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TR: Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. You’re watching DeProgram with me, Ted Rall, and John Kiriakou. John, always good to see you.
JK: Good to see you, Ted. Greetings from Salt Lake City, Utah.
TR: Oh, good. I love Salt Lake City, actually. I hope things are going well out there. I have a feeling I know what you’re doing there.
JK: Work, work, and more work. Always, always work.
TR: Lots to talk about today. So, I’m just going to give everyone a preview of the show. Thanks everyone for joining us. We are now fully monetized on Rumble thanks to you guys. We’ll be bringing you—amazing, amazing in one day. So thank you everybody. Thank you very much. Incredible. Indeed. And please continue to like, follow, and share the show. We’re here Monday, Wednesday, Friday. In a couple of weeks, we’ll be going to a Monday through Friday schedule, same time. So, the show is growing by leaps and bounds. Thanks to you guys. You guys are awesome. Thank you.
All right, lots to talk about. I don’t know what order we’re going to do it in because I always have an order in mind, but we end up just talking.
JK: Well, may I suggest something actually? Please, please. I hope you don’t mind if I interrupt you.
TR: Not at all.
JK: One hour ago, Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security prison in Texas, and the transfer was confirmed by the Bureau of Prisons.
How, why would this possibly happen? I mean, I’m speechless. I don’t even know what to say. It seems like some sort of a quid pro quo, right?
TR: Well, the best I’ve been able to—I did a lot of reading on this, and the best explanation I was able to garner was cooperating witnesses sometimes can negotiate this sort of thing. This is called a Club Fed.
And as you’ve pointed out, I mean, so she’s a chomo, right? She’s a child molester by definition, convicted. She can’t sue us for it because it’s true, at least a jury of her peers determined it to be true. So, normally they’re in minimum, right? You’ve explained that before. Normally they’re in low. You’re not eligible for minimum.
JK: Low and minimum. Minimum has no bars on the windows, no locks on the doors. You’re free to come and go as you please. You’re just on your honor not to abscond. It’s like a dorm. It’s like a campus situation. They’re the ones that will drive higher security prisoners to the doctor’s office or along with guards. They’ll tend the garden on the warden’s property.
They’re the trustees, is what it comes down to.
And a lot of them, in the prison where I was, a lot of them worked janitorial jobs at the university in the town. But you can’t trust—if somebody’s been accused or been convicted of a child sex crime, by definition, they’re not allowed in a minimum security camp. What a security camp be—a prequel to an earlier release? It almost always is.
So here’s the rule with that. Most people, short of murder or something incredibly violent or what’s called level 40 on the sentencing scale—that’s like El Chapo, for example—if you’re below that, with good behavior and the passage of time, you work your way down from a maximum to a medium to a low to a minimum, and then they let you go.
You’re not allowed to be in a low if you have more than 20 years on your sentence, unless you’re a chomo. And then, for your own safety, you’re in the low. Once you get under 10 years, you can transfer into the minimum, unless you’re a chomo, in which case you’re not allowed in the minimum. So, she defies this rule in two different ways. She has 20 years, and she’s a chomo. So how in the world did she wake up today and get transferred to a minimum security camp?
TR: Well, so let’s speculate. You know, if you listened to everything we’ve said on this show so far and you bet on it in Vegas, you’re rich. We’ve been on a roll lately. So, let’s see if we can keep that going here. Is she going to get out? And if so, what kind of deal did she cut? And why? I mean, it’s so hard to figure out what the Trump administration DOJ is on about here, right? I mean, it seems like first they were going to be transparent. Then they looked like they’re wallowing in a full-fledged cover-up. They kicked the House of Representatives home early to cover it up. But now, if she’s making a deal, the deal is not for her to stay. It’s not for her to be quiet. It’s for her to talk, or isn’t it?
JK: That’s what it sounds like. That’s what it seems like. She’s cut some sort of a deal. Now, nobody’s going to say what the deal is. The deal could be, I will talk to you and testify if you don’t charge me with any new crimes. And by the way, I want to go to a camp, and then she’s going to be in the camp for the next 17 years. Or, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know if you give me a pardon or a commutation. Oh, and by the way, I don’t want to go back to that low security because I don’t like the time’s moves. I want to go to a camp.
TR: Or, is it, we want you to go out and confirm the story we’ve told the world, which was that it was only Jeffrey?
That’s right. I mean, only Jeffrey. And I think, bam, that’s it.
JK: Man, I am just beside myself.
TR: What else could it be, though, right? I mean, it’s not like she’s going to come out. They’re letting her out to cut a deal to say, oh, and by the way, Trump was there. Right. Or, oh, by the way, Bill Clinton was there. Maybe Bill Clinton, but not—
JK: You know, just stunning. I just can’t believe it. Virginia Giuffre’s family was on. Oh, yeah. I was watching CNN on the plane, and they were—I mean, they were like on the brink of tears. Every one of them. They couldn’t believe it.
TR: No, we couldn’t believe it. So, yeah, so she’s probably going to get out, right? Better than 50-50?
JK: I would put it better than 50-50, yes. If only because this president is so unpredictable when it comes to commutations and pardons. And, you know, for 95%, I’m all for it. I’m hoping he does more, including me. But this one’s a kick in the gut.
TR: Well, I mean, this would pretty much—here’s the question, right? Let’s say we’re right. She gets out. She confirms the official narrative that we heard from A.G. Bondi. Does that get MAGA World off Trump’s back, or does it get enough of MAGA World off his back that he can start to chill and think about other things?
JK: That’s a good question. But did you happen to see on Fox yesterday their new polls?
So the polls have Democrats like 93 to seven. They wanted a rotten prison, and independents were like 73, 27, and then Republicans were 50-50. So I think we’re quickly getting to the point where Donald Trump doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what Democrats and independents are saying about this. He never cares what they think at all.
TR: I mean, the world’s coming around to it. He’s proven something that I’ve been saying for years: there are no moderates. There are no fence-sitters. There are no swing voters. There’s only base voting. Democrats haven’t figured it out yet. They think there’s still a mysterious swing voter out there.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s just like this. Let’s just sit with this for like 10 seconds. Then literally no one will have been punished or held to account for Jeffrey Epstein except Jeffrey Epstein, who theoretically held himself to account theoretically.
JK: Yeah, I think that’s the painful truth right there. That’s what it is.
Wow. Okay. Well, that’s—and it kind of reminds me of the torture program. The only guy who went to prison was the guy who blew the whistle on the torture program. But that’s just me. I’m biased.
