable future, and there are a lot of cultists who will pick these people for this particular position. Fair enough.

There's something inherently wrong, though, that the guy who is fighting, A, to expose pedophiles, and B, to snap a genocide, is the guy, that they spend $20 million. They spend more in a congressional race than any of the congressional race to get rid of Massey. And it's not that that was a bug,

that was a feature. Meaning it wasn't that Thomas Massey was doing something in Kentucky that was untoward. He's a Republican. In general, I assume they're doing untoward stuff. So are Democrats, but I'll give my point. He's in our political space,

so I assume he's doing something untoward. But on two issues that are very important to me and should be important to everybody, hey, let's not kill babies. Let's not go into just foreign wars. Let's not spend $1.5 trillion on the military. And hey, let's not protect pedophiles. Those were the specific issues that they took issue with Massey about. As you pointed out, I think on show, Massey voted with Trump like 90-something percent of the time. So it's not like he wasn't a loyal voter for Trump. He was. It was just very specific issues that he had issues. with and those particular issues were issues that I had issues with and that I would argue every American should have issues with.

As somebody who was sexually molested, I take the issue very seriously. And even if I wasn't, I would take the issue very seriously. Raping kids is a big deal. And the fact that the president and Congress members are doing everything in their power to protect pedophiles is outrageous. The guy who calls it out is the guy that they do everything in their power to get rid of, not to mention again, the wars in regards to Israel or for that matter. or not. That is outrageous. That should be outrageous. Yes, I have feelings about this race, even though Massey is a flawed in the big. So, so yeah, let's get into the details here. I rolled up my sleeves here. So if you're just joining us, we're talking about the defeat in the

Kentucky Republican senatorial, sorry, congressional primary in the fourth district of Kentucky, of Thomas Nat Massey, notable for breaking from Trump on Epstein and on Israel and Iran also. And he lost basically 54 to 46. Those numbers may switch a little bit. But that's a sizable margin. Some people would even call it a landslide. I wouldn't, but it's certainly a true margin of victory. It is, as you said, JT, the most expensive congressional race in history.

the last time there was a race that was almost as expensive was another attempt to get out someone who was a big critic of Israel. So, you know, you can definitely see the thumb of APEC all over this. You know, I'm a little familiar with this district. So the fourth district of Kentucky is basically the suburbs of southern Cincinnati is right up on the Ohio River. It's in Ohio. But The Cincinnati suburbs extend into, across the river, into Kentucky, into Covington, which is actually a liberal oasis in Kentucky. And then you basically see the suburbs sort of sprawl around. It looks like if you didn't know Kentucky, you'd say, well, this is probably, you know, farmland. But it ain't.

It's definitely suburbia. It's suburban sprawl. And you can sort of see the difficulty for someone like Thomas Massey and holding that district. district anyway. And you can see why the outside money thought, okay, this guy might be vulnerable. I have a lot of thoughts about that. I mean, I was also wondering about this guy, Ed Galrine. So they recruited Ed Galrine. He's a vet. He, I mean, there's no other way to put it. I mean, he's definitely, even by congressional standards or congressional candidate standards, a very stupid man. And he is, you know, I'm sorry he did serve our country and blah, blah, blah,

but, you know, he, and I guess he lied about the number of bronze stars he had. He claimed that he had four when he had only three. I mean, you know, three still good. But anyway, the point is this guy, he has no political experience whatsoever. He doesn't really seem to have any idea other than just, I'm a conservative, I'm MAGA, I'm pro-Trump. And, you know, I mean, yes, money buys elections and money bought this one. But, you know, we're going to see what happens in the, I'm curious what's going to happen in the general election here. I mean, Kentucky is a conservative state, but it's not, you know, this isn't Alabama or Mississippi. This is a, you know, there are, it's a better educated more moderate, Ohio-influenced kind of place,

I just wonder if the Democrat could maybe pull out a victory, eke out of victory here in the fall. I guess that's maybe a different topic. I also wonder what Thomas Massey does going forward. Does he decide to run as an independent? Does he decide to, is there time to pull that together? Does he decide to become a member of the loyal opposition and basically use social media to,

sort of the way Marjorie Taylor Green has used her independence to remain a voice within the party, an anti-Trump voice, you know, or does he decide to lick his wounds and go off into the sunset? I mean, there's a lot of questions here. Right now, Donald Trump is, you know, look, he won yesterday. He basically, he's on a revenge tour. He is all about retribution and retaliation. He's about keeping his caucus terrified and in line. That's what this is about.

He couldn't, he can't stand any kind of dissent. You know, you can see that point of view. It's interesting to me that he made, you know, Trump had no interest in trying to bring Massey into the fold. But, you know, this is Trump's way. Right now, Trump wins. But Trump is also at between 33 and 37 percent approval rating. He's underwater by over 40 points on the economy and on the war. You know, is this sort of the, is this sort of one of those like you're winning until you're not kind of things?

