DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - US Soldiers Will Be Tested for Low Testosterone | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• Man Up! The Department of Defense will subject soldiers 30 and older to testosterone deficiency screening. “As we know, the modern battlefield is brutal and unrelenting,” Pete Hegseth says. “It requires and demands maximum psychological and mental readiness, and by addressing these health markers early, we’re keeping you on the leading edge of lethality.” Treatment, including testosterone replacement therapy, is voluntary and aimed at “restoring and optimizing” natural capabilities.• For the first time, China is now viewed more favorably than the U.S. in most of the 36 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center. The U.S. leads only six countries: India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and two others. U.S. favorability in Canada has fallen from 57% in 2023 to 33% this year, while China's has risen from 14% to 44%. Many respondents view China as a more reliable partner and as more likely to promote peace and stability. Respondents in many middle-income countries also view China as the better partner. • Trump addresses the nation tonight. He won’t talk about issues Americans care about, though. This is about the SAVE Act.LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

OZoon gives you a better way to play in Canada. Snipeable insights. So many tips, you'll have the deepest roster in the league. OZoon, well played. You're watching D-Program with Ted Rall and Jamarlem Thomas. It is Thursday, July 16th, 2026. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for liking, following, and sharing the show.

And good morning, Jamal. Good morning. How you doing this morning? I am good. Dealing with the very weird light of the haze, do you have that in D.C.? We're having Canadian wildfire haze up here, and it's sort of like that weird, filtered, like, movie set light that you get, like, during a solar eclipse. Yeah.

I mean, it's not ugly, but it's strange. Yeah. Well, I'm in Richmond. Oh, right. I always forget about that. It's okay. Well, I lived in D.C. for the, what, five years, give it time?

Yeah. No, I'm in D. I'm not. We don't have it here. So you can see it. You can see the fire. I'm not the fire, but you can see the results of the fire. Okay. Well, I hope you don't get it because it is not good for people with respiratory conditions. But anyway, hopefully it'll all blow over. You know, I guess this is becoming a new normal thing. It's not quite Bleedrunner 2047 yet like it was in New York three years ago. But, you know, with the orange skies. But, you know, that can happen anytime. Okay, so lots of talk about, we'll do the housekeeper keeping thing with Robbie and what we're going to ask everyone to do on his Putin bot gaming page over on Rumble.

We'll do that a little later when there's more people have signed on, so everyone hears it, and people don't have to hear it multiple times. But I thought, so basically Trump's talking tonight. I should point out that one of the most famous political cartoonists in the country, Pat Alphan has died. Also, China, I thought you would be interested in this JT, has now wildly surpassed the United States on the list of the most countries that are viewed most favorable around the world by this giant poll that the Pew Research Center does every year. And last and probably least, Pete Hankseth,

Secretary of War or Secretary of Defense, depending, is going to screen all Americans. war fighters, as he calls them. I thought soldiers and airmen and Marines was good enough, but apparently not. Anyway, he's going to screen all soldiers for low tea to make sure that they're man enough to have, as he puts it, putting them on, keeping them on the leading edge of lethality. So, yeah, there's a lot. Can we get rid of this pizza egg set thing first?

Because it is so funny. This is humiliating. Like imagine you join the U.S. military for hashtag reasons, right? Maybe you needed money. Maybe you got a hard on for burglaring people abroad. Who knows? Also sure. Yeah.

Right. And they said, okay, soldier, we need to take labs to make sure that your testosterone is up to the killing level that we require. Okay. And then what are you going to do? Do like treatments of testosterone therapy where you're giving people shots? Because testosterone is not a pill. You can't take it as a pill.

You have to take it as a shot. It needs to be injected in you. Or you can rub it on your testicles. Meaning you can't. And then other people can't touch you, like other women can't touch that area because they, like I don't get it, right. Yeah.

Are you really doing that to your men? And now with Lindsay Graham, gone, there's one less person to smear it on your testicles. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, so it's like, okay, so I have to come in for routine shots now. Just because I wanted to be in the military, but my testosterone is not up to snuff for. There's a lot of issues. There's a lot of issues here, right?

Like, first of all, I mean, I guess it's like they're not going to say, okay, so if we find out that you're not manly man and you're not manly enough, you're not manly enough, you're not manly enough to be psychotic. By the way, too much testosterone makes you fucking psychopathic. And, you know, I mean, we do, so there's so much to unravel here. I mean, there's, or unspool, right? I mean, there's, there's the fact that the military can do this once you sign your contract with them. They can inject you with anything they want. Ask the Tuskegee Airmen, right? I'm at the Tuskegee experiment, not the Tuskegee Airman. And, I mean, you can, there's also the fact that Low testosterone is actually a problem in American society and globally.

Testosterone has been dropping off a clip over on TMI. Manila and I interviewed an expert on this recently. You can go check it out if you're interested, but it was fascinating. Basically, most guys are much less testosteroney than they used to be. I mean, I probably don't have as high testosterone as I would have 100 years ago, which is why at the age of 62, I still have a lot of hair, right? Like you tend to lose your hair more if you have more testosterone. So there's a lot here.

But I mean, to me, so it's kind of like sometimes the right and the Trumpies, they focus on something that's legit. Like, you know, there's an environmental issue with low testosterone, and it has implications to society. It adds to the low fertility rate, for example. But then what they do is it goes on some weird curve where it focuses on something that's not really important. Like whether you're a good soldier or sailor has very little to do with how much testosterone you have in your bloodstream. Right.