TR: Yeah, you’re so bitter, John. Why don’t you just move on? I’m not sure you should have your gun back right now. Not in the next hour anyway.
TR: Alright, so we’ll keep people up to date on that. By the way, other late-breaking news. So, you know, usually when presidents get bad jobs numbers, they cry into the—and maybe they call the Fed. This time, you know, kill the messenger. He decided to throw the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics down a well. Trump has fired the chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is—I laughed out loud when I read it. It’s hilarious. I mean, first of all, you know, you have to think when you get that job as like a statistician, like you went to MIT and you’re a statistics expert. I’m working for the government. Yeah, but it’s the safest job in Washington. Who’s going to fire me? All I do is crunch numbers. Well, things change. Do we want to talk about that? Do we care?
JK: Yeah, I don’t mean to laugh, but it’s just so absurd that I can’t help but laugh.
TR: Look, it’s obviously wrong. The funny part is, of course, that the jobs numbers have been manipulated for years, right? There’s the question, like, if you gave up looking for work, you’re not counted as unemployed anymore. If it’s a certain amount of time that you’ve been unemployed, you’re not counted as unemployed. They calculate a lot of other statistics as well, the size of the labor participation rate. But all of that, for all of their shenanigans, these are usually political decisions that come from people like President Trump. They’re just crunching the numbers over there. As far as I know, there’s never ever been the slightest accusation, much less evidence, that anyone in her position or her has ever done what Trump is accusing her of.
JK: She should sue. She should sue the numbers of numbers. That’s it. It’s really as simple as that. It’s—they just put it into the stock traders’ office as the bond traders. Right. I mean, the market—I’ve been so busy. I haven’t seen it since it closed, but it was down.
Well, it’s down seven. What did it fall to? It was down a full percent. Yeah, that was the last I had seen. It was down a full percent after having been down almost 2%. But that was also because of the tariffs and the new tariffs on Canada.
TR: By the way, I didn’t put this in to talk about, but I thought it was worth noting. Even the threat of the tariffs against Losotho literally destroyed the Losotho economy. Trump threatened 50% tariffs, only imposed the 15 that he imposed on everyone else. Nevertheless, just the mere threat of that tanked all these factories that were forced to—just because Trump didn’t understand the nature of the economy. The South is a welfare state, and basically Congress a while ago had put zero tariffs on them just to encourage them to sell like, you know, textiles and other trinkets to the American market, you know, stuff that would show up at Pier One Imports, that kind of stuff. And of course, and then Trump just looks at the numbers. It’s like we have a trade deficit. They don’t buy anything from us. Oh, they’d love to. They’re just broke. They don’t have any money at all. They’re among the poorest people in the world. And so people, they’re just heartbroken and desperate now. They don’t even know how they’re going to eat. It’s just a reflection of how, you know, the unintended consequences of someone who’s just sort of like making decisions quickly without really non-reflexively, you know, can these things can play out. So yeah, the market, you know.
TR: Bill Clinton, in his autobiography, he said, it’s not a very good book. I don’t recommend it.
JK: You know why? Because he wrote it himself.
TR: Oh, did he? Yeah. It’s not a good book. I read it too. And it was like, I love presidential autobiographies. I mean, you should have hired a ghostwriter. The best ones are Grant and Truman, in my opinion.
JK: Agreed. Grant is not a president.
TR: Cordell Hull, former Secretary of State, is excellent too—fantastic. Anyway, the point is that in Clinton’s book, though, one of the things that I thought was really interesting is he said, you know, I really thought I was elected president of the United States, but I was really elected president of the bond market. I spent all of my time thinking about the bond market.
JK: Sure, that hasn’t changed. No, 100%. I think that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. You know, he’s—the last couple of days, he’s made additional threats besides against the Canadians, which we saw, and the Canadians responded to. But against Brazil, you know, he’s been trying to get these impeachment proceedings and criminal charges dropped against president—what was his name? The former president of Brazil before Lula, whatever his name was, the Trump guy.
Am I still shadowbanned?
TR: I don’t think that’s true. I was, but I don’t think I am anymore. Because I just heard you a couple of days ago, and everything came up. No problem.
JK: Yeah. Bolsonaro. They’re just letting, you know, the criminal justice system do its thing. And now, in addition to having put sanctions on the judge in the case, now they’re talking about adding tariffs on Brazil unless the Brazilians drop the charges. It’s nuts.
TR: Well, and let’s not forget, we’re going to be talking about Gaza. We can talk about Gaza now. But Trump also hiked up the tariffs on Canada as retaliation for recognizing Palestine.
JK: Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, after having said what—a week ago when they said that they were thinking of doing it, or maybe it was at the G7—he said, I respect that. I won’t do it, but I respect that. Well, actually, he doesn’t respect that.
TR: Yeah. It’s crazy. Well, shall we get into—oh, we should get in.
JK: There’s so much to talk about Gaza, right? My God.
TR: Yeah. No. Well, before we do that, let’s bring in producer Robby.
TR: Ah, yes. One more pitch here to—we promise we’re not going to do this every single show, but until we have the numbers cooking, we have to do this. So very quickly, producer Robby West, thank you so much for coming on. Please explain to the good folks watching on YouTube why it would be awesome for John and me if some of them were to migrate over to Rumble.
RW: Well, to migrate or at least just go there and hang out and chat and such. So, to make this short and sweet, basically for every quarter that YouTube will pay Ted and John, now that they are in the creator program, Rumble will pay them over a dollar. It’s crazy. So, it’s kind of a dumb way to break it down, but the gist of it is it’s all about paying the bills, folks. The Biden regime, they killed their jobs. I mean, y’all know what’s—everyone needs to have money, right? You gotta have money to pay your bills. You gotta have money to live. YouTube will pay a little bit. Rumble pays a whole hell of a lot more. And the best part about it is that Rumble pays you based off of legal bills up the ass. Oh my God. And yeah, I’ve been living off my savings since last September when Biden fired us. Yeah. And I mean, that’s what it’s all about, right? So, Rumble is a free speech platform. It is an alternative to YouTube. Rumble also pays significantly better. And y’all are going to see that in action here in just a little bit because Rumble’s actually giving us ads that we’re able to put out on ourselves that then go directly into John’s and Ted’s coffers. So, one of the things I’m going to be doing is going through just putting in videos, in addition to live streams. And really, all we ask is that if you go over there, if you follow them on Rumble, just know what—if you watch them there, watch hours on YouTube mean nothing. Watch hours mean the world over on Rumble. It’s like TV. If a TV show has high ratings, you get paid more. Rumble is the exact same way. And lastly, Rumble will let them say things that YouTube will not allow them to say because there’s going to be at least five hours a month of what they call Rumble premium content where it’s only going to be available on Rumble. These two fellows don’t have much of a filter. They’ll have no filter whenever they’re live on Rumble. So, if you want to hear just live, unbiased truth, maybe jump over to Rumble.
