DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Zelensky Angrily Refuses to Allow Elections | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this weekend that his former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov was wrong to call for national elections and that holding a vote in the middle of war could divide Ukraine. “Elections right now would be a tsunami for the state that would split Ukraine apart,” he said. Without a cease-fire, which Russia would not agree to, holding elections carried “major risks,” Zelensky said.• The Trump administration will announce what it is describing as its most comprehensive assault to date on Iran’s economy, unveiling a bigger “Operation Economic Fury” or “Economic D-Day” of measures that are intended to isolate Iran from the rest of the world.• Ohio voters are furious. Could they turn purple again? A governor’s race, a Senate contest and enough congressional contests to swing control of the House are all in play, where voters of all stripes express a deep sense of anger and powerlessness. • Democrats and other Trump critics reacted incredulously to a New York Times report that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Jared Kushner, the president’s influential son-in-law, to discuss possible areas of collaboration.LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShowLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning. It is Monday, August 24th, 2026, and this is D. Program with Chad Rawl and Jemarle Thomas. Thank you so much for listening and watching. We are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time. Plus the brand new Q&A show, which occurs 12 noon, Monday, Wednesday. That part's not new, but it's Friday also, so we can call the whole thing new. you know it's like when they do new and improved dishwashing liquid how much do they really change they just tweak it a little so good morning robbie rhabi west is our producer you guys who watch us regularly are well familiar jemaral thomas is going to be here i assume is he still talking on his previous show he is uh he is educating the masses but he will make an appearance here uh once he is once he's done and speak of the devil and he should

shall appear. There is a handsome, a handsome will-just black man has arrived. The devil has many. The devil has many names. It's like the devil will appear with a pleasing form. I think of the length of. Old scratch. How are you guys doing? Good, good. How are

you doing tomorrow? I'm doing okay. I've had setbacks, but I'm okay. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I've also lost in S&M. You what? Wait, are we live? We're live. Oh, yeah?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. I'm talking about it after. I'm sorry. I don't realize we were left. I'm sorry. Okay, all right, yeah.

J.T, you're the one that runs on CPT. Me and Ted don't. I mean, let's just be honest here. I just know, I don't know, Robbie. There could be some surprise. When you do that 23 and me someday, you might be like, I'm 99% African. Right. But, you know, I mean, no, seriously, it.

I was like Dick Cheney was. related to Obama. They were like cousins or something like just the cousins. Oh yeah, that's right. There is no such thing as a homogeneous race. People say, I have 100% whatever. You are not. You have got so much crafty stuff in there.

That's why I said that racism is the dumbest thing. We're all one blood. We're all mixed up. We're all much. And if you think that you're a racial, that you're a racial Superman, I promise you you've got Negroid in there. You've got Mongoloid in there. You probably

I got some whitey in there somewhere. I mean... It's definitely about race. It's about control of power. It's just... These are just excuses in order to take power. Like, whether you're like a bishop or Pope or, you know, the church, Catholic Church, or if you are a clansman, if you are, you know, a terrorist in Syria.

Like, all of these things are just, you know, look, there are some true believers, agreed. Yeah. But it's just power-based. True. I need an excuse for power. Oh, right. How about being white? Yes.

White is great. and fantastic. Well, I get to wear a funny hat. There's an excuse for it. Yeah. Or, yeah, my parents were special. So I get to be king. That's how it is.

Why? Why? Oh, because you're, why were they special? Well, they got it from their parents. Oh, where did they get it from? The divine writer kings. That's right. Obviously, because God said so.

If it wasn't true, then I wouldn't have worked. By the way, have you guys seen that story out of Foreign Affairs magazine. it's called the American, what is it, the end of America, right at the end of the American Middle East, Iran and the last gasp of a failed order. No, I need to read that shit. Okay, well, yeah, you don't talk about it now. We can do it right now. After all, we have our own show.

We can do whatever we want. And by the way, if you're watching live on YouTube and Rumble, please go ahead and put in your comments and questions. We will answer them. Robbie will put them up. Rumble Ranssen's Super Chats particularly appreciated, and subscriptions on Rumble and especially on YouTube, are also very, very appreciated.

All right, Jimor, I'll take it away. So I did the monologue on this, because I think the article misses something that if January 6, meaning if this article came out and January 6th was because of this article, I would have been screaming at the top of my lungs, you are doing God's work. because the article is enraging, or the very least it should be enraging. Just the paragraph.

It says, the American, sorry for the glasses. I broke them in. I don't know where the influences. And so the American Middle East is finished. The regional order that has prevailed since 1991 has been one of the casualties of the United States-Israeli war with Iran. The American and Israeli's failure to dislodge the regime in Tehran has proved the bankruptcy of decades of sanctions and violence. The inability of the United States to protect the Scalienable. of allies from Iranian attacks or keep the straighter from whose open has fatally undermined

a core security bargain that justified its network of military bases in the region. And Israel's increasingly threatening posture and abandonment of any pretense or interest in reaching an accommodation to the Palestinians's ended Washington's decades-long mission of bringing its Arab allies and Israel together in an enduring security partnership, effectively a jurisprimacy partnership. Think of what that means. Think of what that article is saying, right? It's basically making a point of saying for decades of the energy that we put into it, the trillions of dollars that we put into this particular project, the psychopaths that came in one administration after the next thinking about how do we secure this region? How do we dominate this region with American power? Or for that matter, how do we destroy Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. etc, in lieu of dominating this particular region. Think of all the terrorists that were caused when we went into Iraq,

killing a million people being killed, not to mention, untold as ISIS swept across the land. Think of all of the carnage that we have wrought. And for that matter, even if you just take George Bush's number, $10 trillion, you don't have to take the billions that Donald Trump spent. You don't have to take the billions that Obama spent to try to overthrow the Syrian government. which eventually happened.