Like enjoy it while you can. I mean, this fall, it's hard to imagine how Donald Trump, you know, how the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. I have to say it's close to impossible. The predictions markets currently have the House going Democratic by at least 75. I've seen as high as 85% likelihood, likelihood, not. that it would flip that much. But what do you think? I think that they are going to get destroyed come the election. But I thought that for a while. And I thought that unfortunately that was in the very beginning of this term that it felt like years ago that people were arguing and yelling

at Democrats saying, hey, what are you doing? Why are you just sitting there? Why aren't you getting involved? why aren't you getting more aggressive, et cetera, et cetera. And I think, from my point of view, it was always two reasons for it. And I'm answering the question, but I need to give a little bit of context. No, please, please. And from my point of view, there were two reasons. One, everything that the Democratic Party did for the last, I don't know, five years or six years, was about wrong. Meaning they dumped any notion of we're going to have a political party, we're going to make a strong political party, we're going to put

things out that people care about, we're going to deal with our own issues, et cetera, et cetera. It wasn't that. For the most part, it was Trump sucks. Trump is horrible. Trump is evil. Trump is Hitler. He's the devil. He's going to shoot this chain, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what they built their entire political, but I'm spot on, going all the way back from the first time Trump got elected or for that matter when Trump was running. Initially, they thought, well, Trump's incompetent. There's no way he can win. Then when you won, it all became about Trump, even to the point of impeachment. And they wouldn't even impeach George Bush when they knew George Bush.

slide this country into war. So the moment that Trump wins and he wins the second time, okay, that's a death nail to everything that they've done up to that point, meaning your entire methodology of what you thought our political space was just died because he won twice. And this is after trying to overthrow the U.S. government. So then I think the second thought became Trump is going to be a disaster and let him be a disaster. Meaning if the man is going to knife himself, just let him do it. Now, from the standpoint of Democrats who are screaming at them to do something, okay, well, from their point of view, we are doing something.

We're letting Trump be Trump. And we will come back and pick up pieces after Trump fails miserably. And I think that's what we're seeing. I think for all intents of purposes, what we're seeing is Trump being Trump, Democrats allowing Trump to be Trump, and it's a disaster. And by you, I would say the same thing about your problem. Biden, even though obviously Republicans were going after him. But I think in this case, I think they shot their load when he got elected, his second time morale. And it became clear that

everything that you've done has failed up to this point. And my thought is, their thought was let Trump be Trump. He's going to be a disaster. I think he's been a disaster. And in which case, Democrats are going to sweep back in the office, not doing anything, not having anything to claim as a reason for them, but purely because of the guy, it's just that bad. You know, I mean, so much in American politics, there's a book, a paperback book that I picked up at a used store a number of years ago called They Also Ran. And it's all about the people who ran for the presidency and lost. It's about their backgrounds, their politics, and everything. And it's an alternate history, right?

Basically, like, you know, what if William, you know, William Jennings Bryan had been. elected president. You know, what if, you know, John Dewey had been elected president, whatever. And frankly, it's an alternative. It's mostly, in most cases, we would have been better off. I mean, who could argue that John Kerry wasn't better than George W. Bush or that George McGovern wasn't better than Richard Nixon in 1972? Or even Hubert Humphrey wasn't better than Richard Nixon in 1968. You know, I mean, I guess the whole point is, I mean, to be American is to be disappointed and to wonder about our fellow citizens about why they vote consistently, seemingly often the wrong way. And we have to ask ourselves, can we not have nice things?

I mean, what is up with us? Like, why? You know, I mean, you look at the people of, you know, you look at the people of the fourth district of Kentucky. and you're like, come on. I mean, really, Republicans, you voted for this? I mean, if you take a look at this guy, Goulrind, who Trump backed, I mean, it's like, you know, the chromosomes don't add up to 23, if you know what I'm saying. And like, you know, if you look at, you know, now you're going to like go into the general election.

I think it's a woman named Donna Strange who's going to be the Democrat that Gullrine is going to go against. I mean, she's a pretty impressive character. The fact that she even, I mean, she must be waking up this morning thinking, wow, I'm the underdog here and look who I'm running against. Like, what's wrong with this picture? Yeah. I mean, you know, I know this is a bigger question than about just this race and, you know, this place that we're at. But, I mean, do we just not get to have?

Nice things. Like, we don't have to get to have nice things. I mean, even MTG, like she turned out, she started out as a great. gross thing, but she turned out to be a not gross thing. You know, what happens here? And like, that's the thing is as she became a less gross thing, we got rid of her. Well, we didn't get rid of her. She stepped down. Well, that's true. I mean, it reminds me of Al Gore. He told this story about his father was a, you know, was a senator also from Tennessee. And at one point during, I think it was 1968 after the TED Offensive, he got his family together. And he said, listen, guys, you should

just know, he was from, obviously, from Tennessee, conservative state. And he said, look, I've come to the conclusion that the Vietnam War is wrong. So I'm going to be coming out. I'm going to give a major policy speech against it. That means I won't be reelected this fall. And I know you guys really like living in Washington and you like this lifestyle, but it's over. We're not going to be in Washington anymore, you know, I just can't possibly, I can't count into this war. You know, and then, you know, you would like to live in a country where he does that. And then the people of Tennessee are like, you know, that man talked good sense. He's right.

