DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - What's Next for Marjorie Taylor Greene?? | DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.Today we discuss:Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns from Congress. What's next for her and for MAGA?US, Ukraine and Europeans make progress in Geneva but doubts remain over security guarantees: Is this the beginning of the end for the Russo-Ukrainian War?Psst—eight months ahead of schedule, DOGE no longer exists!JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowFOLLOW TED:https://rall.comhttps://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/id1825379504

Good morning. You're watching the program with Ted Rall and John Kyriaku. It's Monday, November 24th, 2025. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. Good to see you. I'd like to. Good to see you, too. So Marjorie Taylor Green may or may not be looking for a new job, but she's certainly out of her old one, of her, partially of her own accord. of our own record. Even as, just as we went on the air a minute or two ago, Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian team is returning from Geneva, where apparently there's been some progress made toward Trump's 28-point deal that would, I hate to say peace plan, because that just doesn't seem right, deal, let's just say, to end the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Doge, nobody really noticed, but it died not with a bang, but a whimper.

It is no more. And we can talk about that. Before we, John, if you don't mind, some news just happened five minutes ago that just broke across the Washington Post. Jimmy Cliff, great reggae star, has just died. And he's, so I wanted to have some quick sound recommendations. If you know nothing else, check out the soundtrack, too, the harder they come. Amazing. Even if you don't like reggae, you'll like this as they, as.

that guy says in Alex Cox's repo man. Struggling man, also just can't, like an amazing, basically a heartbroken guy loses his best friend, Jimmy Cliff lost his best friend, and he basically was in mourning, and he basically poured it all into the music. And the self-titled debut, not to be missed, also not to be missed, is wonderful world, wonderful people, beautiful people. So amazing, amazing performer. Did you happen to see last night, too, this was a push notification from the New York Times that H.Rap Brown died.

Oh, no way. Yeah, H.Rap Brown died at the federal penitentiary of the prison hospital at Butner, North Carolina. Tell you the truth, I didn't realize he was still alive. I didn't either. He was a major voice. in the Black Liberation Movement in the 60s. He sure was. He converted to Islam, adopted a Muslim name,

and then opened a bodega in Atlanta, married a woman who was a civil rights attorney. And then everybody just kind of forgot about him. But the FBI was obsessed with this guy to the point where they tried to pin 16 different murders on him, including, The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. This is how ridiculous the FBI is.

They're insane. Nothing ever came of it. And then in 2000, two deputy sheriffs from Atlanta were walking up to his bodega to serve a subpoena. And they said, Mr. Brown. And he said, yeah. And then he pulled a rifle off of his shoulder and shot both of them. he killed one the other one lived and testified against him and he got life without parole in the federal system the the cop said that they were able to catch him by following a trail of blood because the cop got a couple

of shots off before he was killed the problem is is when they caught brown a couple of hours later he had no wounds there was no blood and so there was never any real real evidence that he was the the guy that shot these cops. Did Rap Brown ever claim that he was innocent? He always claimed he was innocent. And the jury voted seven to two against the death penalty just in case they got it wrong. Wow. But his appeals never went anywhere.

And then he died of multiple myeloma yesterday in the prison hospital at Butler, North Carolina, in the maximum security part of this. It's very creepy. A couple days ago, I was rearranging my book. and my H.Rap Brown die, N-word, die, but it doesn't say N-word. I was like, where do I put that? It's such a great book, but I don't want people to get the wrong idea when they see it on the shelf. They don't know who H. R.R.F. Brown was. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? People don't know.

In fact, when I saw it, I was with a good friend of mine. I said, oh, my gosh, H. Rat Brown died. I didn't even realize he was still around. He said, who's that? I said, dude, you're older than I am. H. R. Rep. Brown. Yeah, it's like Eldridge Cleaver. It's like that ilk. Yes, exactly. He said, I never heard of him. Blake, thanks for becoming a monthly supporter.

Much appreciated. Okay, Gavin Breen, 49. Quick question. Have either of us ever visited Ireland? Me? No, I have not. Oh, I've been many times. I was there as recently as February.

Oh. Yeah. I like it very, very much. I would love to. Very much. On top of, on top of being green and beautiful and historic and, you know, plenty of things to do. And that's where Guinness is made and their whiskey is delicious. On top of all that, the Irish are just beautiful people.

And so I always feel so welcomed there. It's really a great place. In fact, when I was there in February, I was there to give a series of speeches. And my sister flew out with her husband and two kids and they stayed a week. And they loved it as much as I do. Great place. Cool. Cool. All right. So what shall we discuss first? Yeah, let's talk about Marjorie Taylor Green. This is something you and I chatted about on Friday night when the news broke. I couldn't believe what I was reading on my phone. And all I can think of is that I want to grab her by the shoulders and shout, coward. Like, what is she thinking? At the first sign of trouble, she just runs away. And I mentioned to my son, she doesn't even

qualify for the pension. You've got to do three terms to qualify for the pension on Capitol Hill, and she's done two and a half. John, let's hold that thought, because I'm going to disagree with you a bit, but here we go. We have an ad to do. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast, and it's not slowing down there, building a real alternative to big tech that puts creators first and actually protects free speech. And now there's Rumble premium, an easy way to upgrade your experience. With premium, you get ad-free viewing across the platform, no pre-rolls, no interruption, just the you came for plus premium members unlock exclusive content like bonus videos behind the scenes drops and more from your favorite creators right now rumble is offering ten dollars off an annual subscription just go to rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout that's rumble.com slash premium promo code studio no ads more freedom and content you actually care about that's the deal um so yes you don't think she should have um you you think she should have stayed and fought the good fight I do. I think she should have stayed.