I mean, and yet it is a reflection of massive environmental degradation and the fact that we're all being poisoned. And, you know, this is a maha issue, not a mega issue. And like, this is like where RFK should be stepping in to talk about things like this. But it's not. So it's just sort of everything goes sideways with this administration. It's not pertinent to being a soldier. No. Like, that's what makes this so weird.

So what, so if I'm fighting, if I'm in a fighter jet, what does my testosterone have to do with whether or not I hit the target in a fighter jet? I mean, the job at that point. The job is killing, but it's not, I'm not in the jet hopped up, avoid it out. Right. Right. Like, you're doing a job. Like, hey, go and fire multiple missiles at this target.

Okay, what does your testosterone have to do with that? Nothing, right. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, if this were simply an issue of, you know, trying to improve, you know, just sort of as across the board, we want all American soldiers to be members of the military to be as healthy as possible, and that part of male health is to have appropriate testosterone levels, then I would say that's great if that's something that they're interested in doing. But this seems to be more like they're little boys, right? Like Pete Hankseth is a child, and he's like, you know, his rhetoric is all about like,

maximum of lethality. Listen to yourself. Okay. I mean, this is not, I don't think you understand your own job. I don't think you understand what the military is or should be or what it's supposed to do, whether it's serving the civilian regime or whether it's building empire or whatever. I just don't think, I mean, I think you're a fool. He's a fool.

I mean, look, even if you're talking about Merks, right? or special forces. Okay, but those guys are already the peak of, you know, Chadness, right? They're already peak chats. You know, these are the guys with thick necks and, you know, they're like, yeah, let's go

and shoot people in the face and all that. Meaning, why do I need to test that guy testosterone? He is obviously already in that mindset of peak Chadness. I hope you get my point. Like that guy is already putting himself through some of the most insane physical trials and trauma in order to be part of the special forces organization. At the end of that, let's say he passes all of the tests and the tests are insane, like the things that they do to the people when he want to be in special forces. Can I, like, can you imagine the process of the guy getting the special forces position? And then Higgs have comes along and says, hey, we need to touch your testosterone to make sure that you're up to snuff.

What if it's low? What if it's low? Right. He did all of that. Past it. And then you're going to tell him his testosterone is low. At that point, what does it matter? He's already done everything necessary in order to pass in the special forces.

Why do you need to give him, you know, even more so? It is demoralizing. So it's kind of like when you're at a company, when you've been. hired and then later there's new management or there's your company's bought and then you have to re-interview for the job you've already been doing yes well this is this is even a weird to re-interview because it's biology right like it's it's i'm testing your biology to see whether or not you're up to some snuff that we want you to be up to that an honesty has nothing to do with you doing the job It's a little bit...

Isn't it a little bit eugenicsy, too? I mean, it reminds me of like the Nazis and phrenology and using calipers to try to figure out if people are racially superior based on the ratio of their forehead to their this or that. And I mean, it's a little bit like you're trying to figure things, you're trying to quantify and rationalize something

that can't really be measured, which is, you know, is some, someone effective and not just in combat, right? Because only a minority of soldiers are ever going to see or be trained for combat anyway. Do you know, I think this is, honestly, I think that that could be completely wrong here, but I think that what this is, and to your point, JT, biology doesn't matter because under the previous president, we had men cosplay as women or women cosplay as men, and you were told that you have to ignore biology and accept whatever the hell it is

is in their mind. This is blowback from that. So this is that pendulum going the other way. So before we had girly men, the dudes and dresses and stuff in the military. And now you've got old Petey out there saying, we are going to be the most lethal fighting force with real men.

That's what this is. This has nothing to do with being aggressive in combat. This has to push back against the woke trans stuff. I think the tarred pendulum has just swung to the other side. Of course. I mean, that's how we do things in this country. Yeah. But a man, like meaning a man who is trans as a woman with a testosterone through the roof.

True. Right? Because it's still a man. It's like, to your point, just because they're like, you know, it's like, I'm a woman and they have a full beard and all of this other stuff. That testosterone may be the little roof. Like, I guess, I don't know, man. I, it feels soft eugenicsy.

Fair enough. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take issue with it if it was men have low sperm counts, men have low testosterone. This is a medical. We need to do something about it as a country, and we're going to be looking into this. Okay, that I get. Right?

Or childhood illness. That I get. Sure. Because I don't see how it applies. No, it's so. It's kind of gay in both meanings of the word. If we build 100,000 men military in order to invade somewhere, but when do we do that?

Like, when are we, like, are we really talking about having a large ground war where we need our men to be so keyed up? Well, yeah, like, I'm glad you brought that up because there's a comment here from Golden Talon that is definitely worth discussing here. Testosterone levels are relevant in combat, as a man's capability for aggression is proportionate to his testosterone level. I mean, if combat, yeah, but if combat is not what combat used to be.

I mean, right? I mean, it's not hand-to-hand. It's not trench warfare. It's, it's drones. It's a lot of it's remote. Most of it's remote. It's by air. I mean, you know, we're currently at war against Iran.

