DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - We Love (Iranian) Protesters | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • Iran threatens to retaliate if the US follows through on its threat to militarily attack to defend protesters, while requesting negotiations with the White House. • Back home in the US, the Trump Administration characterizes anti-ICE protesters as domestic terrorists and threatens to send in more ICE forces. • Trump threatens to veto extension of Obamacare subsidies. • Trump to meet with Denmark over Greenland.JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowFOLLOW TED:https://rall.com/https://x.com/tedrallFOLLOW JOHN:https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakouhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLISTEN ON SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuLISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Good morning and happy Monday. It's Monday, January 12th, 2026. You're watching The Program with Ted Roll and John Kiriaku. Robbie, I don't know why you're still here. I thought I took you out. I'm taking you out. Anyway, it's hitting the ground running this Monday morning. John, good to see you again. Robbie, thank you. We'll see you, Ted, again on Friday. Yes, thank you. Okay, we have more housekeeping than usual to take care of this morning. So let's get it out of the way before we get to the questions and the news. Okay, so please like, like, follow and share the show. Okay, so our junior producer, our assistant producer, who helps us out and helps out, Robbie, wants me to tell you that merchandise for the show for Deep Program is now available. And you can buy it off the YouTube page or stream. So if you worry also, that's the number one thing to do. And there's nothing more to that. Just go to the YouTube stream and you can buy the merch. Also, we're going to be adding to that.

So the stuff that you see now is not going to be there like for, you know, 10 years from now. We're going to switch it out with actually pretty great frequency. So you see something you like, you might want to hop on it. Tier 2. Also, if you're a tier 2 YouTube member of D program, you're going to start being credited at the outro of every show. So in other words, there's going to be a little scroll and your name will appear in there. It'll be added in batches. So the first, we're going to, the first cut off for the first list is this coming Friday.

So if you become a tier two member on YouTube of D-Program and you want to see yourself credited at the end of the show, please let us know by this coming Friday. We'll do more after that. But if you, you know, we'll, I guess probably have the outro ready by next week. I'm guessing that's the case. I'm not sure. Okay, other things, let's see. We're going to pimp our books a little bit here. John and I both have a number of books.

So first we're going to talk about, oh, no, what am I doing? That's like mine. I'm trying to do wrongs. There it is. Okay, so John, this is, tell us a little bit about surveillance and surveillance detection, a CIA insider's guide. Yeah, this actually has turned out to be so popular that I've been pairing it with a two-hour class on surveillance.

and surveillance detection, or maybe it's one hour. I think it's two hours. Anyway, we start from scratch. Like if you've never heard of surveillance and you don't have any idea what it is all the way to you're going to be paranoid by the end of it that you're being followed. No, I'm overstating it. I'm kidding, of course. But yeah, it's literally a guide to how to conduct surveillance.

and more importantly how to conduct counter surveillance, surveillance detection. I need to read this because this has happened to me. I have been surveilled. I am occasionally under surveillance as well. Less so now, but it used to be that the FBI was just constantly harassing me. And they're so bad at it.

They're so easy to spot. It's amazing to me that any spies get caught in this country because the FBI is so bad at it. surveilling them. That's actually quite hilarious. So yeah, I'm going to read that. And, you know, people say that, but I actually mean that. And then there's my latest book, What's Left, which is pretty self-explanatory from the title. It's basically defining what the left outside of the Democratic party, the real left, should be asking for in terms of demands. You may have noticed that the left isn't very good at that. So basically, and the policy prescription is basically taking the current

federal budget, imagining that you reallocated it as is without changing anything, just leaving the tax code exactly the way it is, and then repurposed it. Obviously, I'm gutting the defense budget, but you'll see. Anyway, all right, that's that. Okay, so today in the news, among other things, and of course, whatever you guys want to talk about in the YouTube and the rumble chats just put it in the feed and we will get to it as always. Iran is threatening to a lot of going on with Iran. Iran is threatening to retaliate if the U.S. follows through on Trump's threat to militarily attack Iran in order to defend those protesters over there. But at the same time, Iran is asking for negotiations with the White House. And there's even talk

now that these protests could be so big that they might pose an existential threat to the Iranian government. We'll talk about that. Here in the United States, meanwhile, see, if you protest overseas, especially in a Muslim country, we love you. But if you protest here, we don't love you so much. No. And you might get shot in the face, too, buddy. Might get shot in the face. So the Trump administration is characterizing the protests that happened in hundreds of American cities across the country as domestic terrorists and is threatening to send in more ice forces.

Trump is threatening to veto the proposed bipartisan extension of Obamacare subsidies. And I think not least is Trump is going to meet with the Danes to talk about Greenland. John and I have thoughts. You know, can I interrupt you on that? Please. I was sitting next to a guy yesterday. Let me pull it up. On Friday night, I had this last minute request.

to fly to L.A. and be on this podcast, Diary of a CEO. I love that podcast. So Saturday morning, I jumped on a plane. I flew out. I did the podcast. I came back yesterday. So while I was at the airport, I'm sitting next to a guy who says, do you believe this lunatic we have as president? He says, just some random guy. And he says, look at this. And he shows me his phone. I took a picture of what he was looking at. Okay. It's a timeline related to Greenland. And it says, 1917 to buy the Virgin Islands from Denmark, I didn't realize we bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark. Yeah. The U.S. agrees not to ever make any claims on Greenland.

