Ted Rall, Author at Ted Rall's Rallblog

TMI Show Ep 185: “Los Angeles Times, R.I.P.”

July 22, 2025•

LIVE 10 AM Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Things get personal on today’s “The TMI Show” with hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan, diving into what looks like the beginning of the final death rattle at the Los Angeles Times—the paper Ted sued all the way to the Supreme Court for five years!

Billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire being sued for sleazy machinations that killed breast cancer victims, paid half a billion for the Times back in 2018, promising he’d run and fund the paper as a public trust for 100 years or more. The paper’s union, suckered by Pat’s promises, cooperated with him as he moved the paper to the suburbs, put his young daughter in charge and bizarrely tried to turn it into a TV cooking channel.

Now he’s dropped a bombshell on “The Daily Show,” announcing that he plans to take the 143-year-old paper public within a year, oddly inspired by the Green Bay Packers’ fan-ownership model. He says he wants to “democratize” the Times, letting readers own a piece of the action. But why now? Because no one wants to buy it.

The paper is hemorrhaging cash—losing $30-50 million annually—with over 20% of its newsroom slashed, including 115 layoffs this year. High-profile editor exits and controversies, like the censored Kamala Harris endorsement, have tanked newsroom morale and trust. Soon-Shiong even rolled out an AI “bias meter” to win back readers, but financial woes and editorial turmoil continue under his mercurial, uninformed rule.

Going public could pump in cash—or it could fail like the WeWork IPO. With debt, staff unrest, and digital hurdles looming, this looks less like a bold gambit than the dying gasp of a once-proud institution? Ted and Manila unpack this high-stakes pivot at the nation’s fourth-biggest daily paper and what it means for journalism’s future.

Plus:

Etan Patz’s murder conviction overturned, facing retrial or release.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s tragic drowning at the same beach that killed Ted’s friend in Costa Rica, at 54.
Trump pulls U.S. out of UNESCO again, claiming that criticism of Israel’s genocide is anti-Semitic.
New $250 U.S. “visa integrity fee” required for all US travelers. Will tourism tank?

Transcript: DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: Donald Trump, Bully-in-Chief

July 21, 2025•

Ted Rall

The following is a transcript of an episode of DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou for Monday, July 21, 2025. Transcript was done via AI, so beware of possible errors.

Ted Rall: Hey there. Thanks for joining us here on DeProgram, where we deprogram you from corporate news propaganda. Coming to you on the left side of your screen, I’m an editorial cartoonist, Ted Rall. On the right side of the screen, but not politically, is John Kiriakou, CIA whistleblower. Thanks for joining us. We’re here now on our regular schedule, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5 PM Eastern Time, 2 PM on the West Coast, and we love you in all other 22 time zones as well. I guess there are more than that. There are those half-time zones. Those are very strange. I don’t even understand the reason. Well, we could do it. If only there was a device that could answer that question for us.

So, let’s get into it. Lots to talk about today, as always. John suggested, and we definitely have to talk about, the role of Donald Trump as bully-in-chief. I think that’s self-explanatory, but we’ll get into the details and exactly what that’s all about. Several of my cartoonist friends called me about a story out of The Intercept saying that ICE is now setting up domestic surveillance against critics like yours truly and John, who say anything bad about ICE on social media. So we’ll talk about that chilling effect here. As ICE is prepared to become the biggest police agency in the United States now with its massive expansion, we’ll talk about the human cost of the Trump deportations, including this terrible case of an 82-year-old Chilean torture victim under Pinochet who is at death’s door in Guatemala. Sorry, not Guantanamo. He was actually reported dead. ICE thought he was dead, but he’s hanging on, thank God. We’ll talk about that. Pat Tillman—some people who are familiar with my cartooning career will remember that I did a very controversial cartoon about him. His brother appears to be having some major problems, and he’s under arrest for apparently intentionally driving into the front of a post office in San Jose, California. And on the Israel-Gaza front, I guess you could call this good news: 23 countries just signed a joint statement, including Canada, urging an immediate cessation of hostilities and criticizing Israel for its behavior there. So, John, let’s get into it with Donald Trump. There’s the Gulf of America stuff, which I have to admit, let’s start with that. A lot of stuff that Trump does comes out of the fevered rants of right-wing media over the years, as you expected. I watch Fox every single day, and I have for years. I’ve never seen anyone talk about renaming the Gulf of Mexico before Donald Trump brought it up during his second term. He never brought it up during his first term. Never. Suddenly. So where is this coming from?

John Kiriakou: I think it came from his decision to rename Mount McKinley, Mount McKinley. I think he figured, “Hey, why should I stop here? I’m going to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.” And, you know, the people on the MAGA right just love, love, loved it. It’s such a stupid thing, but it’s easily changed back. But then we saw the way he began bullying universities to the point where Harvard’s not allowed to accept international students. Columbia is losing its federal funding. Yale had to back down and get on its knees in front of him. That bothered me very much. But then today, he issued a new demand that the Washington Commanders, Washington’s football team, must change its name back to the Washington Redskins, or he will nix the deal that the team has negotiated with the city of Washington, D.C., for a new stadium. This is a big deal in Washington because both the Washington Redskins and the Washington Senators used to play at what became RFK Stadium. RFK Stadium is a terrible stadium. It’s been abandoned now for years. They’re in the process right now of knocking it down. The Redskins moved to Lanham, Maryland. They’ve been there for twenty-five years, whatever it is. They, under pressure, dropped the name Redskins several years ago and couldn’t pick a name. So they were known for two seasons as the Washington Football Team, which was also stupid. And then they decided to become the Washington Commanders several years ago. Well, they’re tired of playing in Lanham, Maryland. The stadium there now is old and in disrepair, and they decided that they wanted to go back to Washington because the new stadium that’s being built on the RFK Stadium site is right on the metro. It has its own metro station, so everybody can get there. It’s going to have tons of parking for thousands and thousands of cars, and Lanham’s not like that. You have to drive to Lanham, Maryland. It’s the only way to get there and the only way to get to a game. So he’s thrown this wrench into the deal now. RFK has been torn down. It can’t be renovated. They wouldn’t have renovated it anyway. But now unless they change their name back to Redskins, he’s going to kill that stadium deal, and the Commanders are stuck. Not just the Commanders are stuck. Residents of Washington, D.C., are stuck because they’re not going to see any of the revenue benefits that were expected to come from the team. So now, I mean, the only reason it seems to me that he’s doing this is just because of cruelty. He’s just mean. He’s trying to bully. And I think it just distracts from the important issues.

Ted Rall: I’m glad, John, that you reminded us of what happened with Mount McKinley, which had been renamed to Mount Denali. That’s the Native American preferred name. It’s also an SUV. So it went from McKinley to Denali. I guess, traditionally, it may have been called Denali before. It was named Mount McKinley, obviously. It’s been there a long time. And so, in the case of the Alaskan mountain, you know, let’s get rid of the Native American name because that will piss off the Native Americans. In the case of the Washington Commanders, let’s restore the Native American name because it’s a Native American name they don’t like. And I can’t help but think about that incident in the first term when he had Native American tribe representatives pose for a photo under the portrait of Andrew Jackson, a genocidal maniac who, aside from shooting the husbands of women he was having sex with, also liked to kill Native Americans.

John Kiriakou: Good point. He did.

Ted Rall: I mean, Columbia is also about to sign a $20 billion deal with the Trump administration to try to get some of their research funds back, which Trump has been wielding as well.

John Kiriakou: If they would just address the rampant antisemitism that’s taking place.

Ted Rall: I think it’ll be easier to find the Loch Ness Monster than the rampant antisemitism.

John Kiriakou: I think so too. I mean, he did. I don’t understand what he hopes to gain. He’s a lame duck. He can’t run for president again. I think this is just to be mean. And you know what? Speaking of lame ducks, I’m sorry I should have brought this up before the show, but we should probably talk about this new Trump-announced policy to convince the Texas state legislature to do an off-cycle congressional redistricting to squeeze three, four, or five more Democrats out of their congressional districts so that the Republicans can hang on to the House of Representatives in perpetuity.

Ted Rall: Is that allowed? I mean, because it normally happens after the census every ten years.

John Kiriakou: This has never been done before, Ted. It’s never been done before. And so Hakeem Jeffries then announced this morning that he is filing lawsuits to ask judicial permission to redraw the congressional districts in California, New York, New Jersey, and one other state—oh, Minnesota—to squeeze Republicans out of their districts to offset Texas if Trump wins. Incredible. They’re just like crime families, the two parties. That’s all.

Ted Rall: Well, I mean, in fairness to the Democrats—not something I do normally because I hate them—but, you know, it is true that in this particular respect, they’re between a rock and a hard place. Because if they go tit for tat, they’re playing Trump’s game, and they legitimize it. It’s kind of like having an abusive spouse. If they hit you all the time and you hit them back, well, then you’re just two people who hit each other. But on the other hand, if you don’t do anything, then you’re a wuss, and you’re getting rolled, and your partisans hate you. In this respect, I don’t know what Democrats should do.

John Kiriakou: I agree, man. I don’t know. The whole thing states. It really, this goes back to the 1990s. We can hate on James Carville all we want, and he’s deserving of our hate sometimes. But he can be charming as hell. He got into a knockdown, drag-out fight with Hillary Clinton in the mid-1990s because he wanted to pour millions of dollars into state legislative races to win seats in state houses and state senates because they’re the ones that redraw these maps every ten years. And she told him that was a waste of money, that the money the DNC had should go to U.S. House and U.S. Senate races, and anything left over should go to the presidential campaign. And the Clintons walked away from the state races. And look what happened. Republicans control, like, 70-something percent of them now. There’s no farm team. When was the last time that you ever heard of a state senator or state representative being spoken about on the national stage? It was Barack Obama in 2004, when state senator Barack Obama gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Ted Rall: I was there. I remember it well. You’re right about that. And, yeah, I remember, of course, I’m so old. In the late ’80s, when I worked for a Japanese bank, I met Governor Bill Clinton, and my boss turns to me and says, “That guy’s going to be president.” And I was like, “Who? Him?” Shows my political instincts. Don’t have me pick candidates. Wow. So, I just wonder how this is going to play out legally. I mean, redistricting is kind of like, they do what they want much of the time? The states set their own rules. They change them all the time. They’re going to get away with this.

John Kiriakou: I think they’re going to get away with it. Trump has so stacked the courts.

Ted Rall: Well, let’s talk a little bit about the psychology of political bullying. There’s always been political bullying, and I could name example after example. But here, it’s really naked. It’s brazen, and it just seems to be the way Trump always worked as a developer. He just comes down like a ton of bricks: “Don’t mess with me. I do whatever I want. It’s not personal. I’ll just destroy your life to get what I want. You’re in my way. Don’t be in my way.” And nothing much really stands in his way. I mean, is it just as simple as, this works, so I do it?

John Kiriakou: I think it actually is. I think Donald Trump is like a lot of CIA officers that I’ve met over the years, senior ones, where they just push the envelope of legality as far as they can until they’re slapped down. There was a great piece in the Washington Post today saying that in 70% of the federal cases that Trump has lost so far, the administration has just ignored the judge’s decision. So they’re in contempt. But how do you hold a president in contempt? You can’t do it. What are you going to do? You’re going to lock up the White House lawyers until the president does what you tell him to do? That’s not going to happen ever.

Ted Rall: Because the guys who wrote the Constitution were a bunch of English upper-class gentlemen. The idea that someone would behave indecently, totally ignoring the rules, was just not something that would cross their minds. It never occurred to them.

John Kiriakou: I’m not optimistic. Michael Gardner says the judiciary is our best hope. I agree, but even that does not make me sleep better at night.

Ted Rall: No. I think this is a major crisis. And the part that I keep coming back to is, you know, this man was only elected six months ago. We’re one-eighth of the way out of the woods.

John Kiriakou: One thing that I find kind of fun too, and this is a minor point, but it bugs the hell out of me, is I hate having to defend Barack Obama. But when Obama named whatever it was—a drug czar, a border czar, some czar—I remember Fox News going to some Republican rally and asking people, “What do you think about this?” And they’re like, “We don’t have no czars in the U.S. That’s a communist idea, having czars.” And I was like, “Man, you morons.” Reagan is the one who started the czars with his drug czar. It was a Reagan administration policy, and the people are too stupid, shortsighted to remember that. Number one. Number two, Obama took an incredible amount of criticism for the number of executive orders that he signed. And I remember Republicans just screaming that he’s ruling by executive order. It’s just executive fiat. It’s illegal. It’s anti-democratic. Donald Trump has signed more executive orders at this point in his term than any president in American history, and the MAGA Republicans are loving it. The sum total. So now we’ve gotten ourselves into a political position where, when the Democrats win the presidency again, they’re going to have to sign hundreds of executive orders to undo the executive orders that were signed under Donald Trump. Just keep happening like this every time, cycle after cycle, and it’s going to be the Gulf of Mexico, and then it’s going to be the Gulf of America again, and then the Gulf of Mexico again. And we just make ourselves look like boobs.

Ted Rall: That’s right. And it’s a system that doesn’t work. And while we’re doing this, we’re not addressing our real problems. John, one of the things that’s really changed too is we’ve seen fairly unified government before. There have been other times when one party held the trifecta, all three branches. That’s the case now. But what I’ve never seen or read about, as far as I can tell, is where one branch of Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, completely becomes a rubber stamp, enabling party, gives up its prerogatives entirely, completely relinquishes oversight or wanting to be consulted. It used to be that in Washington, power was everything. Don’t step on my toes. Yes, we’re both from the same party. I like you, President Kiriakou. But as Speaker of the House, I’ve got to insist that you check in with me. And now it’s like, “Yes, sir, Mr. President. I’ll do, and I don’t even hear from you. You never call. You never write.” It’s really that part is truly frightening. For students of Nazism, the Enabling Act, when the Reichstag just passed one law that finally said anything that Adolf Hitler proposes is automatically passed. They still met and everything, but it was kind of like under the Roman Empire where the Senate still met, but the emperor had decided everything. It was a dictatorship. That’s where we’re at. Even Republican senators don’t seem to be pushing back real hard.

John Kiriakou: No. If you think they’re welcoming it, look at Lindsey Graham. Could Lindsey Graham be any more of a lap dog than he is? I’m not even sure it’s possible. And 2324 makes a good point. The Democrats are no better. The Democrats are in a state of utter chaos right now. They can’t even decide if they want to endorse Mamdani for mayor of New York. He’s their nominee. Well, they don’t want to. They don’t like the cut of his democratic socialist jib.

Ted Rall: That’s right. But they’re going to, and now the thing is, it’s a bad look. They will as they get closer, but by then, it’s too late. The time to show unity is in advance. Probably better not to do it at all. By the way, shout out to 2324. Thank you very much for the $9.99 donation. We really, really do appreciate it. Well, let’s answer his question. What does happen next with the Democrats? I would have expected by this point, we’d start to see some initial cohesion, but I don’t see it.

John Kiriakou: No. There’s no cohesion at all. I think what’s going to happen, though, they are such a corporatist party at their core that they’re going to go right back into that DLC, middle-of-the-road, tack to the left in the primaries, tack to the right in the general corporate party that they’ve been since Bill Clinton was nominated in 1992. When they went to, what was it? Annapolis or Y River, I think it was at Y. They went to their Democratic off-site in 1992, and they invited the Democratic Leadership Council to present on what became the centrist third way.

Ted Rall: That was the centrist third way that no longer exists. But, basically, it doesn’t need to because they run the whole DNC.

John Kiriakou: The whole party moved to the right. I don’t think it’s going to change. We’re not going to see a Bernie Sanders-like person ever again, particularly as a Democrat.

Ted Rall: No. Mamdani is the only game in town now. We’ll see what happens there. But, I mean, the mayor of New York doesn’t usually go on to anything national of any import. We’re not calling you President Giuliani. But, you know, he could have. I mean, just surprising, but for a variety of reasons, I think it just doesn’t carry over. You know, Carville has an op-ed in today’s New York Times where he talks a little about that. His prediction is that the day after the 2026 midterms, there will be a leader, a front-runner, apparent for the presidency who will effectively become the leader of the Democratic Party, and nothing will really coalesce until there’s that leader.

John Kiriakou: I think he’s living in a fantasy land.

Ted Rall: I think he may be right, but I just don’t know that there is such a leader who can do this. There are eight Democrats out of the desert.

John Kiriakou: There are eight Democrats that have already either set up exploratory committees or traveled to Iowa or New Hampshire for fundraisers.

Ted Rall: Yep. We know the list. I mean, it’s not too early to start shaking the trees for money. Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro will not be the nominee. The progressives will just not allow it.

John Kiriakou: You know what, though? On principle, I could or would never vote for someone who has served in a foreign army. I honestly have no idea where his loyalties lie. And if it’s to the IDF, not a chance.

Ted Rall: Yeah. The IDF is a criminal organization. Totally agree.