TR: All right, Robbie. Thank you so much. And thank you guys for listening to all that. Thank you. And Robbie, when you’re ready, we’ll read that first ad. Go ahead and put it up when you’re ready.
All right. So let me take Robby out of here. OK, so Gaza, Palestine. So, it’s hard to know where to start. 147 people have died of famine, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. As always, we must point out that, contrary to what the Zionists say, that’s not an overcount. It is a radical undercount. Because in order to be counted, they have to have your full name, your body, your age, your ID number, and your occupation. If you died somewhere else, they’re not bringing you—you don’t go to the hospital. They don’t count you. If you die in a basement somewhere, they don’t count you. And also, you don’t really count if you died of something else that’s maybe hunger-related, like you succumbed to an illness that you might have survived if you were stronger. So, 147 dead of famine.
TR: Let’s go ahead and read this ad very quickly. All right, anglers, if you’re ready to fish remote lakes or quiet rivers in total stealth mode, check out the Nevada Fishing Float Tube from Cadis Sports. This U-shaped beast is built for serious fishing missions, ultra-stable, ultra-maneuverable, and tough as nails thanks to heavy-duty ripstop material and double-stitched seams. You get a padded backrest, oversized seat, two large gear pockets, rod holder, stripping apron, and even a dry fly patch. Everything you need to stay locked in and ready when the bite is on. Fluorescent accents keep you visible out on the water, and carry handles make it easy to haul in and out. Whether you’re chasing bass in the shallows or hiking into alpine trout lakes, the Nevada Float Tube is built for the job. Use code RUMBLE at checkout for 10% off your order today. That’s katasports.com. Get out there, stay light, and catch the big one.
JK: That was fun. That’s great. I kind of want one of those things.
TR: Yeah. It sounds great. So, all right. So, famine in Gaza—these people who probably don’t—they’re thinking about other things than trout fishing. So, the world is furious. Countries are recognizing Palestine right and left. And just after we went off the air on Wednesday, news broke that Germany, the country that we thought would be second to last, penultimate—after that, basically second to last to go before the US—is now considering formal diplomatic recognition of Palestine. They haven’t decided to do it. They’re on the fence. You know, the world is changing. It’s changing a little too slowly for my liking, but it’s changing for the people of Palestine.
JK: That’s right. But it’s great. It’s great that they’re doing it. By the way, I want to thank over on Rumble. So, we’ve gotten some donations from USC XXS Rod 21. Thank you very much. And thank you very much for at Grice Meister. Much appreciated for those financial contributions.
TR: OK, so what do you think is going to happen there in Germany? It seems like France basically broke the dam for most of Europe and for the civilized world. Australia is coming soon. I don’t know what’s happening with New Zealand. If it seems like the UK may have been the linchpin for Germany, right? I don’t know. Certainly, the UK is one that’s been to Canada and now for Australia.
JK: Yes, I was just going to say that. And, you know, I’m wondering—the German leadership is weak, as weak as it’s been in decades. And I’m wondering if they don’t want to be sort of left behind at the dance. And so, they’re considering jumping in now. The Washington Post this morning had a graphic. It was a map of the world, and it showed all the countries that have diplomatic relations with Palestine and the countries that don’t. Well, the countries that don’t were the US, Canada, and the European Union. Everybody else in the world has diplomatic relations with Palestine. So, this is very big news for us. It’s not so big for the rest of the world because they’re wondering, you know, what’s taking you guys so long, but maybe finally, you know, there’s going to be some way to help Palestinians.
TR: So, John, you know, I’ve been thinking a little bit about, you know, my friends who are pro-Zionist are saying, well, this isn’t a big deal. You know, there’s no state really to recognize because there’s no real—there’s not even one government to recognize. The one that they do recognize is corrupt and broken. Yeah, what’s the point here? And I think the point here is that the symbolism is going to have profound economic consequences. I was thinking, you know, just yesterday, what if I got a job offer to go draw cartoons for the Times of Israel? And let’s say they even said you can do anything you want, you can criticize Netanyahu. I don’t think I could take that job. I think Jerusalem Post used to be very legit. I could think about Haaretz. That’s it. It’s the only one I could think about. You know, if I’m a tech bro, you know, if I’m off, you know, do I do a deal with an Israeli tech company? I don’t think I can. You know, I think I’ll catch too much shit from my employees and from my customers. You know, basically, it used to be—think about six months ago, John—it was exactly the opposite. If you refused to do business with, you know, with Israel, you’d be accused of anti-Semitism. Now the howling Holocaust and anti-Semitism—it doesn’t work anymore. It’s the boy who cried wolf. It’s done. It’s over. And I mean, the spell is broken. Right. And people—so it’s going to hurt them. This is a country that doesn’t really have natural resources in, you know, at all. It has a tech sector that’s completely dependent on international, Western, specifically US support. That sector is going to go away. They’re going to be like South Africa during apartheid, but worse because South Africa is a mineral-rich country.
JK: That’s right.
TR: Their own economy. They didn’t really need anyone else. They were very self-sustaining. Yes. Israel’s not. It’s a welfare state. They’re going to feel the hurt within months.
JK: Oh man, I agree. Not that this necessarily will lead to anything, but we spoke on the last episode about this—or two episodes ago about this vote in the House of Representatives over whether to cut off offensive military aid. It had six votes. It was all members of the squad plus Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well, there was an identical vote in the Senate last night, and 27 Senators, all Democrats, voted in favor. So, we’re talking about what—one and a half percent of the House a week ago, but now 27 percent of the Senate voting to cut off offensive military aid. I think that’s dramatic.
TR: It is dramatic. Yeah. And Senators—yeah, the Senate is the slow, deliberative body.
JK: That’s the one that we’re supposed to take so seriously because they’re supposed to be the adults in the room. Well, they are. They are being the adults in the room. Right. I obviously, they need to get to 50 and 60 and beyond. Right. Will they? Not in the near term. But still, too powerful.