Like that war is wrong, which of course, now everybody thinks the war was wrong, right? I mean, everybody six years later thought the war was wrong. But, you know, at that time, it's like, no, he's a traitor. He's anti-American. and he's got to go. I mean, I don't know. It's just, these moments are not only disheartening, but they're so repeated that the disheartening Ossity

piles up over a lifetime. But you just get to the point where you're just like, of course Massey lost. Of course he did. I don't want to say, of course, because, look, I guess my thought is anytime you continuously as a country are stuck with, let's say, financial and, Seneff versus moral integrity.

That's a rough contest. Now, the problem, if you think about it, part of the reason that parents try to beat into you, hey, stealing is wrong, theft is wrong, corruption is wrong, lying is wrong. Like they beat this stuff into you because I suspect on some level that you know that you're going to be continuously tested over the course of your life. And that is doubly so in politics where, hey, here's a,

sack of money. We need you to behave this way. And you can rationalize it and say, I need the sack of money to get elected. And there are things that I'm willing to throw overboard from a standpoint of my own moral integrity in regards to what I want to get elected. And you may even tell yourself, I can do good things, even if I have to do bad things to do good things. All of these things are things that you as a politician on some level are going to be confronted with, not even just at the level of presidency, but even at the level of congressman or at the level of dog catcher, there is this continuous cash versus morality that is built into our politics. And like you said, the guy with two brain sales that barely rubbed together, if you pay the guy a lot of

money and that guy has very little morality, that guy would take that money. And by the way, this is always the issue, right? It's like either you accept the money or I'm going to give this money to somebody to run against you to take you out. It's one or the other. What do you want to do? And in Massey's case, Massey, but the first time was able to fight it off,

this time they got it. Now, I agree with you. It just sucks. Yeah, it sucks. Okay, so let's go through the comments. How did Massey lose? Colonoscopy examination wants to know. The voters in that state must have been smoking something.

Look, elections get bought. And it's not just the heavy advertising. One of the things that people don't really understand is that when you hear about a lot of money being spent on a campaign, it's mostly about data mining and data management. It's about having an app that will tell a campaign worker that a voter or a potential voter is likelyer to be home at a certain time when they knock on the door to canvas for them. It's about knowing how to target mailers and how to do. design mailers for not just a specific district, but for a neighborhood within a specific district. It's about knowing how to target, you know, a voter who may not have voted for a while and motivate to get them to get to the polls the way that Donald Trump did successfully in 2016.

The point is money really makes a difference in a campaign. And, you know, it's not just about the ideas. Longtime listeners says, Gullrind's main issue he ran on was reinstated. the draft. This is pretty scary. That is scary. I mean, I thought we were done with that. The draft was abolished in the early 1970s. It was, I believe, 1973. Jimmy Carter kind of brought it back with draft registration in 1978, and we had the registration. Now it's automatic, thanks to, I can't believe there was no protest in the streets about this, but basically young men 18 to 26 years of age are now,

whether you like it or not, automatically registered for the draft, although you had to do it legally if you didn't, you could go to prison. So in a way, it's a difference, it's a distinction without a difference. But are we going to, I mean, has militarism, I don't understand, okay, I don't understand how militarism, can triumph at a time when the wars that that militarism, you know, has given us are unpopular. I mean, if you have a, like the Iran war is, has the support basically of like herpes. It's like, you know, what, 27% of Americans favor the Iran war.

Everyone thinks it's a mistake, including Republicans. Nobody cares about Venezuela and nobody wants us to go to war, you know, for Cuba, except for one neighborhood in Miami. How is it that like a war can be... The road is... Go ahead. Yeah, the problem is... No, no, I'm sorry.

Are you frozen? I don't know if that's me or if that's... That's J.T. That's not you. J.T. can you... There was a lag in the system. It was on that. I didn't realize that you were talking.

I'm sorry. Please. JT, do you want to hit refresh? And that usually does the job. Can you hear... You got a lot of packet loss, JT. Me? Hello. Hello?

Hi there. Hit refresh, J.T. Yeah, while J.T. does that. As you're right way here? Oh, they're right. I'm sorry. My system froze. Okay. Okay. All right. So, Jamal, if you can hear me, just please hit refresh.

Please. Keep going. Okay. Anyway. me go ahead robbie okay yeah no because uh i just think that it's a couple of things one you're asking know how is it that an anti-war candidate can win when militarism and wars are so unpopular it's because the people who are most impacted by the wars uh didn't show up yesterday i'm willing to bet you when the numbers come out and i'm going to be all over this thing is that you is that young people especially young men did not turn up to vote yesterday i guarantee you that's going to be a

big part of it. Then Trump going in and, you know, playing the Israel card had a lot to do with it, you know, going in and just trying to rile up the boomers as much as he can just to try and push them out to the polls. And that would not be surprised either if there's a bunch of vote harvesting going on at hospitals and nursing homes. Also, you know, what do you guys both make of the fact that, I mean, look, Thomas Massey was also trying to, they were both having a write off, right? I mean, these two candidates, it's, Gal Ryan and Massey were talking, having a contest in the, in advertising about who is most loyal to Trump and who was more, most conservative. There were all these AI ads that, there was an AI ad that Gal Ryan put out showing Massey holding hands and having a thruple with AOC and I forget

who else, maybe Rokana. There was a, there was, there was, yeah, there was some crazy ad of that, that Massey put out, also kind of basically showing Gal Ryan abandoning Trump on the battlefield. So, I mean, was that, I mean, basically it seems like in a contest like that, if the president has endorsed, you know, one person over the other, if you're a Kentucky voter who is just like wants to reflexively vote right wing, you're just going to go with whoever the president says. Yeah, I get that. And maybe that was a mistake by Massey. I mean, because look, either you go for the king's head or you don't, but you can't do both. And if it's a contest, it was kind of like the Hillary.