John Kiriakou: Travis has a very down-in-the-weeds question for me about Phil Mudd. So I knew Phil Mudd very, very well at the CIA. Believe it or not, he used to be a nice guy, a decent guy. He’s a direct descendant of Dr. Mudd, who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after he murdered Abraham Lincoln. And he’s a distant cousin of Roger Mudd, the famed journalist. But Phil, in order to promote his own career, went all in with the torture program. So Phil and I were pals until 2001. And then, without even having exchanged a word, we became enemies to the point where he testified against me in the grand jury. Not that he knew anything about my case. He just wanted to say on the record that I was an asshole. That was it. So I always enjoyed watching Phil fail. He was initially appointed deputy undersecretary of Homeland Security for intelligence under Obama. And I called a couple of friends of mine at the agency who were quiet supporters of mine, and one who was on the Obama transition team, and they yanked his nomination. And he’s not done anything of import since then, except he coauthored a book that was a defense of the torture program, which just made me so happy that his name now will be associated in perpetuity with the torture program. He so deserves it.

And, Reid, I’m sorry. I never had anything to do personally with Leon Panetta, but I published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times from prison, handwritten on a legal pad, which they gladly ran, saying that Leon Panetta should be in the bunk next to me because he committed espionage. He gave classified briefings over a classified mock-up of the bin Laden compound to Kathryn Bigelow, a Hollywood director, and Mark Boal, a Hollywood writer, for Zero Dark Thirty. And then invited them to the attaboy speech after bin Laden was killed, forgot that they had been invited, and then outed the names of all the SEAL Team Six officers who were responsible for the bin Laden killing, and then said, “Oops. Sorry.” That’s all classified. And then they redacted not just the six names. They redacted 27 lines of his comments because they found out that a whole bunch of other stuff that he said was also classified. And remember, the judge in my case said that the definition of espionage is providing national defense information to any person not entitled to receive it. What he did was the definition of espionage. Insane. Jessica Chastain played—I don’t know. Should I say her name? She played the red-headed devil. I won’t say her name. I’ll probably get in trouble again. And Billy Waugh. Billy died a couple of years ago during COVID, not of COVID. He was well into his nineties, but I did not keep in touch with him after I left the agency. Every once in a while, I would run into a mutual friend. I’d say, “Tell Billy I said hi,” and then Billy would say, “Tell John I said hi.” But that was the end of it. I liked Billy a lot, but Billy kept some dangerous company.

Ted Rall: Shall we talk about ICE? And I also, before I should interject about this case of Luis Leon that, you know, you read a case and some cases make your blood boil. This guy, 82 years old, came to the United States in 1986 under Ronald Reagan. He’d been tortured by the Pinochet regime of Chile, notorious. He got political asylum under a right-wing Republican administration, rightly so. He’s lived here peaceably all these years. He loses his wallet. In his wallet was his green card. So he goes online: “What do I do?” You go to ICE, and you file a form, and we’ll give you a new one. He makes an appointment, shows up, is cuffed immediately, dragged off, and disappeared into the system, into the network of domestic immigration gulags.

John Kiriakou: His family called every morgue, every police station, every hospital.

Ted Rall: Yep. Can’t find him. He’s got a green card. He’s basically a U.S. citizen who can’t vote. That’s what a green card holder is. And the guy’s 82 years old and suffering from all sorts of medical conditions. Well, finally, weeks pass. The family is completely losing their mind. By the way, his wife doesn’t know where he is. And then ICE calls and says, “Yeah, by the way, he died. You can pick up his body in Guatemala.” And to add to the excitement, because never a dull moment, it turns out, “Oh, not dead yet, but he might.” He’s desperately ill in a hospital in Guatemala, and he may or may not make it back. This is ludicrous.

John Kiriakou: That’s kidnapping. It’s kidnapping and torture is what it is. The guy came in.

Ted Rall: It was, yeah. They just swept him up. They don’t even allege that he committed a crime. Like, you did something that justifies us yanking your green card, which, by the way, they don’t have that authority to do anyway. They’re not even making the case. They literally have no basis. Just whoosh. He just did it. This can happen to anybody. It happened to that U.S. army vet. The Intercept has this piece that basically says that ICE is making an enemies list. They’ve hired private contractors to monitor social media feeds to keep track of their critics. Their explanation for this is that ICE officers are supposedly in a lot of danger. They really hate it. And what if something were to happen to one? They’d want to be able to know that maybe it was someone who posted on X, something that was bad that would help them investigate this possible theoretical future threat to these dudes. Of course, obviously, they are hated and reviled, not because they’re enforcing the law, but because of the way they’re behaving, the kinds of things that they’re doing.

I had two cartoonists call me today and say that they’re concerned that they’ve said negative things about ICE in their cartoons and in their social media feeds, and their cartoons appear on social media. And they’re wondering if they need to start thinking about leaving the United States. This is the intention here, clearly, to establish a chilling effect on criticism, because if that were not the case, they wouldn’t announce it. If it was something they just wanted to do for their personal safety, they’d just do it. But why announce it? The announcement is to let you know, “We see you. We’re making a list, and we’re checking it twice, and you’re going to be on that list.” And when we’re done deporting all the foreigners, well, we’re not going to just close shop and say, “Wow, we deported all the illegals. Throw us a party. You’re welcome.” They’re going to expand, and they’re going to turn—they’ve already been expelling green card holders. Just last week, there was this raid on a California cannabis farm where they arrested and tried to deport a U.S. citizen born in the U.S. who is also a U.S. Army vet, 23 years old, who was working at this legal cannabis farm. The dude almost died in custody. He was so badly physically maltreated. And, of course, he’s suing. There are all sorts of allegations of medical abuse in ICE custody. And now there’s this surveillance project, which, you know, is terrifying. It feels a lot like fascism.

John Kiriakou: I think that is fascism. I happen to be in New York. Sorry, I didn’t tell you in advance, but I’ve been swamped. I’m in Queens to finish the photography for my next book, and I went to the grave today of Roy Cohn. And, you know, what a charmer. It’s not really a grave. He’s in a family mausoleum, the Marcus family. And all it says is “Roy Cohn, birth year and death year, lawyer and patriot.” Well, he’s not a lawyer. He is one of the darkest, most hated and hateful figures in modern American history. Jesus. And he would fit in so well in government today. He represented Donald Trump.

Ted Rall: I mean, early on. Roy Cohn and they were buddies. There’s that movie, which I haven’t seen, The Apprentice, about their early relationship and the things that Trump supposedly picked up from Roy Cohn. He was, of course, the scoundrel of the Army-McCarthy hearings.

John Kiriakou: Absolutely. Let me say real quickly, we have a whole bunch of questions. Thank you, Soudan. My book, Remains of the Day, the definitive guide to Washington, D.C.’s historic cemeteries, is supposed to be out next week. It won’t be, and I don’t know why, but it’s ready to come out. The book after that is called Whispers in the Dirt, the definitive guide to New York City’s mafia graves. That’s why I’m unshaven. I’ve been out since eight this morning. I went to five different cemeteries here.

Ted Rall: Oh my god. Forever.

John Kiriakou: Ted, I’m going from one grave to the other. I put it into Waze, and it’s like, “Continue straight for two miles.” In the same cemetery. There are 350,000 people buried in this cemetery.

Ted Rall: They’re a major feature on the map of New York City.

John Kiriakou: It’s crazy. So, anyway, Cohn was also an attorney for a lot of high-level organized crime figures, and I wanted to put him in there too. That’s why I was out. But Cohn made me think, frankly, of Stephen Miller. You guys are mentioning Stephen Miller here. Just between us, I heard last week that one reason I haven’t been pardoned is that I have a Stephen Miller problem. So I’m going to try to work that out so Stephen Miller doesn’t hate who he thinks is John Kiriakou.

Ted Rall: Maybe you shouldn’t say anything bad about him here.

John Kiriakou: Yeah. Right. You get a pass from me on this. Saint John’s Cemetery in Queens has Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese who’s next to Tommy Lucchese, who’s a hundred feet from Lucky Luciano. And then in the mausoleum is John Gotti, and he’s next to Roy DeMeo, and he’s next to a guy that he shot six times in the head. It’s just nuts.

Ted Rall: I believe it. So do we want to talk any more about ICE, or what do you think?

John Kiriakou: Before you get into it, just as an aside about ICE, I get this hyperlocal newsletter every day at four. It’s called Arlington Now, and it’s for Arlington, Virginia. And they had an article today that there’s this serious feud between the Arlington County Sheriff’s Department and ICE. And my first thought was, “Good. Good for the sheriff’s department.” I voted for this man for sheriff. I don’t even remember his name. Not the woman. She retired. I voted for this Hispanic guy because he was just a low-level sheriff, and he was going to go in and bomb-throw and tear the whole place down. So I click on the article to see what the fight is about. And it says the sheriff’s department is refusing to cooperate with ICE. And so ICE said that they’re going to try to take over the sheriff’s department. I’m like, “Okay. That’s cool.” And then it said the reason why this fight is taking place is that ICE has twice put a hold on this convicted pedophile. And rather than hold him until an ICE officer can get there to deport him to wherever it is in Latin America he’s supposed to be deported to, they just keep letting him go, and he keeps molesting other children. It’s like, “No. That’s not cool.” Stand up to ICE, but not in support of a pedophile. What the heck are you thinking?

Ted Rall: Well, also, I’m not sure, like, I want foreign kids to be molested either. Prosecute him. Hold on to him. Nail him. I mean, nail him here. This is one of those cases where it’s like, yeah, we can keep him here. I don’t know that I necessarily trust returning him, unless it’s to a country that we can believe. So what do you think? I mean, is there going to be political pushback here either in the Democratic Party, in the media, or on the street?

John Kiriakou: There has to be. I’m still kind of chuckling about that woman who voted for Trump in Indiana. She and her husband had that successful steakhouse, apparently the most successful steakhouse in Indianapolis. He came here from Mexico thirty-five years ago, never got legalized, but got married, had kids, has a profitable, successful business, a pillar of the community, and they grabbed him and sent him back to Mexico. And she was crying on the news saying that she voted for Trump because he said he was only going to throw out the bad hombres. And then there was a woman last week. I laughed so hard. I don’t mean to laugh, but she said that she voted for Trump because she wanted to own the libs. But now with the big beautiful bill, she’s going to lose her Medicaid. And what’s she going to do? She can’t afford medical insurance. What, all I wanted to do was own the libs. Like, you moron. There are consequences to our votes.

Ted Rall: This is not really saying that this is a consequence thing, but I’ve always been obsessed with always having my paperwork, particularly both of my passports, up to date. Friends who have nebulous legal status here, because a lot of people have come in and overstayed visas or gotten green cards but never become citizens, I’ve always told them, “You never know in this country how the political winds will shift. You can just ask the Japanese Americans in 1941. It’s always good. If you’re not sure, get yourself regularized. Get as much legal documentation as you can.” Right now, obviously, it’s not going to happen. But when a Democrat comes back in, get that done if you want to stay because you just never know what’s going to happen.

John Kiriakou: You never know. That’s absolutely true. And the situation domestically has become so crazy, stuff that we’ve never seen before. You know, masked ICE kidnappers roaming the streets.

Ted Rall: I’m still waiting for the violence. This is a country full of weapons. It’s like 12 guns for every man, woman, and child. Someone’s going to shoot these ICE guys. And the ICE guys, honestly, it’s not really illegal to resist being kidnapped. If you don’t know who the people are, anybody could dress like that, cruise around in an unmarked car, all masked up, and try to grab with their little fake police outfits. No badge. No ID.

John Kiriakou: You go on YouTube and type in “fake cop,” and you’ll have video after video of people getting pulled over. And it turns out the person being pulled over is a real cop, being pulled over by a fake cop, and then clarity ensues. I love those.

Ted Rall: That’s awesome. I used to tell my ex-wife, we lived in a rural area, and I would tell her, “If you’re in the rural area and you see the red and blue lights behind you, just keep driving until you get to a gas station, someplace that’s well lit. Don’t just pull over on the side of some country road. And if they get mad, they get mad. Whatever. But, you know, anyone with $20 can buy those things and put them on the roof of their car.”

John Kiriakou: Galls.com.

Ted Rall: And I don’t think cops should be driving around in unmarked cars anyway. You don’t need them. Drive around in a police cruiser like a normal person. It’s going to happen. I’m really curious when it happens, how people will respond to that. I don’t know whether they’re going to laugh and be like, “ICE had it coming,” or they’ll be like, “That’s so terrible. They were just enforcing the law.” Or will it just be completely siloed, based on what party affiliation you have?

John Kiriakou: One fun thing I saw in the LA Times the other day is that tow truck drivers are now towing ICE’s cars. So these ICE guys just park anywhere they damn well please, and they get out to raid a restaurant or whatever, and tow trucks are towing their cars away.

Ted Rall: That’s awesome. Is it intentional?

John Kiriakou: Oh, yeah.

Ted Rall: Oh, that’s so great. Keep doing it, guys. Team tow truck all the way. Jay French is asking, “How did Obama manage to deport so many people without making much noise?” Good question. I don’t know the answer to that question. My understanding is that, first of all, he trolled prisons more. So you don’t see that. He was going for undocumented people at prisons, and nobody cares when they’re really bad hombres. And, also, he went to workplaces like Tyson Chicken in Arkansas. Those are in rural areas. So he got away with a lot, man. The violent coordinated Homeland Security raids of the encampments, all on the same morning.

John Kiriakou: Oh, yeah. The Tuesday morning kill list was an Obama invention.

Ted Rall: Yeah. And my personal favorite Obama quote is his term for watching drone killings when someone’s head explodes. He coined it. He called them “squirters.” No, ma’am, we love Barack Obama. He’s the best. He was great. We love him.

John Kiriakou: Wow.

Ted Rall: I think we can probably move on to this bizarre story out of San Jose, California, where, so, Pat Tillman—I have a personal connection here. So Pat Tillman was an Arizona Cardinals player. I thought he was a quarterback, but he was a big deal at the Arizona Cardinals. And in the days after 9/11, he volunteered to serve in Iraq. And then he was ultimately transferred to Afghanistan. He died in Afghanistan. Now, a lot of this, basically, the way this was originally presented in the media at his memorial service, which was led by Senator John McCain of Arizona, and it was nationally televised, it was a big thing. It was kind of like he was our noble patriot hero who gave up a million-dollar career to go and serve his country and fight the terrorists in Afghanistan. That’s how this whole thing was marketed. He was basically marketed like he was a right-wing conservative who saw 9/11 and got pissed and went to Afghanistan. Well, that’s not really what happened. What really happened was that he went to Iraq first. Why did he go to Iraq? Because his brother had previously enlisted, and he thought, “Oh my god, I’m so pissed about this.” He was opposed to the Iraq War. He said it was completely illegal, but he got the idea, maybe from a recruiter, that he could be assigned to the same unit as his brother, with whom he was very close, and could watch his back in combat, and they could be brothers side by side in the same unit. Army recruiters are basically the best part. They told him that. He believed them. He promised their mom, “I’ll take care of Kevin. I’ll go.” And then he went to Iraq, and then they were, of course, assigned to different units. And then he went to Afghanistan, where, ironically, they were in units that served in the same area, but they were never in the same unit. And then we were told that the horrible Al Qaeda terrorists shot Tillman. Actually, that turned out not to be true. That was friendly fire that killed him. So he was killed by his comrades accidentally.

And then when his body was brought back, there was this giant patriotism-off, presenting Pat Tillman as, you know, he gave up his football career to help serve God, country, and George W. Bush. So enter Ted Rall, political cartoonist. None of this information that he’d served in Iraq, that he was a left-winger, that he had gone and met with Noam Chomsky in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that he was violently opposed to the Bush administration, to interventionism, to militarism, and that he was just there to help his brother—none of that’s reported. Nobody knows any of that. I think he’s a right-wing idiot who basically fell for Bush’s lies and bullshit about Iraq and Afghanistan and went there and got used and died like a moron. So I did a cartoon about it. And, basically, it was one of my spate of really controversial cartoons during that time period, and that was one of them. And so the cartoon came out, and all hell broke loose. Anyway, that’s some background.

I got to know—I’m at a cartooning convention in Sacramento, and I get a call from Mary Tillman, the mom. And she’s really cool, and she’s just like, “You know, I was really mad at you and furious at you. But after I calmed down, I decided I wanted to hear from you what you were thinking and what your thoughts were.” And I just told her, “Look, I did a cartoon on the story as it was reported at the time, which turned out to be all lies. If I’d had that information, I wouldn’t have done that cartoon at all. He’s not an idiot. He was a wonderful, smart, compassionate, thoughtful, progressive young man who got killed in the stupidest way you can die in a war, killed by your own men and through no fault of his own. And it’s a fucking tragedy and a nightmare.” And we talked about it, and we got to know each other. I would say we’re friends, and we’ve talked since then. So in today’s news, one of the other brothers of this family, obviously deeply touched by tragedy, drove his car intentionally into the front of a post office in the San Francisco Bay Area. It caught fire, and he’s under arrest. Apparently, he’d been suffering from mental issues for quite some time, and the family is dealing with this. And, you know, it’s just like a reminder that this happened a long time ago. Even I still feel really bad. I don’t feel guilty because you have to have done something wrong to feel guilty, and I didn’t do anything wrong as a political cartoonist, but I feel bad. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t draw that cartoon at all. I might have drawn a cartoon criticizing Bush and John McCain for being scurrilous dogs, but I didn’t. The whole thing now, this is happening too. What a shit show. And it just shows how long the aftermath of this kind of trauma lasts. Pat Tillman, oh yeah, I know who that is, but it’s been twenty-one years since his death. And it’s still kind of killing them.