So people are talking about this treaty of 1947 or what? 51, yeah. 51, yeah. It goes back to 1917. So I took a picture of his phone. The timeline has a photograph. of of President Woodrow Wilson signing this treaty. So I get to do the research.

But we may have like zero legs to stand on on this issue, I hope. I hope so too. You know, I mean, look, my short take on the Greenland thing is the Danes shouldn't have even agreed to talks about it. Yeah. Once you agree to talk, it's kind of like, oh, you know, someone wants to like, I don't know, take over your house. And you're like, okay, well, we can talk about it. You shouldn't be talking about it. Exactly.

There's nothing to talk about. There's nothing to discuss. Could you imagine like, you know, we want Brittany? You know, all right. Well, the French are like, we'll sit down and talk about it. Why? There's nothing to talk about. No, there's nothing to talk about.

Hey, can we talk about Iran for a minute? Please. There were so many developments overnight. It's almost hard to keep them straight. So yesterday, afternoon, it looked like we were genuinely preparing to attack Iran. I have the same discussed with the Atlantic Council, Ted, that you do. But a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran and Iraq, who's now at the Atlantic Council, made a good point. It's a point that I've made a number of

times. And she said, we're not attacking Iran, not this week or next week, because we don't have any carrier battle groups in the region. And we don't. We're busy. We're busy. We're spread out all over the world. We'll worry about the Chinese and Taiwan and the Russians and Ukraine. And so we don't have any carrier battle groups.

That was point number one. Point number two. That leads one logically to think about the other guys who. And that was exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. So the other guys, look, the Israelis, finance Reza Shah Pahlavi, who's just a stooge. You know, he, Patrick Bet David, the podcaster from Fort Lauderdale,

was interviewing, like President Trump, I think it was the other day. And Trump asked him if he had spoken to Reza Pahlavi. And he said, I called the guy and he won't return my calls. Yeah. And then in an interview, Palabrid says, oh, yeah, he might go back to Iran to be the Shah, but he's been here in America for so long, and all of his friends are here, and his girlfriend is here,

and he thinks he might just stay. So what, you're saying that he's pretending to be a pretender? Yeah, that he's pretending to be a pretender. What the guy doesn't realize, because he's brain damaged, is when you take Israeli money, you got to do what the Israelis tell you to do. Well, not to mention that's not going to fly in Iran. I mean, like, no matter how much you hate the current government,

you're not getting into bed with anyone who sucks up to the Israelis. No. If he were to go back to Iran, he would not survive the walk from the plane to the terminal. Yeah. Yeah. That's just not going to happen. Okay, number one.

Number two, the Omanis discreetly contacted the White House yesterday. And they said, listen, you can't attack Iran. And I should add, we have very close relations with Oman. The Omanis are such good people. They always have been. They're the ones that are always the sort of the quiet voice in the room saying, come on now let's all get along we're going to all sit and talk and we're going to figure this out that's the omanis the omanis and the algerians were the ones who got the american hostages out of iran in

nineteen eighty one so nobody remembers that no i do i've always liked and respected the omanis so i went to oman i really liked it so i loved it there it's it's the most physically beautiful place i've ever been on earth so umanis contacted the white house and they said, listen, don't attack Iran. We can convince the Iranians to go back to the negotiating table over their nuclear program. The White House rejected that last night. But there's a second part to this. The Israelis then said, because obviously the White House had informed the Israelis that this was happening, the Israelis said, we want the Iranians to not have missiles, not to not have Nuclear missiles. Any missiles. Any missiles. So basically they want them to abandon mid-20th century technology.

Correct. Correct. Because the Israelis want to be able to just walk into Iran whenever they damn well, please. Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. The other thing I want to do. It's also like it's the kind of promise that if the Iranians were stupid enough to make, you couldn't, the Israelis couldn't count on it being true. Missals aren't really hard to make or anything. And you can find them anywhere. Yeah. It's a promise that the Iranians couldn't keep, even if they intended to. Even if they wanted to. Yeah. The other thing was that the body count numbers.

This is something that Brian Becker taught me years ago. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal. I looked at them all last night. And they're all saying, oh, my God, it's murder in the streets. It's said, you're one. Oh, my God. This human rights organization is saying, you know, 172 dead. Okay, that human rights organization is based in London. And it's funded by the Israelis and Iranians in exile. And then, oh, my God, there's this other human rights organization. It's saying 500 dead. Yeah, that one's in Washington. And they take money from the CIA. So you can't believe. So there's no reliable information. There's no reliable information. Now, are people being killed in Iran?

Absolutely, yes. But think of this, too. Do we know that these people aren't being killed by Israeli-backed protesters? Because the Israelis have been bragging over the weekend that they're the ones backing the protesters. And I'll add another thing that literally no one is reporting. Protesters set on fire 48 fire engine. in Tehran, 48 fire engines

so that they cannot respond to fires. Why? Because it's the Israeli backed protesters setting shit on fire. And this is just to make it worse. Now the thing is, okay, so for people who are listening and are thinking, okay, John's being conspiratorial

and blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's not forget that we know that Iran is riddled with people on the Mossad payroll because of the fact that they provided the targeting information for the Israeli-U.S. military attacks against atomic scientists and military sites in Iran recently, right? We know that. We talked about here on the show before any of these protests started about how Iran has a serious Israel problem in terms of infiltration. So I just want to, you know, provide little context there. Yeah, I just, my, I think my point here is to remind everybody that there are two sides to a story. And we're only getting the Israeli side. Right. The Israelis are backing Reza Palavi.