There's no ground troops. You know, I mean, you're, like you said, I mean, you know, pilot doesn't matter. I don't think his pilot needs to be aggressive. I mean, look at, we're seeing all the mass shootings by ICE goons who are mostly ex-military, right? They're all roided up. And part of the reason that they're killing innocent bystanders as well as people that

they're actually shooting at, you know, is and endangering themselves is because they're roided up. I mean, being roided up makes you dumb. And you, so it's like, you know, again, I view low testosterone as a health issue. I just don't see it as a maximum lethality issue. It's like video. It's like a video. You know, this is what happens when the Secretary of Defense is a former Fox News weekend host, you know, who plays a lot of video games.

And he's in makeup. Right. Like he's like, like, imagine the ridiculousness of a man wearing makeup. talking about maximum evalty. He's a pretty boy, too, right? Yeah. He's a pretty boy in makeup.

If you know spends more time more time in front of the mirror in the morning than most ladies do before they go out. He's like, do I look okay? Do I look okay? It's like, your mascara running below. This is my white natural.

Does my white mustache? Pete needs to tell me his testosterone. Does my Nazi tattoo make me look fat? Yeah. I need to know Pete's testosterone level. If we're going to go with this, we're going to ride this boat. What is near a level boat? I want to know what Lizzie's was. I mean, he never met a war he didn't like, so, you know. And it's also true. Okay, let's do some comments. We can move on. I mean, I feel like we've disposed of this, but we had to. Harry Ballsack, speaking of which, hey, Robbie, almost done with all your playlists on YouTube. Started on Rumble yesterday, got two computers with multiple windows open running.

I'm with you. I've been doing this kind of shit for years. So have I, Robbie. Robbie, why don't you come on? What we're asking everyone to do, Robbie took a financial haircut due to losing a John gig. And so anyway, we're asking everybody, go to Rumble, go to Putinbot Gaming, go to a playlist, a long one, and let it play. right, whether you game or not, whether you watch it or not. Sometimes I can't help but look at it because it's like the imagery is pretty compelling,

even though I don't game. So I'm going to fix that. We've got to get you game in Ted. By the way, I got to ask you. Okay, so when my computer goes into, I have a Mac, when it goes to sleep, does it, does the video keep playing or does it stop playing? Usually it'll stop if it goes to sleep. Okay, so we need to ask people, and I'm going to do this after the show,

to set your computer not to go to sleep as quickly. So, or at all. Let's give a couple hours. I mean, the numbers have been absolutely fantastic over the last few days. So seriously, thank y'all. With y'all's help. This will cost you anything except, I don't know, the power that's running your computer, but that's it.

Yeah, for sure. And seriously, because without y'all's support, I told JT and Ted, this would have been by last month doing this show and the next one, because I got bills to pay. And I hope this works. Me too. I mean, we'll find out. And we'll just kind of go from there.

All right, we'll figure it out. All right. Thanks, Robbie. Okay, Ray C. 2020 has just gifted a membership to Mama Turtle. Ray is our always makes it rain here. So thank you very much. F you so, thanks for the dollar. Didn't the government give Salt Peters, Soldiers, and inmates to lower their

libido. Now let's supercharge them. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. The government can never get their fucking stories straight. Like, you know, beginning of the pandemic. No one needs a mask. Mask. You don't need a mask. And then like a couple weeks later, if you don't wear a mask, we'll kill you. And then it's like, and then it's like governor Hockel, you're wearing a mask. You must be a criminal. Like, Laura. It's like, make up your mind, which one is? Yeah. Like, you know, figure out your oppression, you know, do I have to wear the yellow star or not? You know, tell me. So, yeah, no, I mean, it's, yeah, no, it's a very good point here.

Justice Q2X, thanks for bringing up this question, because I looked at it this morning. I'm sure you did two JT. Mass protests have erupted across major Ukrainian cities, opposing Zelensky's surprise dismissal of his popular defense minister, Mikhailo Federov. Yeah, what do you make of this story? I mean, basically, Fedorov was very, he was well liked among Ukrainians. It's hard to tell because, frankly, there's not, we don't have, Ukraine doesn't have a free press anymore, and there's rigid military censorship. There's not, like, reliable polling. But so to the extent that we know this dude was popular, he was most known for innovating and updating Ukraine's drone program, which has obviously been centered to their war against Russia. Why do you think there's been Zelensky's decided to get rid of this dude in the shakeup at this time? And like why are people, you know, people are afraid to protest in Ukraine. You can end up, you know, in a very bad place being tortured. Well, it depends.

Okay, so two things. Zelensky has been getting rid of anybody that has been a competition to Zelensky or potential competition to Zelensky. So Zilluzni gets sent to the UK, almost basically in exile, who used, again, a political rival. Many of the other political rivals were either put in jail or shot. And so he has been purging in a way in order to insulate himself in regards to keeping himself in office. I don't know if that's what's going on. It's like Trump, basically. I'm the star.

No one else could be the star. Pretty much. Yeah, I'm a star. I'm in charge. I'm the political power in this. anybody that rivals that are going to take an ill. Protests, that would be my guess. I've only saw the story this morning, but that's my guess.

Protests are finicky things in Ukraine. The reason I say that is, if you remember when Naboo and Sapo were going after the various people who were in the Zelensky circle, you had protests erupt out of the blue. people holding signs and everything else. And the belief was that those protests were instant protests. Like that basically Europe and the U.S., especially with the organizations that they have on the ground, the NGOs and everything else, because there are plenty of them. And as you point out, there is no free media.