John Kiriakou: He was a safety and defensive back. I will tell you something that I have never said publicly before. My grandmother on my mom’s side had four brothers, and all four of them served in the Second World War. And when I was a little kid, my grandmother was not close to her brothers. There was one in particular, Uncle Bill, who lived in the same town. We would see him at family events, the Greek festival, or a dance, or a baptism, or whatever. And my mom always told me not to ever ask Uncle Bill about the war. When I was a little kid, that didn’t really mean anything. But by the time I was 12 or 13, I was very interested in the war because a lot of my friends’ dads had served, or if your dad didn’t, then your grandfather did. So I never approached Uncle Bill. Well, when I finally became an adult, my mom told me a story. This was the reason why she told me I really should stay away from Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was one of the American soldiers who liberated Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich in the closing days of the Second World War. And he never was able to get over what he saw there—piles and piles of bodies and half-burned bodies in the crematoria and people looking like skeletons. Now we call it PTSD. They didn’t have a name for it back then. He gets back from the war and sort of bounces around from job to job. Fast forward to 1953. The war’s been over for eight years. Uncle Bill has had no therapy or mental health care whatsoever. There was nothing like that back then. He somehow gets it into his head in 1953 that Richard Nixon, who had just been elected vice president, promised him a job at the post office in Steubenville, Ohio, where he lived. So Monday morning, Uncle Bill puts on his best suit. He goes down to the post office, and they said, “What are you here for?” He said, “I’m here to start work.” They said, “We don’t know anything about that. You’re not supposed to work here.” And Uncle Bill said, “That damn Nixon, I’m going to make him pay for humiliating me.” Six months later, who happens to come to the civic center to give a speech but Vice President Richard Nixon. And Uncle Bill tried to get into the venue with a .45. And he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to shoot Richard Nixon, and he served five years in prison. What my mom used to say, “There, but for the grace of God, our name could have been Oswald.” Even after all this, he never got any mental health care. And now here we are in 2025. I’ll tell you how Uncle Bill died. He got hit by a train. Like, how can you not see that the train is coming right at you? And my mom said, “Well, I think that was the whole point.” No Walkmans back then.

Ted Rall: I almost got hit by a train. I was listening to that.

John Kiriakou: Got killed by a train. My mom’s best friend’s son got killed by a train. Uncle Bill got killed by a train. Where you and I grew up, Ted, a lot of the crossings don’t have the bars that come down. It’s just, you stop and look both ways and hope there’s not a train coming. So here we are in 2025. Seventy-two years have passed since Uncle Bill was arrested, and we still don’t have adequate mental health care for people who come back from combat.

Ted Rall: I think of that famous incident with General Patton, who slapped a shell-shocked, traumatized soldier and got into a lot of trouble for it because it was reported. He didn’t recover. His command assignments, he never recovered after slapping that soldier. And rightly so, I think. But that was the point of view. And things haven’t really changed. In this case, this is like the brother of the victim, and it’s just horrible. He’s collateral damage. We should probably leave that and check in on Israel. So, basically, 23 countries signed a declaration, mostly European countries, but also Canada. Major countries are demanding an immediate end to hostilities. And, of course, every single day, a dozen or more Palestinians report to a food distribution site in Gaza and are massacred by IDF forces. Every single day. They’re so desperate that they figure, even though it’s incredibly dangerous, “Well, we’re going to die of starvation anyway.” At this point, there’s still all the semantic arguments: Is this genocide or not? If both it is, but people who say it isn’t, my favorite counterarguments are, “Well, they haven’t killed them all.” I’m like, “Well, Hitler didn’t kill them all either.” And also, they’ve issued warnings and tell them to evacuate to other places. Nazi Germany did that too. That’s not really a defense. How much longer is this going to go on before someone who matters makes it stop?

John Kiriakou: Nobody is saying anything. I was looking at the BBC today too, and the BBC was saying that, yes, the Israeli IDF killed another 61 people who were standing in line for food. But there are also children who were reported to have starved to death today, including a four-year-old girl who hadn’t eaten in weeks. She was lucky that she was at least able to get water for a couple of weeks. So, yeah, the only European country that’s really said anything so far is Ireland. Everybody else is just pretending that this isn’t happening.

Ted Rall: I’m hoping France acts quickly because that would be a game-changer. France has tremendous power from its legacy as the dominant diplomatic power. French prestige is massive. So I’m hoping Emmanuel Macron does something to validate his far-left administration, which is wildly unpopular in France. This morning on BBC Radio, I was pleasantly surprised that they interviewed a physician-slash-reporter who’d been on the ground there in a hospital in Gaza for months. And he said in very clear language, “There’s no question that this is an attempt to exterminate the entire population of Gaza and to do complete ethnic cleansing.” He said something, John, that was extremely disturbing. He said that, for the IDF lately, for months, they play games with the injuries. And the BBC asked, “So what do you mean by that?” And he said, “Well, in one day, everyone will come in with a head wound. The next day, everyone comes in with a left leg wound. The day after that, everyone comes in with an abdominal wound.” And she said, “That’s a very serious allegation.” And he’s like, “It’s a fact. It’s documented. I have photos.” And so it’s like, “You think it’s a coincidence?” No. The idea they’re doing this for fun. They’re shooting civilians for fun. And to send a message to troll in this incredibly sinister way. I’m almost 62 years old. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ve studied war. I’ve just never heard of such depravity.

John Kiriakou: I don’t even have words. I’m just speechless. These are crimes against humanity, war crimes. They need to be prosecuted just as we had prosecutions at Nuremberg.

Ted Rall: Let’s get real. If Israel was not a U.S. ally and this was going on and the president of the United States got word this horrible situation is happening over in this country, there would be tremendous pressure. We have to lead an international invasion force. We would either do it ourselves or we’d go to the UN and say, “We’re going in as an international community. This is a Rwandan-style genocide. We’re putting a stop to it right here and now.” Am I wrong?

John Kiriakou: No. It is a Rwandan-style genocide. I was outraged when I heard that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons were not allowed to speak, but they were also not allowed to walk. They had to go from point A to point B on their hands and knees for months at a time, and they’re just destroying their legs, being forced to do so. It’s just sick the way the Israelis are treating people. Criminal.

Ted Rall: I went with an open mind the first time I went to Israel. And when I saw the checkpoints and the way that people are treated, you can’t possibly think it’s anything but apartheid.

John Kiriakou: It just is. I think I told you my mom, back in 2008, my dad had been dead a few years, and she was lonely and bored, and she wanted to take a trip. So she called me and said, “Hey, I think I’m going to take a trip to Ireland with NPR. They’ve been advertising this group.” And I was like, “Mom, it’s February. Why do you want to go to Ireland in February? It’s going to be freezing and just pouring down rain the whole time.” And I said, “My church is planning a trip to Israel. You should go to Israel. You know everybody.” So she and my sister went to Israel for the first time. My mom never paid attention to current events or the news or anything. She would always say, “Oh, I’ve been busy raising three kids. I didn’t have time for the news.” So she comes home and says to me, “Did you have any idea how they treat the Palestinians out there?” And I was like, “Of course, I did.” And she didn’t. And for months afterwards, she would talk about how their driver, who was a Palestinian Greek Orthodox guy, was humiliated at every checkpoint, not allowed in certain hotels, not allowed across certain dividing lines. They would have to get out of their little van and walk the rest of the way just because he was Palestinian. And I said, “Yeah. And multiply that times the millions of Palestinians who live in Israel. It’s criminal.”

Ted Rall: Question Everything just posted that. I guess this is probably a quote from a story. I hope. “Heads day, legs day, testicles day, heart day. The IDF sniper’s sport includes certain targets for certain days.”

John Kiriakou: I saw the spitting. They spit on a bunch of Greek Orthodox people going into a church.

Ted Rall: They just destroyed Pope Francis’s favorite church, a very historic one, hundreds of years old, bombed it. I mean, come on. They knew where it was.

John Kiriakou: But, Ted, they did say they would investigate. They would carry out an investigation.

Ted Rall: They’re so good at that. I’m still waiting to hear, you know, they have so many investigations that they owe. We’re probably going to see those Epstein files before we see the results of those Israeli investigations. Guaranteed. They’re sons of bitches. What can I say? Alright. So, let’s see. Should we put this up? Abby Martin mentioned on Rogan that most of the IDF is kids from Jersey and the Philly suburbs. Ironically, many of the kids from Philly and Jersey over there are also Palestinian. So it’s basically like Jersey-on-Jersey violence. Seriously.

John Kiriakou: Time was when they could just settle it on the football field.

Ted Rall: That would have been better.

John Kiriakou: Awful.

Ted Rall: Well, John, I think I ended up on a depressing note here, but we gotta do that. So thanks, everyone, for joining us. Please like, follow, and share the show. We really appreciate the tremendous support you guys are giving us. Just keep it coming. Love you guys. We are here Monday, Wednesday, Friday, which means we will be back Wednesday, 5 PM here on YouTube and Rumble live. Obviously, not everyone’s available then. So if you’re watching us in streaming, we appreciate you as well. We also have an audio version of this. So for you guys, we’ve seen the numbers tick up recently. For people who are just listening, thank you so much for doing that, and thanks for enjoying the show. Thank you, I’m Ted Rall,. That’s John Kiriakou. Have a great night, and see you Wednesday.

John Kiriakou: Bye-bye.

Transcript: The TMI Show – “The Great Population Collapse”

July 21, 2025•

Ted Rall

The following is a transcript of a bonus Rumble Premium episode for Monday, July 21, 2025, of The TMI Show with Ted Rall and Robby West filling for Manila Chan. Transcription provided by AI so there may be errors.

Ted Rall: Hey there. Thanks for joining us. You’re watching a Rumble Premium edition of The TMI Show with Ted Rall and Manila Chan. I’m Ted Rall, the “T” in TMI. Today, it should be the TRI show because that’s Robby West, our producer. If you watch the show, you’re already very familiar with Robby. Robby’s filling in for Manila for this premium edition. Right before this, I sent an interesting story from Bloomberg over to Robby. I know that he, like me, is interested in demographics and population flows. One of the topics on The TMI Show that generates the most controversy is the issue of immigration, particularly into and out of the United States. One of the justifications often given by proponents of increased immigration to the United States is that we have a declining fertility rate. The average female has 0.7 children, which is not enough to replace the population that naturally dies off. Basically, a female should give birth to at least 1.1 children to maintain the population. If the fertility rate goes higher than that, as in a country like Bangladesh, which has a much higher fertility rate, the population should increase.

People who support migration, legal or illegal, often say, “Listen, the country’s population will collapse.” Since we rely so much on consumer spending for our economy, we need to allow immigrants to come into the United States to fill that gap because we don’t produce enough babies. Bloomberg has this really interesting projection, reviewing a book by economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso called After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. In this book, they use existing data to project something that Thomas Malthus probably never thought would happen: global population, after increasing exponentially for centuries, especially in the twentieth century, will start to shrink and continue to shrink, potentially disappearing entirely. According to this projection, this will happen relatively quickly.

According to the UN, the global population will peak at just over 10 billion. We’re at about 8.2 billion now, and it should peak at about 10.3 billion in the year 2085, then start to drop precipitously. In the 2100s, also known as the 22nd century, the population will begin to ebb. By the year 2130, it will be at 9.4 billion, down from 10.3 billion at its peak. By 2160, it will be down to 8.2 billion. You might think, “Okay, that’s not a huge collapse.” But by 2200, we’re at 6.5 billion. To put that into perspective, that’s where we were in 2005. By the year 2250, we’re at 4.7 billion. That’s comparable to where we were in 1980. By the year 2300, I don’t think anyone watching here, even you Gen Zers, will be around for that. The population of the Earth will have declined by two-thirds to 3.3 billion people. To put that into perspective, the last time we saw a global population at that level was 1965. Fertility decline will create all sorts of pressure on our current economic models. I don’t say economic system because you could develop a different model that might work better with a declining population. With our current model, based on expansion, you need an improvement in GDP in the United States by at least 2 to 3% annually. Otherwise, you start to plunge into recession or even depression. You can get some improvements in GDP from improved productivity, but you can’t rely solely on that because productivity and technology don’t increase linearly. Progress happens in leaps and bounds. What do you do in between major disruptive innovations like the invention of the internet, the automobile, or internal combustion? These authors do not believe that solutions like a guaranteed universal basic income, as proposed by Andrew Yang or Elon Musk’s universal high income, will work. They say you can’t really force people to have more children than they want. Sure, you can. Alright, let’s start with that. Let’s dive into natalism, which has never been a significant part of mainstream American politics but is now seeing its moment in the sun, as much of the MAGA world has embraced it. Robby, bring us into that.

Robby West: If you want to fix this problem, it’s the easiest problem in the world to fix. You ban birth control. Seriously, that’s how you fix the problem. This is a problem of our own making. If you want to dive into population collapse, let’s first define what it is. The population is imploding in East Asia, like South Korea and Japan. They had fewer births than deaths last year for the first time, as did Western Europe and North America. What do all those countries have in common? Birth control, promoting the idea of living your best life, marrying your job instead of a spouse, and not having kids. That’s what it all boils down to.

Ted Rall: There are other factors too, right? People are getting married later, often because they feel they can’t afford to get married when they’re younger. It’s harder to get started, buy a home, or afford a car. When they do get married, couples have fewer children for the same reasons.

Robby West: I completely agree. Those are problems we can fix. This isn’t some biological factor.

Ted Rall: Let’s back up to this idea, though. Setting aside the ethics, I’m not sure if it would practically work. When the world’s population was a small fraction of what it is today, they didn’t have birth control. They were pulling out, as they call it in the Bible.

Robby West: Well, yes, but they also didn’t have antibiotics. Pandemics like the Black Death, which today a shot of penicillin could fix, wiped out half the population.

Ted Rall: Human beings know how to avoid having children without chemical birth control.

Robby West: That’s true, but this is the first time since the 1960s that it’s been industrialized on this scale. Both things can be true at the same time. It’s a societal issue. Governments don’t want people getting married and having kids younger.

Robby West: younger because if a parent, typically the woman, stays home raising kids, you can’t tax her for that. How are you going to fund your wars or social programs? You need both people working. So how do you address this problem? You import the third world to replace your domestic population, creating ready-made tax cattle until you don’t. The Romans tried this. Why isn’t anyone speaking Latin anymore? Because it doesn’t work. It’s suicidal on a global scale. If you look at Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, like Bangladesh, they aren’t having a birth rate problem. They’re producing babies. There’s a reason for this. This is a problem happening in the industrialized West.

Ted Rall: Traditionally, countries like Bangladesh or Pakistan, which Bangladesh was once part of, are very agricultural. Each baby becomes a potential worker in the fields, helping subsistence farmers. Agrarian societies tend to have higher populations than urban societies.

Robby West: That’s my point. Also, with the advent of AI optimization, you don’t need as many people to do these jobs because most of them won’t exist anymore. At the grocery store, self-checkout is a thing. I saw something yesterday about movie theaters in some countries where robots, not employees, dispense popcorn. Those jobs are going away. Thirty years from now, will truck drivers or taxi drivers still exist? With self-driving cars, all those jobs disappear. Do you need as many people doing those jobs? The answer is no.

Ted Rall: You’re a student of history like I am, Robby. Disruptive technologies have always been viewed as job killers. Capitalists overstate the case that they’re also job creators. There’s no doubt that these technologies free people up to start new lines of business that nikt thought of before. The automobile was insanely disruptive, eliminating the horse industry, which was massive—shoeing, maintenance, storage, sales. Years ago, I was walking through Times Square in New York, one of the busiest urban places in the world, and a demolished building revealed an old ad from the 1800s painted on the side for horse shoeing and storage. I learned that Times Square, before the New York Times opened its offices there, was a hub for the horse industry in New York City, where people took their horses to be groomed or stabled. That was a whole industry, gone because of the automobile. But the car also created demand for road building, auto maintenance, and so on. With AI and disruptive technologies like self-driving cars, you’ll need workers to handle those systems, like the equivalent of air traffic control for highways and roads.

Robby West: It will all be AI. The technology already exists. For my own podcast, I looked into how China, once a major agrarian civilization, now has more people moving to cities. Who’s farming to feed 1.5 billion people? Robots, using GPS maps on the fields. The reason so many former Chinese peasants are in cities now is because those jobs no longer exist.

Ted Rall: Quite frankly, being a peasant in rural China isn’t much fun.

Robby West: It’s not. So to your point, it frees up more time for you to do something else, but also the civilization doesn’t collapse because they’ve got machines doing the work. It’s part of the problem.

Ted Rall: Those machines have to be programmed and maintained. For example, AI might handle ground traffic control or air traffic control for cars, but someone has to program it and maintain it.

Robby West: I agree. And you know who that someone is? It’s AI more and more. There are factories and repair shops in China where robots repair other robots. No human touches them. That’s for the future.