Yeah. But, you know, we used to say—we used to say no relative to South Africa, too. You remember Ronald Reagan just told everybody, just get it out of your heads. We’re not sanctioning South Africa. We’re going to have relations with South Africa. We’re going to trade with South Africa, and nothing’s going to change. And then two years after—a year after Reagan left the presidency—the apartheid government fell.
TR: Houdini always has good questions. No shade on anyone else here. What happens if the EU doesn’t recognize Palestine, but a member nation does? Well, that’s already happened. Yeah. With Ireland. And Spain. And it’s going to happen with Croatia. Yes, it will. So, I don’t think it matters. I don’t think it matters. Right. I mean, is EU recognition important? Really? I mean, I’m not sure. As an organization?
I mean, you know, like if you’re Palestine, how much do you care about the EU? It seems like you probably get—you care about everything. Yeah. Unless you just want—you want a presence in Brussels.
JK: Yeah. If I were Palestinian, I’d say sure. I would want EU recognition. Sure. But I just don’t. I mean, I will say I think the France thing ended up being the big game-changer. And, you know, again, good job, President Macron. I mean, yeah, he really helps vindicate his own legacy after because he’s a very unpopular guy. Very unpopular. But this is popular. I heard somebody dismiss it the other day saying, well, half of France is Muslim anyway. No, 10% of France is Muslim. But then you think—actually, a majority—it’s a country—they don’t go to mass ever. No, at all.
TR: Let’s talk a little bit about this. This really—I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, but I thought it was a huge story symbolically. So, a parcel of IDF soldiers went to visit the death camp at Birkenau, and like, as has happened in the past when pro-Israeli or Israeli people have gone to Auschwitz or any of the death camps, they came draped with Israeli flags. They were turned away for the first time this week. And they were told by the people who control, you know, it’s a museum now, who control it, saying, this is a site of genocide. You can’t bring that in. That is a symbol of genocide. Wow. And that’s never happened before. I just—it was—it blew me away. I’m impressed.
JK: You know, there was another kerfuffle on my ancestral island of Rhodes last week. An Israeli cruise ship docked, and a mob of Greeks formed and wouldn’t let the tourists off the ship. Now, Rhodes survives on tourism, and Greece and Israel are very close. They would not let them off the ship. So, there were some IDF guys that were escorting the ship. They came off, a fight broke out, they got back on the ship, and the ship went away. Presumably to, you know, Turkey or Cyprus or whatever. But again, this morning, there was a group of Israeli tourists that flew in—there are direct flights to Rhodes from everywhere. You don’t have to go through Athens; you can come directly from Tel Aviv, you can come from London, any of the Scandinavian countries. And so, this group of Israeli tourists went in, and they’re just walking around the medieval city, and this mob formed, and the Israelis were so afraid that they would be beaten—they probably would have been—that they left the medieval town called the Old City and went back to the airport.
I mean, the times they are a-changin’.
TR: The only thing that troubles me about that, of course, is, you know, that just because someone’s Israeli does not mean that they approve of what’s going on. Although, according to the polls, the odds are that they do. OK, so let’s talk a little bit about—so I just want to say yes. Rid. Yes. We should talk about the French Algerian War. It’s that important. One big recommendation, yeah, well, after 9/11, right, my understanding is that the Pentagon showed the 1966 French film, the pseudo-documentary, The Battle of Algiers, in order to try to show what the conflict between the colonialist West and the Muslim-occupied world was like. It’s black and white. It moves incredibly fast. It’s a brilliant film. And it’s meant to—it’s all historically accurate. It’s meant to look like newsreels. It’s meant to look like it’s real footage, but it’s not. It’s all filmed that way. But it depicts this amazing event. You know, I always like to say that the difference between France and the United States is that Charles de Gaulle, who was the biggest advocate of, you know, La France Algérienne, French Algeria forever, he goes to, you know, a fact-finding trip on the grounds of Algiers. He finds out they fucking hate us. They don’t want us here. He came back home, went on national television, and told the French people, I was fucking wrong. Like, they hate us. We can’t be there. We have to withdraw, and we have to help them become independent and finance them and like help them land on their feet. And the French and a lot of the right-wingers absolutely hated him for it. But that was an act of integrity. We don’t admit that kind of thing.
JK: No, it was like Walter Cronkite going to Vietnam and then coming back and saying, oh my god, was I wrong? And that’s when Lyndon Johnson said he knew we had lost the war when he lost Cronkite.
TR: Although Cronkite wasn’t really very in favor of the war, right? I mean, I think he was kind of like, whatever.
JK: He just kind of went along with the government line. You know, we’re the good guys. They’re communists. We have to stop them. And then you show them over there. Then over here. All those old excuses.
TR: And then let’s, you know, so also let’s talk about Steve Witkoff. He had a little—he had his little vacations. If I ever wanted, you would not allow anybody from the media to go. Yes. So, he allowed himself to be used as a prop. The Israelis trundled him over to one of these food distribution sites run by the disastrous Gaza and hilariously named humanitarian foundation, which have all been basically pig shoots. You know, they put these—the Palestinians are all like basically forced into tight little fenced-in cages in the heat without water. And if they get too spicy, the Israelis shoot them.
JK: And it’s been literally happening every single day.
TR: Yes, sometimes a hundred people a day. But at least, you know, 20 is a slow day when it comes to the Israelis killing people to get food at these sites. There’s only four—Gaza’s not so big, but there are people who would be required to hike maybe five miles at least round trip through a war zone, an active combat zone, round trip from where they’re camped to these food distribution sites where they might be killed. I mean, no wonder, you know, the food aid isn’t getting where it needs to be. It’s catastrophic.
TR: I don’t know, it was a bad look for Steve Witkoff. It was a bad look. He was used as a prop. And Mike Huckabee looked ridiculous too.
JK: He looked like Jared Kushner when Kushner went to Iraq and was the only person wearing a bulletproof vest, and it was too small for him. Never forget that.
TR: He reminded me of Dukakis in the tank.
JK: Notice that nothing came out of this so-called visit, right? No new announcement of additional food aid. Listen, the least efficient way to deliver food to people is to drop it from planes, right? You drop enough food for 200 people. Well, there are 2 million that are starving. So, you’re not really helping anybody. But they came back, they went back to Jerusalem, and nobody said anything about, you know, opening land bridges or additional trucks or nothing.