You don't see Thomas Massey running for the hills to protect himself. You know, it leads me to believe, too, I went to the trouble of reading her long screed that she posted on social media. So did I. And it leads me to believe that we're probably going to see her run for governor of Georgia at some point. Running for the Senate wouldn't make any sense because it would put her right back in Washington with the people that she hates and fears. and you know she still wouldn't be able to get anything done so my guess is she's probably going to prepare for a gubernatorial run but i don't know i just when she starts to take some sane positions on important issues she just quits walks away but you do well i mean i guess my point

is i can see i can see her point first of all thomas massey um you know wasn't called a traitor by the presidents of the United States. I mean, for, I mean, for Martin, for green, this had to, you know, really cut to her bone. She considers, it's so important for her to be considered. She considers herself such a patriot and all that. And she, you know, she feels like, I thought the key phrase where she said loyalty is a two-way street. She has been very loyal to the president. Very.

And it hasn't been returned over, you know, what should have been a relatively minor disagreement over the Epstein. Absolutely. And so she, and, you know, he basically did what he always does, which is, you know, if you don't agree with me completely, I come in hot, all guns firing. It's his thing. You can sort of see, we should probably talk a little bit about Friday's meeting between him and Mamdani. And he said this, you know, during that meeting with Mamdani, he said, well, you know, during a campaign, you just say things. And, you know, I don't think it's right, but it's what he and a lot of other politicians do. And then they, like, make nice afterwards.

When I was working on my biography, my graphic novel biography of Trump, I came across this story about this, like, battle he had with this tenants association of a building called Barbizon Plaza on Central Park South that he took over. He took over the building. There were rent-controlled tenants that he wanted to get out so he could flip them and convert them over to condominiums. And he was like, you know, these people are paying $300 a month and they have views of Central Park. We should get them the hell out. So anyway, it was an ugly, tortured years-long legal battle through the courts. And ultimately, the Tennis Association prevailed. And the people

who stuck through and didn't leave, they got to stay for $300 a month with their beautiful views of Central Park. And the head of the Tennis Association ran into Donald Trump in the lobby, of the building at one point. And she was shocked because he came up and shook her hand, was very friendly and cordial and said, hey, how's it going? Good to see you. And she was like, we just had blood sport here. And like, this was so important to us.

But to him, very clearly, this is just, it's just business. He never got emotional about it. He never took it seriously, even though it sounded emotional, even though it sounded serious. And so, I don't, so, you know, I mean, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. but, you know, obviously it had a toxic effect on MTG. I have heard that story from so many people, not specific to the homeowners,

or to the tenants association, but to any conflict with Donald Trump, where it's all an act. Yeah. It's nothing personal. His blood pressure doesn't go up. His heartbeat doesn't go up. It's a brickly business.

I told you I had the occasion to meet him at Mar-a-Lago for 20, 30 seconds in January of this year. He could not have been any more cordial, any lovelier. And everybody that I know who knows him says that this, you know, the hate comments, calling the reporter Miss Piggy, insulting people, it's all an act. Yeah. Like, yeah, apparently he's a. he's a nice man if you're you know get on it you're in his family or whatever i mean yeah it's

an act i mean he feel i i suspect he got that from his father fred absolutely you know this is like this is what we do so you do things fred was so legendary in his you know in his hating on people that woodie guthrie wrote a song about him oh really yeah old fred trump oh my god that's awesome who knew i didn't know yeah that's amazing and of course Fred was literally a showboater. He literally had showboats to promote his his cheap apartments in Brooklyn and Queens, like off the beach of Coney Island.

But only for whites. Right. Whites only, of course. Yeah. So it's a, yeah. So, okay, so the thing is, let's get into the politics of what happens. One last point, if you don't mind. One last point.

I've been corrected in the chat, and I want to acknowledge this. Medic 6919, you are absolutely right. Her resignation is effective January, which is the day after she took the oath. You need five years, two and a half terms for the pension. So she resigns the day she qualifies for the pension. Okay, so she's not a dummy. No, she's not stupid. Okay, sorry, sorry.

Okay, so yeah, so she's resigned. I guess, you know, the question now becomes, who's the next who fills her spot does the governor fill her spot no what the governor does uh well nobody fills the spot the governor has to declare the seat vacant and they call a special election gotcha so it's not like the senate right not like the senate no so in the meantime the people who work for her now will continue to work for the house of representatives and they'll answer constituent mail they'll respond to to issues that come up, somebody didn't get their social security check or somebody's kid wants to be nominated to go to Annapolis or whatever. So the office will be on autopilot just

running itself. And then they'll have a special election. For a few months. Yeah. I would, I would venture a guess that the special election would be held probably in the late summer or early fall and then they'll get it back on on cycle uh in november and obviously it's a safe republican seat safe she got 77 percent last year against a democrat who had national funding so this is a ruby red district so so there's no danger there's no there's no there's no need for the for the republicans in the house to worry about the balance of the house in in in this case. Does it, but it does obviously symbolize a fracture within the GOP and within the MAGA coalition. Oh, I think it does. I think it does. And there really, there really is a fight over

what MAGA means. Does MAGA mean what Donald Trump originally said it meant? Or does MAGA mean whatever Donald Trump says it means today. It's a big difference. Producer Robbie has a question. Why not stay and obstruct what Trump is doing? Isn't resigning simply a surrender to the establishment? Yeah, I think it is. Like I said, Thomas Massey gets threats all the time.