If you are a Republican-like running against Republican, I'm assuming the Republican is going to win. Now, the reason why I use the logic, I use the logic in regards to Democrats who are running against Republicans who are they acting like Republicans is like, okay, well, why don't you? don't just choose the actual Republican. In this case, if you are messy and you're running against Trump and everybody in their mama knows that you have been going after Trump on the issues of Epstein and on the issues of Israel, then maybe you need to own that. You can't have it both ways. And the rub is you voted with Trump 90% of the time. So from a congressional record standpoint, fair enough. But the issue more so is that you've been having this public fight openly with Trump. Same thing with empty. Marjorie Telegram, right?

This public fight openly with Trump, you have to own that. That's like, you had to walk through the fire on that one to get elected. You can't have hazard. And if that's the way Massey ran this race, because I was trying to figure out my Trump came out and says something like Massey is lying or that the picture that Massey showed shaking hands with me is ancient, this is not where he is today. I was like, why is Trump saying that? But I guess that makes sense. If Massey was running the race, acting as if, hey, Trump and Ile bros, and Trump has tweets calling them dumb and incompetent and, you know, this horrible

congressman. That's not going to work. I don't think, look, I agree with everything you said. And I don't think that there's any world in which, you know, the average voter, whether they be a farmer or, you know, a bank clerk in northern Kentucky, is, is cares about the congressional record, right? They don't care about your voting record. Even if they see it in an ad, you know, people's eyes glaze over, voted 92% people like, whatever, you hear statistics all day. I just don't think it matters. Let's go through some more comments. John D. Cackelfeller, I don't like typing while driving. That's why I use Siri, but I'm at a red light and had to chime in on what JT said. As a Republican person myself, I'm fucking embarrassed and appalled about Massey losing. Yeah, you should be. We all should be.

Manchild, by purging Massey's anti-war rhetoric, elevating Paxton's crooked ass, and shitting all over Americans and the economy, what does America First actually stand for anymore? Nothing. Nothing. Look, I argue I'm an American first. I've said it before.

And I mean that, but I mean that because I mean it in real terms. Getting rid of Massey, there's nothing about America First and doing that. And it's not so much, it's one thing if you give rid of Massey, you put it as somebody who's better, right? It's another thing where you're putting in a lunatic who's a Israeli firster. That is not American first. That's something else. By definition, it's not. Okay.

Manchild, thanks for the $2. By purging Massey's anti-war rhetoric, elevating Paxton. Oh, sorry, we already, I already did that. Oh, my God. I need more coffee. Okay. Frank Field, thanks so much for the $5. I don't know what the Zios did to get Massey out of.

of office. Oh, I do. They spent many, many millions of dollars. I heard something about a sex scandal. What massage was used to get him out. Okay, so the sex scandal was plenty of shit to me. And I mentioned this the other day, because somebody was like, hey, I thought you were going to talk about it. Selling a cow to pay off like a sex worker or something like that. Wait, details. Do you know the details? Because I don't. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. It's like, wait, he's selling a cow to get off. about the cow so basically

what I know just kind of just a high level high level stuff so Matt Massey's a farmer and conveniently enough he does what farmers do and he sold a cow well the person he sold a cow to decided to

go go all me too and said well it's because Massey sold a cow to pay me to cover up the fact that we were having an affair. Keep in mind, his wife just died like a year and a half ago. Just I got remarried, which Trump attacked him on again by being remarried. So a serial daughterer attacking someone from Trump. Trump attacked Massey because Massey got remarried.

Trump believes in marriage so much he decided to do it three times. But anyway, about the cow. So he sold the cow as farmers I want to do. And then this woman tried to meet to him. in which case Massey said I don't see the connection did she claim that like she had a sweetheart deal on old Bessie or what well she's like well he had sex with me and he sold the cow to pay me to not to explain it and then matches is like I was single at the time there was no affair did he sell the cow to her I don't know if he sold the cow to her to somebody else but I'm going to assume you sold a cow to her I'm really not sure I didn't really do a deep dive into couch I mean the story was so funny to me that's I didn't really care. I mean, like, I kind of hope. By the way, both of these candidates were farmers. Yeah.

And well, one of them, yes. But to J.T.'s point, if I ever had the ability to run for the first congressional seat here in Montana, which I would love to do, because I would break D.C. or get, I mean, it would just be wild. If Trump went after me, sorry, calling me all these names, then I can assure you, I would. would not be trying to say, oh, I'm still with Team Trump. It's like, no, let me tell you what, let me tell you what I think of you. And I would go full on Robbie on him. And, yeah, I mean, if you're going to take a shot, you can't. I have the, I have it with that.