You don't take another. Ten trillion dollars. And it all failed. Meaning all of that energy, all of that thought, all of that planning, all of that money, all of that negative intent that went into it. And it all failed within what? Six months? Spectacularly hugely, like bigly and quickly.

Right. I mean, all empire building exercises ultimately. And, you know, we can have that conversation with, you know, Jenghis Khan and, you know, it always does, Adolf Hitler, whatever. But, you know, it never goes tits up this fast. I mean. Right. But the question becomes the shadow.

If you spend that much money, that much energy doing this, what didn't you spend the money on? Right. Like, you don't have healthcare, you don't have education, you don't have golden roads, you don't have cities that float on air, you don't have, you know, high speed rail through a tube that get you from California, you do New York in two hours. You don't have any of that stuff. You haven't been back to the moon. You haven't been back to the moon.

You haven't went to the Mars. You don't do anything. Just how much money, time, energy resources. Wasted. They expended that went up and smoked. in six months. And I think of France a lot. Sorry, Robbie, but I mean, I think about France and this, you know, how they were, you know,

they lost their big colonial uprisings that destroyed what was left of their empire, were the Algerian independence struggle and the Indo-China revolt, right, that ended in 1954. By the 60s, basically, you know, the writing was on the wall. and France was going to no longer, was going to no longer be a colonial empire, but rather a country with post-colonial influence, which it remains to some extent. But the thing is, all these people who rebelled against the French, they did them unwittingly, did the French, what they call the French, the French called the French, La France Metropolitan,

in France, real France, a favor. Because while they're not maintaining supply lines and across the planet and trying to dominate people, and getting their asses kicked in the bargain, you know, they were able to start rebuilding from World War II, building their own domestic industry, creating a safety net. That safety net didn't exist in the 40s, 50s, 60s. You know, the French safety net that we know now

was built largely beginning in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when they stopped being of colonial power. Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, this isn't, we're going through that now. except the problem is that we haven't recognized, we haven't had our battle of Dian BN Fu. We have not acknowledged that we've been defeated. I mean, we have Trump and his people still claiming online this morning

that they've been, you know, we have, that Israel, that Iran has lost, they've been, they've had their military has been close to 100% degraded. That's a quote from the president this morning. I don't know if they believe any of this. I mean, part of lying is that you start to believe your own lies. And that's my actual real concern is that Trump and the Republicans, for a whole, on a whole host of issues, they really, I think, they're so, they're so siloed now. They have no way of knowing what's really happening. It's not just the Republicans, though.

The Democrats are right in there with them beating that war drum just as much. No, a point in case. Over the weekend, I don't know if y'all saw. this Trump unleashed, he's running out of bombs and missiles, but he still has access to truth social, so he's able to type furiously. And so- Red the cage. Operation type keyboard fury. Yeah, exactly. So he just dropped this, scathing attack against Thomas Massey and Tucker Carlson and, you know, just basically the

populist right at large, tall of them, low IQ, losers, everything else, for asking the same questions that you JT just now asked, what have we as the American people, what have we got out of this? And then immediately following up on it, and this pissed off a lot of the high, diehard Trumpers here in Montana that I know, who are ranchers, to come back rising prices because of the failed war that Trump has launched unconstitutionally, he's was importing millions of tons of foreign beef. From Argentina. Yes. So if this is America, so if this is American, so if this is America. Well, and that's not a coincidence. That's his little butt buddy Malay. Of course. And so this argument was effectively, they're getting beat there. And it's like all

of these ranches out. Oh, did that fucking work? Are you serious? Yeah, because I mean, they're... Yeah, the cattle industry doesn't have high margins. They can't afford this. No, of course not. And there's no help for them. But meanwhile, though... Why should they? I don't care. I mean, as an American, okay, this is where my, you know, my nationalist side comes in. If the American being, if the American being, industry we're rolling in profits i still don't want those profits diminished those are american businesses exactly and americ you know me you're talking about this you know over the whole lettuce thing about all the the 10 minutes lettuce coming from mexico right why are we importing mexican lettuce we're perfectly capable of growing ourselves not irrigating it with sewer

water i mean this is not a radical concept well actually i think the united states is not currently able to to make to grow enough lettuce to support the demand in this country. Well, of course. It doesn't grow in most of the country. Well, it's because we've outsourced it. But the point that I'm trying to make is that, you know, we have this huge continental country.

We are able to feed ourselves. That's one that we can still do if we've actually tried. The point I'm trying to make is that in less than a week, we hit $40 trillion in debt. Our president attacked the agriculture industry that every person that lives in the United States, you eat. Yes. that attacks the industry that fundamentally is vital to the national security and then attacks the by the way will only drive prices up in the long run if cattlemen start to go out of business

yeah of course you've seen those those episodes in the past not that long ago where beef prices were too low and the cattleman end up shooting thousands of head on the side of the road and it's like they have to yeah as that's what you're able to do and it's just and my question is you know we have all this stuff going, where's the anti-war left? He's willing to reach across the aisle and say, listen, I can disagree with y'all on abortion and guns and this other stuff. But this one thing, though, we can work together. Where anything else thing? Well, you can't say where, you know, on the right, as a righte, probably, you can't say where's the anti-war left. You have to, you, it has to be both sides who get together. It can't be, it can't be like, where are you guys, where are you guys?