And he still stands up and says what he wants to say and votes the way he wants to vote. and writes discharge petitions and takes on the leadership of his own party. It's a, I mean, so I guess, I mean, again, I still think Republican voters, Republican, the, you know, MAGA coalition, they are running against themselves, right? They're not running against Democrats. They're running against apathy. I mean, is there sort of a sense that, you know, whatever Donald Trump intended to do,

in terms of, you know, affordability and, you know, making America great again in this vague sense. He got off to a strong start in terms of popularity with the immigration stuff. Yeah. But that quickly went bad with the tactics of ice, right? With the tactics of ice and, as we saw this weekend in North Carolina, well, yeah, we want you to grab all the illegals, but not our illegals that work at the country club. right and that's what's happening and also we don't want illegal immigrants we don't want we don't want new workers from outside to be imported to take American jobs unless it's 600 of them

at Maralago and other places that's right it's bad thanks to bastian 575 who gifted five subscriptions to our our show much appreciated so due dark energy does the loss of the seat mean anything to Republicans getting bills passed. Well, there's seat short, right? I mean, until this gets filled. Yeah. And it is a very narrow margin in the House. There's another, there's another seat.

And I can't remember where it is. A Texas maybe that's a safe Republican seat. So they're down two. They still have a margin of two, I think it is. And there are no impending or pending important. votes coming up. The Senate now wants to take up, as an up or down vote, they want to take up health care. There's no indication that the House is ready to do something like that. This is the least proactive House since the Second World War. They're not doing, yeah, they're literally

like Harry Truman's do not in Congress, right? I mean, I thought to me, I don't know how other people feel about this or if this is just like a walk look at it. But to me, the, the real takeaway from the MTG resignation is her statement like basically you can get nothing done there and there's no way to change anything and they don't care about the American people. And I believe her 100%. And I just wonder, you know, to the extent that people pay attention to this, is this just like one more chip in the wall of the American democratic system where we're supposed to believe that this representative system works. And she's reporting back to us, like, basically, I've been to the mountaintop and, you know, the big guy doesn't care.

Yeah. That's a problem. That's kind of what looks like. Yeah, I agree. That's really what it looks like. So, okay. Robbie says Trump has blown up his entire coalition. Hey, let me ask you a favor, and I apologize to our viewers. I'm at my brother's house in Los Angeles. It's 6.21 a.m. No big deal. But there's an alarm going off upstairs. I'm the only person who's awake. Can Robbie come on just for a minute so I can run and see what this alarm is? Yeah, let's don't burn up. Okay. All right. We'll see. There's been fires in L.A. Okay. All right. I'll be right back. Here, Robbie.

Howdy? Hey, Robbie. You will be playing the role of John Gariaki. I'm going to leave his empty wall there while he goes to see what's burning. So you were saying about MTG. Yeah, well, I mean, it just, it goes to show that Trump has, he has blown up since his entire base. I supported Trump back in 2016 because he was taught, the way that he was talking, he was the only person in either political party actually addressing the concerns of normal working class Americans. That he was the only one. No, he's talking about, you know, making insurance affordable, make it where you get insurance across state lines, asking you know, why are we, in NATO. Why we

what won me to Trump was in that Valentine's debate against Jeb Bush when he destroyed him when Trump destroyed Jeb over the Iraq war. He said no your brother was he screwed up. It was a doozy

and I mean that for me he said the quiet part out loud like the establishment does not care and he promised to drain the swamp and do all these things. I actually put the needs of the American people first for once. The first president, the first president, the, the first guy ran for president my entire

life. And it was some orange talk show host. It's like, great. So I'm going to vote for this guy. What do I have to lose? And then Trump has become exactly what he was running against. And to John's point, Thomas Massey, Thomas Massey is the one who, who's forced release to the Epstein files.

We're still waiting for it. Well, so it happens, but he's the only one. Marjorie Green, she's like, yeah, I'm right there with you. But let's do this. And Trump won because he was able to attract a record number of black and Latino and working class voters, people who never voted before. That's correct. He did the same thing in Mondani did.

And Trump, he won re-election overwhelmingly with the support of just normal people. And it gets to the presidency. and see you're just like to hell with all of you i don't care about you i want nothing from you you i mean the beat just goes on guys what do you i think it's important to bring up sneaker dad's comment here mtg was forced out by apak he believes she was probably given a credible threat well she did say she got plenty of death threats yeah um you know where those death threats come from who knows but she's not saying um i do worry i mean that she i mean you know that's a high level of political toxicity.

If we are a country where people resign from Congress because they fear for their life or the safety of their family, we don't live in the U.S. We live in Pakistan. It's right. Oh, you live in Rome. I mean, yeah. Well, how about the Grakis brothers?