TR: Well, on NPR, of all places, there was a really, actually, I thought a very useful report. They interviewed someone about the food situation in Gaza, who’s an expert at, I think it was at Oxfam. And they said the answer really to the staggeringly high food prices in the bazaars is you flood the zone with food. In other words, it’s just a supply and demand issue. You just pour in so much food—more than enough, not minimal, beyond maximal. If you put in so much food that Gazans have to start going on a diet, all the prices are going to collapse. Armed gangs aren’t going to be interested in stealing this food because it’s not going to be valuable anymore. It’s just going to be food. And that’s the answer here. But the Israelis, of course, don’t want to do that. Or, more accurately, Netanyahu’s right-wing partners in his war cabinet don’t.
JK: I was in the National Whistleblower Day events day before yesterday, and somebody else mentioned what Dana Albrecht is mentioning right now: American vet and civilian contractor in Gaza, Anthony Aguilar, I guess is how you say his name, is blowing the whistle on what’s happening with food aid there. Watch that page because I think we’re going to get a lot more people, especially Americans, who probably went into this thing being pro-Israel and anti-Hamas and, but still, you know, wanting to deliver food to hungry people. And they’re coming back like, oh my God, it’s a genocide. We have to do something to stop it right now. And by the way, the Israelis are stealing the food.
Aguilar, thank you, thank you. That’s right. So, I did want to put this up here. Houdini, allegedly there’s a square kilometer full of food, another eight on the—I’ve heard that. Some of which is probably rotting in the sun.
TR: But yes, that’s because the Israelis won’t let it through, and you know, the human rights groups that want to distribute the aid—they’re like World Food Kitchen—not being assured that no more of their workers will be killed.
JK: Exactly. Thank you, Spectrum. Thank you very much, and by the way, over on Rumble, Spectrum is asking—I love this question—seeing that sanctions don’t work against Russia, now the first countries that are discussing sanctions against Israel, would those have a better chance of working? Yay or nay? You know what? I think not so much sanctions as much as cutting off the billions and billions of dollars in welfare that we give the Israelis and the weapons. They have their own weapons industry. What do they need our weapons for?
But getting back to the other issue, I briefly worked with a woman who was a dual Israeli-British citizen. I didn’t like or respect her at all. She made a comment once during a coffee break that her exact words were, work doesn’t fit into my lifestyle. And I was like, oh my God, wow. Like, I couldn’t even—anyway, besides that, she told me that she was moving to Israel. And I said, why? You’re British. You were born and raised in the UK. And she said, because if I move to Israel, I get a free apartment. I get free furniture. I get a check every month to cover my expenses, food, transportation, utilities. Everything is free. And they’re getting the money from us. They’re giving me money from us. That’s our taxpayer money. I’m paying $5,100 a month for a two-bedroom. I don’t have free healthcare. That’s absurd. Outrageous. And, you know, let’s put them to work doing something useful, not killing Gazans.
JK: That’s right. Oh my God. So insanely nuts. Michael Gardner’s making a point here too that is important. And it’s exactly right. That’s more of an issue with our military-industrial complex than anything. It’s a win-win for them and their customers. Israel is just another customer. Absolutely true. After 9/11, I say this all the time, before 9/11, there were more millionaires per capita in Silicon Valley than anywhere else in America. After 9/11, there were more millionaires in Washington, DC, per capita than any other place in America because that’s where the defense and intelligence contractors are, and everybody got rich.
TR: Yeah, no, I mean, that’s—it’s just a business, right? It’s that old war is a racket. Just no question about it. I’m glad that came up. So, we’re hearing amid all of this chaos that Israel, clearly not having learned its lesson yet—got to give them points for consistency—they’re now preparing a new ground offensive against Gaza. What ground, John, are they hoping to recapture that they haven’t previously recaptured multiple times? And what are they going to do with this ground?
JK: Honest to God, Ted. They have leveled everywhere. Honest to God. They have flattened all of Gaza. There is not a single functioning hospital. Most apartment buildings have been destroyed. The electrical grid doesn’t work—what little grid they had. There’s no clean water. They’ve destroyed all of the bazaars for people to go buy food. Now, they’re just set up wherever they can set up. There’s nothing left to destroy.
TR: What—there’s something that they did, right? So, we’ve both been to war zones. And usually, some buildings survive. And that’s what happened in Gaza from the aerial—it started with the aerial bombardment. But a bunch of buildings survived. Then the IDF came in by ground, and they set up—they detonated and blew up using dynamite. They demolished everything that survived. And then they came over, and they graded it with earthmovers. And they just flattened it all out to turn it into a giant construction site. Right? So, is this simply the idea that they’re going to just build on top of it? Why would they not want to keep any of the old buildings? I mean, wouldn’t it save money if they’re planning to steal the land, ethnically cleanse it?
I’m 100% convinced that that’s been their agenda all along. But why not keep any of the old infrastructure, or is this really like, also psychologically, we’re going to erase any trace that these people were ever here? No one’s ever going to be able to say that wall over there was here before 2020. That was my family home. That’s all that’s left.
JK: Yeah. No, I think that’s what I think. That’s why they’re doing it. They’re doing it because, you know, in the West, we see articles all the time. They’re memes on Facebook or wherever you have of, you know, Palestinians standing outside a house that used to be theirs. And there are these Israeli settlers from New Jersey that are living in it now. And I think that they just don’t want that to happen. I think they intend fully—and this is ethnic cleansing. It’s a genocide—to bulldoze everything so that nothing is left and build it back from scratch. I hope I’m wrong. I really do.
TR: I don’t see how you can be. I mean, because nothing else makes sense. Yeah. I mean, they’re literally willing to spend more money to do it this way. A lot more money.
I mean, if you think about a city like Constantinople, which is, you know, you can see all the layers of history there. My god, yeah. You can still see the walls of the ancient city. You can still see remnants of the original chain that the Byzantines ran across the Golden Horn to stop ships until they paid their toll.
JK: That’s right. Yeah, no, it’s so cool. They tried to—yeah, Sultan Mehmet had to remove that chain so he could get in to conquer in 1453. So cool. That’s at the Military Museum in Istanbul.
TR: But anyway, the point is, it’s like you can see all those layers of history in every city that’s been through a war. I mean, even in Hiroshima, right, there’s some buildings that survived the atomic bomb. But the Israelis really are—I mean, this, by the way, that’s genocidal in character, like erasing all traces that a culture ever existed there. It’s Nazi-style. The Nazis used to do that in Jewish neighborhoods where they burned everything down, bulldozed everything because they didn’t want it ever to, you know, that used to be the Jewish neighborhood.