It's what you both have to step over and start talking. And by the way, This brings us kind of ironically. I mean, okay, there's discussion of Hakeem Jeffries secretly met with Jared Kushner. The Democrats, liberals, particularly progressives, are highly displeased, but even mainline, you know, corporate as Democrats are displeased. It's a bad look. And, you know, I mean, I guess the defense here, not that Hakeem Jeffries is eloquent enough to make it, apparently, would be like, listen, the American people are supposed to, they

want us to work together whenever possible. That's what we're trying to do. Remember when Democrats Republicans used to have bipartisan legislation, we're just thinking maybe we could do that. He can't even articulate that because that's not what this is about. This is about secret grifting behind the scenes and the American people know it finally. But I mean, the point is that like I don't think the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans can work together in the same way that the far left and the far right could. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. The invitation's open. If you're a lefty,

if you have a podcast, if you need it, you need a perspective from the right, follow me. Yeah, vice versa. Right winger is always welcome to come over and talk to us here. As Robbie knows, the water's fine, right? I guess one thing is, that should be rage. Like, when I'm relaying that story,

I experienced that as rage, like a deep sea. because from my point of view, you think of there's no consequence for it. Like that is a failure on a massive fucking level. They've spent trillions of dollars constructing this huge edifice all throughout the Middle East, all for it to fall apart when they launch a criminal war that started with the murder of hundreds of kids. Like that doesn't even count like the Bush wars, right, where there's no consequence for that. Obama's drone killing, or for that matter, they're knocking over of Libya. And you can even say his hand and knocking over Syria.

All of it. It's like I'm so angry, just throwing down my microphone. All of it, for not. And no consequences. Like even in the article, he didn't, he didn't write it like people should go to jail for this. He just wanted to do. His editor would never have allowed published something like that. They don't do that, right? I mean, it's all analysis. And look, the reason I think it's also super interesting, when foreign policy publishes something like that, it's notable because that's really mainstream beltway foreign, you know, thinking. That's that's where the smart insiders are at, right? That's where, you know, so if they're saying something like that, I mean, that means that,

you know, you can ignore what the president is saying, because behind the scenes, nobody really is back, that up. And I think probably even behind the scenes in the situation room, he's being told the truth and choosing to disregard it. I don't know. Maybe not. He didn't really hire people to do that, right? For example, the article that just came out by Axios and CNN was quoting facts that didn't exist. They were effectively trying to make the argument that ships were going through the Strait and Formos through the U.S. area. And they said something about Kepler. Well, when you looked at Kepler, it made it very clear that any ship that was going going through like 80, 90% was going through the Iranian side, not the U.S. side. And Iran was so firing that ships going through that side. So it's like, okay, well, why are you doing that?

Why are you putting that story out? You're putting that story out to manipulate markets. Yeah. What does the president know? Is this coming from the top down or is this trying to influence the point of view of the president making him think that he has a stronger hand than what he actually has? Like, I don't know what he knows. That's the road. Yeah, nobody. Yeah. Right. And that's like impossible to know. Look, I'm glad you brought. The Hapkin Jeffers thing. I guess my thing is it's a pod on both houses.

You're right. I think it's a grip. And I don't know if they can work together because they spent, I don't know, the last eight years making everything about Trump. Now, how do you work with the devil? Right. I mean, you can't be seen that way. I mean, like at the very same time that Trump is online and all his allies are, you know,

blasting you as traitors, anti-American, you know, pro-Islamist and all this stuff. I mean, it's like, I mean, I guess if I were, I mean, if I were Jeffries, I wouldn't have had this meeting. But, I mean, if I did, I think I would have been like, you know, listen, Jared, you're lovely. But there's nothing we can do until your guys start, stop, you know, knock it off with the name calling. Like, we can't do it.

We were not, we're not going to be able. to. You know, let's chuck or a Palestinian. Well, also, I'm not talking

about the corporate Democrats, like the Hawking Jeffries, the AOCs, the Brady Sanders. Those people are frauds.

They're fakes. They have shown who they are. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about just, you know, lefties. Yeah,

I mean, just honest to God, lefties on the street like whether you're an influential podcaster. If you are someone who at least

who's able to at least articulate, in a better way than what I am how this is not a good thing what we're doing. And then they see

that this out of the rebellion is going on on the west that's going on the right to the point of the rebellion on the left too. That's what the DSA stuff is. Well, that's what I'm saying. Do you see a future

where DSA people will reach across to the Tucker Carlson's or the Marjorie Taylor Greens galvanize the respect to followers on either side and say,

this is what we need to work on. Let's work together and burn this thing down. It's theoretically possible, but it's hard and it's unlikely, right? I mean, 120 years ago, populism was, you know, the Midwest populism of Robert Lafellette and, you know, the sewer socialists and people in Milwaukee and all those people. You know, they were, you know, why they were called that, right? Because they fixed the sewers. And like all that stuff. they did there was definitely

Huey Long is perhaps the ultimate embodiment of that where he really did graft the populist left to the populist right and put it all together. So there's elements of socialism and nationalism but not in a Nazi way, but... And he got shot for his trouble. Well, yeah, because he was really dangerous to the powers that be.

You know, he really showed that we could live in a different world. Hughie Long was a great man. And a complicated man, but great. And, I mean, it is theoretically possible. But, you know, for example, I mean, you know, every side's always waiting for the other side to make the overture kind of like you just did. And I'm thinking, like, okay, well, I'm waiting for my call from Tucker Carlson and MTG who are like scheming on this new political movement slash party. Well, okay, maybe it's not Ted Rawl who gets the call.

Maybe it's not, maybe it's not tomorrow Thomas, but I hope you guys are reaching out to some lefties, you know, to talk. I don't get the sense that they are, though. Diel, well, I mean, he's had, Cheek Jueger. I don't know if you consider him a lefty or not. I don't know what he does. He's fake. He's to the right of AOC. Oh, you think so? I mean, it kind of depends.