When Trump got in office and Trump was like, I'm pulling a plug on U.S. aid and those type of things, well, we were paying like 90% of the media that was in Ukraine. And the majority of the media that was in many of the locations all across Europe, meaning we have been putting money into all of these things all across Europe and all across Ukraine to shape the perspective and the content of the media in those countries. The protests and the NGOs were also interrelated to one another. When it became a need for pressure on the Zelensi government, protests erupted out of the blue. I don't know if that's what this is related to. I mean, it's very possible that the press.

press gangs and everything else have finally hit a point that the public gets pissed off. I mean, if you go to many of these places, there are no men. As you're walking through the street, most of the people are women. Part of it is because so many men have been carted off and men murdered or killed in the war. And the other part of it is the men are just scared to come out of the house because they don't want to get press game. Yeah, people don't really know because of the way the news has been covered here, that that actually happens in Ukraine. So what Jamal you're talking about is basically you're walking,

you decide to go down the street to the cafe and get a coffee and a van pulls up and ice-style goons pile out of the van and bundle you up and send you off to the front to fight the Russians. Yes. And because they're not getting any, people are fleeing the country. They don't want to fight in this war. They, for a variety of reasons, some political, some just aren't, you know, are afraid or whatever. And so this has been increasing.

There was a story, I guess this was early this week, maybe late last week, where increasingly the guys who drive these vans and the goons inside them are being attacked by crowds and beaten sometimes almost to death. And the Ukrainians are going after them. The way that it was covered, though, and I think this is serious journalistic malpractice here in the United States, has been to call these, you know, there have been attacks on military recruiters, they call them. Now, you know, if a guy bundles me up into a van and takes me to, God knows what, that person is not a, I don't know, it's not an Uber recruiter taking me on a little trip that I hadn't planned, but I might really enjoy. That person is a kidnapper, okay?

I mean, these people are lunatics. Like, they're eating people. Like, people were walking their dogs, and they're, like, snatching them and throwing them in the vans. Yeah. Like, just out the, like, imagine Domino's pizza delivering a pizza. And as you walk out to get your pizza, a bunch of goons come and snatch the pizza guy in the woman to a fan.

Like, it's not. It's a military recruiter. I had a military recruiter with someone who sat at a desk in a strip mall and lied to you about all the great things the U.S. military could do for you. I didn't know as someone who snatched you off the street. I mean, I can't believe that that's how they're, it's a press gang. That's what it is. That's what it is.

It's insane. Yeah, so along the same lines, also from the same poster, Justice Q2X, French nationalists and anti-EU groups who organized protests in Paris to oppose France's military support for Ukraine. Most recently on July 14th, thousands of demonstrators marched to protest. So, yeah, I mean, we're getting really mixed messaging about the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. I mean, by some accounts, we're hearing that Russia's getting their ass kicked or other accounts were hearing that, you know, the tide, that Ukraine had been losing, but now the tide is starting to turn in their favor and they're starting to recapture territory captured from

Russia. Others have been like, no, the Russians are, the Russian advance continues. I mean, the truth has been remarkably hard to come by for American audiences. The truth is that Russia's biggest problem right now is Vladimir Putin not being aggressive and putting this war to bed. That's the problem. Putin needs to go back to bed, let his generals fight the war. That's what they're there for. And in this thing, once and for all. I don't know what Putin's doing. but he needs to extract his thumb, go take a nap, doing everything.

He's old now. It's time for him to let the big boys with high testosterone get out there. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he has. Well, you do lose testosterone once you turn 60, but I mean, he probably has a lot of,

he's playing this way too safe. He's playing this way too. Ted, you're a history guy. Putin is kind of like the George McCr, Clellan of the Ukraine war. Oh, Jesus. He needs to have a, he needs to have Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant just to go out there and

are busting heads, breaking windows, and put this thing to bed. I do not understand this whole, we took one quarter of a mile. We are advancing. Meanwhile, downtown Moscow is getting blasted by drones. Like, what the hell are you doing? You're a superpower. Pretend like, just act like it. It's okay.

should they bomb a German factory that are making those drones? Oh, hell yeah. 100%. And what happens after they do that? Then the United States, then, that's Russia gets to pull the, gets to test the bluff, right? Is will the United States trade New York City for Frankfurt? The answer is no. Well, wait a minute.

There's steps in between them. What happens immediately after that German factor is bombed? The Germans are going to shit a brick. That's what's going to happen. They're going to invoke Article 5. They're immediately going to scream Article 5. Scream Article 5. And they'll say, attack on one is an attack on all.

We request an emergency meeting of NATO to treat this, to respond to this Russian act, unprovoked Russian act of aggression on German's will. Well, I'm just saying what they're going to say. Of course, that's what they're going to say. but it's not unprovoked. I mean, the fact is, well, wait a minute. Europe is going to talk about it as if it's unprovoked. And the U.S. will also talk about it as if it's unprovoked because the U.S. is a party to the war already. Correct. But then, though, the question has to become, and this is going to test the viability of NATO.

True. Is the United States willing to, how far will the U.S. go for its top? proxy project against Ukraine. Will Trump decide he's killed enough Russians that, you know, the fact that that German made drones are being used to kill Russians inside Russia, which is obviously an aggressive act. I mean, if, I mean, Russia, Germany is already a co-belligerent. I'm not Russia.