The Israelis are backing these so-called human rights organizations. The Israelis are the ones demanding that U.S. policy be that Iran doesn't have any missiles. So we just have to be very careful to avoid falling into these propaganda traps. Well, for sure. And then I guess while we're, you know, and I promise we're going to get to the questions out there, but some of which will probably relate to this. But, you know, it's impossible to know if it's really true that the government is teetering on the brink of revolution or depending on your definition of it counter revolution, right? I mean, you know, certainly we know there are protests. And I mean, having been to Iran, I can definitely say that like there's discontent with the government. you know, particularly among younger people. They're not religiously conservative, culturally as conservative as the people who, you know, carried out the revolution, who the regime is definitely more supported by older people. But, you know, I guess here's the big question.

Does it make any sense whatsoever for the United States to be threatening, to be seen as supporting a protest movement? by militarily attacking that country, won't that, I mean, let's just say, for example, Iran were to attack the United States in order, militarily, in order to support the, you know, the anti-ice protesters, wouldn't that discredit the anti-ice protesters? I mean, so in Iran, won't that, wouldn't U.S. support be seen as undermining and discrediting the patriotism of the Iranian protesters? Yeah. I mean, yeah, this is very complicated. And forgive me for delaying. I'm looking at Afro-excellarianism, who writes, very sad, John, go live in Iran in $1 a month then for a few years while the Khomeini owned 200 billion suffer. And I'm going to say, you should stop taking drugs before you write. Sorry. So, yeah, the...

Yeah, go ahead. I mean, I just think that whenever, you know, a country, look, Iran has this dreadful history of being oppressed by the United States. Yes, terrible. So any out external force that's seen as interfering and putting their thumb on the scale on behalf of an internal force is going to be seen as an intruder, but especially one like the U.S. and Iran, right? That overthrew the democratically elected president.

and, you know, his support propped up the horrible Shah regime until 1979. And you can't underestimate the long-term fallout from those actions. Oh, yeah. So I guess the point is that, like, you know, I mean, if I'm a legitimate anti-government Iranian protester, the last thing I want and need is to be seen as being a tool of the Israelis and or the Americans. Absolutely right. you can't be you have to have an independent so isn't this really just more of a pretext on the part

of the Trump administration like you know like it's just like we just need an excuse I think so and not not to mention what about the optics here I mean you know we're going to be talking about the you know the anti-ice protests the Renee you know in the aftermath of the killing of Renee good yeah but I mean this I mean the hypocrisy is crazy it reminds me so much of the early 80s when, you know, Reagan and his administration were supporting the Solidarity Movement protests in Poland, but at the same time, you know, reviling left-wing protests, you know, the labor movement, the, you know, Patco here in the United States. Oh, yeah, Patco. I remember Patco. Trade unions are good in Poland. Trade unions are not good in the United States. That's right. So, I mean, isn't this the same thing? Yes. I think it is the same thing.

Yes. And what what bothers me the most and and we see it in that in that comment that I just read is how susceptible people are to propaganda. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's crazy. John, you want to do something. Don't believe anything from government, from any government. They're all lying. They're all lying from corporate media. Yeah. Corporate media is more of a mouthpiece for government than ever. ever before. Oh, it really is. It really is. All right. Let's, shall we do some, some questions? Yes. Okay. Is it rational? Thoughts on the Israeli logic of ousting the Ayatollah. He's the only reason the IRGC isn't rapidly reducing the supersonic missile stockpile toward Tel Aviv, Damona, and its port cities. Well, I mean, that's a good point, right? Like, the Israelis, I still can't get over the fact that they overthrew Assad.

Yeah. Why would you want to? Yeah. Ted, you and I said this, how many times the devil you know is better than the devil you don't? And Assad was no threat to the Israelis. He was keeping things under wraps, right? I mean, it's sort of like the West. I never understood why we got in bed with the Musha Hadin. Like, you know, Soviet influenced occupation of Afghanistan was the best anti-Islamism tool the United States. had. Yes. It's like, yes. So I don't know. So are the Israelis not smart enough to know what's good for them in this situation? You know, I think that Benjamin Netanyahu has this laser focus on just defanging one of the biggest countries in the Middle East. And he's lost

sight of what might be the best for Israel. Yeah. You know, the Israelis and the Iranians under the Shah had diplomatic relations, right? There were embassies. There's an Iranian embassy in Tel Aviv. There was an Israeli embassy in Tehran. It wasn't full, they weren't like full diplomatic relations. They were just kind of nominal, but there were relations. And that's not going to happen again.