Ted Rall: But that requires the construction of a lot of energy infrastructure because AI is very energy-intensive. People need to run those plants. More people need to mine the coal. I’m saying we don’t know. Overall, it’s probably a job killer, almost certainly. But how it plays out exactly, we don’t really know.

Robby West: I completely agree. But as far as population collapse goes, it’s only happening in developed, high-IQ societies where, for whatever reason, people have decided—and we know the reason—economic pressures. Our governments have decided—

Ted Rall: National interest. Say high educational attainment because those are not the same thing.

Robby West: Potentially. If you look at the average IQ of, say, South Korea or Japan, it’s higher than, say, Kenya. That’s not a racist thing to say; it’s a statement of fact. So you have to ask yourself why less sophisticated civilizations—so as not to offend people—have more babies. They’re peasants, and they produce a ton of babies. Then what do you do with the babies? You export them to Europe and the West.

Ted Rall: That’s what’s been happening.

Robby West: Exactly. And then you have an increase in crime. When these jobs are automated away, as the French are finding out now, what do you do with all these unassimilated people who don’t want to be part of your culture? The Germans had a pretty good answer for what to do with people you no longer want or need. I’d rather not have that happen again.

Ted Rall: No, we don’t need a final solution, to put it bluntly. So let’s talk about the implications here. With our current economic models, this is a bad thing. But does it have to be? We’re looking at a future where, by 2300, there will be only about a third to a quarter as many people on Earth as there are today. To many ecologists and environmentalists, this sounds like a good thing—less strain on the climate, less pollution, less garbage, and an easier impact on the Earth with a lower population. Not long ago, we had these population levels, and nobody thought it was a catastrophe. Now, suddenly, it’s considered bad. Is it inherently a bad thing under the existing capitalist system? And would socialism address these problems by having a state-run economy that could plan ahead for these changes?

Robby West: I think a couple of things will happen. We have no idea what data these people are drawing on to make this forecast. The biggest population collapse I can think of in history happened with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The population collapsed. When Belisarius tried to liberate Rome, he had an army of only 5,000 men because that’s all he could get. There simply weren’t enough people.

Ted Rall: There had been plagues at that time.

Robby West: Yes, the plague came after that. My point is that the social order collapses. People lived in squalor, so it’s not surprising.

Ted Rall: People lived in squalor. It’s not surprising.

Robby West: I completely agree. My question is, assuming we have a financial collapse—and I think we’re heading toward one—and you import 100 million people with nothing for them to do, resources become scarce. What do people tend to do? They go tribal and start going medieval on each other. That probably plays into it too. From a global standpoint, I’m trying to make sense of this.

Ted Rall: The other big population collapse we’ve discussed is the bubonic plague, which came in waves. People might not realize that it devastated not just Europe but Asia and Africa. The Silk Road, Central Asia, and the Middle East were the center of the world during the Middle Ages. Europe was a backwater. All the learning, politics, and economic and military expansion were happening in places like modern-day Uzbekistan.

Robby West: Yes, and in Iran, Baghdad was the literary capital until the Mongols turned it into rubble because, with horse archers, reading isn’t important. My point is, if the US economy implodes and resources become scarce, what happens?

Ted Rall: You’re talking about a global issue, though.

Robby West: For sure. The United States is one of the leading food exporters on the planet. If those exports stop, what happens to overpopulated places in Southern Africa with no food? The population collapse might help address that problem. I’m wondering if the authors of this paper are considering these scenarios. What triggers it? I didn’t have time to do a deep study before we went live, but from what I scanned, they weren’t putting much causation into their forecast—just projecting numbers. Using my busy brain, I’m wondering how they get there. Either you have war, economic collapse and war, or a total global societal collapse like Rome or the Black Death. That’s how you get there. If you talk to a typical MAGA person like me—though I’m not a Republican—the quick solution is to ban birth control and start making babies. But that doesn’t address the societal or governmental problems preventing Western or East Asian families from having babies to begin with.

Ted Rall: The argument in the book by Spears and Geruso is that the population will fall, it will be harmful in many ways, and it will come too late to save us from climate change. We don’t have a clue what to do about it. Is this like when you’re a kid and learn the sun will go red giant, boil the oceans, and scorch the Earth in five billion years, but you don’t care because it’s so far off? Is it like that?

Robby West: Or, from my Christian view, God will take care of it well before that happens. Either way, we won’t be here. Hopefully, Elon Musk is onto something, and his progeny can colonize another planet. You’d need a new solar system, though.

Ted Rall: Colonizing Mars won’t help. The universe is so vast that physics makes travel difficult.

Robby West: That’s also part of the population change problem. In highly educated, high-IQ societies, if you’re aborting your babies, you could be killing the scientist who unlocks future solutions.

Ted Rall: That’s an interesting point. The authors say more people mean more ideas and bigger markets, allowing governments and companies to spend more on R&D. A shrinking world means fewer people, fewer ideas, and more problems, like less research for rare diseases. I see the argument—it’s like the case for cities. Historically, cities with millions of people are hubs of technological and educational innovation, more so than small rural communities. They foster a culture of cross-fertilization of different cultures, which you may not favor since you support reduced immigration. When different kinds of people meet, innovation happens.

Robby West: At least for now, until we fix our own house. If your house is on fire, it’s not a good idea to help your neighbor paint their walls. Take care of your place first.

Ted Rall: We can agree the house feels like it’s on fire, but we don’t agree on the cause. I think it’s capitalism.

Robby West: I’ve read your book. Both political parties benefit from it. It drives down wages, and Democrats get a new voter base without arguing for ideas, which is expensive and tiresome. They just import the third world and say, “I’ll protect you from Orange Hitler who wants to deport you and your family. Vote for me.” Republicans agree, play the game, and drive down wages. Everybody wins until society implodes. What happens then?

Ted Rall: You can tell a society’s or political system’s base values when opposing forces like Democrats and Republicans agree on certain assumptions. Those assumptions are what the system is based on. A crisis arises when the system’s values clash with the people’s values. I think most Americans—Democrats, Republicans, Independents, lefties, righties—agree the most important thing is to ensure as many Americans as possible live as well as possible.

Robby West: A hundred percent. The parties are a death cult. We’re talking about a global population decline—death on a mass scale, no babies to replace those dying from disease, war, or accidents. I submit this is by design because we’re governed by people who get off on death. It gives them a sense of power. Look at Ukraine—over a million dead, 7 million left, never to return. In Gaza, American taxpayers are funding a genocide, with at least 100,000 killed, over half under 18. In our country, it’s “live your best life, don’t get married, use birth control, screw as many people as you want, free of consequences.” Then you’re 40, want a family, but have no eggs left. A healthy society would value life, have a growth rate, and people would be happy having babies.

Ted Rall: Historically, happy societies have more babies. The baby boom ended nine months after the Kennedy assassination. Americans became miserable after Kennedy died, even though the economy was still good and Vietnam wasn’t yet a problem. They just decided to become miserable.

Robby West: Feminism played a big part in that. The counterculture said you can be a strong, independent, career-minded woman, master of your own ship. The problem is, women have a cutoff date for having kids, unlike men. That’s not my problem or yours—it’s biology.

Ted Rall: It’s a little fuzzier with IVF and egg storage. Some Silicon Valley companies offer egg storage as a benefit so women can work 20 hours a day without making that decision.

Robby West: Think about how soulless that job must be to make you do that. You’re married to a thankless company that dissuades you from taking time off, let alone getting married or having kids. It’s a death cult, killing the West.

Ted Rall: I took a feminism class at Columbia with Barbara Tishler, who wrote books on feminism. In 1991, she highlighted the negative ramifications society hadn’t contended with. Capitalism benefited when women entered the workforce in huge numbers, increasing labor supply and causing wages to fall off a cliff. That’s why wages froze in the 1960s and dropped in real terms after 1970, and we’ve never recovered. It’s not that women shouldn’t work, but it’s had consequences, like the boy problem.

Robby West: It also led to the immigration problem. Without enough kids, you don’t have workers, so you import the third world. It’s insane.

Ted Rall: I know rich people who don’t raise their own kids because they work long hours. They hire upscale nannies, who then hire lower-wage nannies or relatives to raise their own kids. It’s messed up.

Robby West: It is. The way to fix it is to kill feminism—drive a stake through its heart.

Ted Rall: What does a post-feminist society look like?

Robby West: You go back to the last 5,000 years of human history. You marry a man, have a ton of babies, honor and love your wife, provide for her and your kids. That’s how you get the baby boom back. After World War II, during the baby boom, America was largely a Christian nation with Christian values. Was it perfect?

Ted Rall: There’s a lot to what you say. Studies show sexless marriages are a cliché. People say, “If your wife isn’t putting out, take out the trash or help with the kids.” But studies show traditional setups, where the mother bears most child-rearing responsibilities, lead to more sex.

Robby West: Women have mammary glands—that’s how God designed it. If you’ve got the milk jugs, you take care of the babies. That’s established.

Ted Rall: What about the complaints that gave rise to feminism? Women’s intellectual and economic contributions were often dismissed, to society’s detriment. I wouldn’t want a society where Marie Curie couldn’t work or Simone de Beauvoir couldn’t write.

Robby West: It’s not perfect. But the society we have now, the one being critiqued, is worse. We’re talking about mass die-off and destruction of nations. The traditional system is better.

Ted Rall: But we’re pulling on a string, and things are unraveling. That structure doesn’t work with the nuclear family. I went on a genealogy tour in France, looking at church records from 1630. Every card listed the mother and father’s occupations—the mother had none, and the father was always a farmer, passing the farm to his son for centuries. Everything stayed the same until World War I, when the car and railroads disrupted everything. People left villages for factories, never to return. My great-grandfather died at 30 in the trenches, leaving his family in poverty. In 1848, the community would have rallied, but the proto-nuclear family model left them destitute. That would happen today unless we restore multigenerational families.

Robby West: You need a UBI. More and more jobs are going away. In 100 years, you won’t have talking heads like us—it’ll be AI avatars. It’s already happening on YouTube. Your truck’s motor dies, you pay a mechanic. In an automated society, your self-driving truck goes to a self-repair facility with robot-made parts, no human hands involved. The entire economic model will change. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations ushered in the modern financial era, but we’re heading toward a paradigm shift where current rules don’t apply. What does GDP mean if only 10% of the population works?

Ted Rall: The worker participation rate in the US is about 64%. One in three Americans isn’t involved, subsisting on disability payments. Yet the economy is doing great—they don’t need us.

Robby West: They don’t. That’s why I think those in DC don’t care about our opinions—they don’t need us. Why is Trump protecting the pedophile cabal in DC? They don’t need us.

Ted Rall: That’s why I found Bernie Sanders’ small-donor model promising. He was getting $29 per person from working-class people. Tulsi Gabbard was similar until the DNC changed the rules.

Robby West: The rules keep changing until it’s unsustainable. That’s where we are. People don’t understand. I could be wrong—I’m just a hick from nowhere, no degree, but I think a lot. We’re heading to a world where existing models don’t matter. GDP doesn’t matter if people don’t matter.

Ted Rall: We’re entering a period of tremendous changes, and the system seems unable or unwilling to address them intelligently. History shows societies that fail to respond collapse or, if lucky, face a revolution like the French one.

Robby West: The Chinese call this the mandate of heaven. When a dynasty becomes so decadent the people overthrow it, it loses legitimacy.

Ted Rall: That’s what popular legitimacy is—a rough Western equivalent. When a society fails to adjust, like Rome with overexpansion or the Soviet Union with external capitalism, collapse is inevitable.

Robby West: If you were in ancient Italy, you’d see the writing on the wall but could only keep your family alive. Here in Western Montana, I hear people from rural areas. New York City, once a great city, now feels like an oversized slum. Why? You can’t build a new subway system like Moscow’s or even repair what you have.

Ted Rall: It would be too expensive. The system wasn’t designed for today’s flash flooding.

Robby West: If this happened in Singapore, could they fix it? Yes. Which city has more mass immigration? New York. If you prioritize building and maintaining your society instead of exploiting the native population until they leave, there’s a problem. The fall of Rome was caused by the Third Punic War, importing half a million slaves and destroying the Republic’s foundation.

Ted Rall: Hadrian and Diocletian staved off Rome’s fall with reforms. Do you think the US and the West have a Hadrian in us?

Robby West: No. As a Christian, I believe we’re cursed by God for embracing things He hates, like the wholesale slaughter of innocents. Even if there’s no God, aborting your future workforce is a bad idea.

Ted Rall: If abortion and birth control were unavailable, young people would be more careful to avoid pregnancy. Does reproductive freedom make people feel they can have sex without worrying, or does it lead to a mindset of avoiding kids altogether?

Robby West: If I had my way, we’d have a baby boom because women would get pregnant. That’s a fact of life. If you don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex or use old methods. To prevent a population bust, remove what’s killing future generations. It depends on what’s most important to your society. I want to be a grandfather, to torture my grandkids with ice down their shirts. That’s human.

Ted Rall: Sure, for me too.

Robby West: The current system celebrates sterilizing kids for trans rights or killing them for convenience. That’s anti-human, satanic.

Ted Rall: Would banning abortion and birth control lead to a lower birth rate if people are more careful?

Robby West: No, people will keep having sex and will have to be more responsible. Women bear the higher risk.

Ted Rall: In the UK, early DNA testing in the 1950s and 60s showed half the fathers weren’t the biological dads. The tests were accurate—English women were unfaithful, likely more careful when cheating. If the goal is more babies, does it matter who the father is?

Robby West: That’s my point. The study addresses a global population decrease, and I’m giving the solution.

Ted Rall: But my lefty female friends are horrified by natalism. They feel it turns women into chattel, existing only to bear kids without agency, like The Handmaid’s Tale.

Robby West: Mother Nature did that. You have a womb, uterus, ovaries, vagina—that’s not my fault. Blame God or nature.

Ted Rall: But we have better living through technology.

Robby West: If you’re a radical feminist and don’t want kids, don’t have sex. Problem solved. Demographics is destiny. My argument will win because the death cult will die out.

Ted Rall: Alright, Robby, we’ll leave it there. Thank you for filling in for Nella and for a great conversation.

Robby West: It was interesting. Can you point out any holes in my argument? Where am I wrong?

Ted Rall: There’s an ethical concern about men manipulating women into doing their bidding.

Robby West: And?

Ted Rall: With that, before you get into more trouble with the feminists watching, this has been a Rumble Premium edition of The TMI Show. We air Monday through Friday, 10 AM Eastern Time, on Rumble and YouTube, but we also stream many times, so don’t feel obligated to watch us live. If you do watch live, you can send questions and comments, and we respond throughout the show. We really appreciate you and your donations. Please like, follow, and share the show. Tell your friends about us. Take care, and thanks for listening.

DMZ America Podcast Ep 211 for Sunday, July 20, 2025: Transcript

July 21, 2025•

Ted Rall

Generated with AI. There will be errors.

Ted Rall: Happy Sunday. I hope you are having a great weekend. You are watching the DMZ America podcast. I am editorial cartoonist Ted Rall, coming to you from the left.

Scott Stantis: I am editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis, coming to you from the right. We are here right now, right here in America. Our president has remarkably fat ankles.

Ted Rall: Do you know where your god is? I suppose that if you attended mass this morning, you do know where your god is. Perhaps you are still there. If you are one of those Protestants with your lengthy services, that is the worst thing about the Reformation. Today, we are going to discuss the Biden gate issue. Yes, it has evolved into an autopen controversy. We will address Russiagate next. Then we will talk about Stephen Colbert. Is it truly about money, or is it genuinely about politics? We are going to explore the budget cuts to NPR and PBS public broadcasting. That constitutes a full agenda. If you are watching on YouTube, or also if you are on Rumble, please feel free to contribute questions and comments, and we will attempt to respond to you. We can certainly display them on the screen on YouTube, and we can try to read them from Rumble. If you have a question that you want Scott, myself, or both of us to address, please feel free to ask. So, alright, let us begin with the autopen topic.

Scott Stantis: Oh my goodness, Ted, what a story. Ted, please go ahead.

Ted Rall: Well, basically, there is currently a partisan investigation underway, but there would not be any investigation at all if the Democrats were still in power. That is simply the nature of these matters. The party in power punishes the party that was previously in power for their past crimes. Since we do not have a divided government, that is what is occurring now. Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff under Biden, and Annie Tomasini, who were both part of what Jake Tapper’s book and other administration insiders called the Politburo under Biden, which is essentially a cabal of five to seven individuals—

Scott Stantis: White. They did not use the word in a positive sense.

Ted Rall: That is correct. These individuals surrounded the president, protected him, and covered for him. To some extent, they were running the United States of America on his behalf. Anyway, they all appeared before the House Oversight Committee, where they were questioned about Biden’s physical and mental health. Rather than answer any questions, the doctor, who is Biden’s physician and not considered a highly regarded doctor, first pleaded doctor-patient confidentiality. That is reasonably fair on its face, except that the former president could have chosen to allow the release of this information about himself. However, he decided not to do so. Then he also invoked the fifth amendment. Scott, the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects us from self-incrimination. If a police officer pulls you over and asks, “Hey, did you rob that bank?” you do not have to answer. The only exception is in an FBI federal investigation, where you could—

Scott Stantis: The fifth amendment. I am fairly certain you can plead the fifth there too, but you must explicitly state, “I plead the fifth.”

