DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Will Hegseth Resign? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • Pressure is building against Pete Hegseth. The Defense Department claims it was trying to destroy the rest of the boat, not the crew, while Hegseth blames Admiral Bradley for murdering helpless seamen. Is this the end of the line for Hegseth, or do the new neocons win again? • Republicans are gambling that voters won’t resent them in next year’s elections for allowing Obamacare subsidies to expire, sending insurance prices to the stratosphere. Incumbents weigh the risk of a primary challenge for helping Democrats vs. the general election. • Belgium, which holds most of the Russian assets being targeted for seizure as reparations to Ukraine, says its requests to the EU to be indemnified against Russian lawsuits and legal losses, and that other EU nations also agree to participate, are being ignored.• Deep fake “Nudifying” software is out of control in schools around the world, where girls and female teachers are being humiliated by A.I.-generated phony nude images of themselves being passed around on smartphones by students. Schools are at a loss about how to handle it. Would cellphone bans solve the problem?

watching the program with Ed Roll and John Curiakou for Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025. Thank you for joining us. We had a few technical glitches this morning. So our apologies, and thank you for joining us. And thank you for waiting for us if you're watching live. Please chime in with your questions and comments as usual on the Rumble feed and the YouTube feed. And as usual, appreciate all of your support. We are currently our effort to finance our Our producer, Robbie West, is currently at just over $220. I think we're just at $222, like the old TV show, Room 2.22. Yeah, I liked that show.

Love that show. It's like we're hip to the concerns of today's youth. So anyway, we have a lot to talk about today and a slightly compressed schedule to talk about it because of the tech glitches. This will be a 53-minute show instead. Anyway, please support Robbie West and Robbie Aid so that we can keep him here. We're trying to get to $1,000. The URL, which unfortunately we can't put up because we had a tech glitch, is gofundme.com slash F like Frank slash deprogram Robbie.

And if you forget all that, just go to GoFundMe and search for deprogram Robbie as one word. And you will find it. Robbie is with a Y, not with an IE at the end. Okay, so... A mistake I made for months. Yeah, I made that mistake, too. Okay, so lots to talk about here. Pete Hig-Seth is in the crosshairs at the Defense Department,

and obviously the Democrats are out to get him. They want to claim a scalp, and, you know, maybe justifiably so. Meanwhile, also, a lot of domestic news. We have the election results from that election yesterday. A disappointing night for the Democrats, although they're trying to spin it differently. They are. Republicans are also looking into,

they are kind of suffering a dilemma going into the midterms next year about the Obamacare subsidies. There's not likely to be a deal. What does that mean for the Republicans? Right. If they support a deal, they might get primaried. If they don't support a deal, they might not get primaried and then lose in the general election.

I really like this story about Belgium. Belgium has most of the Russian assets that are being targeted for a reparation fund for Ukraine post-war. And Belgium is saying, okay, fine, if you want us to seize these Russian assets, the rest of the EU has to be in on it with us. Otherwise, we're going to get the shit suit out of us, and we're probably going to lose. And the rest of the EU is like, it sucks to be Belgium. And finally, there's a, this very disconcerning AI software, you've probably heard about it already, that basically creates fake nude photos of anyone. It's a serious problem in schools.

A serious problem. Yeah. And it's causing, you know, obviously a lot of trauma, mostly for girls and women, but not exclusively. So we'll get into that as well. And anyway, that's it. So, John, what do you want to talk about first? Well, let's get this Tennessee special election house race out of the way. The last polls before the actual voting took place had the Republican leading 45 to 44.

Democrats were saying that this may be the beginning of the end for Republicans, at least in the House. We didn't believe that. We said it yesterday. but the Republican ended up winning something like 51.7 to 46 point something that is a that is a district where the Republican normally gets about 70 percent so remember there was some redistricting that took place just in the last couple of months they took a safe Nashville Democratic district divided it up so that the Democrat there would lose and then scattered those Democratic votes around to the various Republican districts. And that's not working out the way they thought it was going to work out. Now, I'm going to blow our horn again, Ted, because we said this six months ago. This redistricting that the Republicans are demanding is really just the 1980s district.

And so where you normally have a hundred house seats that would be competitive, in recent years, it's been more like 10 house seats that have been competitive, because they made strongly Democratic districts and strongly Republican districts. Well, now, in order to try to get rid of some of those Democrats, they're diluting Republican districts and in a watershed election where the shit is going to hit the fan, we could see 50, 60 house seats, switch hands, like we saw in 2010, for example, in that anti-Obama wave, like we saw in 94 in the anti-Clinton wave. The Newt Gingrich thing.