I mean, there's a reason by the Roman Republic Phil. And I think that's where we're going right now. The thing that I'm concerned about as a right-winger is when people decide that the political process doesn't matter that the institutions are useless when people come to that conclusion and start opting out and stop voting and stop and stop participating i think that's when things get real and that's my concern and uh if i had the support i run against ranziki here in montana because the guy's just a complete wholly owns the city area of all you need is about five million bucks and then you're all that yeah that's it's all you need it's it's the best

government the money can buy and it's a cheap it it's cheap as far as i'm concerned i mean it is it is it is cheap my ex-wife used to say that about congressman whenever they'd be caught like you know oh he took seven thousand dollars yeah like like you sold it you sold out the american people for seven thousand dollars she's like i might sell them out for seven million yeah seven million i i'll tell you a funny story we used to at the cia when everybody whenever time everything let me start again at the CIA anytime somebody gets arrested they send an all-hands email saying we've just had an employee arrested for misusing the CIA credit card and let this be a lesson to everybody you get these once or twice a year somebody's getting arrested and we always used to

say if you're going to steal from the CIA why would you steal 50 bucks you're an idiot Oh, what are you nuts? Steal millions of bucks. And then when we were, another officer and I, we took a van from the embassy motorpool in Islamabad. We started driving to Faisalabad to go capture Abu Zubeda. And we had two million dollars in two big duffel bags. And he said to me, you know how we always say that if you're going to steal, you should be a million. And I looked at him and we both started laughing.

Yeah, that would be the time. Yeah, but I don't want to retire in Pakistan. No, that would be bad. They probably have an extradition treaty with the U.S. You would know. Yeah. Oh, my God. Thanks, Robbie, for that.

Okay, so, John, are you safe and sound? Nothing burning? Yeah, it's my nephew's alarm. It's been going off for 20 minutes now, and he still can't hear it. Oh, God. Okay. All right. Oh, it's his alarm clock.

Yes. Oh, my God. So, yeah, your nephew is like my son. Okay, so, God, it's like literally he can sleep through like an hour of alarm. I'm like, you know, I used to be crazy. I could sleep standing up for real, like a horse, but I can't, you know, there's no way. I mean, when I was at 18, there was a fire alarm. I guess this belies my story, but there was a fire alarm and the whole building was evacuated.

I woke up in the quad covered with due the next day because my roommates had carried me down and they couldn't carry me back up the stairs. so all right so i mean mtg will there be more or and what happens to her she runs for governor i agree with that that's almost certainly true i don't well and the rules have changed that if you have money now left over in your campaign account you can't put it in your pocket and it's because people were raising millions and millions of dollars and then announcing that they weren't running for re-election and the money used to convert just to uh you know personal personal money and so now you can't keep it. Now you have to donate it to your party's campaign committee or donate it to individual campaigns. So she's going to have to do something. Right, right. So she will.

Triple J, XYZ, I think we answered this question last week. If I'm not mistaken, John, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. Did you see Candice Owens making claims that Macron hired a hit squad on her? Has she completely lost her mind or is there anything there? I think she's losing it. She's losing her mind. I mean, first of all, the French are good. And if Emmanuel Macron decided that she needed to not be breathing anymore, she wouldn't be breathing anymore.

Listen, if there's one thing that the French are good at, it's killing people. We always used to say that the agency, beware the French. You know, they'll smile and offer you a glass of wine, and then they'll blow your brains out, and you will have never seen it coming. Kevin Cronin, 7020. Thanks, Robbie, for admitting that Trump is a total fraud.

The Big Beautiful Bill is a fraud at MTG sold us that fraud. Fair. We should talk about Ukraine, yeah? Yeah. Okay, so we have this 28-point plan that basically pretty much looks like what we all thought. Exactly. It was going to look like three years ago. Three and a half years ago.

So basically, Zelensky's. representatives are returning from Geneva. By all accounts, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump himself, there was a lot of progress made. This is a funny situation, right? Because normally a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine would be negotiated between Russia and Ukraine, and there might be an intermediary, right? In this case, the, like first it was floated to Russia and Russia said, well, might you get the Ukrainians to sign up? on it before right now we don't have anything to talk about. So the U.S. really was negotiating with Ukraine with no intermediaries except then the Europeans are kind of like the buddies of Ukraine

negotiating against the U.S. It seems like the U.S. has prevailed in this negotiation and that Zelensky now we had heard that there was a Thursday deadline. I don't know why he wanted to announce this on Thanksgiving Day when nobody would be paying attention. We'd all be eating turkey. But now it's like by all accounts, according to Rubio, the deadline's not that important. It could be next week or it could be whenever. But basically, Zelensky went to the Ukrainian people and said, basically, you know, in so many words, there's going to be some hard decisions to make. We know we risk losing U.S. support. So it looks like the tradeoff, correct me if I'm wrong, John, is Trump is telling Zelensky, give up all the lands that you've

lost already and demilitarized by roughly half, never joined NATO, but we will give you a full security guarantee in exchange for that. In other words, exactly what you and I talked about six months ago. True. And so now Zelensky is, it looks like Zelensky is, you know, swallowing hard and getting ready to tell the Ukrainian people that they're going to have to take their medicine. Right? that's basically so Trump was kind of kind of rude about it he he said publicly that

Zelensky's got to take it or leave it and if he's not going to take it then he needs to get the hell out and make room for somebody who will take it he said he I think the quote was if he doesn't like it he can keep fighting his little heart out that's right yeah it's like how you know it's like how Russians I mean now sorry how Southerners I don't know why I said Russians My Southerners, you know, they say, oh, bless your heart to treat you like you're an idiot. You know, like so much like your little heart. It's clearly, you know, like you're, it was a very, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't think Trump's wrong.