Ted Rall: Okay, I suppose so. Yes, you cannot just refuse to answer vaguely. With a police officer, you could refuse to answer and simply say, “Get lost.” But okay, let us proceed. There is no law against what these individuals are accused of doing. Right? I mean, these people were running interference, protecting the president, and concealing the fact that he was mentally ill, declining, demented—however you choose to describe it—and physically incapable.

Scott Stantis: All of the above.

Ted Rall: All of the above, which you and I have discussed since he was running for president in the primaries, both here on the podcast and elsewhere in our cartoons. We will not revisit the fact that we were repeatedly ridiculed, lambasted, marginalized, and otherwise treated poorly over this. We have forgiven all of you. If you hear a flamethrower, Joan, it is not mine. So yes, the point is that in your rearview mirror, flamethrowers in the mirror may be closer than they appear. So, I mean, there is no law, right? Do you think there is one? What are they afraid of? Are they merely contemptuous of the process, or do they genuinely believe they are in legal jeopardy?

Scott Stantis: You know, Ted, I must be honest. Perhaps on the next podcast, we should invite our friend Ricardo Aparicio, who is a lawyer. Although he is not technically an institutional lawyer, he is deeply interested in that field and has recently been admitted to the Supreme Court Bar. He is probably better equipped to handle the legal intricacies of this matter. Was there an existing law that they broke by committing what amounts to a coup d’etat? Did you see or hear about this? By the way, he did not say it in front of a camera, which is telling. Joe Biden, the former president of the United States—or so they tell him—did you hear his comment? He said, “I authorized all the signatures.” There are, like, what? How many of them? Thousands of—

Ted Rall: Them? There are 27,000.

Scott Stantis: Yes, that is nonsense. You have to call nonsense when it is nonsense, and that is the White House—

Ted Rall: Counsel’s office has ordered the National Archives to produce 27,000 documents signed by Biden, many of them by autopen. Previous presidents from both parties have used the autopen. Normally, correct me if I am wrong, Scott, but my understanding is that the typical use of this device is when the president is away from the White House or in a location where a document arrives and cannot be handled immediately. In many cases, a document can obviously be sent by email or fax to wherever the president is. However, in some instances, it cannot, or there is an urgent need to act quickly.

Scott Stantis: Or to a small extent. Let us say it is an orb, Ted, to be energetic. It could be a proclamation declaring, for example, National Asphalt Day. He does not need to sign it. He does not need to sign it. It is not important enough.

Ted Rall: It is not important enough. That is correct. So, basically, yes, good point. However, these documents are signed by a machine. If you do not know what an autopen is, it is essentially a device used back in the old days, before email, when you sent a letter to the White House and received a response from the president that was autopen-signed. For instance, the president and the first lady might write, “Thank you for your letter and your support. You are awesome, Joe Biden.” He obviously used this when he was in Delaware, calling to say, “Yes, go ahead and sign that for me.” However, it appears to have been used extensively—or I should say, it was used extensively. The numbers come from the House.

Scott Stantis: Well, well over 90% of all the documents were—

Ted Rall: Signed, including bills, policy statements, and executive orders.

Scott Stantis: Pardons. However, the most disturbing aspect is the pardons because there were a large number of them, and he did not sign many of them himself.

Ted Rall: Even by his own admission, he knew there was a category of people he approved for pardoning, but this is not a broad category. For example, when Jimmy Carter first became president in 1977, one of his initial acts was to pardon the Vietnam draft dodgers who had fled to Canada and other places. He issued a proclamation stating that they were all pardoned. If you avoided the Vietnam War, there was no problem. It was clearly defined, and there was no confusion about who was covered. That is not quite the case here. Basically, it reminds me of the Herb Block Foundation, a cartooning institution funded by the late cartoonist Herb Block. Herb was not very specific about defining the terms for the foundation’s end, which was funded with about $50 million. He simply said to do things that support cartooning, which he would have liked. That is subject to considerable interpretation. Similarly, Joe Biden was somewhat vague, saying to pardon people he would have wanted to see pardoned. That grants significant latitude regarding important matters that he delegated to his aides. Now, there is a question of whether these people should have been pardoned. Additionally, there is a constitutional question about whether these autopen-related, autopen-signed documents are valid. I have been researching this topic.

Scott Stantis: Oh, and what do you think? What is your conclusion?

Ted Rall: It appears that they are valid. It is not that they should not be; it does not make sense otherwise. Lawmakers do not always anticipate every scenario. If they had, we would not need to enact new laws.

Scott Stantis: You know—

Ted Rall: I think about the man in Germany who placed an advertisement on the internet saying, “Come to my house, and I will kill and eat you.” Even under German law, that action was not illegal at the time. Consequently, they had to pass a law. Oh, people do that? Okay, we will address it. Apparently, no one considered this possibility because it traces back to monarchy, where the king, the sovereign, signs a document, thereby giving it the power of law. Americans have inherited that system. Thus, when the president, governor, mayor, or other official signs a document, it becomes enforceable. The autopen was introduced and deemed enforceable by policymakers. The issue is that if it is executed with the will of the sovereign—in this case, the president—it is acceptable, I suppose. However, no one ever envisioned a situation like this, reminiscent of “Weekend at Bernie’s,” where the president is not fully competent. Then, aides like Ted and Scott might declare a national cartoonists’ day and plan to erect a giant statue of my cat, Clovis, on the Washington Mall.

Scott Stantis: That would be cool, but I understand.

Ted Rall: Just because. I mean, it seems that no one anticipated this could happen to anyone, but it appears to be what has occurred over the last four years.

Scott Stantis: Yes, clearly, that is what happened. You and I were complaining, protesting, and drawing about this very issue, asserting that it was a coup d’etat. This is the very definition of a coup d’etat, and they certainly carried it out. Now, documentation is emerging that Joe Biden did not know what he was signing, or that documents were signed on his behalf. They claim he always approved all the signings. However, the man did not even know that underwear goes under pants on some days—you could tell. So, do not tell me he was aware of every signature on every document. Granted, you and I both understand that this job involves sending letters back to schools or classes in Ohio, saying, “Hey, thank you for writing. I hope you continue to be interested in civics. Love, President Biden,” and it is signed. The children are thrilled, everyone is excited, but it is not his actual signature. I think it would be interesting. I wanted to backtrack on two points you mentioned. First and foremost, the hearings: you and I both called for them, but we also knew they would quickly devolve into the nonsense they have already become, which is highly partisan. It would have been wonderful if someone on the Republican side had said, “Can we act like adults for once and try?” Because this is too important to behave like fools. Well, no. So, the other thing—

Ted Rall: Is this administration doing that in any respect?

Scott Stantis: No, absolutely not. Not the administration, but this is Congress.

Ted Rall: It is the same thing now.

Scott Stantis: You are correct; it also involves the Justice Department. However, as you noted, have any laws been broken? Potentially, Biden invited someone over to kill and eat them. This feels somewhat similar.

Ted Rall: I mean, this should be illegal.

Scott Stantis: Oh, absolutely.

Ted Rall: Absolutely. It should be very illegal.

Scott Stantis: Well, you raised an important point. I intended to connect the dots you laid out, Ted. One aspect you mentioned at the start is that many of his aides, including his doctor—I am unsure—are involved. Is Jill part of the group pleading the fifth?

Ted Rall: She has not been implicated yet. I do not know if she has been subpoenaed or if she will be.

Scott Stantis: The fact is that they are pleading the fifth, and even liberal commentators are saying that it looks very bad when you consider that they claimed Joe Biden was fine, with good days and a few bad ones, but mostly good—which we all know is complete nonsense. If he cannot have a good day during a presidential debate, then he does not have any good days. That simply does not happen. However, pleading the fifth creates terrible optics. To your point, Ted, it also suggests that there may have been laws broken, and the attorneys for these individuals likely believe that some laws could lead to prosecution. Therefore, they plead the fifth to avoid false testimony, which is a prudent move. I just want to ride our bandwagon one last time. I am sure the listeners—both of them—of this podcast are tired of us boasting about being right, but we were correct about this. We were even more accurate than we initially thought, Ted.

Ted Rall: Yes, no, look. We smelled a rat. Little did we know how large it was, and it actually had many cousins. That was a big family. You know, rats do not travel alone. It is—

Scott Stantis: Go ahead. I apologize.

Ted Rall: It is bad. That is correct. So, basically, it seems that here—I am going to quote from the Washington Post. An anonymous Biden ally is how the person is described. They are explaining the Democratic stance. This Department of Justice is not normal. These times are not normal. Because of that, people will take different approaches. Some might speak to the committee. Others may invoke their fifth amendment rights. However, this does not change the fact that this investigation is not about oversight; it is about political retribution. So, they say the individuals pleading the fifth are concerned that they might walk into a trap, potentially leading to prosecution for something else. As we pointed out, there is nothing illegal, even if they are completely guilty of what we suspect. It ought to be, but it does not appear to be. I mean, it is not really a criminal issue. Right? It is a political issue.

Scott Stantis: It is now. Yes.

Ted Rall: But they installed a president knowing he was not fully competent, then kept him in office for four years as he deteriorated further, and even attempted to reelect him for another four years. That is what this is about. Really, you should not need a law to recognize that this is wrong. Right?

Scott Stantis: Well, concepts of right and wrong seem old-fashioned. You are such an old-fashioned person, Ted. I know. But also, I mean, okay, I am going to shift to another instance where we were correct, regarding Russiagate. You would think, as a conservative, I would be thrilled about this. In fact, full disclosure, I created several cartoons that supported the Russiagate probe and narrative. However, after conducting research and reading about it, I realized it was complete and utter nonsense. The Columbia Journalism Review, a highly respected journal chronicling journalism, published a lengthy article detailing how the New York Times knew the Russiagate story was nonsense yet continued to publish stories about it, and they still do. It is simply that we work with people—there are editorial cartoonists who still believe this story is absolutely true, and they consider us fools for thinking otherwise. Granted, we do not hate Donald Trump the way these cartoonists do, with a blind rage that I cannot fully explain. I do not like him. I dislike Donald Trump for numerous reasons. We could dedicate an entire podcast to that.

Ted Rall: Me too. Most of them do not involve policy.

Scott Stantis: Not all of them. I would say most. I think temperamentally, he is unsuitable for the job.

Ted Rall: Atrocious. Yes.

Scott Stantis: Yes. However, for me, the policies are more atrocious because he is not a conservative. That is a topic for another podcast. But regarding Russiagate now—have you read the story that has been emerging, the leaks coming out today? Are you sitting down, Ted?

Ted Rall: I am sitting down. You can see you already knew that.

Scott Stantis: I am not sure. I mean, okay, because I am looking right at you. Yes, I am not sure. Now, how do you refer to him? Is it Saint President Obama or President Saint Obama? I am trying to recall how your Democratic friends phrase it. Because the mainstream—

Ted Rall: Maybe Pope Obama. Pope—

Scott Stantis: Popeama. Pope, because the people who, you know, the mainstream—and yes, it sounds like heroin because it is—mainstream Democrats who adore Obama, well, it is turning out that the lawyerly, constitutionally expert former president helped push the Russiagate narrative. He was deeply involved and instructed his supporters to continue promoting what they all knew was nonsense. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, I cannot, for a moment, comprehend the audacity required, and it reveals their cynicism. You know, these people who love us like their own children, Ted, although they send our jobs overseas and do everything they can to harm us, they claim to love us. Ultimately, they knew the mainstream media would keep reporting a story they knew was false, and their followers would continue to believe it.

Ted Rall: I have many well-educated friends, better educated than either of us, who are quite—

Scott Stantis: A low bar for me.

Ted Rall: And for me. It is having a degree. Not anymore, I do not. Do not forget.

Scott Stantis: Oh, right. Your college is no longer accredited. I went—

Ted Rall: To Columbia University Beauty School. So that is correct. I am a high school graduate for now until they revoke that. You know that is coming next. Then I will eventually say, “Well, I am a proud graduate of Dwight L. Dwight L. Barnes Junior High School.”

Scott Stantis: Yes, until they take that away. Yes, and then it is the elementary school, which is Toller Elementary.

Ted Rall: First, they came for the bachelor’s degrees, then they—

Scott Stantis: I said nothing.

Ted Rall: So, then they came for the certificates. Anyway, yes, no. So, I think we need to recap what is happening here, right? Go ahead. Basically, Russiagate was the assertion that the Russian Federation, under President Vladimir Putin, influenced the American presidential election in 2016 in various ways, primarily by hacking into voting systems, but also by running ads on social media in favor of Trump against Hillary Clinton. That is the essence of it. Additionally, they allegedly tried to hack into the DNC servers and leaked all the DNC documents to WikiLeaks, which then posted them, creating a rift within the Democratic Party as Bernie Sanders’ supporters discovered the deceitful actions the DNC took to undermine Bernie Sanders. As it turns out, we now know that the CIA, at the time, when they assess their level of confidence—stating whether they have high confidence, no confidence, low confidence, or moderate confidence—reported no confidence in the Steele dossier. This dossier claimed, among other things, that Trump had a penchant for watching prostitutes urinate on a bed in front of him in Moscow. That was not true. That did not happen. Christopher Steele, who compiled the Steele dossier, stated that he had no confidence in the accuracy of this information. He was asked to conduct opposition research and gather every possible accusation against Donald Trump. Thus, he compiled them. This is not intelligence; it is merely a collection of potentially true or false negative claims about Donald Trump. Anyway, it turns out—what did the Russians actually do? There is no question that by the election, Putin preferred Trump to win, simply because he was terrified of Hillary Clinton. He believed, and it was the Kremlin’s assessment, that she was psychotic and intended to start World War III. There is an article in Foreign Policy magazine from 2016—not a left-wing publication—where they interviewed top Kremlin generals, and they said, “We are just scared of her. She speaks impulsively. We do not think she wants a working relationship with us. We think she wants to attack us.” So, Putin had his opinion. The question is, did he take action? There is no evidence whatsoever that he did.

Scott Stantis: Well, did they not spend $100,000 on—

Ted Rall: Yes, but okay. A company called the Internet Research Agency, a private entity that, as far as we know, had no connection whatsoever to the Russian government, right? They label it a Russian company, which is true. There are many—tens of thousands—of Russian companies not affiliated with the government. This was one of them. It is a clickbait farm. They published on Facebook a total of between $100,000 and $200,000 worth of ads in 2016, intended to generate clicks. Over 90% of them were unrelated to politics, such as cat videos or other trivial content. The tiny percentage that were political actually included more pro-Hillary ads than Trump ads. It was a minimal effort, like dipping a toe into the water. We are talking about a fraction of $100,000 in a $7 billion campaign. It had no impact. The intelligence community assessed that this minor activity had zero effect on the American presidential, state, or local elections. That is the truth and has always been the truth. However, Hillary and then Biden promoted this narrative for years, claiming Trump was a stooge of the Russian Federation. This drove the already somewhat unstable Donald Trump even more insane, as he tried to disprove a negative. He spent considerable time on this, becoming increasingly vengeful. Part of what we are witnessing now—I am not saying it is right, but it is understandable—is him seeking retribution against those who did this. It is still ongoing. Then we had a letter from 51 former intelligence officials who stated that it is their best judgment that this has all the hallmarks. Remember, this involved the Hunter Biden laptop. They said, “Hunter Biden—

Scott Stantis: Does the laptop exist? Remember that?

Ted Rall: Does not exist and has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. It was all fabricated by the FSB, the successor to the KGB, to make Trump look good and Biden look bad. That laptop contained thousands of files. It was 100% legitimate. We all know the Hunter Biden laptop was real. Everything on it was real. All the gross photos we saw were real. This has been an ongoing issue. Now the CIA has revisited this. They are not—really, the CIA is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration. It is the deepest part of the deep state. They concluded, “No, there was never anything here.” I do not think it will make any difference. I do not think it will change any minds whatsoever.

Scott Stantis: The one thing that will change is that if this information about Obama is true—if he was one of the people behind the scenes pushing this narrative—it diminishes his image, I think, even further. In my opinion, he is already destined to be remembered as one of the best presidents. Do you not love hearing that? That is not true. He will go down as a fairly mediocre president. Obamacare was a significant achievement, but—

Ted Rall: That is it.

Scott Stantis: That is pretty much it. And I mean—

Ted Rall: Seriously, what else is there?

Scott Stantis: He kept us involved in two utterly foolish wars. He continued to sacrifice human lives because he did not want to be perceived as weak. Yes, but if he was involved in this in any way—if there is any smoking gun—I mean, let us face it. We are looking at media outlets reporting this, whether or not it is true. You and I both know this story could collapse very quickly. However, if it turns out to be true, his historical standing will decline even further. It will not improve; he will go from mediocre to terrible.

Ted Rall: Well, Obama is quite the character, is he not? Yes, he is somewhat like Madison.

Scott Stantis: He sank the Madison Monroe.