JK: Yes. Yes. That’s right. Man, it’s heartbreaking. And it just never gets better.
TR: Thank you Margaret for becoming a monthly supporter for us. Oh, thank you. Much appreciated. She’s number two, assuming she’s a she. All right. And if you’re not a she, I apologize. Unless you’re becoming a she, in which case I don’t apologize—so complicated.
JK: So, alright, I guess we’re going to leave Gaza there, or is there anything else to talk about there?
There was a—switching to politics for a minute if I could—I was curious. I almost called you yesterday. Hmm, because I wanted to get your opinion on—oh, I know—Birdbrain Kamala Harris is not running for governor of California. Yeah. And she was just so completely and utterly insincere in her explanation. She said that she just needed some downtime and she needs to write a book about her experiences. Of course, she’s not writing a book. They’ve already hired a ghostwriter, but she needs to think about this book, and she wants to travel around the country and meet some of the people that she did not have a chance to meet because the campaign was so historically short. And I thought, oh, you are so full of shit. And I had forgotten how annoying that nasally, nagging voice is. Oh, I never could. And she would sound insincere ordering a beer and a burger at a restaurant. I mean, she’s got a very cloying kind of—so, okay, we know she’s not running for governor. I knew she wasn’t going to run for governor. No way. You know why?
TR: Because being governor is hard work. It’s hard work. Have we learned nothing from Richard Nixon in 1962? You won’t have Kamala Harris to kick around anymore.
JK: My mother wore a cloth coat.
TR: So, yeah, so she’s not running for governor. That’s not surprising. Now everybody’s saying, well, she’ll run for president again. I don’t think so. I don’t think she has half a brain. She won’t run for president. She won’t. She didn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses the first time. No, no, no. It would be catastrophic. She didn’t get much love here from, and I think even within the Democratic Party, she’s just not—I don’t even think she could get the nomination.
JK: I don’t either. I don’t either.
TR: There’s too many better candidates. Pete Buttigieg is the man to beat in 2028 if you’re a Democrat, in my opinion. I think they’re going to—they want to nominate him. He’s the DNC pick.
JK: I hope you’re wrong, but I think you’re right, and I’ll add to that. You know, she’s going to have Newsom to worry about. Yes, but she’s going to have Pritzker to worry about too. Yeah, it’s a tough—mean guy with an unlimited supply of money. She will not have Josh Shapiro to worry about because he’s Zionisted himself out of the race forever and ever. He’ll never be in national politics. Even if Josh Shapiro and I agreed on 100% of the issues, I would not vote for him just because he volunteered to serve in the IDF.
TR: Me too. And then there’s Andy Beshear, you know, if ever there was a vice-presidential candidate, that’s him. He’s the guy. He’s the perfect one. Yeah, he is. He’s already set up a little exploratory committee. He’s already raising money. He’s been to New Hampshire. He went two weeks ago. So, yeah, he’s a good pick for that.
I don’t think she’ll run for president because, first of all, she will be smart enough to listen to all of her advisors who tell her you can’t get the nomination. You’ll humiliate yourself. It’ll look really bad. Just don’t. So, I think she only has two paths. She can either go to MSNBC. Definitely. I think that’s too much work. She’s not a hard-working person. So, I think she ends up in a sinecure in academia. University of California trustee. That’s what she’s doing now. Provost at Pepperdine University.
JK: Oh, yeah. She’s a visiting professor at Stanford Law School right now.
JK: It’s—she’s completely cut and pasted from Hillary Clinton, right? She’s going on a listening tour. Hillary Clinton did that when she ran for Senate from New York when everybody hated her, and they were all going to vote for the guy from Long Island instead. Whose name escapes me right now. Rick Lazio. Oh my gosh. I haven’t heard that. He was a sacrificial lamb, and she almost—and he almost ate the big bad wolf from one. He almost beat her. That’s right. And, well, you know, he was—he’s actually a very likable guy. And so, I could see why he kind of did better than they expected. But yeah, she’s—and then, of course, Hillary was a professor at Columbia University School of International Affairs, right. God, I hate to think of those diplomats of the future being trained by that heartbeat.
JK: Houdini says she’ll be on the board of some Fortune 500 company. You bet you will. No, it won’t be one. It’ll be several.
TR: Michael Gardner says Pritzker is my governor, and I think he’d be a great candidate.
JK: Yeah, a couple of people are saying nice things about Pritzker. I like—I don’t make it to himself too. He’s rich as shit. He’s a billionaire. I like Pritzker, and I like the Pritzker family. They’ve done a lot of good. Oh my god. Oh my god, Dana. Oh, maybe she’ll end up on The View.
TR: Oh, that’s—that’s good. You wouldn’t have to work except she’d have to be up really, really early in the morning.
JK: Hey, getting back to Buttigieg for a second. Michelle and I, when we had our show on Sputnik, we used to shit on Buttigieg at every opportunity, just because this guy—he was the worst transportation secretary in American history. And he had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to do something right. But the train derails and spills chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio. He’s on vacation in Portugal. The trains go on strike. He’s on vacation in Brazil. What was it? It was some other strike. I forget—he took six months off for paternity leave in his first year in office. And like, you could say, and it’s not like, you know, they got knocked up accidentally. It was planned. Exactly. Yes. So, I mean, this guy—listen, he’s brilliant. He speaks 55 languages or whatever. He speaks like eight languages or whatever. Yeah, he’s—he was a Rhodes scholar. He’s a decorated, you know, military guy—awesome. Very, very smart.
TR: Worse in the military—wasn’t he basically a supply clerk? He was like Radar O’Reilly, wasn’t he? Yeah, I don’t think he would—I mean, I think, you know, he saw—I don’t think he saw many shots fired in anger.
You know, but here’s the thing. Okay, so I think people will look back and say like I did—I always made fun of Mayor Pete because it’s like they made a guy who was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the head of the US Department of Transportation.
TR: Now, here’s the funny part. I looked into this. So, the mayor of South Bend doesn’t control a single piece of mass transit. As it turns out, South Bend has a separate transit authority that is not administered by the mayor. So, he didn’t have 0.1% experience. He had no experience, right? But so, that said, no one’s going to go back and say, what did you do? How come we don’t have high-speed rail? Right. I think they’re going to look back at the train thing maybe. And then he’ll be—they’ll be able to say, you know, I was under Biden. Biden didn’t let anyone do anything. He was fucked up and dying. Then we might say, well, what did you know about Biden? And he’ll say, well, I was the D.O.T. guy. I didn’t hang with him all the time. Right. Fairly credible.