I know about Calgate now. Okay. So according to, during his primary re-election campaign, his ex-girlfriend claimed that he offered her $5,000 in cow money, a term I had not heard, cash supposedly raised by selling cattle office farm to drop a complaint against Indiana Representative Victoria Sparts. This is, ah, the tangled web we weave. Yeah.

Cow me. Okay. I think we have to move on here. All the my farmers, right? Oh, my God. Okay, I got to check for ads too. But, all right. Thanks very much for the $2.

Andrew 420. Thanks for the content. Yes, thank you for your support. John D. Cockpillar, it feels like Trump and his cronies are intentionally fucking us at this point. The inflation will continue until morale improves, no doubt. Let me ask you something. You ask this question. I'm going to ask you because I'm very curious about your point of view on this.

the issue of legacy, you know for yourself, the presidents tend to care deeply about their legacy, like how they're going to be perceived in the future, which is an interesting concept and then of the self-slist

is not going to be there, but still, they didn't care about it. Right. Does he just not give a shit? I mean, and the reason I ask this, whether it's the $1.7 trillion

that he's effectively looting from the government in this kind of scam with the Justice Department where it's like, I'm going to have a lawsuit for $10 billion. Okay, well, we'll settle for you for $1.7 billion.

And the guy who's settling is the guy who he put in the office. It's that stuff. The war, the inflation. I mean, you can go down the list of the stuff. The Israeli first stuff, does he not care? All of the stuff is significant. Yeah, I think, so here's my analysis here.

It's psychological. Donald Trump, the reason he's, I think, was always so, and probably still is, obsessed with polling, is I don't think he has, And I kind of sympathize with this because I have a little bit of this problem myself. It's like he doesn't really understand. He doesn't have an intuitive sense of how he about what other, how other people react to him. I think all of his life,

he's basically just done what he wanted. And sometimes people were happy and sometimes they were mad. And he kind of like he grew up with an abusive father who was distant and mean. And basically drove his brother to. drink himself to death. And so I think he, he's just, he doesn't, he doesn't see it, right? He like, he wants the legacy, but he doesn't know how to get it, right? The way, I mean, if you think about like a master politician, someone like Bill Clinton

or FDR, right? I mean, FDR, even more so because FDR didn't have the common touch. He couldn't have been any more of attrition. But yet, he had a sense of. what people were feeling like in coal country, you know, in the middle of the Depression. And he was able to tailor not only his communication style, but his policies to addressing those concerns. Donald Trump can't do that. He wants the approval, but he doesn't know how to get people to like him. He doesn't know, like, if I were to sit down with him and say, Mr. President,

you know, there's certain things that, you know, certain presidents are beloved. And the reason that they're beloved in our historical memory is because of different things. People like JFK for certain things. You have to hit one of those sweet spots. He doesn't know how to do that. He just wants to, he's a narcissist. So he cares about himself, but he doesn't really, he doesn't know how to or he's not motivated to try to motivate people. In other words, there's no buy-in.

Like, here, let me read this quote. It's very pertinent to the question that you just asked me, right? Because I wanted to talk about this anyway today. And I do think it's like a 25th Amendment question because he's a little bit like unhinged here. All right. So this is a direct quote from yesterday. I thought the market would go down 25%. And I was okay with that to get rid of a nuclear potential Holocaust,

would have been a nuclear holocaust. So going down 25%'s okay. when you get rid of a nuclear holocaust. So most people agree with me. Everyone tells me the war is unpopular, but I think it's very popular. When they hear that it's having to do with nuclear weapons, weapons that could take out Los Angeles,

could take out major cities very quick when they hear that. I tell you what, when we explain it to people, I don't really have enough time to explain to people. I'm too busy getting it done. I think it's frankly very popular. but whether it's popular or not popular, I have to do it because I'm not going to let the world be blown up on my watch. Not going to happen. So the thing is, the key words for me are when we explain it to people, I don't really have enough time to explain it to people.

He can't explain anything to people. He's just, I mean, his whole approach to politicking is to go at a rally and run off at the mouth randomly. And sometimes some people laugh and applaud when he says something. And he's like, note to self, repeat that. That worked. And then stuff that doesn't get an applause, he just like backs off. And he, like, decides not to repeat that. He doesn't do as many rallies anymore.

So he doesn't have effectively this focus. group thing going on and that only worked for his base because obviously Democrats don't show up to his rallies. So that's why he has a base only strategy. I think it's, I think it's psychological. I think he is broken in some way. And I think, you know, I do think, honestly, he should, it's not going to happen, but he ought to be removed under the 25th Amendment or in PhD. I mean, he should just be removed. He's not psychologically fit to be the CEO of a small company, plus the president of the United States. I think he's a psychopath.