Ted Rall: He sank—he sank the knife into Joe Biden at the end, which, by the way, is commendable, but it should have happened long ago. And he—

Scott Stantis: Also, he sank the knife in 2016, Ted, when he chose Hillary over Joe Biden. Joe Biden had served as vice president—

Ted Rall: And that drove Joe Biden crazy.

Scott Stantis: Well, and why would it not? You are the vice president of the United States, and suddenly they say, “Joe, can you sit this one out?”

Ted Rall: Yes, let the ladies have their turn.

Scott Stantis: Yes, you know, Hillary, because you know what happens to people who cross Hillary.

Ted Rall: That is a good—

Scott Stantis: It would be a damn shame if you ended up on a park bench.

Ted Rall: With your brains blown out.

Scott Stantis: Yes, so okay. We have got—that is nonsense. We have got the conclusion of pleading the fifth for the Biden investigation. Again, I sincerely wish that a sober statesman—remember the Watergate hearings?—would emerge. The Republicans never complained about the hearings being unfair, even though they dragged on for a long time. They delved deeply into the information. They allowed witnesses to speak. They did not berate them. They did not mock them. They did not call them joyless. Those of us who—

Ted Rall: It was very civilized, actually.

Scott Stantis: Ted, what is the word I am looking for to describe guys like you and me who, during that summer of not love, would rush home to watch the hearings? Yes, that is it: dorks. So, we would rush home. I did. I know you did too. We hurried home to watch these hearings almost every day. They were very dry, and they were very serious. That is the key word here: serious. There are no serious people around anymore. Speaking of unserious people, I am eager to know—because you and I have not spoken since the news broke of Colbert being canceled by CBS—

Ted Rall: Right.

Scott Stantis: Now, CBS wants to provide a quick background. Colbert’s show is number one in its time slot. However, that does not seem to matter to broadcasters. A dear friend of ours, Ted Noser—she is one of my very good friends, Patty Vasquez—had an evening program on WGN Radio, the legendary radio station in Chicago, and it aired from 11 p.m. until 2 a.m. It was by far the number one show in that time slot. Ted, it was the only number one show they had. But if you asked management there—you know where this is heading—if you asked management there, well, when they were criticizing her for various reasons, you would say, “You know what? She is the number one show in her time slot.” They would respond, “Oh, well, that is because of that time slot.” And just going—

Ted Rall: Not that time slot. No.

Scott Stantis: Well, it does not matter. What are you talking about?

Ted Rall: Who cares? She is still—

Scott Stantis: On your only number one show you have.

Ted Rall: The only one. Yes, it is like when they fire the editorial cartoonist who is the only person to bring a newspaper a Pulitzer Prize, and they fire him anyway. When I was fired from KFI Radio, I had the top rating in my time slot, and they let me go. They fired me because they said that talk radio is inherently conservative, and liberals could not succeed. I argued, “But my time slot included conservatives, and I outperformed them.” Then they replaced me with a conservative, Marcia Clark, the O.J. prosecutor, who was as effective a radio host as she was a prosecutor. She performed much worse than I did. I think she had about one-sixth of my ratings. It was a steep decline. To their credit, they brought me back for a short while and admitted they were wrong, which was somewhat amusing. But, yes, that could happen. I investigated this. Their excuse at CBS, which is owned by Paramount—

Scott Stantis: They want to be owned by Paramount. There is a merger, right? The merger is pending.

Ted Rall: It is pending. The Trump administration must approve it. Trump obviously does not care for Stephen Colbert. So, the speculation here is that Paramount, which recently paid $16 million to Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” segment they almost certainly would have won if they had persisted, decided to surrender and essentially throw the case, much like the Chicago White Sox in 1919.

Scott Stantis: Yes, 1919. Wow. Oh my goodness, Ted, you have a sports metaphor coming.

Ted Rall: Thank you. Thank you. And—

Scott Stantis: Give that man a man card.

Ted Rall: So, anyway, they rolled over and gave him $16 million, which they did not need to do, because they want that merger to be approved by the FTC. That is what this is all about. Now, they might be considering further efforts to appease the FTC, similar to how Columbia University and other institutions, including major law firms like Paul Weiss, are aligning with Trump. They might think, “Okay, we will just get rid of Colbert at Trump’s request.” That is the speculation. On the other hand, late-night television is expensive. So—

Scott Stantis: That is strange because why?

Ted Rall: Well, apparently, first of all, it is a significant operation. I looked into this. A show like Colbert’s operates out of a large theater on Broadway. It employs over 200 people full-time. They have substantial costs. They must pay many salaries. They cover guest expenses. They build elaborate sets. All of this is expensive. Of course, a person like Colbert earns a substantial income.

Scott Stantis: So, he makes between $15 million and $20 million a year.

Ted Rall: Apparently, the show costs $60 million a year to produce but only generates $40 million in revenue. However, it has the highest ratings. So, basically, you could argue it is a loss leader. It may be that late-night television is no longer a viable format. I do not know.

Scott Stantis: That is what the decision-makers at CBS are claiming. You can kind of—

Ted Rall: They are eliminating the show entirely. It will not be Colbert. It is as if “The Late Show” is disappearing.

Scott Stantis: I think “The Late Show with Rall and Stantis” would be a success, and we would accept a fraction of what Colbert was paid—100% more. He takes a plane back to Chicago every night from New York City.

Ted Rall: Colbert? Okay, every night. That might explain some things. Have you heard about this new book on Condé Nast? Like, how they were—oh, I sent it to you.

Scott Stantis: Yes, please go ahead and tell our listeners.

Ted Rall: Well, basically, during their heyday, Condé Nast owned titles like Vanity Fair and Vogue. They lived an extravagantly depraved high life. If you watch The Devil Wears Prada, which is loosely based on Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, you get a slight taste of it, but that is nothing. They describe instances like the editor of Vanity Fair refusing to carry his briefcase from his chauffeur-driven car to the building lobby or back at the end of the day. They all flew first class constantly. Everything was utterly extravagant. They only ate—

Scott Stantis: Legendary lunches. Lunches with a bill that could reach $10,000. I am not kidding—or sadly, it is true.

Ted Rall: Yes, in the nineties. So, shockingly, they ran into financial trouble. Who could have predicted that? Anyway, that is somewhat like what Colbert is doing. He flies home to Chicago. I did not know he lived there. He did not either; he is a New Yorker.

Scott Stantis: Well, before his troubles, Bill Cosby would return to wherever he was performing. I saw him, as I mentioned, before his troubles, performing in Las Vegas. He flew back to Massachusetts every night.

Ted Rall: Wow, that is like Trump. Trump always wanted to be at Trump Tower until he faced legal issues in New York that made him consider the possibility of spending time in a cell at Rikers. So, he decided Mar-a-Lago was where he preferred to spend more time, and occasionally he visits the Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey. But we—

Scott Stantis: I mean, Ted and I have no inside information on this. We have none, but we have observed media for decades. So, I can tell you this. I believe what happened to Stephen Colbert at CBS is likely a 50-50 combination. His show was extremely expensive, and late-night advertising, like all advertising for terrestrial television, is declining rapidly. People prefer to watch YouTube and stream—

Ted Rall: Yes, television profits for broadcast are down over 9% from last year, according to my research. And you—

Scott Stantis: You have to realize that this decline compounds year after year. So, Tim, do the math, folks. Combine that with the fact that the Trump administration must have disliked Colbert because “The Colbert Show” was essentially a liberal talking point. It drove me crazy, Ted, because I remember Johnny Carson. Again, I am an old man, but Carson’s political humor always mocked the person. You could never tell what Carson’s political stance was. He never attended fundraisers. He never declared himself a Republican or a Democrat.

Ted Rall: He was interviewed about that. You can see a clip floating around on social media now. He was asked, “What about your politics? Why do you never discuss politics on your show?” He replied, “I will never do that. I think it is bad entertainment.”

Scott Stantis: Well, my point is, why? Why would you risk that? Why would you alienate 50% of your audience? It made no sense to me. So, I—

Ted Rall: I do not think it makes sense either.

Scott Stantis: So, Colbert did do that. Every show included some content, literally a speech. And I think I—

Ted Rall: Do not really know what Letterman’s politics were.

Scott Stantis: No, well, yes, I do not know if he ever participated in political events. He did engage in some political activities, but they were mostly related to comedy and actors’ and comedians’ rights. I think the Colbert situation is a mix. CBS wants to consummate their merger; they want to unite with Paramount. Paramount desperately wants them. That is half of it, and it will need approval from the Trump Justice Department, particularly from the sharp-minded individual that is Bondi. Add to that the fact that hosting that show is extremely expensive. However, it seems to me that if Stephen Colbert truly cared about the working men and women of this world, he could take a 50% pay cut, and they could pay the staff a decent wage.

Ted Rall: Well, that would be—

Scott Stantis: And the show could continue.

Ted Rall: Well, right. You know, that is what Keanu Reeves does. Right? He does this discreetly, but in feature films, his rate is between $10 million and $20 million. However, he does not need or want that much money. So, he redistributes it somewhat evenly, giving more to the lowest-paid cast members, like key grips and others whose roles I do not understand. Basically, he lines their pockets. He only takes a small fraction, like $500,000, of what he is owed.

Scott Stantis: Wow, he just does not want it. It would unnecessarily complicate his life. He believes it is the right thing to do. And—

Scott Stantis: Yes, but he is a rarity. I mean, I think I told you this story. I was speaking with a friend’s child who interned at a large concert promoter’s company. He said they allowed him to sit in on a conference call negotiating a Bruce Springsteen concert. Bruce Springsteen was complaining that he needed an additional $200,000, even though he was already being paid a seven-figure sum to perform.

Ted Rall: Uh-huh.

Scott Stantis: He was already guaranteed seven figures. This was not his agent, Ted. This was Bruce Springsteen himself saying, “Bruce needs money.”

Ted Rall: Well, Bruce is a greedy individual. The problem here is that it contradicts his brand. If it were Kid Rock, who, granted, lacks the talent of Bruce Springsteen’s pinky finger but is a right-winger, going for the money would be fine. But the working-class man from Asbury Park, New Jersey, presents a bad image. Stephen Colbert, I think, made his reputation with The Colbert Report.

Scott Stantis: He—

Ted Rall: Did, where he mocked being a pompous, right-wing figure. I think he missed the joke. He believed the effect was to satirize the right. I think the effect was to satirize partisanship and always holding the same opinion regardless of the situation. To me, the satire applies almost equally to someone like Rachel Maddow, who consistently pushes the same talking points. So, when he moved to “The Late Show” and became the very type of hack he mocked on The Colbert Report, he lost me, and I assume he lost others too.

Scott Stantis: Yes, that is an excellent point. He lost 50%. There is—imagine me doing air quotes here, always effective on a podcast—a conservative late-night comedy show, and it is not by far the number one show in that slot.

Ted Rall: Yes, it is Gutfeld on Fox. Yes, and I must say, I find him to be a funny man. I watch the Fox show The Five at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Fox almost every day, and he is one of the highlights. However, I do not think his show is very good. No, I do not think humor works well when it is partisan.

Scott Stantis: No, it has to involve rolling your eyes and shrugging at everyone. It must target everybody, which is—

Ted Rall: By the way, if you consider the great humor from the heyday of television comedy, like Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, Hee Haw, The Carol Burnett Show, and then in films like Kentucky Fried Movie or with George Carlin, they mocked liberals and conservatives equally—

Scott Stantis: Mercilessly. Mercilessness is the key point. Another topic, speaking of a lack of humor, public broadcasting has just been gutted. Ted and I discussed this earlier today, or yesterday, actually. I mentioned that I have been advocating for defunding public broadcasting since I began cartooning in the late seventies. However, it is not for the reason you might think. I happen to enjoy a lot of public broadcasting, though not as much as I used to because of budget cuts and because I do not think they perform the job they once did. Nevertheless, I want their budgets to be cut and removed from the federal budget entirely because they have always been a target of Republican talking points. It seemed like an easy punching bag to me. If you truly believe that NPR and PBS should survive, let them survive on their own. It is interesting, Ted, where you are in New York City; the New York NPR station, as well as public broadcasting, receives about 2% or less of its budget from the federal government. So, you can eliminate 2%. You and I could both live with 2% less. We were not liking—

Ted Rall: It. It is no big deal.

Scott Stantis: Yes, but here in Alabama, for instance, the NPR station is losing 10% of its funding. That is a significant hit. Frankly, may I go off on a tangent and discuss things I have never spoken about publicly? Well, I do not care what you say today; I am doing it anyway. You will find this interesting.

Ted Rall: When have I ever stopped you? Who could stop you?

Scott Stantis: It is true. Who could? I am a force of nature. The NPR station here has very little, if any, public programming—local programming, rather. When I moved back here, my wife and I owned a house. My son is here. My grandson is here. That is why we moved back after my decade in Chicago. I approached the radio station and said, “Listen, I have an idea for a locally generated show. I will find people to underwrite it; you do not have to spend a single cent—back when they were still making cents. You just need to provide me with a place to do it and a studio with a producer.” They said no. To think—

Ted Rall: Say—

Scott Stantis: Free programming. What is that? No, they simply said, “No, we do not think that fits into our programming.” I responded, “You do not have any programming. How can it not fit into something that does not exist?” I was also considering creating a roundtable, like a weekly political show to discuss Alabama politics, all of it being—

Ted Rall: A very good idea.

Scott Stantis: Again, I know I could find people to underwrite it and make it worthwhile for me. They said no.

Ted Rall: Do you think it is because you are conservative?

Scott Stantis: Yes, because I have a record in the community from my work drawing for the Birmingham News for thirteen years, and I have a deep history of my politics, which I thought were fairly moderate, given where I lived. I mean, I targeted Republicans as much as I did Democrats. I approached WBHM because they had an opening—remember I mentioned this once, Ted? You may not recall. They had an opening for the morning news desk. You know, it would involve following NPR news with a three-minute slot for local news, where you might say, “Today, the Gulf of America has flooded halfway up the state of Alabama.” I knew I could do that. So, I approached the news director and asked, “I saw the job posting. Can you tell me more about it?” He literally said, “It is not for you.” I am just saying, here is someone with a fairly decent track record in journalism, Ted. I think we can acknowledge that about my career. Coming to public radio in central Alabama would probably be a good story for them, but they were not interested. Okay, but that is my rant. I am done.

Ted Rall: I am sorry. I think that is disgusting, and I do not believe a liberal would have been treated the same. I must be objective about that. That is Birmingham, right? I mean, if a Republican cannot get a fair shake in Birmingham, Alabama—literally the most conservative state in the union, well, perhaps Mississippi—

Scott Stantis: Yes, we are pretty much neck and neck. We are going to have Governor Tommy Tuberville, for heaven’s sake. I mean, come on. So, WBHM, the NPR station here in Birmingham, Alabama, is losing 10% of its funding. This hurts where these cuts are potentially—I would venture to use the word dangerous. There is a rural station. The most glaring and significant example is in central Alaska. It is the only broadcast entity in the entire region. So, if there is, let us say, an attack of ice monsters from the north, no one will know. But in all seriousness, when there is a serious event—like bears—yes, the bears will—oh my goodness—they are organized.

Ted Rall: Well, actually, bears are terrifying. So, yes.

Scott Stantis: Oh, polar bears, particularly, are—

Ted Rall: Yes, it is not like they are crazy. If you endanger their cubs, no. The males, the females, the cubs—they are hungry for you as a person, and they will eat you. It is not like a shark saying, “Oh, my mistake.” No, it is like, “No, you are food. You are good.”

Scott Stantis: A big piece of meat to polar bears, and it is the only thing they eat, by the way. They do not eat berries. So, that is 100%. That station I mentioned in central Alaska is 100% funded by the federal government. There are other stations in—

Ted Rall: The Plains states, right, where there are tornadoes. There are already major local news deserts in those states because, basically, when you count the radio stars, they literally have automated stations. You drive by and see an old-fashioned 1940s radio station, like “This is KAKAW, the voice of Piscataway or whatever.” It is in the middle of nowhere, with no one there. It is surrounded by a fence. It is all automated; someone checks it once a week to ensure the power is on, but no one is present.

Scott Stantis: And no rats have eaten through the power lines?

Ted Rall: Not yet. Exactly. Then a tornado comes through. There is no one there who knows about it and can report it on the air. NPR stations, in many cases, are the only game in town.

Scott Stantis: Yes, so this is why this is important and why I care. You know, and the other thing is—so are you—

Ted Rall: Are you? Let us get you on the record. Cuts, yay or nay?

Scott Stantis: I would say yay, but I would also be very interested in understanding the economics of public broadcasting because the umbrella company that owns or runs Sesame Street—the Children’s Television Workshop—brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in ancillary sales. When you see a child carrying an Elmo doll or a Big Bird lunchbox, all that money went somewhere. Where did it go, folks? Ted and I also noted—Ted, could you tell the listeners—you were on an NPR show in New York, The Midday Host. If you do not already know, if you cannot guess, they did not make a lot of money. They were not the morning show hosts, like the “Ted and Scott Morning Zoo,” who made a million each. Sometimes the afternoon drive-time host earned $900,000. But the NPR midday person—Ted Rall was on their show. Ted Rall, what was his name, and how much did he make?