I think, yeah, it does kind of depend. But, you know, he's basically where the Center for American Progress was, let's say 15 years ago. You know what I mean? He's basically a progressive, old school progressive Democrat. But he's a Democrat. But to your point, Ted, if you watch Tucker's show, you would know that Tucker's had a crap ton of lefties on to the point where Trump is now calling Tucker a commie.

So to say that they're not reaching out is not accurate. He doesn't have hardcore lefties, but okay. I don't even know what that means. I mean, I would accept, Jake, as the standpoint of Tucker. I mean, if he's, like, meaning, if Tucker is saying, okay, who's on the left, and he's looking at TYT, well, TYT is considered lefty network. I would call him Democratic adjacent. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, let's put it this way. They're not as far left as people like MTG are right, right? Yes, true. And if you really want that alliance to, that line. that alliance isn't going to work with people who are Democratic adjacent because I don't think Tucker Carlson or MTG are Republican adjacent anymore. Oh, no idea. And so they have, they're now adrift.

So you need people who are similarly adrift on the left. You just need enough people to create a political coalition that could undermine or that's true, Trump political coalition that is in from a standpoint of Democrat, meaning third way Democrats still hold the party. But I think most of the public is somewhat. else. You need somewhere to for those people to go.

That's true. I would build the do. I mean, if it were me, I'd build this coalition from the outside in, far left, far, right? And then move in and get as many moderates, more moderate types as possible to join. But I would not start

by compromising against yourself. Because you have to have clear principles. And one of the things I've always admired about people who are truly right-wingers is they have a clear They believe in stuff. That's not true about, you know, people in the middle, in the mushy middle. They don't believe in anything other than they would like to sit in committee hearings

for hours for some reason. Yeah. And well, and collect envelopes full of cash. But see, that has been the mainstay of our politics. God knows how long. And I think it seems like we're building a new center. I can be wrong on this. But the fact that the DSA is getting in at all.

I mean, could this have happened? six years ago. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, I think we don't want to declare victory too early. I mean, DSA right now is in the, it's in the infancy of this attempted takeover of the Democratic Party. It is where the Tea Party was in 2011.

It is not where MAGA is today in the Republican Party. You know, it's not, a takeover has not taken place yet. Well, I don't even know if it would be the D.S. I just think something It's something like that Yeah It doesn't even have to be the DSA Like I just mean

There is The way that people are looking at Corporate Democrats It's like swamp moss It's like would you prefer Corporate Democrat or herpes Oh man Why have you given me this hard choice

Right Right You can treat herpes with Valtrex That's not about to say No there's a cure for one of these things general not so much not a cure but there's a treatment right but either if you're able to arrest it you know it's fine i guess that well i like to see and i'll go away after this i've really loved to see the democratic socialists of america reach out to people like me on the right to listen

we disagree on a lot but we can't but but we can agree well it better it better wake up because the elections are coming up they can now it's it's too this is right now dsas it's it's sorry it just can't i would be the first to advise them not to do that yet. It'd be like, you guys need to find some solid footing first. Even if you get a situation where there's an agreement of sorts between a group, let's say a new party forms, and they say, look, we believe in Medicare for all, we believe in Social Security, we believe in strong borders,

so at sample of immigration, we believe in kicking out immigrants, we believe in guns, etc. And you have a very basic platform of things that they say, we are going to go to the mat to get these four items accomplish. Everything else matters less. This is what we're going to do. You evaluate us on that. That may work. I mean, like at that point, you're talking about the tip of the sphere where you're galvanizing the public around getting stuff done, as opposed to just kind of. We live in a brand, in a brand political based political environment. So until the DSA brand is well understood across the nation, which it is not, you're, You know, it's not in a position to cut deals like that.

There's one issue that you can, Ted, and you've made this case. I don't think that you realize what you just now said. The issue that could unite everyone is do not merge the American military with Israel's military. That's it. And get Israel, you know, get Israel out of our government. That's the one place where you're protecting American workers. But that's the, but you're looking for one issue because you've got to keep it simple. That's the one issue.

Do not merge the American military with the ID. that one thing, that one issue, that one case, and the Democrats are uniquely positioned for it because y'all don't have a Cuthy. You all don't have evangelicals who are. So I'll say you take three issues. Like, meaning from if we're talking about the merger of the left and the right and you talk, because basically what you're trying to do is you're trying to say, okay, we need a cross section of America to supply whatever they hell is going on to Democrats and the Republicans because they, they, only have 30%. We need a cross-section. And so it's like, okay, well, what does the American public care about? I think Taylor was right once before. We talked about having a basically plebiscite of sorts. What do you care about as the American public? These are your top three. Okay, we're going to do

the top three. I would even go further and say, okay, well, do a cross-section between the left and the right and try to get those issues in ways that they don't necessarily eat each other. they may not get exactly what they want, but they move the ball forward and they move the ball forward in the way that the American public can effectively back, especially if they're serious about these are the things that we're going to do

if you put us in office. That's not necessarily a DSA thing. That's just the American public trying to make a different choice in regards to supplant the current political hierarchy. I mean, but that's hard. Either way you look at it, they've gained the system so much

where it's very difficult to start a new political party. If you were in like the UK or Germany, You could just, you know, Ted Jamal Robbie party, just golfed to the races. True. True. How about Schizophrenc political party, that would be wild. It would be a three-headed atmosphere. But what is schizophrenic about a political?