I think he's a narcissist. I think for all the intensive purposes, he's, because look, one or two things is true. Either he's lying or he's delusional. And I didn't lean on the side of agency, meaning I think he's lying. I just think, I mean, I don't, I can't wrap my head around

the killing of children. and to do so consistently for months on end, just like the Biden administration did, just like the Clinton administration did with Iraq war stuff when they were passing sanctions and Clinton knew that hundreds of thousands of children had died. On top of that, saying you don't care about a country that you are philosophically and legally sworn to protect and to attend to. And you're like, I don't care that what I'm doing is causing all of these people pain and suffering. And then when you were confronted by it, the reality of it being very clear, meaning everybody fully understands that the polling is legit, you said you weren't going to do wars. And yet here you are embroiling us in a war. And not just a war with no consequences, a war with very serious consequences, not just to the rest of the world, which we don't honestly give a shit about. But to Americans itself, which we do give a shit about, because people can see it every time they go to the gas, or every time they get groceries.

And when you confront it by this overwhelming reality, your response is, well, I'm trying to prevent a nuclear war, something that doesn't exist. Meaning this is not really, this is not real, right? This is something you conjured up. And to put a fine point on it, it's so interesting that he mentions only L.A. I mean, you know, we own globes, right? We've seen globes. If Iran had an ICBM capable of reaching the United States, LA's on the far fucking side. It's the furthest way, I mean, except for, I guess, Anchorage.

Miami would be first, D.C. would be first. New York would be first. Iran. Not L.A. And they don't have a nuclear weapon, then they don't have an ICBM to even deliver a FedEx package if they want to. Exactly. Meaning, there's no missile that Iran could shoot that would hit.

America. No. Hell, we hit Puerto Rico. Not even close. No. Yeah. So like this, the, the basis of the argument is nonsense. Right. But it's interesting that he mentioned L.A. because it sort of puts a fine point on the fact that it's just bullshit. Yeah. And he's used it like, anybody can make an argument like that, right? It's like, well, I mean, I had to steal the car and I had to drive it that far because aliens were coming and I had to, you know, if I didn't do it, that aliens would come to Earth and blah, blah, blah. Can't have aliens. Anybody can make dumb stuff, right,

in order to kind of justify a particular point. The catch is, it doesn't exist. And so it's like either one, he believes it, and he's just out of his mind. And yeah, should be removed. He's spinning. The man is spinning. And like you, I give him credit for being a liar

and not crazy. but I think he's also a little crazy. It's crazy enough to justify being removed. I mean, like, it's so funny, right? This is like, well, I think it's, you know, they tell me it's unpopular, in other words, the polls, but your polls, the polls that you hire, right? Internal Republican Party polls. But I think it's very popular. What?

I mean, that's just numbers, right? I mean, either something's popular or it's not. Star Wars is a popular film or it's not. It's not like, oh, but I think it's very popular. I think it's very popular. What I think doesn't matter. You know, it's like it's either true or it's not. It's crazy.

It's not, right. It's either, you know, because there have been polls where I'm like, I think that poll is dodgy. And I'll look into the poll and be like, okay, dude, it's a poll, you know, where 75% of the people in a poll were Republicans in your accident. Do they like this Democrat? Obviously, the polls are going to be skewed. Okay, fair enough.

I get that, right? Like, looking into the methodology of how a particular poll was crafted, you can come away with an assessment of the poll was biased. That's not this. Well, yeah. It's also kind of like Republicans, and they've dropped this bone about, like, election fraud and stuff like that, right? But so, yeah, elections aren't perfect.

And certainly if you had an election like Florida in 2000, where it seems to be very close. I use seams on purpose because it wasn't really that close. But, like, you know, if it seems to be close, you could see like, okay, well, election fraud could make a difference. Okay, there is no world in which, you know, any poll that's not, you know, made by maniacs or fools is going to come back and say, it's going to say, well, only 27% of Americans are in favor of this war, but actually it's really popular. Like, no, there's no 50 point margin of error. Like, no. Like, you know, certainly if you said like it's 49.51, like, so yeah, no, it's, it's, it's just, it's insane. We have an ad. We should probably do it. Let's see. I'm going to, let's see which one shall we do. Let's not. Let's do a new one because, you know, why not? We got over 100 people in Ripple. That's damn good. That's great. Hey, guys. Hey, actually, also YouTube is doing really well, too.

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Choose the product or treatment you're interested in. And then complete a quick online evaluation within days. Your custom meds will arrive to your door or at your door, always with the grammar. Mention Rumble in the coupon code and get 10% off your first treatment. All right. That was good. Yeah, things are. I used to do myself in there because I have my own time.

What y'all just started talking about about the polls, you don't see the debate going on on the YouTube chat because I think that this is really kind of there's a correlation here. So earlier in the show, someone asked me, Robbie, could you start off the ads on YouTube during the stream? To which case I replied, no, I can't. There's only one stream. Because they pay us. Well, I can take it disabled on YouTube studio. And then another person said, well, Robbie said you can't turn off the ads on YouTube is a lie. which depending on your point of view it is because

this is the game that the Republicans are playing technically yes I can turn off the ads just like technically yes the Republicans pretend like they are the party of a pro life however I don't know how you could turn off the ads you're saying I have to do it through YouTube studio so you have to go to the back end of YouTube go into the stream and then turn off the ads

you can't do it through Rumble Studio but you can do it through the back end of YouTube itself but the Rumble ads that I just read those are going through YouTube no matter what Yeah, but they're talking about just the YouTube pre-roll ads that just go on. Right, yeah. And so, well, yes, it is possible I could do it and then pointed out that if we did, it would be financially stupid to do so for the show because... I tell you what, guys, if you guys want, we can do what NPR does.