And Netanyahu seems to think that there is this golden age that's just in front of us. this golden age of Israeli-Iranian relations that if only the Ayatollahs were gone, then Israel would be welcomed with open arms by the Iranian people. That's not true. Sure, there's a handful of Iranian Jews. There used to be a lot of them, but they all live in Beverly Hills now. And there is no such golden age in the office. I also think what's underappreciated by Westerners and by the Israelis

is how Iran is not a highly centralized state, right? Right. And it's like in any like governmentally, it's got like overlapping, you know, governmental structures of authority. And then geographically, right? I mean, the politics, the internal politics of a city like Mashad is like totally unrelated to the internal politics of a cosmopolitan area like Tehran. I mean, it's like I think it's far more likely. If you, if the Iranian government collapses, I think you're, going to see civil war. You're not going to see like a new friend for the West that like, you know, that the, that Tel Aviv loves. Yes. I mean, how likely do you think, I mean, how much trouble you

think the Iranian government is really in? I mean, I think, I know it's impossible to know, really, but. Yeah. You know, I think that they are in trouble because they cut off access to the internet on Thursday and they cut off international telephone calls Friday. So it's just important. Although they're quick to that. Yeah, they are. They're quick to it. But I think that they have to be a little bit worried. Now, this started off as an economic protest because the value of the Rial has just collapsed over the last few weeks.

And it started in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran. And then it kind of went away for a day and then popped up again in some of the small towns around the country and then took on a life of its own. But again, how much of this is indigenous and how much has been provoked by the Americans and the Israelis? Well, most of it is provoked. I mean, the thing is, though, I mean, okay, so as a former banker, I'm not really understanding, you know, unless there's an obsession with keeping hard currency, for the average Iranian, their real is worth the same at the supermarket as it was two months ago, right? It's only if you're involved in foreign exchange, does this really matter? And it's also going to make Iranian exports far more attractive.

So I'm kind of having, from an economic standpoint, I don't really understand why people are freaking out. I know in a lot of countries where people keep like, you know, U.S. $100 bills and shoeboxes under their beds, this kind of thing really has an effect. Is that what's going on here? Yeah, that could be it. That could be it. Because people just never really trusted. Nenian said again a couple of nights ago, he gave this address that was translated into Farsi and beamed on something called Iran International, which is an Israeli propaganda channel

that's beamed at Iran. And he said, you know, overthrow your government, the yoke of the Ayatollahs, and we will send Israeli water experts to Iran because we know that you have water shortages. and our experts are the greatest in the world. All you have to do is overthrow the Ayatollahs, and you'll never have to worry about water again. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Well, by the way, why don't you send some water into the Gazans

before you fuck around sending water to the Iranians. Amen. Yeah. Just Samantha. Good says, good morning. What's happening with Iran, Blackout protest, murder. Can't trust anyone else for the news, been waiting for us. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Thank you. question for john from rob steener sent you an article to facebook messenger the UK has just compensated abu zabedia yes for allowing his torture what's your thoughts wow i was talking to his attorney last night and um and this is huge i mean it's not going to get him out of guantanamo yet but he sued the british government for being complicit in his torture which they were He was the guy who was waterboarded 182 times. Eighty three times, yeah.

And he sued the British government and he won. He won. So listen, he poor up is abated. He has won every step of the way. Every time he sues, he wins. Or even when the suit is dismissed, the judge will say, yes, what happened to you was terrible. What happened to you was criminal, but you can't sue the U.S. government without the U.S. government's permission to sue.

So I have to dismiss the case. The British, it wasn't like that. The court was like, yeah, the British intelligence service was complicit in your torture. You win. You know, I will say another thing. At the very end of the Biden administration, Abbasimed his attorneys were in advanced talks to have him released. A decision was made to release him.

The only reason he was made, wasn't released was because they couldn't find a country that would agree to take him. And then Donald Trump won. And so nothing is going to happen for four years. If a Democrat wins, presumably those talks would be restarted and eventually the guy will be released. He should be released because he was innocent of what we accused him of. It was tortured mercilessly. And he has never been charged. with a crime. In my opinion, those people should who, to tell people that we kidnapped and held without respecting their rights for years and then say, well, you know, okay, we've determined

you're not a threat and that you didn't do anything wrong, but we'll let you go, but we can't find another country to take you. It's sophistry. They should release them to the United States. I mean, we have a whole big country here. And if you're like worried about them, you know, have the FBI follow them around and put a geo, and put a air, tag on their car and just watch them. That's it, right? I mean, just basically. You know, there's a guy known as the Mauritanian.

There was a movie made about his life. This is Mohamedu Uldslahi. I read his book too. Mohamaru is a good friend of mine. And what we did to that man, oh my God, it makes me ashamed. It makes me ashamed to have ever had anything to do with the CIA for what we did to that man.

But he's one of many. He's one of many. and he couldn't find a place that would take him. Finally, the Italians gave him a one-year visa. He couldn't go back to Mauritania. God knows what would have happened to him there. The Italians gave him a one-year visa. He bounced around.

Nobody else would take him. And he finally very quietly emigrated to the Netherlands. And he got married and he's got a young son and he's teaching and he finally made it. I mean, this is like the Uyghurs who ended up in places like Albania and And Albania, Switzerland and Teague. Yeah, there's that there's, do you ever see, John, did you ever see the video of the, the press conference of them being, though, I think it was six of them welcomed it to Bermuda. It's amazing. It's like the press conference.