And we know that they hid Biden from Buttigieg and other members of the cabinet. Yes. Pete Buttigieg didn’t see Biden for two years. Yes. Lay eyes on him.
JK: But that’s actually quite common. Do you remember when Ronald Reagan greeted his own secretary of housing and urban development with, hello, Mr. Mayor? And the guy had been the secretary of HUD for eight years.
TR: Well, he sat in the cabinet meeting with him. You would think he’d be like, who’s the guy down at the end, the other end of the table past the defense secretary? But yeah, no, it’s a Cap Weinberger. It’s very like, but still, I think—so here’s the brief for Buttigieg, I think, handicapping it politically. I think the brief is he’s Obama 2.0. So, he’s professorial. He’s calm. He’s intelligent. He doesn’t sound anything like Donald Trump. Every election is a reaction to the last president. And so, for the—so, he gets the nomination, I think, easily because the party’s obsessed with identity politics and making history. OK, we tried ladies, not one but twice—lost. Got to go back to a dude, but we can’t just have a white dude. Oh, but he’s gay, so we can make that work. And he’s not queeny or flamboyant. So, it’ll be fine. That’s how he gets the nomination. That doesn’t get him to 1600, but it gets him the nomination. That’s my take.
JK: First of all, thank you, Firmware chip from Wake Forest. Thank you for that generosity. And, and, there are a lot of really good comments here about, you know, he is a vet who’s not draped in the flag, which is refreshing. He’s very intelligent. He’s the anti-Trump in like practically every way. He’s a great speaker. He would be able to go toe-to-toe in a debate with, with Vance. True. True. JD Vance is a good debater. True.
TR: Oh, oh yeah. He ate Kamala Harris. But being gay—I mean, you know, what about like the Bernie-Trump—Tim Walz. He ate Tim Walz. That’s who it was. Yeah. What about the Bernie-Trump voters? People who voted for Bernie and then voted for Trump. They’re not going to—they’re not going to vote for a gay man.
I don’t think—I don’t think Buttigieg is going to get the progressive left of the Democratic Party. And that’s why I wouldn’t—unless he needs—but he can still—but he won’t. He’s a DNC pick. So, they won’t let him come out against Israel, and they won’t let him come out in favor of like, you know, Medicare for All—the Bernie stuff. If he can grab that progressive stuff, he’s in, in like Flynn.
TR: Yeah. I don’t know. We need somebody who’s a bona fide progressive. Who’s the highest-ranked—I’m trying to think who’s the highest-ranked, openly gay American politician. We’ve had a bunch of congressmen. We had a closeted senator from Idaho.
JK: Well, we’ve got the senator from Wisconsin. I forget her name. Oh, right. Tammy Baldwin or whatever. Is it Tammy Baldwin? Who’s gay? No, is it the other one? I think it’s the other one.
You know what? I don’t know to answer your question. Do we have any gay governors? That’s a question.
TR: No one’s—I’ve always thought that Ron DeSantis was closeted, but that might just be his voice. I don’t know.
People thought that I was gay, too. It’s like, you know, when I used to have open mic, open mic day on my old radio show in L.A., the one open mic question was always, Ted, are you gay? Always. And I didn’t want to deny it because I thought that would be like homophobic, you know, sort of like, nah, so I just be like, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not going to say yay. I’m not going to say nay.
JK: Yeah. Tammy Duckworth. I don’t know if that’s her. Is it Tammy Duckworth? I don’t know. No, Tammy Duckworth is the war hero, isn’t she? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can be—you can be gay and be a war hero. No, but I mean, but she lost her legs, and she’s from—isn’t she from Illinois? God. I’m going to have to—I’m going to look this up. Okay, the lesbian senator is Tammy Baldwin. Oh, okay. Well, Baldwin from Wisconsin. Too many Tammys. Yeah. Lots of Tammys. And the new senator from—or the new—what is she, the governor of? Good point. Arizona. She’s bi—Peter Thiel is gay and more powerful than any politician, no doubt.
JK: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really focus. You know, I said to my daughter not too long ago, one of the things that I admire about this generation is that they don’t stovepipe themselves into these gay, straight, bi, this, that.
TR: I’m from the stovepipe generation. I can’t—I can’t relate to the whole like—it’s hard. I don’t know. I don’t fully understand. I have to admit, I don’t believe in—people are gender-fluid. I mean, I know it’s true. I know people who know people who swear that it’s true. But I can’t believe it. It’s like, okay, so if it’s 10 o’clock in the morning, I’m feeling like I’m gay, and if it’s like 10:45, I’m straight, and maybe I don’t want sex at all by, you know, by noon. I don’t know. I just don’t get it. There’s—there’s an error, but it’s just weird.
JK: There’s a guy that we worked with, Ted. I’m not going to out him, of course, but over dinner, he just casually said that he was pansexual. Oh, right. I said, you know, I’ve heard the term. I’m not sure I fully understand it, and he said—he said, I’ll have sex with anybody that seems attractive to me. Men, women, women dressed as men, men dressed as women. He said, it makes no difference to me.
TR: I knew a Russian guy who did not work with us. I remember hearing him talk to someone like that. And he says, you are not—you are omnivorous. You are greedy. I mean, you know, as long as they’re over 18, you guys do you. I care.
JK: I have a very short story I have to tell. There was an editor that we used to work with at Sputnik years ago who I liked very much, and I sat next to them. Okay. So, one day when he was a he, he came into work with just a little bit of blue eyeshadow. And I thought, huh, that’s kind of different. All right. Well, none of my business. And then after a couple of weeks of that, he came in with a blouse and blue jeans. And I thought, oh, okay, they’re transitioning. Okay. And then after a while, it was very stylish dresses and, you know, a woman. And then he changed his Twitter bio to she/her and then later to she/they. Okay, so I was asked to give a speech at the Venezuelan Embassy the night that we broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela. So, I was there with a bunch of people. There was like a riot outside, and this young woman came up to me, and she said, hi, John, we haven’t met, but my name is Mary. I’m so-and-so’s wife. And I said, oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even know they were married. So, we had a nice little chat. I go to the office the next day. And our colleague comes in and says, hey, I heard you had a chance to meet Mary last night. And I said, oh yeah, we had a lovely conversation. I said, I apologize. I didn’t know you were gay. And they say, I’m not gay. And I said, oh, I’m sorry, but your Twitter bio says that you’re a woman, and you’re married to a woman. I said, well, I thought that meant by definition that if you’re a woman and you’re married to another woman, that you’re gay. And he says, you know, it’s your generation that wants to put labels on everybody. I was like, okay. Okay. Well, there’s just—they are words. I mean, it does not matter. Yeah, that’s pretty funny.