That's right. We saw in 1980 in the anti-Carter wave, and in 74 in the anti-Nixon Watergate wave. Yeah, 82, the anti-Ragan wave. 74 are the post-Watergate, yeah. Exactly. So those are water, yeah, those are big, those are big sweeps. That's right. It's such an illusion, though, right?

Because it's just like, it's statistics. It's not really representing the way that the American people feel. That's right. That's right. It's not. It's not. And, you know, on the other hand, not even on the other hand, another point is, look at a state like North Carolina, for example. The actual breakdown of votes is about.

5248 Republican yet Republicans control 80% of the house seats and they they probably should have just left well enough alone well especially since the the thing that started at all was Texas and it looks like that one is on the ropes yeah the in the Supreme Court I mean who knows right so right I mean I'm interested in all this because it's like look the the Republicans definitely did not you know the democrats beat the spread right yes politics winning is winning and losing is losing and the democrats still lost and and that poll was mistaken obviously yeah it was and so the question now is you know what do what does each party draw out of this i mean my fear as a left-leaning

person is the democrats will interpret this as good news for their side they'll say well look you know we did better than we should have as you pointed out and that's not untrue but You know, it doesn't really guess them where they want to be. And on the other hand, there is this, you know, there is the fact that I would say that the storm clouds are gathering for the Republicans next year. But just, I mean, the thing is, it's a hate fest, right? As we've talked about, the voters really despise both parties. Yes, they do. Including their own, even the one that they vote for, they don't like them.

And so, and I wonder if the politicians get that. And I think it has a, you know, it has a profound effect on the way that this country is governed, you know, that just people are voting, you know, they hate the other side, but they don't like their own side. Keith Fellers, one of our, one of our viewers has a comment that says it straight out. It doesn't matter. They're all the same shit sandwich. Yeah, exactly. This is a conversation we've had a hundred times. that that when when dick cheney endorses the democratic nominee for president that's not a brag no when

bill clinton hillary clinton camilla harris at all are the are the eulogizers for dick cheney at his funeral that's not a brag no there's there's something to be said for what i think is going to become the MAGA left. And I think it's going to look more, at least on some of these foreign policy issues, it's going to look more like the British Labor Party than it does today's Democratic Party. Yeah, no, I agree with that. So, all right, so let's talk about these Obamacare subsidies. So, you know, by the way, it's very clear that there's not going to be a deal on extending those subsidies. So it's a little bit arcane. Because what's happening is that the rates are going to go up more for the people on the higher end.

Like, people who are on Medicaid are hardly going to be affected or not even affected at all by this. People who are at the very low end and getting the old pre-COVID subsidy levels are going to be pretty much okay. They may have a marginal increase, but they may not notice much. The people who are going to notice this are on the high ends of people who still qualify for government assistance. But people who make, say, you know, $80,000 or $60,000 a year, you know, who are basically working class or middle, middle class. Those people are, so Republicans are really gambling, right? They think that by next year, the economy will have improved to the point that health care will no longer be a significant issue. I don't think so.

I don't think there's any... Totally agree. And then, so, I mean, affordability prices, I mean, so basically wages are still going to be stagnant or dropping by next year. You know, the matter what the Fed does, I mean, the fact is, they're not going to juice the economy. Obamacare subsidies are going to be an issue next year, whether they like it or not.

And then, of course, they're right to be concerned about being... But I don't know. What is the risk of being primaried really for someone in a deal? red district like you know congressman joe jackson supported supported obamacare like you know primary out congressman joe jackson i mean that feels like you know this is going to be 2026 that feels like a 2018 problem not a 2026 problem you know i have to i have to agree and i'll tell you i think the republicans are missing a golden an opportunity here.