You know, I think I've told you and I'm ashamed to say this. I captured them. I physically put them on the plane to Guantanamo. What? Yeah. In Afghanistan. We caught them. We caught them in Pakistan in an al-Qaeda.

safe house. And their their excuse was that they couldn't find jobs. And so they went to Torabora in October of 2001 to look for work. And I said, are you fucking kidding me? And they were telling the truth. Well, that's the thing, right? Like, so John, I mean, this is like the thing that I think people never really understood during that period is like, there's no, as you know, you were there. There's no communication. right there's no newspapers there's no radio there's no tv there's there's so there's no way no one knows anything right so so you i mean in so like you know those guys they have no idea that the whole world is blowing up because of nine 11 when i was in afghanistan in november 2001

almost every afghan i met had never heard of nine 11 they had never heard of the world trade center they didn't know who alkaido was um i i i said oh but why do you think think the United States is here. And they said, oh, the same reason the Russians and the Brits were here. Everybody likes to invade Afghanistan. The big country always invades Afghanistan. I was like, you didn't think there was like some geopolitical? No, we, we didn't know. Like, it's like in 2000. They genuinely didn't know. I had the same experience. In the summer of 2000, when I was in, I was in Kashmir, right, in basically sort of the Talibanized parts of northern Pakistan. And like, I was pulled off a bus and these two Talibs threatened to execute me.

And they said, you know, like there's an order that like Americans aren't allowed to come here anymore. You know, surely you've heard. I'm like, dudes, I've been on this bus for three weeks. Like, where the fuck was I supposed to hear about this order? And, you know, we're going back and forth. And I'm like, what do you guys ever hear? What do you hear? Like, they're like, finally, you know, I talked my way out of it.

I mean, and it's a joke. I remember, like in, again, November, December 2001, I go to the bazaar to exchange U.S. dollars for like their shitty version of the Afghan currency that they had. And so they're like, so I go, I go like a week after I'd been a week before it. And the guy gives me less than he had the week before. I go, what happened? Last time you gave me like 42,000. He goes, oh, well, you know, it's the market. the market's changed i'm like what market like there's no you don't know anything he's like afghanistan is up

u.s is down oh my god he's just a lot of i mean no one knows anything right that's that's what you're talking about that's exactly what it is we have an ad we should go to all right let's do it um go ahead and put that up Robbie um let's put you up and talk about uh the um the go fund me we're almost there We're there at 80% guys who really need you to kick in to the GoFundMe so we can keep Robbie. We need $1,000 a month. John and I have already paid our $1,000 for this month. So all we need is for you guys to get, we need another couple hundred bucks. That's all.

Just go to GoFundMe and then search for deep program Robbie so that we can keep Robbie on as our producer. And we don't lose him to the vicissitudes of the normal workplace. and we'll be without a producer. Robbie, anything else running out to that? That's a big word. I have no idea what that even means. This is the kind of high quality production. It's a fancy word for random shit.

Fair enough. It's either this or Walmart. So I mean, those are my options. But no, I mean, seriously, I just thank everyone for their support. Yel's generosity is amazing. And especially since so many people disagree with me on my politics, which is not surprising considering who I work with here. But seriously, honestly, it's humbling.

Also, we are within 80 people of taking out one of the crappiest channels on Rumble. Talk about fascists. This guy is a Trump-licking, just total douchebag. And I want to fry him today. So we have 400 people watching on YouTube. I want 100 of y'all to come over here on Rumbus. So I can screenshot it, send it to them and say, eat this. Because that will make my whole freaking day.

If y'all think I'm a Trumper, I'm not. And also, Rumble pays better. So that's what I got for you. All right. I'm putting up the URL for the GoFundMe up here. Thank you very much for that, Robbie. Put up that ad whenever you're ready. All right, let's bang through some of these.

Some of these. And we got so much news and stuff to get through and so many questions. Just Samantha. John, you spoke on how strong Iran is. the people love their country, why I'm so confused, or Israel is causing chaos. I think we kind of addressed that already. Katie, catastrophe, Minneapolis resident here. What a shit show it is around here.

Like 3,000 ice agents, they're starting to go door to door. Don't answer. You don't have to. Listen. Answer. Don't even talk to them through the door. Just ignore them. If you feel compelled to talk to them, say, do you have a warrant?

If not, get off my property. Perfect. our state department recommends that everyone knows their rights well yeah like the clash said know you're right it's very important um for real um so let's see what else here blah blah blah um yeah sorry i'm like skipping i'm bouncing my thing is bouncing around here okay uh what do you think what do you make of nettingyahu saying he's going to taper off U.S. military aid in 10 years. What kind of manipulation is this?

Yeah. I hope you get your pardon. You're a fearless hero. I laugh for the next five minutes. Yeah, that's a cheap attempt at propagandizing the American people. Yeah. The Israelis would never, ever, ever turn down our money. No, they, that's where they can't afford to.

I mean, Israel has nothing. We don't need them. We don't. Persian cat, thanks for the $10. Trump is weighing options to, intervene into Iran, but what's the best way to help tip the scales in favor of the protesters without creating a power vacuum and ultimately a failed state? See, that's really the $64,000 question right there.

Let's assume that the protesters are legit, that they're not, you know, Israeli backed or whatever. Even then, what do you do to prevent Iran from descending into chaos in the event that the Ayatollah runs to Moscow and the IRGC falls apart, which isn't going to happen? I don't see how you avoid a civil war. I don't see that either. I mean, you have to have a, you need a revolutionary, a national revolutionary movement

that is organized and at the grassroots and broad-based and able to take over and be able to seize power and consolidate power against opponents. Yes. Those are tough. Let's see. I've seen a couple,

Flanderina. I've seen a couple of posts online about people deliberately setting forest fires in the Argentine Patagonia to purchase the land at lower costs. Who do you think is behind it? You know what? The Greeks do that. And it's because they have a similar law, a really stupid law that if there's public forest that burns, private developers are then allowed to go in and build on the land.