TR: All right. So, we’ve got a little—another ad, and I think there’s one last story that I want to talk to you here. I’m going to read this. Do you want to do the ad, or I can read the ad?
JK: Go right ahead. I don’t have it.
TR: When Rumble first started in 2013, they built the platform for the small creator. They didn’t censor or have biases. They were fair and treated all creators equally. No one thought platforms would censor political conversation or censor opinions on COVID, but they did. Facebook admitted they felt pressure from the Biden-Harris administration. Rumble did not. They held the line. They attacked Daley for giving us a voice to talk to you. They’re attacking corporate media. They’re attacked by governments like France. They’re attacked from brand advertisers who refuse to work with them. Corporate America is fighting to remove speech. Rumble is fighting to keep it. Rumble won’t survive with brand advertisers. They don’t get much of it. Watching the show on Rumble is the most they can ask from you. But if you really believe in this fight and you have the means, one major way you can help Rumble survive is by joining Rumble Premium. Join the community that believes in the First Amendment and believes in our human right to free speech. Rumble’s offering 10 bucks off with the promo code studio. When you purchase an annual subscription, go to rumble.com slash premium and use promo code studio. Like I said, if you have the means and believe in the cause, now is the time to join Rumble.
JK: Um, and I think that’s okay. I guess that’s it for that ad.
TR: All right. So, John, I wanted to talk to you about microplastics. Not our wheelhouse, but why not? Everything’s our wheelhouse. So, a new study came out that found that if you just sit at home, your body absorbs an average of 68,000 discrete microplastic particles every single day. How crazy is that?
JK: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. But it’s happening. Look, I’m drinking out of a plastic bottle right now.
TR: Yeah. So, we should—I mean, it’s like so many things that are going on in our society. And the political class doesn’t seem to even address it. I mean, you don’t even hear Bernie Sanders talk about this, right? I mean, we need political figures like, you know, I had many problems with him, but I loved how Al Gore was obsessed with climate change and took it upon himself to educate the public. And it didn’t, unfortunately, do much, but he tried. You know, I would love to see whether it’s Pete Buttigieg or some other candidate—how about Donald Trump, anybody, Vance—take up this cause, you know?
JK: Yeah, and nobody is. And it’s funny—the experts are shouting it from the rooftops. You’re right. The politicians aren’t responding or reacting in any way. And usually, when there’s this consensus in a community, some politician is going to pick it up as an issue, and nobody seems to care. They just accept it like, oh, well, you know, I was talking to a funeral director the other day. That was my phone, by the way, on the—and now I can’t duplicate the sound. Anyway, I was talking to a funeral director who I know, and he told me that we eat so many ultra-processed foods over the course of a lifetime that even some people who don’t get embalmed stay intact for years.
TR: Oh my God. Yeah, because of all the preservatives. That’s disgusting. It’s disgusting. I mean, this is where, well, I guess, look, honestly, many progressives voted for Trump because of RFK Jr. and MAHA. He’s been really quiet.
JK: Yeah. This is one of those things where there’s, you know, several possibilities. The two big ones, I think, are either Donald Trump just hogs the limelight and doesn’t let anyone else talk, and or RFK Jr. is in the trenches rolling up his sleeves and working on something big. And it’s just not ready to be announced yet.
TR: Yeah, that may very well be it. Yeah. And you know, I think that he’s still facing such pushback from Democrats.
JK: Oh, you know what? Somebody just wrote, bet John knows where to bury the bodies, and I responded, and it rejected my response. Oh really? It says this comment will not be posted to DeProgram show. That’s awesome. I said the mob taught me that you bury them under somebody else’s casket. Oh, this is funny. We were talking about poor Edie. I mean, he wouldn’t be able to eat now.
TR: No. Eat McDonald’s, and you’ll be buried like a Pharaoh. Seriously. So much for our McDonald’s ads that we were hoping to get. Yeah, by the way, this is totally true. Being a dive instructor, see the impact plastic has on our environment. It’s bad, like really bad—pulled out plastic straps from a tunnel. I’m a diver, John. And I got to tell you, even in just the 25 years or so that I’ve been diving, the reefs have gone from basically dying to dead all over. It’s really hard to find a reef where there’s any fish or anything going on. It’s, you know, and it’s true. Like, you can go to a remote island where there’s a population of like 100 in the Caribbean, and like the side where the current hits will be completely filled with trash and plastic bottles that have washed in across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s really, really—
JK: Yeah, we have that plastic island in the Pacific that Dana is referring to—it’s the size of Texas. There’s one in the Atlantic too now.
Oh, I didn’t know that. Oh my god. Terrible. Well, yeah, no, it’s—it’s pretty bad. I can’t even like comments on that one.
TR: I’m trying to think. Is there anything else that we need to talk about here. Oh, I guess we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about Trump repositioning those two nuclear submarines, and we could bring it out with that one. Do we care about that?
JK: How important is that? I don’t think it is important. It’s meant to intimidate. But like I’ve said in the past, if we’re serious about a fight, we reposition entire carrier battle groups. A couple of subs are just meant to sort of piss them off. Maybe scare them a little bit that they’re not going to be scared, but it was just what a president who is kind of impotent in this situation might do.
TR: It’s just seemed completely symbolic. I mean, I was also like, I mean, do you think Vladimir Putin woke up one morning and, like, Joe Biden forgot about our ICBMs or like, I mean, if we want to nuke them, we can. Seriously. Oh, not the submarines. Yeah. I’m scared now. Now they’re angry.
JK: All right, John, I think we’re going to leave that there.
TR: Well, I want to say thanks again to everybody. Thank you for your generosity for spending this hour with us every other day, soon to be every day. We literally can’t do this without you. So, thank you. Thank you. Seriously. Thank you. And so again, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I’m Ted Rall.
JK: John Kiriakou.
TR: DeProgram will be back Monday when we’ll deprogram you from all the news and the spin and bullshit about the news that breaks over the weekend. Thanks again and take care.