I mean, I think those are the facts on the ground. I'm going to say, I'm with Trump on this. It's real politic. The war has ground on long enough. And we could all argue about like, you know, sovereignty in the nation state system. and Metternich and how this invasion never should have happened and so on. But at this point, it is what it is. And, you know, I also, and the thing that makes me more sanguine about it is that the

populations that are being transferred to Russia are populations that belong more with Russia than they do with Ukraine anyway. So it's kind of like a solution to an ethnographic problem that's now kind of solved, even though an ugly solution. So, okay, so does Zelensky agree to this? I wouldn't be surprised if Zelensky resigns and walks away and that his success. He goes and hangs out with MTG. I told you the other day, I read in one of the Greek papers that Zelensky actually bought a house in Greece.

I just assumed that he would eventually leave and go to London or Dubai, wherever. everybody else goes. Yeah, that's a comment from three birds, one stone. Zelensky is getting his luggage ready to be the latest British asylum seeker. I think that that's probably going to be what happens. He's always going to be in danger. If he stays in Ukraine, he's always going to be in danger of assassination, whether it's at the hands of the Russians or the hands of other Ukrainians. And so I think that he probably wants to get out. Yeah, if I were him, I'd be more worried about the Ukrainians. Yeah, I agree. I mean, if the Russians want to dead he'd already be dead exactly he would already be dead i think the russians liked having him as

their adversary he wasn't very popular before the war um you know he doesn't cast a he's not the most sympathetic figure uh even though the west has tried to make him one so exactly right so so okay so Zelensky swallows hard, he resigns, he goes and takes his ill-gotten gains and off to the UK or Lake Como or both. And then so, okay, so the next step is then Trump has to get on the phone with Putin. Now, the danger, and you're muted right now, John. The, so the question is, Does Putin now view this as a place to negotiate from? Or is he able to basically have Trump call him, say this is the deal, take it or leave it? Is Putin the kind of man who would ever just take any deal that's offered to him?

Because it's sort of like the normal Russian mentality is we're going to negotiate. If Putin's previous behavior is any indication, and I think it is, he's going to want to negotiate the terms of this deal not just to accept what Trump has offered him for domestic consumption he's got to be able to show he got something he's got his own pressure points which we frequently ignore by the way I had dinner a couple of nights ago with Dr. Peter Kuznick

and four other professors from American University and Columbia two from Columbia University all experts on Russia. And they all said the same thing. The Russians are winning the war. The war is just about over. And so if we want Putin to take this deal, we're going to have to offer him something else. Now, the easy thing to offer is a lifting of sanctions. Yes. That's the easiest thing. We know that he wants that. And so if- And there's not going to be, I mean, seriously, I can't imagine, aside from one editorial in the Washington Post, I don't think anyone's going to care here.

you know like oh my god you lifted the you lifted sanctions against russia what a terrible thing there's not there's not going to be any blowback there no one cares no nobody cares we don't trade with russia anyway and the russians have been able to to circumvent sanctions from the very beginning you know they saw this coming years ago sure they they can't they can't sell gas to germany anymore big deal they sell all of it to india now yep or china so no it'll mean nothing to us. It'll mean nothing to the U.S. economy. The Treasury Department's not going to have a problem with it. Just lift the sanctions. Let's move on. Agreed with that. Do we think Bart of the Broken asks on YouTube, and by the way, please like, follow and share the show.

And thank you for your, the donations on super chats are still open. Do you think the whole corruption case against Zelensky is Trump's way of forcing Zelensky's hand? The corruption case is absolutely true, but the timing is perfect. Well, it's useful. I don't know. I don't think it's a conspiracy. What do you think, John? I think it's just sort of, it's a happy coincidence. Yeah, I think it's a coincidence. I don't think it's a conspiracy. But, you know, like I always say, I'm the least conspiratorial person I know. So I don't know. Usually people are, people are idiots, just by human nature. And Ukrainians are corrupt. So that's like part of their, you know, that's inevitable. I told you once when I was when I was at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I was supposed to make a trip to Ukraine so I called this hotel that the embassy recommended I had a question about the hotel so they answered in Ukrainian and I said hi I'm calling from the United States do you speak English and the receptionist at the hotel says to me in English you want to speak English go to England and hung up on me and I was like that's Ukraine that's

Ukraine right there in a nutshell. That's awesome. Thanks, accident, for the 50 Swedish Kroner. The same guarantees as the Budapest memorandum. We all know how that went. John, you're not. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, well, supposedly, it's supposed to be a clone of Article 5 guarantees. It's exactly what, but it's not, I guess what I'm unclear about is whether the security guarantee would be from the Europeans or from and the U.S. or just from the U.S. I think it's just from the U.S. at this stage. I think it would just be from the U.S.