It's sickening because it encourages arson. And the Greeks struggle with this every single year. but the construction lobby is so well-funded and so significant. There's the answer to your question. Yeah, the government. It could also be agribusiness in Argentina, right? Yeah, sure, it could. Sure, sure, yes.

Kevin Cronin, compare and contrast the right-left reactions to Ashley Babbitt and Renee Good. Ashley Babbitt committed suicide by cop in his or her opinion. Yeah, no, I think it's, you know, I think it's really important. Look, I hate the team politics aspect to all this. I've watched this video. I mean, you might as well talk about this. Look, I've watched the unprofessionalism of ICE is what really leaps out here.

And that's something that the right ought to be able to agree with. You know, this is an unprofessional force. You saw the way they're literally running unprofessionally. I was, you know, my brother-in-law was an EMS guy and a firefighter. He said, one of the things you notice about firefighters is when they respond even to a burning blaze, they move deliberately, but they don't run. They're not panicked. They just go.

They're trained to do that. It's like, we're doing this, we're doing that. Like pilots in the crisis. And like these ice guys are manic. They're running around. They're screaming, conflicting orders. They're not identified. They're an unidentified vehicles.

That's a great observation. Yeah. They're unprofessional. They're manic. And so, of course, course obviously look they're going to trigger a flight or fight response like if someone breaks my car window and tries to reach in i'm going to hit the gas probably and and you know i mean and even from the standpoint of just uh you know jonathan ross the ice agent who shot her um he wasn't doing

he wasn't protecting himself or his colleagues by what he did um by standing somewhat in front of the car by the way i don't believe for a minute that he was hit um i think that it came close. I think the car went right by him, brushed up against him, I'm sure. But he wasn't hospitalized. He didn't fall over. He wasn't knocked down. And then he runs off. There was a physician in the crowd who wanted to help her.

And they wouldn't let him. They wouldn't let him. So, I mean, and then you have the government unprofessionally, you know, flooding social media with propaganda. like, you know, this guy was defending himself and his, you know, she was, this individual. They don't call her a person or a citizen or a protester, this individual in order to dehumanize her. Yeah. I mean, she's dead.

She's dead. Yeah. She's dead. Do we have, can we just call her a person? Can we do that? You know, and so, I mean, the, the, the unprofessionalism here is off the charts. And, you know, I mean, they're hiring people who. are like, you know, the training's not good.

This guy had been trained, I guess. He'd been around for 10 years in ICE. But still, I mean, this whole episode, what terrifies me, John, I've been doing a little bit of preparatory reading lately. But, like, I mean, I'm kind of like, look, this is Ezra Klein, of all people. You know, he does have smart things to say sometimes. In his most recent podcast, he pointed out that, This is moving. The militarization of ice in American streets has moved at like a breathtaking pace.

We've never seen a move this quickly. That's terrifying. And what I worry about is that when a government creates an armed force that's unaccountable to anyone, where you and I both know there's no world in which an ice agent can do in Iran, according to this government, that they're going to, going to run out of targets. They're going to find all the pedophiles and all the gangbangers and all the trend of Aragua scum. And then they're going to run out. They're going to run out of them. And then they're going to be like, but they're not going to close up shop and be like, you know, if the cancer is, if cancer is cured, the cancer society shuts out, shuts down. They're not going to do that. They're going to be the biggest militarized force on earth, highly funded, looking for something to do. And then they come looking for other people. That's the part that terrifies me. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't even add anything to that. That's exactly right. It frightens the

daylights out of me. I think in a year, we're going to be in a world of shit. But, all right, five bucks from Gitmo Goblin, my favorite name of the day. Bob Weir, founding member of the Dread died. Any of you guys a fan? John, do you know anything about CIA involvement in the counterculture scene of San Francisco in the late 90s? Yes, I do, actually. That's a great question. I do. In fact, I've, done a couple of documentary interviews about this. All you have to do is look at Operation Midnight Climax. Google Operation Midnight Climax. The CIA rented safe houses in San Francisco. And what they did is they hired a whole bunch of prostitutes to go out on the street lure Johns to their

to their safe houses. They dosed these guys with LSD and then just watch them freak out through a two-way mirror. And that's how they got started with LSD. It was through the counterculture in San Francisco. There are credible analyses, I'll call them, of contact between the CIA and D.

Charles Manson in the middle 1960s, especially at whatever it was called, Los Angeles County Community College, I think is what it was called, where Manson was taking classes. Manson may have been a part of, and Sirhan Sirhan may have been a part of experiments that were coming from the MK Ultra program. So yeah, there's a lot out there on the CIA and the counterculture. I'll admit that I'm not a fan of The Grateful Dead. I really, you know, they're one of those bands where I,

I really obviously respect the fact that they built. You know what they are? They were real pioneers in terms of engagement. You know, before social media, right? Decades before social media. But establishing this incredibly personal relationship with their fans, unlike any other group, right? More so.

