DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Wild Things | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Between Pete Hegseth, Kristin Noem and Kash Patel, the Trump Administration was staffed with some real party animals! Now Lori Chavez-DeRemer is out at Labor for boozing it up on the job while boning a subordinate. How did teetotaler Trump wind up with such a posse of wild right-wingers?• The US State Department will host a second round of ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday. Joining “Deprogram” to explain the latest in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon is Dmitri Lascaris. Dimitri Lascaris is a Canadian lawyer, journalist, and activist based in Montreal and Kalamata, Greece. A former Wall Street and class-action securities litigator, he now reports independently on foreign affairs, human rights, and global politics via his YouTube channel Reason2Resist, often from conflict zones, including Lebanon. • Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says Iran is “prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield” after Trump threatened Iran with “problems like they’ve never seen before” if the two-week ceasefire expires tomorrow without a deal. There is no official confirmation on whether Iran will take part in talks in Islamabad.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Good morning. It is Tuesday, April 21st, 2026, and welcome to D-Program with Ted Raul and Jemarle Thomas. Please like, follow, and share the show. Please put in your questions into the live chat. If you're watching live on YouTube or Rumble in the 9 a.m. Eastern hour, we are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. On Mondays and Wednesdays, we also do a special Q&A show. By the way, I'm not sure if I can do Q&A tomorrow. We'll have to, we'll let you know, keep you posted about that. I've got some stuff going on. But if not, we'll do it Monday for sure. All right.

So here's what's going on today. We've got another ouster in the Trump administration. It's not quite the night of the long knives. But Lori Chavez de Rimmer is out at the Labor Department, allegedly for being a boozer who was boning her security attach. I don't know what's with Donald Trump. that he, you know, he's a teetotaler. And he appointed like these insane drunken hose, right?

Like Pete Hankseth, Christy Noem. Everyone be boning, everyone be drinking, everyone be having a good time. And how do such people who are having such a good time? Why are they so mean? I don't understand any of that. We'll be joined at 9.30, about 27 minutes from now, by journalist Dmitri Lascaris, who's been to Lebanon. He's an accomplished journalist, and he'll bring us up to speed on what's going on there with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon,

which is gauzifying southern Lebanon, at least. And finally, there is a war of words breaking out between Iran and the U.S. over the expiration of the current ceasefire agreement tomorrow. Parliament Speaker Mohammed Baguer Galibaf says that Iran is, quote, prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield, end quote. And Iran, on the, and Trump, meanwhile, threatened Iran with problems like they've never seen before if there's no deal. So, and meanwhile, this is the thing is, J.T. What's going on with with J.D. Vance's trip to Islamabad is he doesn't know if his Iranian counterparts are even going to show up.

Reuters, we talked about during the Q&A yesterday, had reported that the Iranians. onions were showing up. But they're alone and their dick is like waving in the wind on this story. Who knows if it's true. But, you know, it kind of reminds me of the time when my ex-wife and I were having problems and she was traveling in Japan and she told me to meet her in Japan. So I flew to meet her in Japan pre-cell phone days. I arrive at the hotel. No ex-wife. So it's like I got done got stood up. So it's like that can happen. And I'm just wondering if that might happen to J.D. Vance. It might. I mean, like, like I said, I didn't, it was unclear whether or not the Iranian delegation was going to show up. I mean, there are reports going both

ways. I mean, Iran TV or media is reporting that Iran hasn't shown up. And Iran is effectively saying, what is Galaboff, I believe, the parliamentary speaker and the one who's heading the negotiations. We are not going to negotiate in a threat. You've stolen our tanker. There's that. Um, you have been screaming that you're going to destroy us again. There's that. And of course, the blockade. And so it's not like, meaning the factors that were supposed to be in place for negotiations are just not there.

Yeah, they announced a ceasefire. But as you pointed out, they're trying to gosify southern Lebanon. They've just stolen the tanker and they've maintained it in the blockade. Like, and again, this goes back to the whole thing. do you negotiate under these conditions? And if you're willing to, what does it mean? It seems that they're at the very least aware of the impression that he gives if they negotiate under threat, whether they do it or not. I'm not sure. I think it can go either way, to be honest. Totally. I mean, this is totally kind of pure speculation, purely emotionally,

not really, but I kind of think their audience are going to show up. You know, it's like 51 I think they'll show up. Just just to hear what the U.S. has to say. But, you know, obviously there has to be a come-to-Jesus meeting here, you know, a moment here for the U.S. They know the economic pressure is building, you know, even if this war were to end, instantaneously, the global economy is going to take a hit. And it's going to be a ripple effect that it's going to take months, maybe even a year or two, to work its way out completely.

And that's if it ends now. It doesn't end for another, God forbid, two months. I mean, forget, we'd be lucky to get out of this with a major recession. I mean, it could be worse than that. But it should be worse. Like, look, I don't mean to be a doom-loom guy. And I don't mean to be the guy who is looking for damage to the whole threat. Retribution.

Yeah, I would never argue that we should get attacked or something like that, right? By the same token, though, it's like, are we served by our government behaving in this way? Now, and I'm saying this in a sense of with 37 trillion going to $40 trillion in debt, it's not like we can look at that $40 trillion and say, hey, we have the best hospitals in the world. We have the best roads in the world. All of us are on flying cars. That's not what we are, right? It's the opposite of that.

And so it's like we are now, again, doing something that not only is going to put tree, is on the debt, but it's going to damage us materially in regards to the war directly itself, meaning we're going to bear the consequences of this war, as you point out, even if it stops today, there's a ripple effect that is coming, that is going to hit us. When Trump got in office, if you remember the tariff war, that seems like forever ago, but it was only like last year, and the same thing was happening from the standpoint of the U.S. economy creaking. And I'm saying, we're doing stuff that is materially damaging us. And what? whether that damage is meted out to the rest of the world,

any sense of us killing people, should it be meted out to the rest of the world, or does it need to be a reckoning at home for, I don't know, some awareness of, hey, we've gone off the rails. We have. And if there's not that reckoning, do we change? Look, I agree with the lefty professor who said that 9-11 was chickens coming home to roost. You know, he was quoting Malcolm X.