Obamacare, we're stuck with it, right? Because there aren't enough votes on one side or the other to, to replace and repeal, as the Republicans have long said. So I think the Republicans actually do have an opportunity to fix Obamacare, which is broken. I mean, you and I talk about this privately all the time. I've used up all my Obamacare benefits for the year and I'm still paying $900 a month

but I've used everything up so God forbid in the next three weeks if something happens to me I'm screwed and I'm going to actually go Watch both ways before you cross the street John Seriously so I'm not alone a lot of Americans are in this kind of situation Yeah so the Republicans have this opportunity where they control the White House in both houses of Congress,

they can actually fix this thing and have a proactive issue that they can run on. This could be a Nixon goes to China moment. Exactly. That is exactly it. And I don't know why they don't see the opportunity there. I mean, by the way, you know, privately the president seems to really understand this

and he seems to have understood it for a long time. I don't know why he can't herd his cats into doing something. thing i mean he's usually very good at it yeah he is he is i hope he does do it i hope he does do it listen he's got one more year before the republicans have to face the possibility that they're going to lose the house of representatives and so he has a year to force through legislation i hope that he doesn't get distracted and um and he's able to actually fix this doggone thing yeah yeah Robbie we're ready for that ad whenever you want to put it up let's let's uh whoa oh okay so this is a so when you were out i mentioned that you were probably out having good news but i didn't say

what it was uh i i said i just answered destined for nothing this morning what was the good news with john monday that you mentioned and i said it's not for me to say but and so it's not for me to say and maybe it's not for you to say right now i don't know john i can't specifically say yet I'm just, you know what I'm going to say? These beautiful people who watch the show and listen to the show and have written to the pardon attorney and who have written to the president and written to their elected representatives, they're having an impact. And so when you get a phone call from somebody saying,

can you be in my office to talk about this pardon issue, by God, you get on your best suit and you run down, town and you do you do you do the meeting so so i'm going to say it's premature but we'll just say that thank you thank you thank you we're on the we're on the right track i i've my own personal conclusion is something really great is going to happen soon i'm not exactly sure when but uh but but but i but i'm optimistic yeah that is And I've never been optimistic. Yeah, no, no, that's true.

I've not known you to be, you know, that way. You have caused not to be optimistic for sure. All right, let me read this ad. You've probably noticed Rumble is growing fast and it's not slowing down. They're 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 interruptions. Just the content you came for. Plus premium members unlock exclusive content like the bonus. features, sorry, bonus of videos, behind the scenes drops, and more from your favorite creators right now. Rumble is offering $10 off on annual subscription. Just go to rumble.com slash premium and use the promo code studio at checkout. No ads, more freedom and content you actually care about. That's the deal. So I think, I do think, so that's good to hear, and we'll leave that there. Forgive me for not being more open. I just, I can't, I can't. You already said,

you already said a lot. I forbid you talking more about this. I can't say anymore. It's like, it's the whistleblower, Gene. You just like to talk. Okay, so, yeah, so, I mean, I think, till we agree, the Republicans are fucking up here, right? I mean, they really don't. Yeah, I think they're missing an opportunity.

They could have saved their asses with this Obamacare thing. Maybe not by working with the Democrats. Because look at at the same time, the Democrats have zero ideas. There are no democratic ideas on. these issues. So yeah, they could, they could definitely, I mean, honestly, at this point, I feel like you'd be, the system is so fucked up. The Obamacare idea just didn't, it never worked, right? There's, there's two, something like two out of three, ObamaCare is by county,

and two out of three counties in the United States have either zero or one plan in the Affordable Care Act marketplace. And the whole idea was that these guys were going to compete against each other. Well, if there's no competition, literally no competition, not like not enough competition, like no competition, then the whole thing has failed. It has collapsed. And, you know, I mean, I'm a lefty. I would rather see a completely free market system without the health insurance business where we just, you just pay out of pocket. Then the doctors would be competing against each other. That's right. For lower rates. Hey, what do you make of these new subscription services for doctors now?

They've arrived here in Washington. They started in California about a year and a half ago, and they've moved east, where you pay anywhere between $1,500 a year and $40,000 a year. Concierge. They call it the concierge plan, that's right, which gives you the right to just walk into the doctor and say, you know, I need an MRI or whatever. You still have to pay for all the tests. and all the stuff that you get.

But the 40,000 a year just gives you the right to go in and make this appointment. What about the rest of us? I go to a doctor who barely speaks English. He's Guatemalan. He's a terrific doctor. When I go into the office, I always have to stand because there aren't enough chairs for all the...

I'm literally the only person speaking English. The TV is on some, you know, telemundo or something. I would. Informador. I wouldn't be surprised, yeah. Next time I go in, there's, you know, a guy with a chicken sitting on his lap or something. But this is what I can afford. You know, I'm looking for decent health care.

The guy's a good doctor. He doesn't charge me a co-pay. He does the blood work in-house, so I don't have to pay the premium to go to the hospital and do it. You know, I'm. it's funny i'm like a poor person yeah that's really what it comes down to well i mean seriously in this country if you make i mean it's