Agreed. I saw Jerry Garcia do an acoustic concert at George Washington University. But I never saw The Dead as a band. A bunch of guys on. on my floor when I was an RA because I was the only one who was 21. I fully rented them a car and I drove all of them down to Norfolk, Virginia to go to a dead concert. But I just sat in the car while they were in the concert. I don't like the music. I mean, to me, like a lame, like, you know, like, you know, Casey Jones, like maybe like one of the best dead songs. It would be a

mediocre kinks or Rolling Stone song. Yeah. So like, I just don't, I just didn't, I just didn't, think they were talented. But, you know, that obviously I'm, I'm mistaken because like millions of people differ. Yeah, like you, I just, I think I just didn't get it. Yeah, I didn't get it. I will say I liked Casey Jones enough. Okay. And I like trucking. And that was pretty much it for me. I could sit through a whole concert. Yeah. But, you know, the kinks, I'm enthralled. Anyway, Anyway, Mania the cat, John and Ted, what do you think about Trump trying to use the DOJ to remove Jerome Powell? Well, the stock market is crashing right now. You know, I just updated it.

Hold on a second. I'm going to update it again. How bad is it? Yeah, it's down 400, just 17 minutes after the opening. The dollar is also falling. And this is going to be... You're welcome, Real. It's a race to the bottom.

Yeah, this is going to be a very serious problem. problem. Yeah, the Dow Jones is down 388 points. The S&P's off half of a percent. The NASDAQ's off half of a percent. What would possess Donald Trump? Well, we know what to fuck with the Fed. It's because he wants Powell out and he wants to appoint his own person. And that's just not the way the system works. You just can't. And so last night, Janine Piro, on a Sunday night, Janine Piro, the former Fox News host, who's now the U.S. attorney for, who's now the least successful U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in modern history, announced that they're investigating Jerome Powell on a felony charge or felony count of making a false statement to Congress

when he misdescribed the level of renovations at the Fed headquarters building on Constitution Avenue. Good luck with that. Yeah, that's insane. Okay. Ray, thanks for the five bucks. Heard that Germany was mad about losing their investments in Ukraine and gave access to China to U.S. congressional servers reported as a quote-unquote hack. Why does Germany have access? I know nothing about this story.

I've not heard that. And it doesn't, that wouldn't make sense to me. Germany wouldn't have access. Desert Fox 41. Have you heard of the Institute of Propaganda Analysis of 1937 and the seven variations of propaganda? I took a class on it and found it to be very useful in classifying propaganda. Oh, that's interesting. I'm not aware of it, but I never heard of it.

I'd love to hear about it. They overthrew Assad because he provided Pittsburgh dude because they provided He provided a corridor for Iran to arm Hezbollah Which Yerani shut down You guys are coming dangerously close to repeating the Siyadh propaganda of Assad helping Israel Bullshit Oh I didn't say that

I never said anything like that No no that's nonsense and I'm offended by it Assad was the only thing protecting minority communities In Syria and now we've got We've got crimes against human beings humanity being perpetrated against the Druze. We have entire Christian villages just being wiped out. And hundreds of people being killed over the course of days.

You can go from shitty to shittier. Americans never understand that. You can have a situation where there's no good guy. And so you take the guy who's the least bad. Yep. Good afternoon from Cyprus, unfiltered. Good friend to my friend, hi Ted, big hello to my good friend, John, who had the pleasure of hosting on my show four days ago.

keep telling the truth guys. And they said the response has been phenomenal. Honka Munka would like to know our favorite movies starring Atomic War. Old movies like On the Beach or modern like The Day After or a House of Dynamite, some of mine. The day after was great. You know, that came out when I was in college.

What was that, Ted? 82 or 83. Yeah, that's right. I was in college. And like colleges all across the country just sort of stopped. And the day. after the day after was was screened. Like entire days were devoted to just discussing.

True. Miracle Mile for me, John. Do you ever see that? Yeah. And Dr. Strange Love. Miracle Mile is like fantastic. Miracle Miles is great. It takes place in a real hour and a half.

And the thing is, it delivers. It's really true. Yes. It really is the end. Desert Fox, how do we predict the next Iran, Israel War, will be similar. to the 12-day war and what will be different. I know it's speculation, but a fun one to play with hypothetically. I don't know if I, you and I have different ideas of fun, maybe. But certainly, I don't think it'll be like the 12-day war at all. I think the Israelis just want to, they just want to keep

doing what they call pinpoint strikes, right? They want to sort of attack the little nub on the Death Star and hope that the whole thing comes crashing down. That's their schick. They don't want to get involved. They can't get involved in a protracted war against Iran. Iran's too big. It's too big. 92 million people and it's gigantic in terms of its landmass. Yeah, it's massive. Yeah, I remember like when I, the first time I went and I was thinking about taking the bus across the short way, the north, the east west way. It's like, oh yeah, it's four days by bus. I was like, what? It doesn't look that big with the Mercator projection, you know, but that's right. Hey, and as another thought, too,

the Afghans didn't have shoes and we couldn't beat them. Right. But the Israelis think that they can beat the Iranians? Yeah, Iran's a modern country, you know, it's Europe, basically, or, you know, Greece or Turkey. I mean, it's a real country. I always tell people that. Like, Iran's a real country. Juni Javid, thanks for the buck.

I read the whole Uyghur account of capture when the files came out to Human Rights Watch. Even the monkeys were chasing us. Didn't know that was you, John. Oh, my God. Yeah. You know, to tell you the truth, I didn't realize that the Uighurs were telling the truth until 2007. Oh, Jesus.