And that's right. It was. But we didn't learn a goddamn thing from that. And I don't know that we will. Jamal, let's try to predict two questions here. First of all, are the Iranians bluffing when they say they've got new cards on the battlefield? I mean, we haven't seen those hypersonic missiles that we're 90% sure that they have. So is that what we're talking about here?

Well, we saw them used in a 12-day war. Like the attacks on Haifa and everything else. those things were terrifying. Like the video footage that was coming out of Pfea when those refineries were being hit were of a missile that seemingly was coming in at remarkable speeds. I mean, like you could barely see it

and the thing exploded. So they got him. Maybe they had it. Maybe that's it, right? And then the other question is Donald Trump said just before he went on the air that he doesn't have, he's not inclined to make another extension.

Of course, we remember from the tariff, negotiations. He loves, he loves extensions more than, than Pete Hagseth in college. He's, he's constantly asking, you know, kicking the can down the road. Do we believe him there? No. I don't, I have to be honest with you, Trump has no credibility to me at all. I mean, whether it was in the war in Ukraine or whether it's here. I mean, this was the same guy who said he was going to destroy Iranian civilization. And it immediately goes into negotiations. And the name Taco is there for a reason, right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's, look, it's obviously we know, we know his style.

We should talk about, because we do have a guest coming on in 20 minutes. We should, and I want to get to some questions, too. But let's talk about Lori Chavez-Daremer. I don't know if I'm pronouncing her last half of her hyphenated last name correctly. But she's the Secretary of Labor. The Labor Department, as Robert Reich can attest, is kind of a low-profile job. Yes. She came in as an ally of the head of the Teamsters Union who sort of didn't endorse Kamala Harris,

you know, Sean O'Brien. And but that was viewed as a favor by Trump by not, you know, he didn't, he certainly couldn't endorse a Republican, but he just didn't endorse. And he spoke at the Republican National Convention. He recommended Lori. And so, you know, it turns out that she's being investigated for basically ethical. ethical improprieties. She was allegedly carrying on an affair with a member of her, at least one member of her security detail. She was drinking on the job. She was inviting her family members

to party in Vegas on the taxpayer dime. I mean, she's great. I would, I would totally have gone out with her back in the day. She's gone for now. She sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, you know. So, But I mean, but this is weird, right? I mean, Donald Trump famously lost a brother to alcoholism. It really affected him. It's one of the, along with having a serious asshole for a father, it's one of the two big traumas in his life, right? And his, and he swore, he swore off booze, you know, it doesn't touch the stuff, really has a dim view of people who drink at all and tries to talk to people around him about like what happened to his brother. Don't do it. He prefers that you don't drink at all. How does he end up with dudes like

Heg Seth and Christy Noem and possibly Cash Patel? We should talk about Cash Patel. Cash Patel filed a $250 million lawsuit in federal court against the Atlantic Magazine. I have some thoughts about that, more thoughts about that. But how does Trump up with these, like, by his own standards, degenerance. Why isn't he, like, vetting for, you know, for more, you know, state behavior? It may just be the people he's around. Like, if you're, like, like, if you're a real estate guy, and if you think of the people who Trump may associate with, like, people in a circle,

All things been equal, if it wasn't for Trump losing his dad, would Trump also, you know, touch alcohol? Like, meaning, left to his devices. And let's say the dad thing wasn't part of it. It was his brother. It was brother. Oh, brother. I'm sorry. Yeah.

The basic circle of people who he's around with those people being inclined to its alcohol, hard drinking, party in, those type of things. Probably, maybe. especially if you look at the yes men maybe yeah maybe you can't maybe trump just can't be too picky and that's what it kind of boils down to maybe part of it but the other part of it may just be a circle of people like for example but it's also what's with right wingers who are you know basically christie gnome literally is like miss hard ass you know like you if you come here illegally you know fuck you we're going to send you to a gulag and have you tortured and like I'm going to make fun of you while you're in prison and your underwear.

But at the same time, the same chick is carrying an affair with Corey Laurentowski, has a weird as shit husband and is drinking like a fish and acting like a wild skank. I mean, you know, you would think that like a wild skank would want, would kind of want some grace, right? I mean, she's still a person. Yeah, but like, I'm not like, you should have. Don't be a hard ass, right? Well, don't be a hypocrite. Well, that too.

Right? Like pick a pony. No, I agree with you. You would think, but in her role, in her job, in the governmental thing, she's playing a role. Regardless of how she does in her outside life, she's playing a role. Yeah, look, I get, I know where you're coming from, right? It's like, dude, the life you're living, you're living the life of the skank. How are you behaving this way?

It's like a real cop, right? It's like the cop that will pull you over and say, you have drugs in a car. I'm going to take it to jail, but the guy's an alcoholic back home. Right. Right. Right. Or it's like these, or like, you know, the evangelical television preachers who are, you know, hoaring like crazy. And meanwhile, you know, declaiming to their flock how they have to be upright for the Lord.

I mean, it's... Ted Heger. The Lord hates hypocrites. I mean, you know, for sure. Ted Hecker was a big one, right? Where he was having this kind of gay affair while someone. simultaneously in the pulpit, you know, screeching about homosexuality. Larry Craig, remember him?

What was the name? Remember Larry Craig? I don't remember Larry Craig. So Larry Craig was a family values right-wing, I think Senator from Idaho. And he was caught trolling for gay cock in the St. Paul Airport bathroom. I remember that guy. And he was playing with the undercover cop, like under the stall. Right stance.