Ted Rall: Brian Lehrer makes over $600,000 a year. Goodness. The thing is, I do not fault anyone for earning as much as they can, and he is a truly excellent host. However, honestly, Scott, you and I are as good as he is, and we do the same job for much less. It is like they are begging for donor money. That is the issue here. It is similar to when I was in Afghanistan and tried to check into a five-star hotel, which was booked by Doctors Without Borders. I thought, not without reservations, right? I met some of these people, and they said, “We are doing God’s work, helping people in a war zone.” I said, “God bless you, but you are using donor money. Cannot you stay at a three-star hotel? It is lovely, with air conditioning, Wi-Fi, good food, and comfort.” I am not saying they must live in squalor. I am not saying Brian should earn $20,000 a year. But come on, he makes more than the President of the United States. That is outrageous. It is funded by taxpayers and listeners. That is wrong.

Scott Stantis: To your point, Ted, this reflects my small-c conservative stance, and I am not wishy-washy. I wanted the funding to disappear, but they should have reviewed and said, “Okay, stations in places like Alaska, the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming—if they had said, ‘These will receive some funding until they can find another source,’ give it, say, two years. That is plenty of time to search and determine who else can support this. Can the state of Alaska fund the NPR station in central Alaska?” The same applies to the other regions I mentioned. That is what I would have done, but cutting the funding makes perfect sense. And—

Ted Rall: Although, I am just—but, Scott, all big countries have state media.

Scott Stantis: I know, and they are terrible. And I do not—oh—

Ted Rall: Really? Does the BBC suck?

Scott Stantis: Well, do you think it does? Do you think it—

Ted Rall: Do you think the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation sucks? Do you think the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sucks? I do not.

Scott Stantis: Well, I would ask, is it biased? I mean, do you think—

Ted Rall: Yes, bias. Because human beings are running it. So, yes, it is definitely biased.

Scott Stantis: So, I think there is a definite bias in something state-run that defends the state.

Ted Rall: Right.

Scott Stantis: That is what I meant by state.

Ted Rall: Country, but I will—if you are going to be part—I mean, if we think we are involved in part of an international propaganda effort, I would rather be involved in a propaganda war than a hot war. They call this soft power, right? If Russia has RT and Sputnik, and England has the BBC, which—

Scott Stantis: Should be allowed on our channels, by the way.

Ted Rall: China has—what is it, CNCBTN? I forget the acronym, but they have their own English-language services. Shouldn’t the U.S. also have state media?

Scott Stantis: Well, this does not prevent it from existing. It just means American taxpayers do not have to pay for it, and it does not become a target.

Ted Rall: State media.

Scott Stantis: I am going to return to my original point, which is that this has been a target for Republicans for as long as I have been cartooning, so remove the target. That is all I am saying.

Ted Rall: Oh, I certainly think that, like you said, on the national level, I never understood why NPR stations allowed themselves to be a target for, you know, 1 or 2% of their budget. I would say, if someone tried to dictate what I draw, saying, “Ted, we are paying 2% of your salary,” I would—

Scott Stantis: Be—

Ted Rall: Like, “Forget it.” But I agree with that. However, I think we have a problem regarding rural access. Rural areas are very underserved. They do not have high-speed internet. They do not have—

Scott Stantis: Well, they are becoming news deserts. Their newspapers are folding.

Ted Rall: So, it is a great time to be a corrupt local politician in rural Oklahoma, you know?

Scott Stantis: Maybe we should consider moving to Oklahoma.

Ted Rall: That could be a job for us. Hey, corrupt politician, I could—we have studied corruption. We could do that.

Scott Stantis: Yes, we can do it. I do not know if there is any doubt we can do it.

Ted Rall: I mean, some of the least intelligent people who have ever lived do it.

Scott Stantis: Oh my goodness, they are idiots. One of my funniest conversations with my former boss at the Chicago Tribune occurred when I had just moved to Chicago. They had just indicted a local official—I think it was St. Clair County, but it could be another county here in Alabama. They were accused of stealing— are you sitting down, Ted?—$2,500 a month. They were convicted and went to jail. When I moved to Chicago, they caught a man—I forget his role, something like being in charge of sand or dirt in Cook County. He had embezzled $12 million, and they were not sure they would prosecute him. So, I asked my boss—

Ted Rall: You always want to steal money from private corporations. In many cases, they will not pursue you.

Scott Stantis: Is that right?

Ted Rall: Well, yes. Like, when I worked at the Japanese bank, the Industrial Bank of Japan Trust Company, from 1986 to 1990, there was a very quiet, very nice man who sat right behind my desk, about four feet away. One day, he was not at work. We wondered what happened to him. Within a few days, we learned that $10 million was missing from—

Scott Stantis: Oh my.

Ted Rall: The accounts. This was in 1988 or 1989, so it was real money, not like today when it buys an egg. So, he—

Scott Stantis: Had, like, three cups of Starbucks coffee.

Ted Rall: Maybe. Anyway, with our Zimbabwean dollars—

Scott Stantis: Without extra pumps. Yes.

Ted Rall: Yes, exactly. So, anyway, to make a long story short, the FBI came because he had written himself a check, cashed it, and disappeared. He had a wife and kids but did not involve them in the scam. So, the FBI interviewed us all about what we knew, which was truthfully nothing. I asked my boss what happened. He said, “They are going to let it go.” He added that the FBI said, “We can put this guy’s face on the front page of every paper in the world,” but the company in Tokyo said, “Let it go.” Because then the question becomes, “Can IBJ be trusted to keep your money safe if they are incompetent?” So, it is better to absorb the loss.

Scott Stantis: So, how much did you abscond with? I am just curious.

Ted Rall: I wish.

Scott Stantis: See, Ted? You disappoint me.

Ted Rall: Yes, I know. I am talented, but not in that way.

Scott Stantis: It sounds like me. So, anyway, with my story, I asked my boss, “What the hell is going on here? $10 million?” I mean, a person in Alabama was convicted for $2,500. He said, “Scott, up here, we are professionals. Welcome to the NBA.”

Ted Rall: I was like, and—

Scott Stantis: He was not wrong. He absolutely was not wrong.

Ted Rall: Yes, it is really funny. Back in the nineties, when I worked for alternative weeklies, I remember talking to some investigative reporters who would literally argue about which of their municipalities had the most corrupt politicians. It was like, “No, no, we have the best corrupt people.”

Scott Stantis: Oh, I used to have running gag arguments with my friend Marshall Ramsey, the editorial cartoonist in Jackson, Mississippi. We had a silly governor bingo game to see whose idiot—because he had one, I had one—would raise the level of idiocy. We—

Ted Rall: Let us have a—

Scott Stantis: Raise the level of idiocy. You draw an editorial moron. It was neck and neck.

Ted Rall: It is so challenging. Alright, well, I think we are complete here. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. We have good viewership today. They are quiet, but they are out there. I see the numbers. Many people are watching and listening. That is wonderful. I guess most people are watching, according to the New York Times.

Scott Stantis: Oh my—

Ted Rall: Goodness. Podcasts today—like, three out of four people watch and do not listen.

Scott Stantis: Did you—but, Ted, in this—or they—

Ted Rall: Watch, or they watch but are really listening.

Scott Stantis: Ted, four—yes, that is like terrestrial radio used to be. You turned it on in the background. If you heard, “Mark, Ted Rall,” you would go—

Ted Rall: “Send asshole Ted Rall.”

Scott Stantis: Yes, but Ted sent an article stating that these podcasts, broadcast over YouTube and Rumble, are extremely popular. What stunned me most, Ted, is—we will end this on a note—we last about an hour.

Ted Rall: Yes.

Scott Stantis: These things are four and five hours long. Ted, I do not want to do anything I enjoy for five hours. No offense.

Ted Rall: Greed. Yes, if you and I can think of some. Yes, I do not want to make love for five hours. I do not want to drink for five hours. I do not want to watch TV for five hours. I do not want to pet my cat for five hours. Those are my favorite things. I do not want to talk to you for five hours. I do not want to do anything.

Scott Stantis: Yes, no. Like I said, no offense. I love you. I am not going to the beach—

Ted Rall: For five hours. Really?

Scott Stantis: That I could do. I suppose I could do that. Lying there, it gets—

Ted Rall: It gets hot, man.

Scott Stantis: Yes, it gets sandy. Yes, and the pelicans. Oh my goodness, the pelicans.

Ted Rall: Like, stop. And with that, alright, now it is time for our “Scott Seeing” segment of the show. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. I am Ted Rall. That is Scott Stantis. Check us out at our respective places. You will see them scroll by. I am at rall.com. He is at gocomics.com/scottstantis, and off we go.

TMI Show Ep 184: “Trump Joins the NeoCons”

July 21, 2025•

Ted Rall

LIVE 10 AM Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

It’s Civil War in Trumpworld on “The TMI Show with Ted Rall and Manila Chan”! Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has declared war against President Donald Trump for breaking one of his biggest campaign promises.

Massie has boldly moved to file a discharge petition in the House that demands the White House release more details about Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious child sex trafficking ring, even though Trump has ordered MAGA to drop this bone. Last week, Trump claimed that no “client list” ever existed and that Epstein’s 2019 death in death was really suicide, sparking outrage among conservatives who expected bombshell revelations as promised.

Turning 180 degrees, Trump dismissed the “Epstein files” as a “Democratic hoax,” blasting Republicans like Massie as “stupid” for pursuing it. Massie, unmoved, insists that the American people deserve transparency, hinting at hidden evildoers still walking free. “If it’s a hoax, why not pardon Ghislaine Maxwell?” Massie quipped to Kentucky Public Radio, questioning Trump’s motives and suggesting he’s protecting his rich powerful cronies.

Will Massie wind up as political road kill? Or is Trump in trouble?

Plus:

Trump says Obama should face jail time over DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s report exposing the Obama administration’s role in creating the Russiagate scandal.

Trump says he will save Afghan evacuees in the UAE, but it’s a lie. They’re already back in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Japan’s PM Shigeru Ishiba fights to stay in power after election losses.

Why U.S. workers fear taking their paid time off.

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DMZ America Podcast Ep 210: “‘Biden’ Was President. Who Was Running America?”

July 20, 2025•

Ted Rall

LIVE 2:00 pm Eastern, and then streaming whenever you wanna hear it:

Time for another episode of the “DMZ America Podcast,” where editorial cartoonist buddies Ted Rall (Left) and Scott Stantis (Right) go where mainstream media fears to tread in the story that proves that, for four years, a pen wasn’t just a pen!

President Biden used an auto-pen to sign documents—not just when he was away from Washington, but even when be was at the White House. Why? Was he unable to do his job? Was he even aware of the important documents signed under his name? Who was really running the country?

Did his team hide cognitive decline? Former Biden deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini took the Fifth Amendment before the House Oversight Committee, joining other aides like Anthony Bernal and Biden’s doctor in refusing to talk about Biden’s mental state or auto-pen use, intensifying claims of a cover-up. Plus the White House Counsel’s Office has launched a full investigation, pulling over 27,000 documents from the National Archives to examine whether Biden’s aides used the auto-pen to sign documents without his full knowledge. Ted and Scott give you the facts, from the legal implications to the political fallout, as this scandal shakes up D.C.

Tune in for a clash of perspectives from two sharp minds who don’t pull punches!

Plus:

RussiaGate drags on with new twists in the ongoing investigation.
Colbert’s firing shocks late-night TV. Was this censorship or just about money?
Public Broadcasting faces massive cuts, threatening local stations and emergency alerts.

DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: Transcript for Friday, July 18, 2025

July 20, 2025•

Ted Rall

Generated by AI, so there will be mistakes.

Ted Rall: Hi, thanks for joining us. I’m Ted Rall, and John Kiriakou is on the other side of the screen. You’re watching the DeProgram show on Rumble and YouTube. It’s Friday, July 18th, 1 p.m. Eastern time. We are trying to get our act together here. We’ve been terrible this week. We really screwed up and threw off Wednesday’s schedule. Today we’re rescheduling, but we promise, really promise, we’ll be on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5:00 PM schedule next week for a three-day-a-week show. Thanks, everyone, for bearing with us. You know, we’re just very busy guys. But legitimately, we’re winding down the other busyness. Oh, John, you broke up a little bit there, so please check your audio.

John Kiriakou: But, what I was saying is we really are trying to wind down this other busyness so we can focus on this show. It’s totally true.

Ted Rall: All right, so today we’re going to talk about Jeffrey Epstein, the case that just won’t go away. We’re also discussing the budget cuts at NPR and PBS, how serious they are, and what their political and practical effects will be. What’s up with Iran? Are they going to go back to war with Israel? There are a bunch of other questions there. There’s also an interesting story about facial recognition software here in New York City. The cops and the fire department—oh my god—went after a Palestine protester at Columbia University. They took him to court and identified him through his prom photos from high school. Oh my god. Basically, the judge said, “No, no, no, that’s against the law. You promised you would never do that. You keep doing it, so I’m going to send you a message.” So, on Jeffrey Epstein, the case that just won’t die, the latest is that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, says some documents will be released from the case files, specifically from the grand jury indictment file.

John Kiriakou: That is not her call, actually. She did say what you said she said, but it’s not her decision. They have to file a motion for a federal judge to release the grand jury transcripts, and the judge can just as easily say no. I want to add, though, Ted, that Donald Trump’s reaction to this whole thing is inexplicable. He ran on a position of releasing all documents, and now he’s the one standing in the way of releasing whatever documents they have. He’s talking about suing Rupert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal, and the reporter who wrote the article. Then at the White House, Kayleigh McEnany—whatever her name is, one of those 90s names—is saying they had no right to release this 50th birthday letter that Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein, in which he sketched a naked woman and wrote, you know, “May all your future secret wishes come true,” or some stupid, silly thing like that with innuendo. The question is, why the 180? Why the flip-flop? Unless he is somehow implicated in this, I just don’t understand.

Ted Rall: It could be him or someone he cares about, someone he cares about a lot. Yeah, right. It could be Donald himself, a close ally, or, I should say, Israel, or who knows, right? Those are the possibilities, but that’s it. Basically, he didn’t know what was in the files. He and his team looked at the files, decided, and said, “Forget it, it can’t be released. We’re not releasing them.” Yes, but they could have been released. So what about the judge in this situation? Could a judge put the kibosh on releasing that stuff anyway?

John Kiriakou: Absolutely, yes. It’s the judge’s decision, with sole discretion, but they could have requested it. They can request it. In my own case, we asked to see the grand jury transcripts, and the judge approved it. That’s how I know who ratted me out in the grand jury. So it could be a yes, it could be a no. In the interest of transparency, those transcripts are secret. I didn’t realize they were sealed.

Yes, they are sealed. If the judge says yes, the question is whether the administration actually releases them or if they will be redacted. If they are redacted, who in the world are they trying to protect?

Ted Rall: Crisis management 101, as you know, John, is not to do this. Let me put it this way: there are really only two choices if you’re in this kind of squeeze. Either you come clean and release everything, or you hope it doesn’t get released because a judge says no, but you approve it, saying, “I’m as transparent as I can possibly be.” Or you recognize you can’t handle the truth coming out, so you resign, leave, and go to Mar-a-Lago or exile in Saudi Arabia. Those are the two choices, right?

Ted Rall: That’s what the king of Spain did when he got caught embezzling money and having affairs with women. He abdicated and moved to Dubai. Those are the choices here, right?

Ted Rall: I think that’s what it is. The politics of it are super interesting. Like a lot of left-leaning people, I didn’t really care about the Epstein case at all and barely followed it until fairly recently. You know, I felt I had a moral obligation as a reporter to keep tabs on it, but it wasn’t something I personally cared about. But, like normal Democratic voters, everybody cares about it now. It’s not just because they want Donald Trump to go down—some do, for sure—but a lot of them are just saying, “No, no, now that clearly something’s up.” That something is that really rich and powerful men are probably getting away with pedophilia.

Ted Rall: That’s right. Those people should be caught. That’s something we’re not that politically polarized on.

John Kiriakou: Absolutely right. One thing the MAGA Republicans are saying, repeating over and over, is that this is about crimes against children. This is everything they’ve been yelling about for the last 12 years: crimes against children, a governmental elite trafficking in children. I always pooh-poohed the idea, saying, “No, they’re not trafficking.” Well, you know what? Maybe they were. Maybe they were trafficking in children, and we’re just now hearing about it. Of all people, Donald Trump is the one covering it up. Who knows? That’s what it seems like right now.

Obviously, the pizza—I mean, hell, we live in a world where the pizza—where’s the entrance to the basement? That’s where the children are being held. There is no basement. There are no children here. Right. But something smells to high heaven here. This isn’t right. It’s getting worse.

John Kiriakou: That’s it. This is not right. These MAGA people smell a rat. They want to know why in the world Trump is covering it up.

Richard Nixon stalled on releasing the White House tapes but ultimately had to, though he relented. He redacted a lot of stuff. But you know what? It comes back to that old adage: it’s not the crime that brings them down, it’s the cover-up of the crime. Do these guys learn nothing from history?

Ted Rall: They don’t. They also think they’re smarter than everybody else. They think they can just say, “Shut up, focus on the economy, nothing to see here, just move along.” Nobody buys that. That doesn’t work. It never has worked.