Germany's already a co-bligerent under international war. I agree with everything you're saying. I guess the thing is they've never talked about the war honestly, and they're not going to start talking about the war honestly now, meaning the reality of it matters less than the narrative that they're going to create in order to justify it. Meaning, I don't believe that the U.S. is going to be kept out of this. I think the U.S. is going to be whipped up into it,

just from the fervor of what takes place. I think Europe is going to, as you point out, shit of Britain. And all of these countries are going to be screaming. Article 5. And whether the U.S. provides a nuclear backstop, meaning, okay, you guys can fight a conventional war, which is, I think, what the U.S. is perfectly okay with. If we can sell products to Europe as Europe fight the Russians, we are okay with that. I think we're okay with that. I think we're going to use Europe, like Europe is using Ukraine, like, meaning Europe is going to be cannon fire, and the U.S. is going to be like, great. We can get our economy back up the

snuff by selling products to Europe, just like we did after the Second World War. I think that's playbook. I guess the question is, from the Russian point of view, do they want to fight a war against all of Europe? Meaning right now, it's localized to Ukraine. What happens when Finland, Estonia, Britain, France, etc., meaning all of the airspace is now used directly, not, you know, know, around the edges. But all of these airspace is used.

All of these countries are now platforms. And it could very well go nuclear. I mean, like, all of that has to be taken in consideration. I agree. But I think that here's the part that people miss. The man on the street in the West has a vote. So if they decide, you know, if the Russians just, you know, take out a German factory, that's being used, by the way, to kill Russians.

inside Russia. Agreed. Then what would have to happen then is that at that point, the Europeans have to be honest, okay, we are now at war with Russia, in which case the man on the street then finally has a vote because right now he doesn't. That, I think, is when you're going to start

seeing the yellow vest in France go up and say, no, we're going to do this. You're going to see the people in Britain say, no, we're not going to do this. Sure. And so that will be... And you know, you can solve, you can solve a political issue with a military backhand. Okay, but I mean, you really think that, you really think that representative democracies

are super responsive to their publics and matters of war and peace. Look at us right here. 80% of Americans do not want to be at war with Iran, and yet we are. And only 20% of Americans believe that we will, that this war will end anytime soon. I mean, so therefore, they've all, we've all, I mean, think about it. We're all against it. We're all, we're all against it. We all accept that it's not going to end. And how many people are in the streets of major American cities today? Or for that matter, small villages? Zero.

I mean, you know. I think there's a lot. I correlate back and forth between your position and my own. Yeah. Teeter daughter. There are days where I feel just like you. Force NATO to make a choice. Pick one.

You're already a war with NATO anyway. And this is probably, and this is what Trump, this is what Putin's wrestling with. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I mean, you are already at war with NATO. And you keep taking body blows and you never respond. You never, I mean, and the thing, here's, you don't have to attack the Germans. What you could do is every rail rate, every, every train station or mile of rail from the Polish border and the Western Ukraine, erase it.

Take them off the way. That's what he should do. 100%. And that question. Ukraine off from the rest of the world for all the time. of purposes, Ukraine is a new dimension. For sure. And as far as Ted go about, you know, your question about the United States, you got to remember, most Americans are only concerned about what's going on the side of our borders.

And even then, that's only marginally. We're on another planet. We may as well be a Mars as far as the average Americans touched by this war in Ukraine. Whereas if you're in Czechia, that's a lot closer to home. That's all true. There's people no living memory about what happened the last time that people got uppity. And so this is what I'm saying is that Putin should put me to go take a nap. He's go to bed.

He's a his generals do the job, finish this thing and turn Western Ukraine into a parking lot and then just let the let the Ukes know in no uncertain terms. If you do not stop, we will show you what the Russian army can do. We're going to take all of Ukraine east of the Denepe River. We're going to take Odessa. We're going to take Ukraine or Kiev, because that's a birthplace of a reversion civilization. And the discussion is not going to be. How long is it's going to be before it ends?

The discussion is going to be is how big of a country you're going to have when this is done and what's it going to look like? Those are two very different conversations. And for whatever reason, Putin is afraid to have that conversation. Okay. So this is a breaking news story. It's very strange. Okay. Trump fired U.S. attorney Roger Rogoff less than an hour after he was a little bit of

appointed as the top federal prosecutor for the Western District of Washington State. He was sworn in right before 8 a.m. Pacific time in downtown Seattle, but he then received an email from Trump saying that he'd been terminated while he was waiting in the lobby of the office that he was supposed to move into. He was like, he had fired on your diggle. What? What? So acting attorney general Todd Blanche said this was okay, said that he had abandoned that the group of judges in Washington abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration

so that the selected U.S. attorney is qualified to serve in the administration. So this is just like a very, like very, very, I mean, I don't know. It's just, it's so erratic. And then meanwhile, another strange story. I think we should talk about this a little bit. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is convening a meeting today that will gather diplomats from dozens of countries to combat far-left political terrorism. They're trying to destroy Brazil. It should be a short meeting. They're trying to destroy Brazil and Cuba. That's what that's about. Well, I don't know if that's what that meeting is about, but that's what they're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, They've already blockaded Cuba.

There's talk about a ground invasion into Cuba. I think it was Wall Street Journal was talking about that. It was either Cuba or Iran, but there was other talk about invading Cuba. They put a 25% tariff on Brazil with the idea of destroying the economy, in which case there's a better chance for Bolsonaro Jr. To get in the office or a far-right candidate to get into office in Brazil. you've noticed South America has turned, the pink tide is gone at this point. Yeah.