Yeah, that's it. I have a wide stance. I have a wide stance. I wasn't going for, I wasn't trolling for gays. Yeah. I'm not looking for, I don't need,

I'm not looking for like hot, sweet young male ass at all. Not me. I mean, it's like I always say, like in England, whenever you discuss, whenever,

you know, someone finds a picture of an MP hanging from a, you know, with hanging from the ceiling in a dungeon with a ball bag in his mouth, he's never labor. He's always Tory.

always every single time i mean it's a cliche just once i would love to have a lefty i mean yes scott stantis my co-host on dmz you know he used to say like what's you know i don't understand like if uh you know if a liberal democrat gets caught like cheating on his wife like you know nobody cares i'm like that's because liberal democrats don't go around talking about how no one should you know telling everyone where to put their dick right that's the difference Yeah, yeah. So anyway. Nobody cares.

Right? It's like nobody cares. I mean, you know, it's like if I, look, I guess it doesn't matter at this point. But if I were Trump, I would be like seriously reconsidering my vetting process for sure. You know, and does, let's talk about cash, right? Cash Patel, the Atlantic had a, had similar allegations that he's a hard party and taxpayer money wasting, Vegas, gambling, you know, degenerate, also a skank. What, I mean, now the thing is, he's filed this defamation to it.

My first reaction yesterday, as you'll remember, was to say, well, that kind of makes me maybe doubt the Atlantic's reporting because, I mean, the Atlantic is neocon. They're kind of like, you know, they're not on Team Trump. So I'm kind of like, maybe there's something here because he's exposing himself to discovery. and subpoenas and all that stuff. And I know from personal experience, you don't do that unless you're telling the truth. And then it occurred to me at about 4 o'clock this morning,

unless it's a tactic to keep your job because you can always drop a lawsuit. Right. Trump does it all the time. Yeah. Trump allows frivolous lawsuits all the time. Like it's threats against opposition. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know, man.

I mean, I'm inclined to believe that the stories are probably true. but I don't know. Like, because you could be right. He will be exposing himself to discover in this process. But in six months, you can always drop it. Yeah. And it will not have come to trial by then. There's no fucking way.

Exactly. So give it eight months, drop the lawsuit. Does it keep your job? Yes. Yeah, you just keep, I mean, the American legal system is nothing but a giant delay machine. It's all it does. I mean, have you, JT, have you ever been involved in a lawsuit? No, thankfully.

Hopefully, may you never be. That's what I said. Thankfully, no. I haven't, like, I mean, I haven't, like, see, I haven't had, you've had very, you've had institutional jobs in regards to cartooning, let's say, left-wind stuff. And so you've been more, you've had more, what is the word I'm looking for? Interaction. Yeah, right.

You were more exposed, more exposure to that stuff that could bring you into it. Yeah, that's true. done software and I've done this so I haven't had the exposure. By the way, well, speaking of media, did you see Tucker Carlson apologize for voting Trump and backing Trump? I did. What did you make of that? I mean a lot of people on the writer saying, does that mean that Kamala Harris, you would have preferred Kamala Harris? I'm like, I'd like to remind everyone that there's always more than two candidates. Yes, and neither is a viable position. Totally. But meaning both of these people are lunatics. You can just not vote. I couldn't get my vote. Right. No, I think he's being earnest. I think two things. One, if you're a Christian and if you have a public position in general in regards to what you state you are, meaning Tucker has made a very clear thing of, I'm against these wars, I think this is outrageous. How is Israel murdering all of these people and yet, you know, all of these Christians are backing. He's been very clear on those positions. And so if you're a public personality and all of a sudden you use your platform.

And the huge amount of leverage that you have to say, hey, Trump is my guy. I think he's going to stop the wars. I think this is a good idea, et cetera, et cetera. And then he does the opposite across the board, right? What do you say to that? Now, if you're an honest actor, let's say if you're a legit Christian, right? Like Robbie continuously points out, it's like, how are Christian supporting this? Okay, you're stuck with a reality and a contradiction in that, right?

And even if you're in the foreign policy thing, again, you're stuck with a contradiction. And so if you're Tucker, what do you do? Especially if you've been speaking out about it for the last, I don't know, year, you own up to it. It's part of your brand. You have to. And admitting that he was wrong is definitely a Tucker thing. I mean, he admitted that he repeatedly talks about how wrong he was about supporting the Iraq war. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's a good, God bless him for it. I think you get more credibility when you admit you're wrong. I mean, you know, whenever I read a pundit or read a news source where I don't, there's a serious posity of like mea culpas, I think to myself, I don't know if I trust these people. You know, like, like, you know, even Ben Shapiro, who's honestly one of the worst human beings on Earth. And he, he yesterday did something that was exceptionally racist that like he should probably apologize for today. He posted some serious bell curve like shit about how Somalis have an IQ of 60 to 70. It's like, okay, first of all, that's not true.

And that can't be true because people who have an IQ of like 65, like drool and swallow their own tongue and can't tie their shoes. Okay. And I've been driven around in cars by Somalis. And I've talked to Somalis. And I know that's not true. So it's like, but he had all this whole list of people from Afghanistan have a little. low IQ. Spoken like a guy who's, by the way, never met me Afghans because they're smart as shit. You know, they're smarter than we are. So it's just like, but with some racist bullshit

and he like put it out in such a brazen way. I don't know. Just, just an aside social media bullshit. People do racist shit. I know, but even by his standard, like he's a horrible racist, you know, Zionist pig. And like, but even by his standard, this shot. me because I read him every day and I'm like I'm like whoa and I was like whoa yeah yeah he just comes up in my feed I can't bring him to be I think it's the test is what he'll be no no he's horrible yeah yeah it's it's just like I'm like racist people do racist shit and that's the thing right all the time so for sure I know but it's like you know how there's like there's racism and then there's racism right it's like whoa drop shadow laser

show, you know, like, gothic lettering. The David Chappelle. 128 point font, you know, like, like that. Okay, so let's, okay. David Chappelleel has this joke about going to the south and he goes into place and he says sometimes like it's so racist where you just shot by, like where you just like can't even respond to it. Oh, yeah, you can't believe it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. No, that's true. All right.