We talked about this many months ago where the likelihood was that we would announce that Ukraine has major, what's called major non-NATO status. So it would be the same status as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Australia, Japan, South Korea, where none of them are in NATO, but they get the same protection from the United States and NATO that they would if they were members. So it's a way of just getting around this, you know, Ukraine can't be a NATO thing. By the way, accident also asked, and I was just, sorry, I missed this earlier. And thanks for the 20-Kroner. Have either of us ever been to Malta? I have not. No, my good friend Brad Birkenfeld has a house in Malta. I just saw him last weekend. And he keeps inviting me

there to Valetta. I haven't had the chance to go. I'd love to go. Yeah. Kevin Crona, 70-20, where are the Europeans in the proposed Ukraine deal? They don't like it. But they don't really get a vote, do they? No, they're the ones that want to fight to the last Ukrainian. Yeah. But they don't get a vote in Donald Trump's America. No, they don't. And I don't really have a problem with that. Costa is asking you, John, that he, I was very happy to see you on the Dalton Fisher podcast and you tell the best stories. I was wondering if you would be on the show again. Oh, yeah.

I like Dalton. You know, one of the things about Dalton, I'm proud to say I was the first interview that Dalton ever did. And he only does about one every five or six weeks, but he does literally everything that is involved with the production of the end product. He does the graphics. He does the music. he does the computer, you know, work.

He does literally everything. And so it takes a whole month after he does an interview to put it all together, to chop it up into shorts and get it out on the Internet. I think he does a terrific job. And he's already got 300,000 subscribers just after six, seven, eight interviews. So I look forward to doing it again. Coppunk 589 on YouTube isn't conquering territory during a, war against the Geneva Convention?

I don't know. I don't think so. No, I don't think so either. I mean, otherwise, what would be the point of war? Yeah. I think it's obviously against international law. Yeah, that's different. Right.

Yeah. Yes. So, yeah. Okay. Let's, we have a little message. We have to put, Let's hear, Robbie is going to remind everyone why they need to migrate over to Rumble. For those of you who are new to the show, or those of you who are pig-headed and stubborn and old to the show, here's Robbie.

Hi, I'm back. So just a quick little blurb. I am working with John and Ted, trying to figure out in logistics, they'll just set up a call-in show where people be able to call in and I should be on the air with them, be able to ask questions in real time, live and in color. So working on that. more to come. And along that vein, if you are on Rumble, if you are a channel subscriber on Rumble for $5 a month, or if you subscribe to Rumble premium, I have got more Rumble premium content coming out for the show exclusively on Rumble. If you want to see that, if you want to see that exclusive content, come over to Rumble, reason why we do it that way is two reasons. One, YouTube censors free

speech. Everyone knows that. And that still happens. Number two, Rumble pays them significantly more than YouTube does and they've got bills to pay so that's why we do this here on Rumble so come on over i know a lot a lot of people on the left really just have a this misconception that's a right-wing echo chamber i promise you it's not when youtube was censoring them when they demonetized the show a couple months ago rumble to not throttle them and Rumble kept paying them so come on over the water's fine and you might make some new friends Thanks, Robbie. Okay, so there's the story I wanted to talk to you about.

We didn't put it. We didn't have it in the rundown, but, you know, oh, well. So, John, I don't, you know, as you know, the new prime minister, Sanaik Takaishi of Japan is a right winger. And definitely, like, as much of a militarist as we've seen since World War II running Japan, she's just ordered the defense ministry there to put missiles on a small island island called Yonaguni, which is kind of not far from Taiwan. And the Chinese are very upset about it. The Chinese say that, you know, this is right-wing forces in Japan are leading Japan

and the region toward disaster. Beijing is determined and capable of safeguarding its national territorial sovereignty. And of course, they are, they consider Taiwan legally to be part of China. I mean, this is saber-raddling, right? I think it is. You know, Japan has always had this tendency to move to the extreme right. That's how we got the Second World War. That's how the world got, you know, the rape of Nan King and et cetera, et cetera.

But yeah, I think that even if this was meant to be symbolic, it's potentially dangerous. What's going to end up happening is the Chinese are going to complain and complain and they're going to be ignored and then they'll move on to the next issue. I think far fewer people would be worried if these missiles were somehow closer to North Korea than to China, but that's just not going to happen. Yeah. I mean, and obviously the Chinese are just not going to attack. They're just going to grumble, like you said. They always do in such florid language, too. Not as florid as the DPRK. That's the best. Their rhetoric is so awesome. It's like everybody in the D.P. PRK is Baghdad Bob.

It's like, you will burn in the searing fires of hell as you richly deserve as capitalist monsters. Three birds, one stone. Does it hold any weight if we write the pardon attorney who is vying for John? If so, please send us their information. I missed it the last time you guys were talking about it. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

There's a web address. You know what? I'll Google it and I'll find it. Thank you for them. Okay. So is that a yes, sort of? Okay, so while you are doing that, I'll tee up the, our last official topic of the day, right? So last and I guess least, Doge is no more. So Doge was supposed to go on for another eight months, and it just sort of apparently

someone from a newspaper called up the White House, like, oh, so what's going on with Doge? And he were just told, oh, that doesn't exist anymore. That's gone. So all of the, what is the legacy, if any, of Elon Musk's, you know, government efficiency and budget cutting? Is it just basically that a lot of federal workers lost their jobs and a lot of agencies got quickly gutted and most of them will end up getting their jobs back because they're

under contract? I mean, is it basically just chaos? And every American had his personal data stolen when they downloaded all of the Social Security Administration's internal records. But yeah, I think you've hit it on the head. First of all, Doge was never a real thing. It didn't really exist, even though we talked about it all the time. It didn't exist because it was never created by an act of Congress. And to be anything in the federal government, it has to be created by an act of Congress.