Like, why is it that when Democrats say, okay, in order to be a Democrat, you have to have all of these items? Which, by the way, are often in conflict, right? Yeah, but, like liberals are supposed, I mean, old. fashion liberals were supposedly anti-pro-life in that they were anti-war, but they were pro-abortion, you know, and anti-capital punishment, you know, the converse is true on the right. I mean, there's internal contradictions in any political platform, right? Always, always. That's because of branding. They're always taught no. The other person, you know, that's on the other team that's running the other jersey, that's not so much have a political

disagreement with. That person is an enemy and that person needs to be ground down. That person needs to be broken and destroyed because if they get elected, they're going to put you in gulags. They want to exile you to barrow Alaska and you'll never see the sun again. That's what it is. I think the biggest mistake that we've ever made was turning politics into competition as opposed to cooperation. Agreed. Because it escalates. Wars escalate.

So it's not like the war just stays at water's edge. Inevitably, somebody is going to say, how do I go beyond the typical boundary that it's there? And then the other side is going to notice to say, hey, that guy won't be on the boundary. Now I need to go beyond the boundary. It's all of Alexander Hamilton's fault. He made all this shit happen. Okay, so let's talk. Let's get into some of the comments.

And then I do want to ask you about, JT, about Ohio, about how Ohio might, you know, my home state, which has always been a swing state, the classic bellwether state. And then was deemed to have pretty much permanently have gone over to the red state. side is now back in play supposedly. Anyway, but let's talk about this. If you so, you comment, thanks for the dollar. Mugoya must bow to the Israeli white supremacy, bow to your betters and give us all your tax dollars. Like maybe blue funk. You guys, foreign affairs is a sci-op note, like the Atlantic? A hundred percent. That's why it's notable. You know, F-E-E-So, border patrol arrests father of sailor on long USS Lincoln deployment support the troops. I don't know. What's this story? Well, I felt somebody got like arrested or something like that, but I don't know

the exact details of it. I just saw the story. Okay. All right. Well, Macadon, how much of American prosperity do you think is based on its direct and indirect control of global affairs, often through military. Less than I think, I think. I mean, okay, so we do have this dominance, we have unprecedented dominance over the world's, all the world's oceans.

You know, we have the biggest Navy that's ever been. We have, you know, we have this incredible control of all the shipping lanes and everything. And that, you know, drives profits into American corporations, but the cost of maintaining that control,

is so extravagant that it can't even be counted, which is why we have a $40 trillion national debt. So, you know, you can achieve something truly remarkable. But if the cost is too high, the cost is too high, right? So, I mean, it's sort of like, is it worth it? I think we're going to, you know, I mean, it's going to take smart economists to ultimately figure it all out when the age of American Empire is truly over, how much did it all cost? But I suspect we're not going to find that we ended up in the black.

Well, I think it's an exorbitant privilege of having a reserve currency. And the military may protect that, but I think it's that. And I can't be honest, I don't know how much they even factor the money into it. Yeah, that's true. Bretton Woods, we're just coasting on Bretton Woods. Yeah. I mean, it's not like we're connected to anything. It's not like we're on a gold standard.

We just print money. I mean, like, I remember Putin made that point that he was like, America just printed $10 trillion to go to war. Okay, what does that mean? That's a superpower. Like, I can buy anything and put it on the battlefield out of thin air. Right? That's what that means.

Yeah. I can build any missile, build any bullet, build any whatever. Just there. It's not bad. And so we have, but apparently we've hit that limit as we run out. Philip Blair, question. So was Charles de Gaulle standing in the way of the French people building their social safety net and building their health care and education and reformative justice systems?

Yeah. Yeah, he was. By the way, France, of many of the things that France does well, their justice system isn't really one of them. It's kind of like a shit show, like in a different way than ours, but it's not really reformative in the way that like the Scandinavian model is. Let's see. The national, this is from Philip Blair, the national cattle beef herd is at record lows. By the way, Jeff Ben, Jeff Bezos keeps pushing Angus beef.

Look for non-Angus beef. What? Instead of me, he keeps pushing Angus beef. I don't know. I mean, I like beef, but I don't know. Because it's more expensive. So, to the commenter's point, me and me, Kizzy and our son, we got a five o'clock in the morning on Saturday morning and we went to East Glacier Park so it went to the Blackfeet Indian

Reservation to the east gate and we just went all the way across the park and over Logan Pass, beautiful. And you could see that the cattle herds are probably about 40% of their normal size because there's just no money in it. And so what the branches are having to do, they're having to shrink the herds to try at least survive. And now Trump is doing this and we stopped that. big time. We should be pushed back and he'll just like three days from now. Be like, oh, yeah, my bad. I'm not doing that.

Like he always does. But they did push back on him. The question basically to Trump was, how are you buying Argentine beef when your own farmers are screwed, basically are screwed over? And Trump gets pissed off at the reporter and is like, they're a beat to death in Argentina. Do you know the condition that they're in?

As if he's not grasping, you're screwing over American farmers. What are you doing? He sounds like the Clintons, when Bill Clinton during, when the arguments for NAFTA, and he was like, do you understand how poor they are down there where the Melchilodoras are on the on the Mexico side of the U.S. Mexico border? And I was like, I don't give a shit. I don't care. That's for the president of Mexico to worry about, not the president of the United States to worry about. But he is the president of Argentina. He's the president of Mexico.

He's the president of Iran. He's a global emperor. If you ask Trump, he runs the world. In his demented little mind, that's where he is. And he cares about everyone except for the people who he has a constitutional duty to serve, which is the American people. When we were at the reservation, there's a still place called St. Mary's. Gas there was $5.40 a gallon. The median income in the town is $18,000 a year.

People are literally going without because there's no money. Well, that's a good place to break and talk about Ohio, right? But before we do that, we have one more comment. I don't want to put off a $10 comment. The Dead Mean Club. What's with all the anti-Semitism, but no anti-Masonic social push? The first third party in America, who is the anti-Masonic party, so it seems like we lost our way. Okay.

That was the part. That's hilarious. We love you, Dead Mean Club, and thanks for the best. Anti-Masonic. Oh, I love it. That's true. Yeah. That is true.