Let's do, let's do, let's do some questions. Maybe Bluth Funk. thanks for the $2. Is it insane to prefer an inefficient alcoholic to an effective teetotaler? Sometimes I wonder if an inefficient buffoon is a better option, then maybe it's better to let them stay. You mean from, I assume this means like from an opposition point. Like President Ham sandwich. Like if I have President Ham sandwich versus President Trump, I take President Ham Sandwich.

President Ham Sandwich is not going to get anything done. He's going to be completely ineffective, but could. That's like a libertarian argument Like you know like oh Congress is out of session Great I did some cartoons during the During one of the shutdowns under Bush And it was like it was like The the Guantanamo water borders are all like

Oh shit government shut down We gotta take the day off by The drones are falling out of the sky I'm not gonna get a paycheck okay And let's put this guy back in the cell Yeah yeah ice isn't ice is one day that the ice guys aren't beating anyone up and yeah yeah yeah president ham sandwich is better than you know a president that's doing bad i like me a good a good ham sandwich for sure a warm ham sandwich with cheese yeah

waterways thanks for the five dollars the liquor cabinet of this administration is full of hypocrites that project their insecurities onto us it's i like that the liquor cabinet's so good i'm i'm so like that I usually hate like sort of partisan slurs, like, you know, tea, rump and stuff like that. I hate that stuff. But liquor cap it I really like. That's funny. It's almost a portmanteau. Okay, we have a question for the guest waterways.

We will, we will, Dimitri's coming on in five minutes or so. So we don't see him yet. I'm looking forward to talking to him about Lebanon. So stay tuned. If you're just joining us, we'll be having a guest who has direct knowledge. of what's going on from Lebanon, Dimitri Lascaris. He'll be coming on in just a few minutes. And just a reminder to please like, follow, and share the show.

And we do appreciate your support. Okay, Paluo, thanks for the 10 bucks. What are your thoughts on the unconfirmed reports that Trump leaned toward using the nuclear codes? And was stopped by General Kane. Larry Johnson put that out this morning. Oh, man, I don't know if that's true. Like I, there's something in me that don't buy that story. It just seems so over the top.

Like, meaning, look, if you're dealing with a nuclear power, I get it. It is very hard to make that argument about using these against a non-nuclear nation, especially in the context of a war that you start. They put you to my own Trayvon Martin thing, right? It's like, you have a kid walking down the street, somebody engages in. They start an attack, knowing they have a gun. And then you murdered the person for self, for defending this. It feels like that. It feels off, right?

Yeah. But Larry Johnson's reporting that Trump, erratic, screamed about using nukes. The general or the joint chief person that we're talking about stands up and says, no, we're not doing that. And effectively, effectively tells the president, no, we're not going to use news. It's like you don't get to be Martin Sheen in the dead zone. Yeah. And so I don't know if that's true. I feel like that's so over the top that it's not.

but I'm not sure. I mean, the thing is, I mean, picturing myself as president, I can imagine, like, if you got frustrated, from time to time, you'd be thinking about that nuclear stockpile. And you're like, yeah, oh, you're being annoying to me. It's sort of like, I've read cops who were convicted of violence, you know, or police brutality say, like, you know, they get into this mentality. They're like, you know, they have a long, hard day. They're wearing an uncomfortable uniform. They're hot and sweaty. People are sassing them all the time.

And then finally they're like, you know, I have a fucking gun. I'm an agent of the state. I have a, I can beat you up. I can take you to prison. And you're talking like that shit to me. I'll teach you how to respect me. And I can imagine a U.S. president feeling that way from time to time. Right.

But that's fucking outrageous. Well, of course, it's totally wrong. Yeah, it's totally wrong. Right. Like, and I mean, beyond the cop thing, the cop has institutional authority, meaning it's like an overly of reality that's giving him this kind of toolkit that normal people don't have. It's the right to use force in certain situations. The U.S. is not a cop.

Well, it thinks it is, though. It does. And that's what I'm saying. That's what's so fucked up about it. Like the idea that you're looking at the world in these terms. And this was like Dr. Jeffrich said this morning. Like, what does it take to break the U.S. out of that mindset? Like, how does, how do you get the U.S. into engaging like a normal country?

Short and losing strategically. Well, I think, yeah, I mean, look, what did it take to get France to behave like a normal country? It required defeat in Indo-China and Algeria. What did it take Germany and Japan? We know what it took. you know, defeat. This is your point. And just to take complete destruction in Germany's in Japan's case.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, the, yes. But it's interesting because the Soviet Union acted more like a real country, you know, even while it was in business. You know, it had tremendous power. But it didn't seek to, you know, it just, it wasn't the same.

You know, it wasn't as thuggish. It had its thuggish, you know, moment, as the Hungarians can attest. But Soviet Union had a foil, the U.S. Yeah. And that's what we lost in 1991. We lost our foil. And that was not only bad for the people of the 15 former Soviet republics. It was really bad for us.

Yeah. Morally. We went insane. And there's no competing, there's no competing ideology, right? No competing ideology. and even in ways that we may not be paying attention to. Part of the reason for the New Deal was the Soviet Union. It's like, hey, those guys revolted.

We can't have something like this in the States. People forget that we were only, what, 15, 20, 30 years out from the thing, meaning it was well within FDR's memory. It's not like it is 18 years later, right? We lost that. And when we lost that, there was no competing ideology. True. Yeah.

And it honestly helped keep having the Soviet Union around is part of why we got the New Deal and the Great Society and the Fair Deal and all that. Because there was ideological competition in the marketplace of ideas. Manchild, thanks for the dollar. If God were real, I'm going to have Robbie go answer this, wouldn't he have smitten Trump for all the blasphemy by now? Or is he just waiting for the Bible reading today to make it official? Yeah. And of course I did read about Trump's going to be reading. the Bible for the very first time in his life. So, you know, I would say start with the short verses.