This wasn't. It was made up of a half. a dozen kids in their 20s who were friends of Elon Musk's or or who had worked for Elon Musk at some point at, you know, Starlink or or Tesla or wherever. And then they came and then they went. So now it's been officially disbanded. We have no idea what's happened to our personal data. But I think you're right. I think all those workers are going to get their jobs back.

Because we have the social or the civil service act in this country. You can't fire people without due process. You can't. And that's one of the main reasons people become federal government workers, isn't it? Job security. Yeah, job security. I remember saying once that I never paid attention to economic news when I was at the CIA because recessions never impacted me in any way.

I had job security. I never had to worry about a recession and rises in unemployment. So I never paid attention. Well, you can't just come in and fire everybody. You can't just come in and say, doing away with the Department of Education. You don't have the federal authority to do away with the Department of Education. Congress does, but that's why Doge never caught on. I mean, in the long run, are we going to basically learn that Doge cost the taxpayers more

than it saved because of all the lawsuits that it provoked, that the government has to pay to defend, all the people who have to, all the lost knowledge that had to be replaced people left and then I'm sure a lot of federal workers got new jobs elsewhere and aren't coming back so that knowledge base is lost. I mean, in the long run, I mean, what's the lesson here? Is the lesson here that you can't cut government or is the lesson here you can't cut government that way? Yeah, the lesson is you can't cut government that way. Jimmy Carter cut government. It was the last time we had what's called a RIF, a reduction in force, but he did it by going to Congress and saying, I want to lay off X number of thousands of federal workers. And they approved

it. Democrats having controlled both the House and the Senate, they approved it. And he laid people off across the board. That's so weird when you think about a Democrat doing that. Yeah. Jimmy Carter's legacy, right? Like he's a, you know, we think of him as like a liberal, but, you know, he wasn't at all, right? That's why, that's why his relationship with Tip O'Neill was so bad because he wasn't to liberal. That's, yeah, it's depressing, right? Like draft registration, that's Jimmy Carter. Funding the Mujah Hadin, that's Jimmy Carter.

The Olympic boycott in 1980 in Moscow, that's Jimmy Carter. It's all right-wing crap. Sanctions, the development of the stealth bomber. It's all Jimmy Carter. Oh, the 1980s defense buildup really started in 1978 under Jimmy Carter. But, you know, people are like, oh, he's smile. and he's affable, sort of, although apparently he really wasn't that affable in real life.

No, he had a very sharp temper, and he was very happy to display it. It's, yeah, no, it's, so, so now, I mean, like, I mean, do we just forget what, I mean, the whole thing seems so strange. Think about, like, how, like, basically Doge, like staffers were terrorizing these federal departments and agencies. I mean, what happened?

Does USAID come back now? Like, what happens? You know, I'm wondering if Donald Trump just simply won't allow USAID to come back. Although, although USAID actually still exists. Again, it would take an act of Congress to disband USAID. The only reason why I would worry a little bit about USAID is that it used to be an agency of the State Department. And then during, I think it was the Obama administration, it was spun off. and it became independent.

So now it doesn't have that State Department bureaucracy to protect it. So if they do want to actually do away with USAID, and I think a lot of people on Capitol Hill do, that's an easy vote for a lot of people. And Donald Trump, of course, would sign it as soon as it reached his desk. Well, yeah, I mean, the thing is, though, I mean, I have a dim view of USAID, but what do you think? I mean, my view is not as internal as yours.

I mean, I just remember, for example, driving in a convoy, well, in a convoy behind a bunch of trucks for USAID in Tajikistan headed toward the Afghan border. And the trucks were full of food, right? And this was 01. I mean, Tajikistan was in the middle of a famine. So here these trucks are loaded with, laden with food, driving by starving Tajik villagers. You get to the, we wait and wait and wait and wait.

We cross the border into Afghanistan. It's a whole ordeal because you have to go through on a barge across the Pionz River. And then immediately upon arrival, local Afghan warlords, commanders, and their goons are unloading the trucks and stealing every single grain of food. And then a couple of days later, I'm at the bazaar. And there's all these bags that's a gift of the people of the United States of America, with an American flag, all for sale at the bazaar. And it's just like, I was like, USAID, they suck because they could make sure this doesn't

happen, but they don't. They just sort of throw it there and it's like, hey, we sent it, whatever. And they're busy overthrowing governments anyway with their secret budget from the CIA. Yeah, true. U.S. Navy vet hyphen WC5QE, question for both. China is the biggest exporter to the puny genocidal regime, grossing $19 billion, $2024 shipping elements from A to Z, adding, does China get U.S. military secrets in return, like the USSR did?