These are right governments. Brazil. No, no doubt. Last standing. Some more comments, then we'll pivot a little bit. Daniel Day, hey, Robbie, using my tablet to stream your videos. Thanks for the $2. Daniel Day also, thanks for the $5.

Hey, in the movie Civil War. I saw Pete Hankseth as the president. I see Ted playing Subnotica, Curbel Space Progressive Animal Crossing and Cities skylines. I saw the movie and God, the movie blew. So disappointing. The movie? Is that recent? Civil War. Yeah, it's like a year ago. V. Adiris. Don't forget that Russia, thanks for the $2, that Russia also tries to be a good friend to China and bigger instability in the world might endanger their relationship. Just like China wants peace between Iran and the U.S. ASAP, that's a good segue to.

to one of our other stories. So Pew Research Center conducts a poll of over 40,000 people around the world to basically determine how favorable the United States and other country are viewed by people all over the place. They now currently, the U.S. is, we're number 29. So of the 36 countries surveyed, the U.S. is only ahead of India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and two other countries. U.S. favorability in Canada has dropped from 2023 to this year from 57% to 33%.

China has gone up from 14% to 44%. China is now viewed more favorably than the U.S. in most of the 36 countries. China is viewed as a more reliable partner, more likely to promote peace and stability, and respondents in middle-income countries in particular tend to view China as the better partner. I don't think people are wrong about that. I mean, China is not erratic. China is steady.

China is trying to be a force for economic expansion based on win-win arrangements with the countries that they interact with. They're not flexing military muscle, even if you listen to the prime minister of Japan or you listen to some people in Taiwan, it's just not, it just really isn't true. The Chinese are not invading or expansionist. They're spreading their economic influence,

but they're doing it fairly in accordance with all the quote-unquote rules of the rules-based international order. So, I mean, it's not, I mean, I guess it just takes a while for international public perception to catch up with reality. I mean, you know, China's been, you know, a far more steady as she goes player internationally than the U.S. for decades. Well, yeah. If you're building hospitals and building roads and building bridges, et cetera, et cetera, and other countries, they're going to look to you favorably for it. I mean, like, think back during, during COVID, for example, and China was given away COVID vaccine. And the United States were pissed off about it and called it, what do you call it medical something, basically that they were trying to buy support from other countries by using a malicious, what is they call it, malevolent, something. In the documentation that came out where the United States was putting out their policies, one of the things that they put in was deterring malevolent actors or something to that effect.

I think it was even deterring malevolent act as a deterring something. But what they meant by that was Russia and China were giving away vaccines. And that in Brazil, as they were trying to give away the vaccines, that Bolsonaro at the time turned those vaccines away because the U.S. pressured him to do so. Now, Brazil had, what, 600,000 people dead or something like that from COVID. It was like second highest. That's the idea that you put that in as a success gets across U.S. government. I'm saying that to say that if your government is looking at the world through that lens, then the rest of the world is not wrong and looking at it through a lens that it is functionally insane.

Whereas China, to your point, has used peace as a weapon. You know, it's like it's in their personal vested societal interests, but that would be peace. And so that's what they, right? But they're doing so not because they're just living like. They're doing so because it's in their economic strategic interests. They've thought about it. They've strategized about it. They set a plan years ago, and they're just following it through.

Yeah, for the U.S. chaos is the latter. I still think the truth is that for the U.S., the Chinese model would be far more effective. But that's not the one we've adopted. They've decided somewhere along the way that we can. can't be chaos is a ladder. Yeah, I think you're wrong, but you know. You think we can't compete, which I know. Oh, 100%.

But I mean, I think we're just, I think we're doing, we're just, I think it's lazy. You know, we're, we just think this is easier. It's easier to break things than to build things. Yeah, but that's assuming that breaking things gets you what you want. I mean, Little finger got killed at the end of the game of Thrones. Mm-hmm. Just saying. just saying. Breaking things does not always get you. Yeah, it does not always get you what you want.

Not in the long run. Especially when countries are looking at you like, you're out of your mind. You've gone functionally insane. It's almost like a level of desperation that's hit the United States. That's what it comes across us. Even selecting Trump feels desperate. It feels like the aid of a country. Like a country is like we're falling behind. We're. You're failing. Yeah, we're failing in some way. And the guy who says, hey, I can make America great again. I can make you awesome again.

We are fantastic. Don't believe what the people are saying about us, et cetera, et cetera. We chose that guy. And we don't have to change anything, right? We don't have to change our socioeconomic relationships internally. We don't have to do anything about infrastructure. We don't have to change our international relations. We don't have to change our approaches.

Even, you know, even when faced with something as catastrophic as our relationship with Israel, we don't have to modify that. We just keep on, keeping on because we're A-OK. And then we start military campaigns. We take Venezuela. We take or try to take Iraq. We attack Yemen. We continue what's taking place in the Middle East.

Like, it feels like a level of. of desperation. Yeah. So now those countries are desperate, drowning men are very dangerous. True, true. As you learn when you're trained to be a lifeguard. Thank you very much for the $10 donation from Osiris. What's up, Ted and Jermal?

John went back to the table. CAA ain't fooling nobody. Still hope you can get Janus Varu Fakis, Jeffrey Sachs, and Akman Apollo as guests. Love the show. All those people look at sex. Amazing. Okay.