Jesus wept. Those are the easiest ones. It's a good question. And there's lots of things that go on in this world that I wish I had answers to that I don't. The only thing that I can default to is that God is long suffering. He doesn't want anyone to go to hell. That being said, his patience is not eternal. And there's also this thing called the reprobate doctrine, where if you reject Christ long enough, enough and you just tell them I don't want to retain you in my knowledge, then God will, and honor your free will. He will make it aware that it'll just completely remove the ability for you to even get saved. So he'll let you have your time here on Earth and just split hell

wide open when you get there. Smiting is very Old Testament though, right, with the exception of revelations. Oh, I mean, spiting. I can make up a lot of, there's, by the way, there's a lot of smiting that needs to be done. that's all I got. I mean, no, there definitely is a lot of smiting needs to happen. No, I mean, there still is a lot of smiting that goes on nowadays. Smiposity. I mean, you know, the backhand of justice can be delivered.

That being said, more often than not, judgment begins, begins in the church. And so typically, if you have a wolf and cheap's clothing like Jimmy Swagger, some of the people you got to talk about before. Yeah. Those are the ones who the Lord really goes after good and hard. not the loss, not the unsaved because they're already, they're already outside of grace. That's the whole point of the church is going, get people saved, bring them in and pull them out of the fire.

That's the whole point. But if you're a wolf in sheep's clothing, especially if you're a blasphemous prick like Trump, all you're doing is keeping colds on your head. And whenever he bows before Jesus, when he gets on his knees, I do not want to be that man in that situation. Okay, thank you for that.

Do we have an ad by the two, by the way? Yeah, I've gone. up. Do you want to reach out to Dimitri and find out what's going on? Is he having trouble connecting, maybe? I don't know. I emailed him the link again, so have it heard from him. Okay. Well, we'll hear from him, or we won't. I'm between the three of us, we have enough to say, I'm sure. Okay. So, all right. So let's do some more, let's do some more questions here, because they are good. I think, if I'm lying, God strike me dead. And I'm like, that's That's pretty hardcore.

Ted, you have about a minute. Doodle me. Yeah, I need more than a minute. Okay. Okay, Frasmataz. Ted, weren't you the one who said that Hitler served Coca-Cola alongside wine and beer or something because he hated booze at Nazi functions?

That was someone else, but I do know Hitler was a teetotler. He apparently, I mean, mostly, right? I mean, there's some reports that he enjoyed a little bit There's schnops now and then, but he refrained. He was, you know, he definitely didn't overeat. He didn't. He was kind of like very self-disciplined, except for the fact that his hours, he kept crazy hours.

He'd like to stay up yapping until like five in the morning and then would like sleep late. Trump has that kind of habit. You know, yeah, I don't think Trump is up at six o'clock in the morning. No. You know, it's funny, as an aside, have you ever seen Hitler's actual? chart. Just out of curiosity. No. No. Madness. Oh, really? Fascinated. Yeah.

Like astrologers study that chart because, you know, like when you have extreme personalities and they use it almost as a benchmark when you're like studying this stuff. Like not saying people believe it or disbelieve it, I'm just saying in the context of the chart, it's funny that the correlation is madness. Putin's chart also, his strength, like Pluto and the and MC and stuff like that, like MC being a career, then you have Pluto power, the stuff. Some of that stuff is fascinating, the way this stuff correlates.

I'll have to have you do my chart. I've done your chart. What? I've done charts on everybody that have worked with. Oh, okay, all right. And yet you still showed up, so that's good. What did my chart say? What do my chart say just between you and the entire internet?

Honestly, the chart doesn't really matter to me If I'm working with somebody, it's just, it's curiosity to see how this stuff correlates. I am not going to do a trial reading on there. I'm not committed to the loss. We're going to talk about this offline. Yeah, it was like, it's weird. I overlaid it, and it was the same as Hitler's. Okay.

RACL 1979, do you guys have a prediction of how the event of the World Cup turns out considering current events, world events? That I don't know, but I will tell you this. The World Cup is driving New Yorkers insane. It never should have been, they never should have agreed to do it here. So, uh, he's just driving them insane. Well, so. Like traffic patterns and stuff.

Well, like, yeah. So for example, a bit, you know, part of it is going to be at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, right? Like where the, where the New York Jets play. And so there's a New Jersey transit is the commuter rail that has a spur that usually, you know, sends fans out there. It's, that's supposed to be like an $8 fare each way. So anyway, for the World Cup, the not only will regular New Jersey commuters have no service whatsoever for four hours a day. None.

You want to get home from Manhattan to your house in, you know, Rutherford, East Rutherford? Forget it. You can't. And on top of that, it's $150 for this train fare. Now the, and New Jersey Transit claims that that's how much. it costs us to bring these fans out there, which of course prompts the question, is that how much football?

Like, are you subsidizing the football players the football fans when they come out there? Or like the Rolling Stones fans when they go out there. But it's turning out to be a gross inconvenience. I mean, look, New York is, it's not L.A. It's too vertical. It can't really handle an event of this size. And it's too disruptive.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, see, you would think it's New York. It's a city, and you would think it's a modern city. It's not a modern city. It has, I mean, every now and then, like a water pipe breaks, and it's a clay pipe from the 1700s. I mean, you know, it's like, it's an old city,

and it's cobbled together, and it never had the advantage of being, like, bomb to death, like, you know, like Berlin and rebuilt. So, therefore, it's kind of a lot of ancient infrastructure. sure. So, yeah. I mean, the rolling stock on those New Jersey transit cars are exactly the same as they were when I arrived in New York in 1981. They're old. And that's the other thing, right? Like, for Americans, I don't think, I don't think they realize are old. Well, maybe they do. And look, put it this way. If you're 37 trillion dollars of that, you would expect your cities to be shining and gold. And I guess they're not. Like this, like if you're looking at subways in Europe, for example, or trams in Europe. They have a modern subway system and a tram system,

meaning I don't even need a car. I don't need any of that stuff. I can use trams, subways to get pretty much anywhere from plenty of point in Europe. It just doesn't work their way here in the States. No, it really does not. New York City is the only city in the country where you really truly are fine and maybe better off

without a car. Otherwise, even Washington, D.C., you kind of need a car. where you want a car. In pretty much every other state, I've been in. You need a car. It's just nowhere around. San Francisco, it's like, you kind of want a car. The mass transit system's not that great.