That's fascinating. Watch out for the odd fellows. You never know. So Ohioans, right? I mean, this is the affordability crisis thing. All analysts across the political spectrum say Ohioans are absolutely furious. And they're an important state to watch, right? I mean, you know, every state kind of like makes an argument to being like the most generically American state.

But Ohio, I think, has at least as good a claim on that. that moniker as any other state. When I was a kid, my hometown Dayton had a sign at the city, at the city corp limits that said, Dayton, America's most average city. And it's like, and indeed, when I was a kid, often I'd come home from school and there would be sample packages of experimental products from Procter and Gamble, you know, like, hey, here's this cereal or here's this weird new shampoo made of beer or, whatever, try it out for free. And if you'd like it or don't like it, please fill out this postcard

and drop it in the mail because, you know, it was a test market for, you know, like if Daytonians are into it, it'll probably be okay. And they say that, you know, basically, Ohioans are really pissed, really pissed over the stuff that Robbie just talked about, you know, high prices, low wages, etc. But I wonder if Democrats can, I mean, you know, conventional wisdom would be you turn out the incumbent and maybe that'll happen. But the Democrats are really, you know, pissing off voters too. I just wonder if they'll just like opt out and not vote at all. Yes. I mean, that's the issue, right? Like what? More than 50% of the public doesn't vote in the presidential election? Like you might get like 40%? Much less than.

here like this, you know. Yeah, and you think to yourself, where's everybody else? Like, because when they are arguing about like political space, they're like, oh, it's this percentage, that percentage. And it's like, no, in reality, they're like 150 million people that just aren't participated. Right. And I guess my thing is kind of like. I think of all the people who don't even bother to register. Because they don't see the point. Right. I'm not sure they're wrong. My bills are high. I don't see how my vote in a political, I remember. I remember. I remember when I was at the doctor's office one day, and this was years ago. And she was like, yeah, I don't see the point.

She's like, I work two jobs. I don't see how voting for either political party does anything for me, my kid, my car, my house, any of those things. It has no impact or effect. So what's the point? And when you get that opinion, like at large, I mean, you get some diehards, like, might get black saying, or we're, you know, we had to fight for this right to vote so damn, and I'm going to vote. But who are you voting for and does it matter?

It's that part. People said. I don't feel that my vote has ever mattered. I'll be 63 in a couple of days. I've never, I've voted since I was 18. I don't think my votes ever mattered. So when I was in St. Mary's,

I think about this, where we're just going to this little convenience store, a little cup of ramen, those little ramen cups and the styrofoam cups, did you get a hot water poured in? Yeah. $3 and $2. 25 cents for one cup of ramen and a town whose median income is $18,000.

That's unsustainable. And that's coming to all of us soon. So does that 7-Eleven are $4,000, like a 60-ounce can of COVID. And I saw that and I was like, are you out your mind? Are you serious right now? Like, that's insane. And again, like people, that's, this kind of goes back to the whole thing of people should be angry. It should be. I don't get why there is not rage. Like that article that I pointed out really fits into this. It's like, okay, so you spent $10 trillion doing that and people don't have the basic things to just get by. As you point out, Robbie, you're paying all of that money for a little container of ramen noodles in a place where the medium income is less than $20.

thousand dollars a year and you can break that down in regards to okay well how much is that per month how much is that for every two weeks and obviously the number is abysmally low i mean that's what like ten dollars an hour if not less yeah it's terrible it's absolutely terrible and and to your point i think the rage is there and i think of the one of the two things is going to happen either one a new center does form and people buy into it and vote for real meaningful change or number two when they realize that nothing matters that's where I am that sounds like that's probably where Ted is when the voter petition rate participation rate drops another 30 percent I think that's when the political violence you want to start I think that's when you're going to start to see a blood on

the streets because people at that time were going to realize that the the illusion no longer reflects reality and that's when the rage kicks in. And when that happens, it's off to the races because God help us. With one caveat, though, America is very different than France in the sense that Americans consider their issues to be their own. Like, I don't know if they externalize it and say, I'm functioning within the context of the system and this system functions in a particular way, et cetera. I don't know if they see it in those terms. They may see it purely as individualistic. It's me, my issue, my burden. I've got to deal with it. I don't have a deal with it. I don't have

a right to hope that, yeah, yeah. My wife has cancer, but, you know, I have to deal with it. I don't, I either shouldn't or can't expect the government to help. Right. Despite the fact that these are social conditions and a government, meaning people can make a determination about what they cover. It's their choice. It's not magic. Like, it's not like the government doesn't do this as a law of God. It doesn't work anyway. People choose what we do. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure that the motto is government of, for, and by the people. Yes. So, I mean, we do have agency here.

It's just, I should have agency. We should. Well, the reason why we don't is because we have surrendered our political power and our political will. The issue is going to be, are we going to get mad enough and realize what we gave up, we can also take back? That's the question. Through the rugged individualist argument, though. Like, is that argument so? instantiated that people just see it as individuals.

Because if this was France, how would they behave? Well, I mean, Jamal, there's two, I want to break your question down because I think it needs a part A and a part B, right? Which is the big question, should you, should we be leaning on the government to provide these, you know, essential services to the American people? you know, whatever we say those services are, whether it's health care or whatever. Or so that's the first question. And if the answer to that question is yes, then the second question is I have an immediate problem. Let's say affordability. It's like, well, I know that like even if I join a mass movement to change everything, TM, and it works.