Let's see. Gov Man 43. What are you talking about, Ted? Their claim to the entire South China Sea is objectively illegal, China's. How is it objectively illegal? They're building lily pad bases. Why do they think it's illegal? The United States is writing, quote, freedom of national.

navigation things. China claims that area to be theirs. I mean, hell, the name is even South China Sea. Right. That's true. I mean, it's international waters, right? I mean, so, but it's a claim. It's not like they've gone to war over it.

Right. And let's be clear. China has like one or two bases. The U.S. is like 800. Yeah, yeah. Okay, here we go. A few more comments. Javari Media, thanks for the $2. Robbie, right, I totally agree.

Actually, I'm tired of it. Let's see. Crown Heights Brainiac, thanks for the 4999. Much appreciated, Crown Heights. For the John U.O. Ted and Robbie an Apology International Fund. What? Said it again? It's for the John U.O. Ted and Robbie an apology international fund.

Thank you. Much appreciated Crown Heights. All right. So what do you, I mean, the Canada thing was amazing. I mean, it's not surprising given what's happened in recent. And, you know, okay, Dark Works 88 points out the Gulf of America. It's ours because our name is on it. But, I mean.

He just made it. It's Gulf of Mexico. He just named, look, people can name anything, anything. Right. like special agents randomly. I don't call that the Gulf of Mexico. Hell, I don't even accept Pluto's not a planet. I don't have to accept any of the stuff.

But you can make an argument for the China thing, right? The South China Sea, et cetera. The U.S. always complain about it. I don't take a huge money issue with that, if I'm being honest with you. It has nothing to do with it being. It has everything to do with it being, it's in their neighborhood. It's in their back. Well, it's more than that.

It's geography. I mean, China is, in a lot of ways, China is almost landlocked. So if you look at the map of East Asia, whoever controls that first island chain is able to completely control navigation going out of southern and central China. That's a statement of fact. And then as far as the South Pacific goes, as far as trade goes, if you're trying to, if you're trying to, especially comes to oil and food, whoever controls a straight to some locker right there in Indonesia. That's right. You control everything.

That's why China is doing this. The Chinese didn't wake up and say, you know, we're going to start building all these little, all these old things and start needleing the Filipinos because we're bored. They're doing it because the United States is using geography as a way to try and contain and strangle China. And here's the thing. Russia is self-sufficient because as for the resource. to continue going despite the sanctions. That's not China's situation.

That's a huge population, not enough food to feed those people. Xi Jinping's biggest problem is how is you going to feed 1.4 billion people every single day? And without oil, he cannot do that. That means his head goes up on a spike. That's why the Chinese are doing this. So I think China's claim is not, I'm not sure I agree with their claim, but it's not baseless, right? So they claim that they have historically administered what are sometimes called the Spratly, but also they call the Nansha Islands and the Shisha Islands, which have also been called the Paracel Islands, for like basically 2,000 years. And they say, whoever, and if that's the case that gives you navigation rights to all the surrounding seas under international law.

And that's kind of the basis of their claim, right? So they have suffered a ruling 10 years ago. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled against them and said that you can't do that because basically they don't buy the island administration argument. But it's not staseless. I mean, you know, it's a stretch maybe under international law. It's a flag. That ruling they looked at it. being bias. I mean, the United Nations is not necessarily an impartial actor. No. No. And I've got to be

honest, great nations don't need to pay attention to the UN. I'm a nation. I'm not paying attention to anything coming out of the UN at this point. They've lost any level of credibility and integrity. The genocide alone ended for me any notion of caring about what the UN has to say. I don't give a shit what the UN says. If I'm being bluntly honest with you, they've lost credibility. They set there as a country where its people were effectively being

eviscerated in the most heinous of ways. And the United Nations did nothing. They did squat. That's true. There's no such thing as international law. It doesn't exist. It's a mythology. It's words on paper or a computer.

It's something that people would like to see happen, but it doesn't actually. It doesn't. This is Xi Jinping's Andrew Jackson moment. You made your ruling. Now come in and enforce it. It's a theory. Yeah.

International law is a theory. If you can enforce it, then it doesn't exist. Okay, so thanks very much for the $20 donation from Mills 446. No comment. Just wanting to support. Ray, thanks for the $5. Ted, how's the new microphone fund going? Here's a fiber to help.

So far so good. I don't know. How do I sound? Oh, you got a new mic? No, it's just my old bike that I just wasn't using because I didn't want to have to wear my cans. I hate hot ear syndrome. Not to mention, you know, you kind of like look like a derp. Anyway, Mr. A. Lee, you call me a derp?

Yes. Yes. Mr. A. Dirk. Mr. A. Lee, both the communists and the nationalist in Taiwan claim Qing Dynasty territory. That's true. They both do. Okay, so tonight, the president of the United States is giving an Oval Office address. We know the subject. It's going to be the one thing that you've been, that all voters in the United States are thinking about the most. They're very deeply concerned about affordability, jobs, high prices.

They're worried about the oil prices rising because of the Iran war. They're disgusted at Israel. So health care is always a major problem. People don't know how if their kids are lucky to get enough to get into college, if they can afford to send them. Right. So the president is going to be talking about how the election in 2020 was stolen from him by Joe Biden and the Democrats,

and he's going to push for the passage of this bill that's going to require American voters to show proof that they are U.S. citizens when they present themselves. at the polls. This law is, I mean, this bill seems like dead in the water, right? I mean, they can't get enough Republicans on board to do it. John Thune's been very clear about that. What's going on? Certainly I'm going to. No. John Betterman, his ass. Let me do it. And what's going to, so why is what, okay, in reality, does Trump really think this is a real issue? Does he really think that the election was stolen from him 2020? Does he really think that there's widespread and voter fraud to the extent that it actually affects the result of any election in the country?