See, that's the one part, right? You know, I've been gone for a year. And no car. I haven't needed one. Part of the reason that I was traveling was the cut costs. Living in the States was very expensive. And especially when the show was getting up and running and everything else. And so it was easier and cheaper to be abroad doing it.

And even without a car, when I sold the car and I was traveling, maybe $200 a month for transport. And that, you just can't get by like that here in this thing. Okay, so Robbie's saying, I just heard from Dimitri, they lost power at his house, and we'll need to reschedule. Is he, is he? He is in Cyprus, I think. That's what I was going to ask, because he's not in Lebanon.

Because he was in Lebanon. He was in Iran, in Lebanon, and then I think he was in Cyprus. So I'm not sure where he is now. All right. Well, we'll reschedule him. I mean, such are the perils of having a, of scheduling guests. And I've been the guest who flaked. Have you ever done that?

Where I totally, like, for gods? And it's like, oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah, I did it once. But that's because I'm running a show. And I'm sensitive to that. Yeah, no, now it's. It doesn't happen now at all.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I barely do it. I mean, and Dimitri is usually like a clock. He's usually really, really good. Well, I mean, there's nothing you can do if you have no power. Yeah, that's what I mean.

Like, usually he's like a reliable. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Let's see. Manchild, thanks for the two bucks. After Nome Bondi. Yeah, don't forget Bondi. And now, DeRemer, is the Trump cabinet turning into a reboot of the apprentice?

And what are the odds that Gabbard, Lutnik, and Patel are the next one sent to the board. So you started reporting on Gabbard, right? Where they were talking about how Trump wanted at one point to give it up Gabbard. But basically, I think it was Roger Stone, apparently in talking to Trump. It's like, dude, you can't give her to Gabbard. She was one of your loyalists. And not to mention, there's an aspect of MAGA who hates what you're doing right now in regards to all of the things they're doing. Right.

It is the person speaks for it. So basically. making an important to say, Roger Stone helped see Tulsi Cabberts. Roger Stone is correct. There is, she represents a certain MAGA constituency. Yeah. Like, you know, they're important. And you can't lose that.

It would be like, oh, you've gone full neocon if you fire Tulsi. And she's been a good, she's been a dutiful soldier, even, you know, covering up as much as she could for his lies about what the CIA has been telling him. Yes. And even dissent. like meaning she is the descent within the context of the office. Yeah. And she's kind of powerless.

Oh, she is. Yeah, she's holy is. She's mid-satler in its entirety. And then like I'm going to put my money on Cash Patel. Like you, I think, look, you know, it's kind of like if the Jack Daniels bottle fits, you know, wear it. You know, it's not like, oh, wait, no, he drinks a lot and he parties a lot at private clubs and acts like a big douche. No way, not Cash Patel. I would have never thought.

Yeah, like Mother Teresa, he ain't. And so, like, yeah, no, I mean, I think, also he's a clown and he doesn't, he doesn't benefit. He's not to the credit of the administration. He can do better. Right. Yeah, I mean, what's the who's next on that apprentice list? Oh, Howard Letnik. I think that might be a cross.

That might be a way to, maybe he's being saved for like a downturn in the stock market or something. Yeah, but if that buffoon hasn't been fired yet for the stuff that he's been saying. I mean, like, Letnik, just to be clear, Lettick is a guy who was coming out saying they're not buying our, what he says, It's a big, beautiful chickens or something like that are our fat cows. It's like, China's not bound to how fat cows are big, beautiful cows. And it's like, dude, you put so much stuff in your cows. And much of that stuff is illegal abroad.

Right. Like a lot of stuff that is in American foods. You can't put them in European foods. They don't allow. And there's a huge list of things that are, they call it what generally, generally recognized as safe. That just in Europe, they just don't have. When the ex is here, it's not allowed. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just not allowed. It reminds me a little bit of under, one of my critiques of NAFTA was that it's considered an unfair restraint of trade under NAFTA for one country to refuse in other countries, these three countries to refuse each other's exports. And so the United States, for example, so Canada successfully sued the United States for refusing to import its asbestos mineral. And it's like, but asbestos, well, we know what asbestos does. But they mine it in Canada, right? So they were like, well, you have to buy our asbestos or you have to pay us as if you were buying it. And that worked. The trade court ruled in Canada's favor.

It's sort of similar. We can't really sue. But, yeah, we have so much shit in our food. And, yeah, I mean, and you know, you just spent a lot of time in Europe. It's just, I mean, it's better there. I remember stopping, I was on a road trip and through France. I was on book tour. And I stopped at a, on the O'Too Root, which is the interstate highway, at a rest stop.

And I was like, oh, God, I'm going to have to get, I'm so hungry. I don't have time to eat a proper meal and go to a village. I'm going to, I'm going to just eat whatever crap they have here, right? And you know where I'm going with this. I go into the rest area, which is basically like a rest area on the New Jersey turnpike or whatever. And it's, you know, quick stop type food. And there's like a sandwich wrapped in plastic. And I'm like, oh, God, this is going to be, you know what that's going to taste like in the U.S.

No, no, it was really fucking good. It was like, you know, everything was fresh. It was French. It was like the food. Yeah, it's great, you know. It's like shitty French food is better than good American food. Yeah, it's just the stuff that we put in our foods. I mean, and we're not, this is, honestly, this is why I supported what RFK was doing.