When PBS Frontline contacted me and said, hey, we're doing this, we're doing this documentary on the Uighurs. I said, oh, yeah, cool. Okay. And they said, we heard that you were responsible for their capture in Pakistan. I said, oh, I'd never spoken about it. And I said, yeah, actually, that was me. And they said, well, we're doing a documentary about how they were completely innocent.

And I was like, what? Completely innocent. I said, do you know? They came from Torabora. And then they told me the story. And I was like, oh, my God. Are you kidding me? Worst luck ever.

Oh, my God. Yeah. F.E said, thanks for the buck. Thoughts on dudes who was found with like a thousand corpses like he was rocking. zombie in Philly. Yeah, he was digging up graves like Ed Gein and putting him in his basement. He had a hundred partially rotten, partially mummified bodies in his basement. This is a guy who's deeply, deeply mentally ill.

Mom, you know, hey, there's always a job with ice. Thanks for the Canadian $50 Canadian dollars, Afro-a-Sel. I'm French and not on drugs. Last time Iran got nuked, all our Iranian friends, both in Iran. and Canada partied and enjoyed the process. Propaganda or not, it's probably 30% of the population. Religion is, religious intent is free from expression, not oppression. John, thanks for the PopBod 999.

Thank you so much for the 10 Australian dollars. How much of your people skills do you use as a case officer? We're used versus, we're learned versus natural talent. Great question. How did you build trust with your targets? That's a great question. You have to have this underlying core of natural talent. You have to be able to talk about a million different things.

And you have to appear to be able to speak authoritatively. One of the biggest compliments I ever got was from a boss of mine. We were meeting with a source. I was developing a source for recruitment. It was so sensitive. We couldn't meet him in the country where he lived. We had to fly back to the United States to meet with him. And I set up a meeting.

at a hotel in Washington with my boss and with my senior colleague. And while we were making chit-chat before the meeting, the guy said, you know, oh, I'd love to see a show. I heard such and such was on Broadway. And I said, oh, I just read a review about it in the New York Times. And so I said, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he said, and what about this sport you have baseball? And I said, oh, sure, I'll take you to Nationals games.

and you know blah blah blah blah blah and there was something else and my boss afterwards said i have never seen anybody speak authoritatively about such disparate issues as you he said congratulations you really won the day but that wasn't work they didn't teach me to do that i just read voraciously like you do it's a personality thing yeah i believe that i really do um you probably teach 10% of it Soden, thanks for the 4999. Oh my God, thank you, someone. Good morning to both of us. Can you please tell us who's pushing the former crown prince of Iran narrative?

Because I'm confused. He's been gone for 40 years longer. What happens if he passes is his son up next? Find it really weird that he's been push hard. This is a thing. This comes up all the time in these situations, right? Like in 2001, there was the whole thing about the exiled king of Africa. Afghanistan.

Yeah, King Idris or King. Or Zaire maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Zahir. And he was living in Rome like, you know, like a dandy. Since the 60s.

Right. Since the 60s. Again, over 40 years. And I think he was kind of like, oh, God, if I have to fucking go to fucking Afghanistan instead of fucking Rome. Listen, there's a prince, an Afghan prince whose son is friends with my son. You know what he does? He's a legit prince, like close, close to the king. He runs the Vespa dealership in, in Arlington, Virginia. He doesn't ever want to go back to Afghanistan. I don't blame him. To answer someone's question, it's the Israelis. They're very public about their support for Reza Shah. And even he doesn't really- It's almost trolling. They've got to know there's no appetite for that at all. It would never work. Trump said something yesterday about Reza that that he, that he doesn't really.

he's not going to meet him because he's just not important enough. And it's true. He's not important enough. Trump's 100% right about that. Angela Falalala, gifted a subscription to the show. Appreciate that. If you so says, I've seen The Dead many times. A couple hits of acid at a live show will help you get through it.

You know, that's kind of like electronic music, you know, the rave music, right? Yeah. Ray, thanks for the buck. John, did you ever want to be a private contractor at any, at one point, fewer rules? You know, the only thing that would have attracted me to private contracting was the vast amounts of money that those guys make. There were so many people that I worked with who walked out of the building on Friday with a blue staff badge and walked right back in the building on Monday with a green contractor badge doing exactly the same job and making three times what they were making on Friday. That's got to be tempting. Yeah.

Yeah. My father, not intelligence, but he was always tempted to go to private. private industry because it paid so much better. But he got a deal where he was able to do private contracts on the side. Last time for one quick question, Jeff Burgess, can Biden run again? No. Yeah, he could. Yeah, he could. Yes, he could. He's only been president once, but he won't. I don't think he'll remember that he was president by the time. Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, he's a drooling idiot. That's just true and sad, but true. Okay. So I guess that's it for today. day. We'll be back tomorrow, Tuesday. Please don't forget, Robbie A, go to GoFund Me,

and go to and search for D program, Robbie. Let's get that done so we can polish off January quickly. We're 80% there. Thank you so much for your support so far. It's GoFund me, D program, Robbie. I put it up there. There's a slash F in the middle. Okay. Anyway, thank you so much, John, and see you guys tomorrow at 10. Please stay tuned for the TMI show with me Minil Chan coming right up. Bye. Bye-bye.