But when am I going to? But is that going to pay my electric bill now? No. And so, you know, part of the question is also, do you start building the Great Wall of China knowing that, you know, you may never see it for yourself and that you're still going to be fighting off Manchus? You know, it's like that's, I mean,

that's a lot to ask for a country that's so ahistorical that it doesn't remember things that happened 15 years ago. So, I mean, I think, and I don't honestly, I'm not terribly hopeful, but I mean, certainly big changes have happened before so they can happen again. I just don't know how likely it is. There has to be a match. It has to be a match. It has to be something that galvanizes.

Yeah. No, I think it's got to be a paroxysm of rage, right? It has to be where people are just mad as hell and they can't take it anymore and they go out into the streets and they, and things get spicy in a real way. I don't mean no king's rallies. I don't get why this doesn't do it. Like, I got to be honest, I write that article, and it settled in me before words even form. And because the first thought was like,

A, there's no consequence for this. B, this is a failure on a massive fucking level. And you think of all of the things that you do with $10 trillion that are just up in smoke. They could have literally taken $10 trillion, put it on the White House. line and just satir the fire. It would have had the same impact. And it would have kept all of these other people alive that we killed in the process. Right. No, and think about, and again, think about what we

talked about last week. I think it bears repeating. 40 trillion dollars in debt. We went on this wild bender. And what do we have to show for it? I mean, look at where we are, you know, on all the indices that compare American standard of living with those of other countries. We don't do well we have declining quality of life we have declining life expectancy uh you know our our our infant mortality rate sucks you know we we young people can't buy a house even young people with great degrees from great colleges can't you know get a job i mean we have nothing to show for it hey telegrieve a telv looks great and those argentine farmers need our help ted so you should really check yourself you're Nazi and get back get back in line and realize this is bigger than you sir listen

Israel needs your tax dollars tell a beef is not going to protect itself so you just just get back into you get back to your line going shut up all right i'm i'm i apologize i'm very sorry um apak we love you okay so um let's talk about iran and uh some foreign fair so Today is around in a few hours the Trump administration will announce an expansion of Operation Economic Fury or Economic D-Day, which I guess is not the same thing as Liberation Day, all these old references. But basically, this is supposed to be a giant assault on the Iranian economy. First of all, I just want to say that, and I want to write about this this week in my column, but if you. basically, you know, you basically battle tested the Iranian economy for 47 years of sanctions. You can't really be surprised that like now they're really like, you know, battle-hardened and tested. They're badasses now. You know, the Iranians are like, we don't care. And, you know, if they were,

they might be soft and squishy if they'd been part of the international community for years, but they're not. So it's like, so basically it's like, okay, well, we kind of recognize the United States and its allies say that we're not. really having any, you know, we're not really getting anywhere with sanctions against Iran and besides which we probably use them all up. So now we're going to go after countries that trade with Iran. And I'm thinking, okay, so those would be Russia, which you're already going after and they don't care. Okay. And then there's China who has our ass in a, you know, definitely, you know, they own our debt. They, you know, they can shut us down in a second. economically. So the threats are empty, right, to them. And China buys 90% of Iran's oil.

So, I mean, obviously this just smells like more Trumpian bullshit, right? Yeah. I mean, look, I don't want to undercut the difficulties and the pain that Iran is going through with the blockade. Oh, for sure. By the same token, as you pointed out, this is something that they've been enduring for the last 50 years, give or take, a year or two. And so this is not like, oh my God, this is a European country that was plugged into the global economy with their Burger King and McDonald's.

And you cut off their Burger King McDonald's and people are hungry in the streets because they're burglary and McDonald's a show. It's not that. Right. This is a different animal. And it's very possible that Iran is going to make deals. But Dr. Warwick Powell had to believe that Iran

that within the next several months, they're going to be coming out with some kind of deal with China. If you remember, they already have the railroad going to China, and Russia just came out talking about that they're going to expedite a railroad to Iran also. So this seems to be then batting down the hatches. I mean, obviously, this is not going to take place overnight, but it seems that they're preparing for the storm and the worst of that storm. the idea that you're going to say, and I suspect they decide it's secondary sanctions because they realize what you said is true. We've been maxing out sanctions already. What else

are we going to put sanctions on? Everything and the dog has sanctions on it. We're going to go off the dog. I know right? Not the dog. Like we sanctioned Penguin Allen. It was like, he put terrible

with him. There's nothing on the alibi penguins. And it's like, why are you, Why are you going after the fingers? And poor Lusufu. Right. China is going to tell him to kick rocks. We've done this. We've had an economic war with China when we first came in the office.

And we were in a better position back then when we had that economic war. True. And we lost. Yeah, Iran. I mean, China is too big to sanction. Forget it. It's very difficult to sanction. the relationship that we have with them.

And they're things that we need from them. Like, our military runs on Chinese products. Like whether it's materials, ceramics or whatever, we need those things. And even stuff that we don't necessarily get from China itself, China can stop us from getting. If they decide they don't want Taiwan to sell us any chips, they can make that happen.

With AI bubble? That's the other thing? the amount of money that we've been spitting on data centers and AI, it is taking up basically an overwhelming majority of the earnings, or let's say in the excess in regards to our economy. If that goes belly up, oh my God, meaning we are playing with fire. Trump may go through with it, by the way, meaning just because there are negative consequences doesn't necessarily mean he won't go through with it. He is desperate on the Iran issue and drowning him. it's not going to do anything or help from his point of view.

But they still may do it. Like, from Trump's point of view, he is an award that he can't win, that he already knows. I don't know what to push into this. Exactly. Key word, can't. Well, from his mind, it's a can't. In his mind, it's a can't. And so he's like, how are we out of this?