I mean, or is this just all bullshit? I mean, what is this really about? Because it seems to me like it's about disenfranchising Democrats because the heat that Republicans think the Democrats are less likely to be able to come up with that, you know, to bring a passport to the polls or whatever. when, hilariously, it's actually Republicans who have fewer Republicans have passports than Democrats. So the only really effect is going to be on Democratic women because they're more likely to have not changed their names to their husband's names when they got married. So their birth certificate is not likely to match their driver's license, which, by the way, the driver's license isn't good enough. It's not likely to match their passport. I mean, what is this about, really?

I don't know what's in his mind on this. I mean, I got to be honest. I assume that he was lying through his teeth when he kept talking about the election being stolen. Meaning, I thought he was actively lying, not deluded, not delusional, not making it up. Like, meaning it's one thing if somebody says, hey, I believe this thing is happening. And they're serious about it. And they could be wrong despite their thing. I thought he was just lying.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Like, meaning he really could be into the full-blown delusion. Like basically he's gotten high off his own supply, something that wraps me. That for a very long time did not do. Don't get high in your own supply. Right.

Consequences for that. He seems to have fully embodied the delusion and the idea. But there's something, there's a message. there's a meta narrative associated with us about, as you point out, people worried about health care, people worry about education, people worried about senior kids, people worried about all of these things that affect their life and their capability of living. And he's coming out and talking about something that happened four years ago. To him, to him, that he lost in election. Because that's all he cares about. I don't think it's good. Like, honestly, when either party talks about, like, Democrats are like,

oh, we have to protect your ability to vote. And what they mean is we want to protect your ability to vote for us. Yes. And Republicans, me, me, me, me, me. And elections aren't about me, me, me, me, they're about you, you, you. Right. And so that's what voters want to hear. What are you going to do for us?

And I don't see either party messaging well on this, but the president really got to, I mean, Democrats aren't messaging at all. anything. But I mean, I don't know. The only thing that's happened of note is that 103 Democrats voted for Thomas Massey's bill to strip Israel of its $3.3 billion a year in funding. But otherwise, they're not doing shit. I think it's great on a certain level. I want people to get pit, like meaning, I firmly want people to realize that their government doesn't give a shit about them. Yeah. And for the president to get up there and give a speech like this. So tone deaf, so clues.

Yeah, it's so tone deaf. You are at war, and you're at war in a way that the American public is firmly against. When the Iranians were out there at the funeral, they were calling for blood. They were called it Trump's head. There's an effigy of Trump that they literally burned. If I'm not mistaken, there's a Trump poster or something like that. There's a coffin. Yeah, that's what it is, a coffin.

They are firmly behind their country fighting an empire. Whereas the empire is firmly against its country, its president going to war on its own with a Congress that is completely relinquished responsibility to hold the president accountable, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority, it's against it. Meaning the public is against it. You would think that the Congress that's supposed to represent that public would hold the president accountable, considering 80 or 90 percent of the public, is against it. They don't. And the president, who is, you would think, under this level of pressure because the country is against them, doesn't come out and give a speech to explain why the war is necessary, which he can't do because he just made the shit up. He instead talks about my personal grievance. Right.

It's all about me. It's insane. It is insane. Yeah. But it's illustrative of something. Yeah. Well, it's definitely, look, it's exactly what you said tomorrow, right? It's like, I mean, I kind of love it because, I mean, I would love the American people to truly understand that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans care about them at all.

I mean, the first step is admitting that you have a problem. We really need that. And so, I mean, this is another brick in the wall, right, to quote Pink Floyd. Hopefully, you know, I mean, I don't know. By the way, I would be, you know, I don't know about you. I know a lot of journalists who are saying, like, you know, these days when the president gives a speech, they don't even bother to tune in. They're like, yeah, it used to be like a duty.

It's like, I'll check the highlights tomorrow. Because it's like, you know what it's going to be. You know, it's always the same shit. It's always boring. There's no new information being revealed. There's no news being made. I mean, that's dysfunction. It's crazy.

It is crazy. it is dysfunction. And I guess for me, it's important, but it's important not for the reason of the content of what's being displayed. It's important in the sense that nobody cares about the content that's being displayed, if that makes sense. Like, there's a difference. When the president used to give a speech, it used to be important. When the president used to say something and relay something, it was information being relayed. That's not really where we are now. Usually the president, it gets up there just lies. And it's the same old lies.

It's the same old lies. Oh, Iran is begging to talk to me. No, they're not. No, they're not. Iran is trying to end the war. No, they're not. Oh, the war is about to be ended. Okay, you said that 40 times.

Yeah. Like, at a certain point, people check out. Yeah. And it's the lack of news, the lack of content, the lack of credibility. Those are the things that are interesting, but they're interesting. but they're interesting in a disastrous way. I don't want to add anything to that because it's perfect. We're at the end of today's show.

Stay tuned for TMI. We'll be back tomorrow at 9 a.m. Thanks, J.T. See you tomorrow. Have a good one, guys.