Oh, me too. Because if somebody who had. I wish I had more power. Same here. As somebody who had a childhood illness, and the belief is that some of those things can be either environmental. Obviously, it's not something that the kid did

because it was a kid in that case. Meaning it's very possible that we're putting things in our environment. We're putting things in our food that has have indeliturious effects on health as people grow up. And people who are, let's say, why we have girls who are 11 years old having their periods and shit.

Yeah, exactly. And so it's like looking at that, saying, hey, why is the autism rate the way it is? Why are people going through puberty fast? Why is the sperm rate going down? Like, why are these things happening in a way that they weren't necessarily taking place in the 60s and the 50s? And is it something that we are doing to ourselves? And autoimmune disorders are off the charts. Exactly. And kidney failure is believed to be an immune disorder, especially when they're talking about the kids. So when our FK is like, hey, we need to look at it. I'm like, good, we should. Regardless of the

administration. Yeah, no, and I will always give Trump credit for having made that move of appointing RFK and for, I mean, it's weird because I never, this is the McDonald's guy famously. Yeah. Eats like shit. Looks like shit. We'll no doubt die of food poisoning someday. But like, you know, like it's like, it's like, it's like, I don't know.

It's weird. I don't know. And it's like, I love this whole like, oh, I was always into Maha. No, you weren't. Like, I don't know. But okay. fine, you do you. It was a political move, which I get, right?

It's the same thing of, okay, I'll give you this because I need to get something else in return. It's something I don't care about. So I don't care if you play around at the... Right. It doesn't interfere with my core businesses. You're not fucking with any of my grifts. Yeah, it's like I'll still sell my shitty steaks. And I will still be eating at McDonald's.

But you have a lot. Although McDonald's might start to taste better. Well, you know, he was talking about, like, food coloring and stuff like that. And it's kind of like, dude, if you guys are using stuff that you are uncertain about and you can replace it with something that you know it's safe, why don't you do it? Right. And so it's like, why does it take RFK to push you and push you and push you on this particular issue or even complain about it? It's just, wow.

Well, and that's stuff that he really can do through executive order and that can't easily be reversed through, you know, a court filing. I mean, right. These are, yeah, these are, these are FDA regulations. These are what executive orders are for, really. Yeah, I got the last. I just wish he did it. Frank, Frank Field, 7254. Thank you for the $10.

No one wants an uprising. A lot of innocent people would get hurt, but there comes a point when inaction causes more harm. Do you think we are close to or at that point? Well, I wrote a book in, I think it was 2010 or 2011, called the Anti-American Manifesto. which called for the violent overthrow of the state. So that's my answer to that question, J.T.

I mean, like, look, there's always a point where changing something, or let's say standing still is worse than changing, right? It's hard to know what that point is. We're at that way. If I'm screaming that we need a reckoning. Absolutely, I'm there. I mean, I don't know. I mean.

Well, let's go through some of the things, right? Like, so add or subtract as you see fit, J.D. But in my opinion, climate change, health care, income inequality, war mongering are some of the really huge problems that afflict the American people, the high cost of college, the difficulty in getting, you know, homelessness, poverty. These are all massive institutional problems that neither party has done anything. about at all in any meaningful way most of my life and I'm 62 years old. I don't expect really truly that President Buttigieg or President Newsom or President Vance will do anything different. I think it'll all, the machine will keep rolling along. I don't think those things are acceptable to live with, to live with such a rich country that doesn't provide for its citizens

or such a big country that is that brutalizes the rest of the world or such a smart country that decides it's too lazy to address climate change. All of those things are unacceptable to me. And I agree with what the poster, what Frank said. I mean, revolution's horrible. It's violent. It's brutal. You know, it's as mouth say tongue, revolution isn't said famously.

Revolution is not a dinner party. It's, it's, it, and so you don't do it unless you have to, but I kind of think you have, we have to. But see, that's the wager, right? That's the oligarchs balance or gamble. It's like, hey, how bad do things have to be before you change it? And more to the point of, do you want to go into an unpredictable process, meaning this is the way they, I would imagine, the way to look at things. Hey, you may not like the system. they may be flaws in the way that the system operates.

All of those things are true. However, we give you stability despite the fact that you have to live with inequity. It's that gamble, right? And it's like when you get to the point of saying, okay, this is disastrous as it is. Now, in the book, what is it called, End Times. What is the author's name? What is the author's name? It's so good.

It's such a good book. But he makes a similar argument. But his argument is that this is mechanical, that within two, four years, countries getting into this notion of revolution because elites basically get so fixed within the context of the system that the system can't do anything to change anything that goes wrong. Meaning the system itself has almost like what he calls an elite pump. And that you get to the point where the system is so full of elites that nothing can change in the context of that system. So problems can't get solved. You can't deal with events. You can't deal with inequality.

You can't deal with poverty. You can't deal with any of these things that effectively are cancerous to a political system, in which case, revolutions become inevitable. It becomes a mechanical process over the course of years. And he went further that the difference with the United States is that during the New Deal, the New Deal was a release valve, meaning the pressure was building. Yeah, and it basically was a release valve. Yeah, it was about 25 years.

after the Bolshevik revolution and everyone thought, you know, capitalism was doomed and communism was assembled. And as you noticed, the U.S. has gotten to the, effectively, at the same point, again, and there is no release file. There is no outlet, as you point out, there is no political. I mean, no, no party has, has even proposed a, uh, a, uh, a, yeah, uh, addressing it. Hold on. Robbie, I never saw the ad. Yeah, we lost it.

But I never saw it. Yeah, I've clicked on it and it expired. It was all and rumbles in. Okay, so I just want to make sure it's not my fault. Okay, for once. Hey, this time it's not your fault. But a good friend of mine, Sam, she has a question. I just dropped it in the show chat.