Trump has just announced a 50% tariff on Canadian agriculture products coming across the border. We knew that was coming. In fighting with Carney and Carney telling him the F off and good on Carney for doing so. And that's what those European

idiots should have done. If all of those European idiots and Carney stood together, it is very difficult for the United States to turn around and sanction the world. Solidarity is your secret weapon when you're dealing with a hegemon. Yes. It really is. And Carney,

standing alone is like, I'm standing in Canada. We were attacked. Basically, Donald Trump was trying to put in a bunch of other provisions into the deal that was being made. And Cardin was like, I'm not doing that. But that's wild to me, right? It's like, you are already in a war with Russia and with Iran. You are trying to have a trade war right now with Iran. You've been buying bonds. So, I mean, you've been buying treasuries in order to keep the Japanese economy up. It still failed, and you had to effectively buy U.S. treasuries to prevent those things from in the market in any kind of way that was going to damage your economy. And you are now in a trade war with Canada.

Canada stopped with 300,000 barrels of oil coming to the United States already. And there's apparently by September 8th, I believe there's September 8th, come up with their own package of sanctions against the U.S. US. Awesome. Canada is going to a trade book. Canada is literally America's closest ally. Yeah. Not anymore.

Closer than the UK. Not anymore. Well, it was. Well, it was. Yeah. So this is what Trump was saying. On January 1st, 2027, this is like stabbing your Siamese twin to death.

It's not a good move. No, the tariffs on all cars, trucks, both large and small, automotive parts and steel will be increased at 50%, building the U.S., and there will be zero. Canada will be treated like a state. This guy's completely out to lunch. So he's saying this crap, while he's screwing over the American rancher

by importing millions of pounds of beef from Argentina. I wonder how powerful. I mean, look, I think that the beef story could go either way. Right? I mean, like, this could be, it could fall short of being a game changer

in terms of pissing off the American people or thinking that he's gone too far. Or it could, you know, it could make it. It could be like, you know, Americans have like, even people who live in cities and don't have any relatives who never, you know, no relationship whatsoever to the soil, really they have a, you know,

the United States is not unique this way. People in other countries are the same way. People love farmers. They love, you know, farmers are popular. They're beloved. And those are viewed as, essential businesses that need to be protected. I mean, I think if you did a poll of the American people and you did a list of, you know,

industries by sector, what industry should be most subject to isolationism and protectionist tariffs, they would say farming, because it's food, right? I mean, food is literally the most important thing. So I wonder, I mean, I don't know how this will go. But, I mean, it certainly could be a big, symbol. issue for Trump. It may be something that he hasn't really thought about. I know

he was out partying with Malay and came up with this idea. But like, you know, or it may, I mean, I don't know. Or it could just be like one more Trump atrocity. But it should be a big deal for Americans. Sure. I mean, the American first president is making

the argument that Argentinian farmers matter more. And it's an industry based in Red America, too. Yeah. Like, how does that matter? I mean, when the, and he keeps scoring over farmers. If you remember when they had the trade war with China the first time around, and China effectively modified itself, so it would hit farmers,

meaning their trade war was very specific to hitting red areas that Trump needed to get elected. And so 1.4 billion people, okay, all of these American farmers that were making soybeans no longer had a market of 1.4 billion people to sell to. Okay, so what are you going to do with all those soybeans? right? In which case Trump had to pay them, had to give them money because they were materially damaged by the process that he enacted. And once again, we're doing it again. Like, this should be a big deal for the American public. Whether you are a farmer or not, whether you know a farmer or not, whether you've even ever touched soil before, it should matter to you that the American president

is making an argument that other cows matter more than our fat cows. American cows matter. Yeah, all cows matter. American cows matter. This is the first time, and I mean this in all sincerity, joke aside, this is the first time since you moved here in Montana in 2010, that I saw more tactical assault fluffy cows, a.k.a. buffaloes than dairy cow.

Really? I've never seen that before. I do like my buffalo, my bicycle. or my bison burghers the buffalo herds that we saw were bigger than the domesticated the food cows and that because there's no money in it so what the ranchers are having to do to try and push up profits they're shooting the cows and leaving leaving the carcasses out to rock it's a glut and so in order to create profit you got to create scarcity and so that's what they're doing We have literally a minute to talk about the main topic of the show.

All right, Zelensky says no elections. So, again, you know, basically said elections right now would be a tsunami for the state that would split Ukraine apart. Well, I mean, of course, he would lose, right? He would lose. So that's what this is about. I mean, it's a dictatorship. I mean, no doubt. Reagan had elections during the Civil War.

He did. and it's very important to have elections doing wars because the public may change their mind about the horse that's in office. True. I mean, like the idea, it's very self-serving, right? Yeah, we can't have elections right now because, you know, it's raining as bad weather. Let's just push that back for another couple of years. It's like, really? Like, it puts me in mind of the guys waiting for the Beatles reunion.

Yeah, we have other things to do. It's like the guy lost and the guys. like, well, there was something in my eye. I mean, the sun is pointing in this direction. There was a blood that flew by. I mean, obviously, I can't play under these terms. It's that. It's excuse after excuse, after excuse, only to stay in power

because he knows that if he put himself up for an election, he would lose. I have a question for y'all, and I'll just throw this out there. I just popped in my fuzzy little noodle. There's no manila today. So if y'all want to continue doing this show, we can, because I'm putting together the TMI supercut to run anyway. Well, I actually have an interview.

Okay. That's your question. All right, we'll do the regular TMI show. Tell Minilla S&I. Manila should join us on this show one day. All right. We'll invite her. Okay.

All right, by Q&A. See you in two hours for the Monday Q&A. Have a good interview tomorrow. Okay, everyone. Stay tuned for the TMI show coming up right now. Q&A show at 12 noon. and we will see you tomorrow here on the regular D-program. Oh, and Trent tells me that we're going to be updating the outroes,

for those of you who have newly subscribed. Thank you so much, and there's new D-program swag at D-program.orghumed. Okay, bye.