You know where they say, hey, we'll end the Pledge Drive early, if you guys cough up more money early? Seriously, I'm not even kidding. This is a broke show. We are still reeling from John's departure. And if you don't want those, if the YouTubers don't want those pre-roll ads, and I don't blame you at all because we're in the middle of a conversation. Suddenly the ad pops up.

I wouldn't want that either. If you guys want to, if we can come up with some kind of structure where you guys, you know, cough up some donations, we can turn those off, right, Robbie? Well, we can turn them off, but there's no need because if you come over to Rumble, there's no ads during the stream. So if there are people who are politically opposed to Rumble. Well, then you got to either, then you got to make a choice. You can pay for YouTube for YouTube bread and not have ads.

I like my idea. Or you can use an ad blocker and not have ads. Or you can support the show and let the ads run. But the point that I'm trying to make is that this is the same game that the Republicans are playing. You can have America first so long as it's really Israel instead. And if you support Donald Trump, who is the Orange Jesus, you will get in bed. with everything we want to do because it's good for us, even though we're doing things that make your cost of living higher and people hate, but we don't care that you hate it because you're

going to vote for us anyway because you're stupid. That's basically, that's the whole argument right here, both on YouTube and politically. And it's just, it's really a weird little microcosm. We're just, everything's just kind of just coming into just this one spot. And it's really, really wild. I cannot wrap my mind around. this is just how people understand how systems work. Well, let's do a few more comments here. And then we do, I want to talk about this Ken Paxton situation because that's weird to me also. Just a comment from Sir Bikes a lot.

Thanks for the donation. The primary was a closed one. So the only ones voting were Republican. True, Rodney Gou, thanks for the 20 euros. Very generous. Really appreciate it. And we really need it. For the upcoming French presidential election, I am now a single-issue voter, Israel.

I'm voting for the most ardent anti-Israel and anti-NATO candidate, even if he's a far-right sovereignty, Trump, anything else. That's, I don't, I can see that point. GV. Mann, they never really got rid of the draft if you have to register for selective service still. I don't really get what bring back the draft even means. Well, it would mean that you would be, I guess it's like one step faster, right? It's like DefCon 4 instead of DefCon 3.

You're just sort of like they're more ready to grab you at a moment's notice. Juan Don, I figure Trump's job is completely bankrupt to completely bankrupt the American corporation, politically, financially, militarily and morally. I guess I would want some I mean, I don't know if it's his job but it's certainly like the direction he's moving. Crown Heights Brainiac, if you're not supporting the channel you don't get to ask to turn off the ads. That being said, I have YouTube premium,

so add away. Good point. YouTube premium solves that problem. Thanks for the five donations from Montana native. I think it's Montana MT or it could be mountain native. I'll help you. I watch every morning. Thank you so much.

Thank you for that. Okay. So, yeah, no, I mean, seriously, I think we should, We should put our heads together off the air and we'll try to figure out how to do the YouTube thing. I'm sympathetic to that a lot. I'm not. I mean, look, I run a show, right?

And the show is primarily on YouTube. And that is the way you earn. There's no way out that box. And I get that some people are like, hey, man, I just kind of want this for free. It doesn't really work that way. Yeah, but what if people are willing to pay? but it does but it does work that way listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth i will speak very slowly slower than normal good for me if you want to watch the stream without ads

all you have to do is literally click one link come over to rumble and you can watch the show for free because rumble pays us based off of watch hours but robbie there are people who are just politically opposed to rumble well then i'm not one of them but well then get yourself an ad blocker or suck it up or premium. Those are your options. Premium is the way. Yeah. I mean, listen, if you're opposed to Israel, all right, but I'm going to assume most

people watching the show are. And then if you realize the fact that Barry Weiss, Juan was on a show where she talked about she's going to work with Google and YouTube to control SEO and search. But then you're going to pay YouTube how much money is a month that you're going to pay for YouTube Red or a premium

subscription, which they're going to take a cut off of. You are funding the people that you that you hate. Roby, I'm saying you're a fucking clue here. I get it. You're a rumble evangelist. You love rumble. Not everybody does. I understand that. But if you're going to fund the people that hate you, it's just like what Massey was doing. You're trying to use, you're trying to use logic in politics. That's never going to work. Well, it's just like Massey said, oh, I'm pro-Trump. While Trump's attacking him, attacking his dead wife and his new wife and crappy all over his character. Politics are tribal now. Politics are like team affiliations, right?

It's sort of like, it's sort of like why, you know, left-winger's don't shop at Walmart. You know, right? Liberals go to whole foods, even though actually it used to be, I don't know if it still is. It was owned by right-wingers, but nobody knew that because they have so much organic stuff. I'm just saying, I mean, it's, it's, none of it makes any sense. Liberals are, don't want to go to Costco, but actually it's owned by a liberal. It's owned by liberals. McDonald's was owned by liberals, but nobody thought.

not knew that. I mean, who know what I mean? Yeah. It's well, seriously, I'm going to throw you a bone here. If you want to stay on YouTube just because of reasons and you want to watch the content for free and by free, I mean, no ads, no nothing, install a Google Chrome. There are several ad blockers that you can install as a ad on on your browser. But what will happen during the pre-roll ad? Will this show just go blank? No, I just won't show the ads.