Okay, I'll put, let's put it up there. Although, I do want to just let J.T. Finish his thoughts here. Oh, my, I'm finished my thought. It's. Okay, all right. Okay. All right.

here we go. Ted and Jamal, I want to get your read on something that's being watched closely, even from where I am here in the eastern Mediterranean. When you look at Dan Bondino, stepping away and compare that to Joe Kent's resignation, the decisions they've each made, the risks they've taken and what they've done after leaving their positions, do you see a difference in motivation? Because from the outside, it feels like one path may have been driven more by financial opportunity, while the other looks more like a principled stand, regardless of personal cost. Am I misreading that? No, definitely not misreading that. Joquette was a true believer.

And he was appalled by what he saw. And he decided to step forward. I mean, Dan Bongino was pushed out because of the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. And basically, he was considered out of control. And they needed to put a kinder, a less mean face on. on ice. Still mean, but let's mean. That's not why Dan Bongino's gone. Dan Bongino's gone because he

completely destroyed his credibility with the people who got him to the dance in the first place, which is the America only people like me. He went in pledging, let's say Cash Patel turned the FBI, jager Hoover building into a museum and destroy the FBI. And then

he turns to go his full pedophile protector running cover for Trump. And so he realizes that if he didn't get out when he did, then his future as a podcaster was over. That's why Dan Bongino left. That's what I thought it had to do with Epstein. Yeah, 100%.

Did he get the sense that Trump cared about the ICE stuff? No, he doesn't. No, because, listen, this is my world. So before he went to D.C., Dan Bongino, talking about how he's going to drain the swamp. He's going to be this crusader. He's going to be America first. And he turned it to the biggest coward and the biggest cuck on the planet.

second maybe to Donald Trump. And that's a big maybe. But I mean, he just, he completely destroyed his base. He, uh, listen, if you're a Ben Shapiro, he's your guy. If you're Mark Levine, Dan Bogino is there for you. But if you actually care about justice for the people that the Epstein ring put through a living hill, if you're on accountability in government, Dan Bongino is not your guy.

And that's why he's gone. for him was all about money after his government service is over yeah yeah yeah well so of him and patel talking about the Epstein files like we're going to release the files we're going to release the files yeah well that's why Bondi's gone I got him on my desk great where are they and then man then damn my genius oh I saw the file he killed himself with what with what what do you hang himself with conveniently enough when the security cameras were down for like four minutes. We have these competent guards

and just go and take a nap. At just the right time. Come on. And all of your line of eyes. Right. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Because that always happens. Always happens.

Well, I have a friend who spent five years at MDC. And when this happened, he said there is absolutely no way that the official story could possibly be true. Because even if you were, he was on suicide watch. But even if you're not on suicide. I'd watch. There was a screw, you know, a guard would walk through the facility and every eight minutes and check on every cell, every eight minutes, 24 hours a day. The story we're being told

is that no one checked on Epstein for over an hour and a half. And by the way, didn't he also have a roommate? And he used to. That was the security, the guy used to be a former cop, huge. I forget. All right. And also, yeah, the cameras only happen to be out around Epstein's, you know, cell. I mean, the stories are so like, if it's true, like, you're asking us to believe in a level of incompetence that's staggering, really. Yeah, I mean. Remember when he was initially in the cell.

You know what someone should do? If I were, if we still had a real press and I was like an editor at the New York Times, I would assign an, I would assign an, an investigative journalist to the following. Go and find me all the guards and middle managers who worked at MDC during that period. Find out what their finances are like now. Like go and what kind of house are they in? What kind of car are they driving? I would be very curious to the answer to that.

Are there medical bills on page? Yeah. I mean, the prisoner that was in with Epstein in the first place. If you remember, that guy was a former cop. He had bodies burned in his backyard. I'm not mistaken. and they found a cell phone in the cell. But more importantly, when Epstein tried to hang himself,

and my thing was like, he hanged himself silently. Sideways, right? Sideways, and silently. Because apparently the guy was asleep, he was like, hey, man, I was sweet as he was trying to hang himself. And it's like, wait a minute, when people hang themselves, I'll be doing it quietly. Like, it's very strange.

You're using a power cord for a CPAP machine. Yeah, it's very strange. I mean, I know it, look, in fairness, I know it has worked on occasions. but Jeffrey Epstein doesn't seem I mean this was a guy who lived an incredibly spoiled life he was so soft

it's hard for me to believe that he went in there and suddenly like decided to roll Hermann Goring style and just go out balls to the wall like that ultimately if if we were wrong the easiest thing for Trump to do would be to release the files and just that's the best disinfectant here it is

here's everything no redactions here it is enjoy but he won't do it because he's protecting his masters in Jerusalem. And maybe himself. Yeah, maybe himself. I don't believe that, but I mean, Trump's all through those files. He's acting more guilty now than ever. Yeah.

I didn't think he was. We talked about it. I just thought that wasn't his bag. It's his friends. But more importantly, it's the political power elite in both parties and in big business. That's who he's protecting. It's not him. And interesting, even the Democrats can't say anything about it either now because everybody's, everybody's in on it.

It's like that video, like that viral, it's like that viral, you know, video with the everybody knows song, you know, by Leonard Cohen. Everybody knows the fix is in. Yeah, Chuck's not a peddle, but his friends definitely are. Because they keep, you know, people that, well, how did Democrats release it? Because Democrats are also in the list. Like, meaning this is both parties. This is not just one or the other. I remember when this first came out,

I think it was like Nancy Pelosi's daughter came out and said something like, hey, man, there may be, you know, like people will be implicated in this. Like, meaning there was an understanding that both Democrats and Republicans were in it, because otherwise, if this only cut one way, they would have released the files. Like, this wouldn't release under Joe Biden, right? If it only cut in one particular direction, it probably doesn't. All right, guys, got to go do TMI show with Manila Chan and yours. stay tuned for that JT, see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. Thanks everyone for tuning in.

Please like, follow, and share, and see you later. Bye, guys. Have a good one, yes.