I mean, we're talking about Israel here, obviously. It's possible. It's possible. I did not know that. China was the biggest exporter to Israel. that you know what that was in the papers i'm going to say within the last week that they're the that they're the biggest yeah which also surprised me i wouldn't have expected that did you happen to see that me past canada for the first time as the biggest

exporter to the united states no yeah first time so is that obviously because um the can the canadians are mad at us they're not coming to visit And there's a very active boycott American goods movement afoot in Canada. It's everywhere. Like I heard that like at bars, there's like, like there's like list like behind the bar. There's a sign that points to what liquors are American and which ones are non-American and, you know, drink these Canadian ones. Don't get bourbon or whatever. They drink a lot in Canada, so it matters.

I interviewed Richard Falk for my other podcast, Deep Focus, a couple of days ago. Richard is the former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights. He's a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a bona fide American hero. So he was invited to participate on a panel in Ottawa last week. on his 95th birthday. Oh, wow. And the Canadians wouldn't allow him to enter Canada. Oh, wow.

They said that he posed a threat to the security of Canada. He's 95 years old. Wow. But because he's an activist in support of Palestinian human rights, that was a problem for this liberal left-wing Canadian government. That's so sick. Hey, I was going to ask you about a movie. Have you seen a House of Dynamite, the Catherine Bigelow movie on Netflix?

No, but I read a review of it yesterday in the New York Times, and they were saying that it is a must-see. What did you think? I didn't see it yet. I say it's one of the biggest fucking disappointments I've ever seen in my life. So obviously she, so it's a Rochaman story. So basically it's a countdown that seems to take place in more or less real time of this what is an ICBM strike,

against Chicago from possibly North Korea. And you basically cut back and forth into different agencies. And it feels a lot like that movie, fail, say, from 1960 or something like that, you know, where it's just like, it's going to happen. So here, here's the spoiler alert. The spoiler alert is that there's nothing to spoil. We never find out what happened.

Like, literally, the screen goes black, like at the moment of possible impact. We don't know where it originated from. We don't know if it has any ordinance on it. We don't know if it's nuclear. We don't know that it would successfully detonate. If it is nuclear, you know nothing. You just see all this stuff happening and the fear. And what's really disappointing is it counts down to zero. And then it starts again in different parts of the government, starting again where you were before, counting back down to zero. And you're like, you know, I mean, it does do what she does well,

which is military porn. Yes. Yes, she should be ashamed of herself. Yeah, Zero Dark 40 is, Dark 30, is not a high point of, you know, in moral filmmaking. No. But still, I mean, and, you know, the Hurt Locker always bothered me because it doesn't show the Iraqi point of view. It's like, we're invading them. We have no reason to be there.

You know, and that's never, you know, she doesn't need to make a political movie, but it's kind of like making an anti-political movie as opposed to an apolitical movie. But anyway, no, the movie sucks, honestly. I mean, I have to say, you know, I kind of need to see it, like, fail-safe. You do know what happens, and it does happen. You don't see the cloud. It's just like, in the end is amazing, right? Like where there's, like, all these quick cuts of, like, New York City,

which is the city about to be nuked. And you see, you know, like street scenes, people buying, hot dogs, people like kids playing a playground, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's, and then it's just the screen just goes white. That's fantastic. It's just, yeah, I was really, I was just really curious what you thought. I was just like, God, what a turd. I'm very excited. I've, I bragged about this last week. I'm going to brag about it again. So now, now that I have membership in SAG AFRA, the Screen Actors Guild, I get to vote on the SAG Awards, which are now, called the actor awards. They're going to change the name effective. I think it's February. I mean, SAG Award isn't great, but neither is actor award as a title. No, I agree. But I get DVDs of everything that's nominated so I can vote. And that's cool. I was reading this article in The Times on the plane on the way to L.A. yesterday. And they were saying that this one is a shoe-in for nominations in all of the award categories.

really huh well i mean it's like the fix is always in for her isn't it always and she's an Oscar winner for that terrible movie zero down 30 that was made essentially you know with the CIA's help yeah yeah and it totally i mean yeah for people who haven't seen it the main what john and i are basically referring to is it says falsely that torture effectively led to the capture of Osama bin Laden. And it shows it is a bald-faced lie. Yeah. I mean, it's gross. And, you know, and it's false.

And, you know, if torture worked, I would be the first to say, okay, well, torture is wrong, but it worked, or it worked, but it's wrong. Anyway, thanks everyone for watching. We'll be back tomorrow. We haven't decided whether we're going to do Wednesday or not, but John, you and I should talk about that. I would do Wednesday. How about you?

I prefer kind of to have a day off. But if you want to do Wednesday out, I'll get up going to be seen on TV dragging you, kicking and screaming, it's doing a show. All right, we'll take Wednesday off. I think we heard a little one day vacation, two day, Wednesday, Friday. Three day, three day. Okay. All right.

Well, let's say this. If something huge happens, then we'll come in and we'll do a show. Okay. Otherwise, I think Robbie's going to put together a best job of some sort. I hope I'm not speaking out of turns. Thanks, everyone for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow for Tuesday. 9 a.m. Eastern time. As usual, we're here Monday through Friday, Eastern, 9 a.m. Eastern.

Please like, follow, and share the show. Please stay tuned for TMI with Ted Raul and Manila Chan. That's me. See you all later. Bye. Bye, John. Bye, Ted. Thank you. Thank you.