It blocks the ads because the ads. But will it block the broadcast, too? No, because the ads pop up on the side of the screen. Oh, okay. Yeah. I thought the ads pop up on the broadcast. I thought they interrupted the broadcast. They interrupt the broadcast.

I mean, depending on some of the ads, maybe. If the fish is a full-on ad, then, I mean, deal with it. They'll pick your poison. And you have to hit skip or an ad in general that they complain about because it changes. Like, it overtakes. whatever it's being said. If you're watching live, you're suddenly like, oh, man. Yeah, it just goes to that.

Which is why they complain. Look, this is straightforward to me. And like even beyond the logic of, oh, this is a right wing network or this is a left wing network or they do. Look, the people who are doing the job who are either on YouTube, Rumble, kick, whatever the help platform that those people are effectively on are doing a job. And the way they get paid just so happens. go through advertisements just like on television and the way that people on TV used to get paid. I don't get bitching about this, to be honest. Either you get a premium that helps pay your content creator or you give the money to the creator itself or the creator gets to the point of saying,

okay, we no longer need. Yeah, it's a different model and people aren't used to it. I mean, no, it's funny. I mean, I think about that about music, right? Like with, you know, like when I was like buying music as a young man. It was LPs. Then it became CDs. And, you know, I was a big music fan. And I spent on an average month for sure, at least $100 a month on music. And like now, it's like people are like, oh, I don't want to pay like, you know, I don't want to pay for music. I want to rip everything for free. I'm like, but like we paid hundreds of dollars a month for magazine subscriptions, LPs, you know, content. Now that that market's gone away, if you want to support this art and you want to keep your favorite bands deep in cocaine, you've got to, you know, you've got to pay them directly if there's no other way.

But people haven't adjusted that. Guys, quickly, Ken Paxton endorsed by Trump over John Cornyn. The runoff is May 26. Who's going to win there? members of the Republican members of the Senate are very angry at the president. What? Well, because they think John Cornyn is a more defend, is more defendable in the general election. And they think it's going to become a danger, a hard seat to hold on to with Ken Paxton being, let's just say, ethically challenged.

Yes. And a weaker candidate than John Cornyn, yeah. I mean, Trump is choosing people out of allegiance, not out of good sense. And by the way, it's going to be to his detriment. Robbie, what do you think? I don't think he's going to matter. Really? I really don't.

I think that they're both flawed candidates. I think that I don't know. I mean, where does it? Where do either one of them really differ on anything? I mean, I can't. Which end of the turdas do you want to hold? Yeah. I mean, at this, there's no real choice with that race.

That's why I just really haven't been watching. No, with, no, with Massey's that, no, you had a clear choice. You had someone who's willing to go out and say that the president is defending pedophiles, which he is. You have a, you have a congressman who's willing to go out and vote against foreign aid, not just for Israel, but for every, every country on earth, because the American people are doing without. That's a principle to stand. But he has to be taken out. He is enemy number one to the point where where the Israelis go in and buy an election. Yeah.

And then Laura Lumer, she was on the all over Exx last night. I don't know if you saw that. She said that the Epstein files are fake. They're not real. They're not there. It's a nothing burger. They don't exist. And that's what they're going to.

That's what that's what they're going to be running on now. And as far as this other race, I mean, there's no real difference between the two that really make a difference. But I, you know, I mean, I'm on X every day. As you know, before we go, I mean, this, sorry? No, I was just sitting in. Oh, so this alternative reality, right? Like of Laura Lumer, do people in the right actually believe any of this stuff that like people like her say? I mean, or is it just sort of like, is she just a cheerleader?

I mean, they call her an enforcer, but I don't get it. It's like, it's sort of like it's so it hurts my brain. I mean, like, I don't, I mean, I mean, I. I don't want to be just lied to. It's sitting. Okay. And I have a hard. Okay.

You go. You go. J.T. we'll see you later. Yeah. Bye. Bye. Yeah.

No, the Magicolt is 100% believer. No, the, the champions. I mean, they 100% hang off of every word that she says. They are all in on it. They believe it. They believe everything that that all their crap. They don't just view her as a weapon. Oh, they believe.

They view her as a truth teller. Like she, she's a divine revelation. never by the fact that she's insane and that she's all the way she's saying is not true and cannot be true we have a thank you very much for a very very generous $20 donation from crown heights brainiac new rule if you complain about ads you are broke support the channel okay back to the news yeah i like that no it's just i mean seriously it's um first of all how do you know that they don't believe her I don't know. I mean, because the things they're saying, she says are so outlandish. They cannot be true. We are out of time. We are going to switch over to TMI or show. We can continue this conversation or anything we want, although we have a lot of stuff to talk about. Much lighter take on the show. Coming up right now, TMI with Ted Roll and Manila Chan. Robbie West filling in for Manila. We will see you all over there on TMI here in just little bit boys and girls. Thank you all so much for watching.

And the rate is starting now. Clicking that button. All right, y'all. See all the TMI.