No, it doesn’t work. That’s right. It does not work. So they should move on. There’s a good question here, and I kind of like it. From Schmat: why won’t mainstream news talk about the Mossad angle? Yeah, good question. I think I know the answer. I guess they’re probably going to say it’s speculation, but you can report on speculation because when people are speculating in public, and they are, it becomes news. A lot of people think the honey trap, a Mossad or other honey trap operation, is a scenario that kind of works.

Ted Rall: Yes. I view it as a test model. It may be wrong, but when you stress test it and look at it from all angles, it seems to work.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, I think that’s right. I’m looking at the chat, and so many of our viewers are correct. This has intelligence written all over it. My guess is it has Mossad written all over it. USC, thank you for the $5. Is it possible this is being covered up because it is a dark CIA op, a joint op with Mossad, or likely covered because it’s close to this administration? Yes, yes, and yes. I’m going to add it’s probably solely Mossad, but the Israelis have been yelling on every network that they don’t spy on the United States, which we all know is just a crock, right?

We know that’s not true. So, question: Is the Diddy thing connected? I don’t think so. From Eric Huso. What do you think?

Ted Rall: I don’t see a connection beyond the fact that Comey’s daughter was a prosecutor in both cases. But I don’t know. The Barr family connection is kind of messed up. The same with the Maxwell family connection.

John Kiriakou: It’s very interesting to me that we have not heard from Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney saying, “Hey, you want her to talk? You’re going to renegotiate her sentence, and then she’ll talk until you’re happy with it.”

Ted Rall: She might be worried that she might suddenly become overwhelmed with a sudden urge to kill herself.

John Kiriakou: May I answer Red X’s? Here’s another good question: Can Mossad operate so blatantly in the USA without CIA knowledge and then have Epstein avoid consequences the first time?

It’s not that they operate without CIA knowledge. The CIA is fully cognizant of the level of Israeli intelligence operations in the United States. The FBI is on the Israelis all the time. The problem is that many years ago, going back to the Nixon administration, the White House decided they’re not going to crack down on Israeli espionage. They’re just not going to because, in the greater scheme of things, when considering the full relationship, it’s better, easier, or whatever to just let them go.

Ted Rall: Michael Gardner says that Maxwell’s lawyer is talking and suggesting, Oh, good, that, you know, she’s in a delicate dance, right? She has something to offer, but she’s in, as you know well, that feeling, in the jaws of the state. Until she’s actually out walking free, at least on bail or something, she’s in danger.

John Kiriakou: There’s another little thing, probably neither here nor there, but it occurred to me yesterday. As a matter of policy in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, pedophiles are not permitted to be in a minimum security work camp. You don’t put pedophiles in maximum security because they’ll get killed. You don’t put them in medium security because they’ll probably get killed. You don’t put them in minimum security because then they can run away and molest more children. So, as policy, they have to be in a low-security prison. Ghislaine is in a minimum security work camp with a 20-year sentence for pedophilia. How did that work out? How did that happen?

John Kiriakou: How come she gets to have, and we know this for a fact, her job cleaning up the beach every morning in Florida? They put them all in a van, drive them to the beach, and they clean up litter. That’s her job in the prison. Why? Why did she get a sweetheart position like that? That’s a good question.

That’s right. Rich people always get their own rules. You could say that again. I saw someone asking if we think Washington would be united enough to have carried out a psy-op on this. I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re that sophisticated. Red Access is asking if that’s what she was actually convicted of. I’m going to look it up just to be on the safe side because I don’t want to be a fool. If I’m right, I’m going to repeat this. I think it’s trafficking.

John Kiriakou: That was her conviction. I think you are right.

It’s a long one. Here it is. It’s trafficking: six counts of enticement of minors, sex trafficking of children, and perjury. So, yeah, she’s a chomo. Done and done.

John Kiriakou: So, how does she get this sweetheart position? There is also the question of why she is in prison all by her lonesome, right? The assumption here is that only Jeffrey, with his incredible voracious sexual appetite, is the only victimizer. That’s the implication. We’re not even hearing from the feds, like, “We looked into all sorts of other people, but with this one, we couldn’t build enough of a case. This other one, we didn’t have enough witnesses, or we found this person was innocent.” They’re not saying anything. It’s the deafening silence that speaks volumes here.

How hypocritical is it of both the Democrats and Republicans to be pointing the finger at each other when the Democrats did nothing to release these documents during the four years of Joe Biden’s administration?

: That’s true. Now the Democrats are pushing legislation in the House of Representatives to demand the release of the documents. They put the Republicans in a tough position. Why don’t the Republicans just vote yes? Either you’re for transparency, or you’re not for transparency.

Ted Rall: It’s all a ruse. The Democrats know they only fight when they know they’re going to lose. Republicans are like, “Oh, I’m really trying to stop the release of this. We want to release it.” It’s just not going to happen. Oh my gosh, thank you, Jordan Biffle. That was nice. I missed that.

Ted Rall: That’s nice. That’s who’s nice. They stole my image for the late show the other day, and dog on it, I put myself in for an IMDb credit for it. Really? They stole your image? What do you mean?

John Kiriakou: They had a picture of me from Fox News that they posted while John—what’s his name? The Daily Show. John Stewart, thank you—was yelling about Epstein. So yeah, nobody asked me. One thing, is there a moral standard for CIA operations? No. That’s actually part of my standard speech at universities: there is no moral guideline. None. Zero. I tell young students, if they’re considering going into the CIA, they have to go in with their own set of moral values because there will never be somebody to tell them, “No, you can’t do that. That’s unethical. That’s immoral.” They just tell you to go collect the information or make the recruitment or whatever it is. You really have to be clear in your heart.

Ted Rall: There’s nothing. Is there no equivalent in the agency for the uniform code of military conduct, where there are lots of rules: do this, you can do this, you can’t do that?

John Kiriakou: Zero. Zero rules. The only thing they ever told me, and they told everybody, is never mess with medical, security, or finance because those are the three that can land you in prison. That was it. Wow. That’s amazing.

Ted Rall: I mean, John, this is a tough question, and you can just say I’m not going to answer it. What’s going to happen?

John Kiriakou: Yeah, man, that is a tough question. I think that as tough as Donald Trump likes to be, he’s going to have to relent here because his base is breaking apart as we watch. He’s going to have to relent. Whether that means there are documents that haven’t been destroyed or there are hard drives or DVDs, that’s a different issue. I think he’s going to have to relent. Honestly, can he get away with a partial release?

John Kiriakou: I think he’s going to try to get away with a partial release. He’ll try to get away with it, but the pressure is not coming from Democrats. They can just stiff-arm the Democrats. The pressure is coming from the MAGA base. They want this done, and they want it out there, and I think he’s going to have to do it.

Ted Rall: It’s really fascinating, right? Here you have a president who, you know, is viewed, with some justification, as a threat to democracy itself, who basically started a riot inside the Capitol, who provoked a riot, right? Let’s just say that. A guy who did all sorts of terrible violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, like crazy, over the top. But this is what he’s going to go down for, this of all things. It’s like getting Al Capone on taxes.

John Kiriakou: It’s exactly what it is. The Democrats could never have made this up. It’s not based on the issues. It is kind of amazing. I want to address this: Houdini says Trump already said he doesn’t care if some of his base walks away from him. He did say that.

Ted Rall: He says that, and some is one thing, but if this disinterest in the base leads to a 50-seat turnover in the House of Representatives and maybe even loss of the Senate, which paralyzes his final two years as president, then he’s screwed. Every single president in his second term becomes obsessed with his own legacy. Every single president in his second term ends up wallowing in scandal, right? I mean, Obama was the exception, but second terms are bad. That’s when Iran-Contra broke out for Reagan, Monica Lewinsky for Clinton, Watergate for Nixon.

John Kiriakou: Absolutely right. Although this is a little bit of a different second term because there’s an interruption, right? There’s an interregnum, the Biden interregnum, kind of like Grover Cleveland having to deal with Benjamin Harrison in between.

Ted Rall: Yeah, that’s right. That’s amazing. We’ll continue to follow this. Is there anything we need to deprogram further on this point, or should we keep it moving?

John Kiriakou: No, I think we’ve given all the updates, but I don’t think we’re overestimating the import of this thing. This is a bona fide scandal, and it may not be a big deal for the Democrats, but this is just tearing the Republicans apart.

Ted Rall: The thing is, if it’s a big deal for the Republicans, it has to be a big deal for the Democrats. What’s really interesting, as a side note, is how much this highlights the cluelessness of the Democrats. The Democrats recognized the scandal that was Watergate. They understood it. The Republicans understood the import of all the Clinton scandals like Travelgate, Whitewater, and of course, Monica Lewinsky, instantaneously.

John Kiriakou: Oh, yeah. The Democrats still kind of don’t. You don’t see the feeding frenzy you would expect from the opposition party enjoying and relishing their mortal enemy really in trouble.

Yeah, I think the Democrats really are that clueless. It’s very strange. All right, let’s move over to NPR and PBS. The Senate has voted to cut $9 billion in funding from NPR and PBS. Most of this affects PBS. For people who don’t really understand how this works, all the stations are privately owned. You and I could buy an NPR station, like WSHN and Ted J&T, which would be fun. That’s how Lady Bird Johnson made millions and millions of dollars, by buying radio stations.

Ted Rall: Really? I didn’t know that.

Ted Rall: So, you buy the station, but if you want to become a public radio station or TV station, you buy programming from national groups like PRI. You hear, “This show is sponsored by PRI.” They sell that to the local station, and then you might hire some local talent, like, “Hey, let’s bring in some people from New York or Washington to do local New York and Washington stuff.” Whatever you want. Then you put together a programming schedule, and you either make money, or you don’t make money, and you beg for donations every so often. That’s the model. The big stations, like WAMU in DC, WNYC here in New York, never have any problem raking in the big bucks.

No. They make crazy amounts of money there. Like Brian Lehrer, the local guy here in New York, a very talented host, really good and a good guy. But he makes more money than the president of the United States. He makes $600,000 a year.

What? I’m thinking they could probably get someone to do as good a job for less. Hi, I’m here. It’s really crazy. But then there are the little stations out in flyover country, like northern Montana by the Canadian border, where they’re filling the gap in what’s already become a private radio desert. We already have serious problems, like flash flood warnings and tornado warnings that go out over the radio. These stations, private and public alike, get national programming piped in and aren’t able to provide emergency alerts in places like rural Alaska, as Senator Murkowski expressed concern about these cuts. Rural people are going to die, mostly in red states, because of this. I know the answer: Democrats will never be smart enough to run an ad saying, “My beautiful little daughter was swept away by a flood, and it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.” That would be great, but they’re not going to do that. On the other hand, I’m really torn about this. I see the Republicans’ beef about why conservatives should pay for liberal programming. On the other hand, every big country has state media. This is kind of state media. We’re getting rid of Voice of America, our other outward-facing state media propaganda arm. It’s a little weird. It reminds me of getting rid of the Department of Education. It may be without import, but the message it sends to the world is we’re voting to be stupid. This is idiocracy. We’re getting rid of educational programming, costume dramas, history, documentaries, and the Department of Education. What does that say about us?

John Kiriakou: You know what? I don’t even have anything to say about that. I agree with every word you just said. Every major country in the world, probably every country, has a state radio station. The one in Greece is called ERT, the Hellenic Radio and Television. Most of the day, they’ve got classical music. They do the news at the top and bottom of the hour. They have weather reports or warnings about forest fires encroaching on whatever city. It’s important, and it’s really not political. They don’t even have this debate in Greece because everybody accepts that state radio is a public service.

Ted Rall: The part that annoys me about this discussion is that Republicans characterize NPR and PBS as far left. I’m like, “No, no, no, no, I’m far left.” Right? It’s like we don’t exist. Those are just liberals. Dylan is asking something that’s not related, so just pipe into it. Are we going to talk about Syria?

John Kiriakou: We should talk about Syria. We absolutely should.

Ted Rall: During Hurricane Katrina, The Onion had a headline about the National Guard saying they cannot decide whether to help or shoot people in New Orleans. Israel seems to not decide whether they want to be allied with the new government of Syria or to bomb them, which, you know, those two things seem a little inconsistent.

John Kiriakou: I have been watching, working on, or living in the Middle East since I was 16 years old, and I genuinely don’t understand what the Israeli policy is here. First, they overthrow Assad along with the Turks and probably the Americans. Then they install al-Qaeda as the leader of the country and bomb the place three times. In the meantime, not the first time we got rid of a socialist and replaced them with al-Qaeda—Afghanistan.

John Kiriakou: Oh yeah, that’s right. In the meantime, people like you and I were saying, whether you like Bashar al-Assad or not, he’s the only thing protecting the Christian community. The new guy comes in and says love and milk and honey for everybody. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Christians have been killed since Assad left, including an attack on a Syrian Orthodox church a week and a half ago that resulted in the deaths of 87 worshippers. It was a massacre. Thank you, Ruffy.

Ted Rall: The Israeli government is obviously a classic definition of what Marxists call a division in the ruling classes, right? They are, you know, the Netanyahu government is divided between the people who want to bomb to support the Druze in Syria and those who want relatively friendly relations with the new regime. I don’t know. Do you think the fault line there is between the way we generally understand it, where Netanyahu, within this construct, even though he’s far right, is the most liberal member of his cabinet? Crazy, right?

John Kiriakou: Right. I can’t figure out where the Israeli people fit into all this because, as long as I’ve been alive, the government’s always been to the right of the Israeli 50-yard line of politics, right? I guess I should say 50 meters for the metric system. But now it’s like I don’t know where the Israeli people are in all this. There’s no coherent policy in Gaza at all. It’s kind of like, at this point, you guys are just bombing for the sake of bombing.

Ted Rall: Yeah, they are. You’re out of targets. You have nothing to bomb, except that’s absolutely right. There was a poll released, I don’t know, less than a week ago, saying that October 7th galvanized the Israeli population and that support for destroying Gaza has remained consistent, which was very disappointing to me. You remember, Ted, two months before October 7th, on your show at Sputnik, on my show at Sputnik, we were talking about these major demonstrations. Thank you, GGK. Major demonstrations against Netanyahu, against his plans to reorganize the Israeli court system, against his attacks on the Supreme Court of Israel, against Netanyahu personally because he had been indicted on seven felony counts of corruption, and all of that has just gone away because everybody’s focused on Gaza. Now, with that said, where are those voices from the Israeli left that we read in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post but that don’t seem to be out there in public saying, “Wait a minute, we can’t just murder hundreds of thousands of people, right? Isn’t that what happened to them?” It’s happening now to the Palestinians, and nobody seems to care. I just don’t understand it.

Ted Rall: There definitely are tons of Jewish people, including Israelis, who care and don’t like it. Then there are people who probably don’t personally care but see how this is going to hurt Israel’s position in the world. That’s a way of caring too. It’s complicated, right? There are so many different responses to it. I think this is going to be one of those things, like after the Israeli government falls or is replaced in some way, they’re going to be writing books for years, like after Nazi Germany. What was public opinion like? What did people really think? Like that famous book, They Thought They Were Free, where they interviewed ordinary Germans about what it was like because they couldn’t express themselves in public. I think we can’t know. Israel’s become that closed of a society. That’s comparable to the Nazi experience as well.

John Kiriakou: You’re absolutely right. Just a few days ago, Ted, two former Israeli prime ministers came out and called the camp set up on the border of Gaza a concentration camp, saying if it’s a camp you are forcibly taken to and not permitted to leave, that is a concentration camp by definition. Yeah, concentration means concentration of people, right? That’s what it is.

Ted Rall: Now we should, I actually think this is worth talking about because it is confusing about the Druze. It’s spelled D-R-U-Z-E, right? Not that it really matters, but they’re not Israelis at all. I mean, well, there are Druze. There are Israeli Druze. They’re a fascinating group. There’s no such thing as an ethnic Israeli, just like there’s no ethnic American. An Israeli is just someone who lives in Israel and is a citizen of the state of Israel. They’re not Arabs, right?

Ted Rall: Right. Want to explain it?

John Kiriakou: They’re monotheists, but they’re not really Arabs or Jews. They inhabit this border area of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. They stretch up even toward the Turkish border. They’re fiercely independent. For the most part, Kurds are a good analogy, I think.

Ted Rall: Yeah, because the Kurds aren’t. They’re their own thing.

John Kiriakou: That’s right. They’re their own thing.

Ted Rall: What do I, I don’t even know the answer to this. What language do they speak? Do they have their own language?

John Kiriakou: My understanding is they speak Arabic. I knew a Druze. He was my chiropractor, and he said it’s so hard to be a Druze because, even in America, his parents would only allow him to marry another Druze. He said, “You know how many Druze there are? There aren’t any. There are only 50,000 in America, or 20,000, whatever it is. I think it was 50.” So it’s hard because they’re not Israelis, not Arabs, not Muslims, not Christians. They are monotheists, like Unitarians. They have their own temple, a big temple inside Israel. They try to get along with everybody and not be involved in these wars and border skirmishes. They just want to be left alone.

Ted Rall: That’s kind of like the Zoroastrians.

John Kiriakou: Very much so. Yes. Monotheistic, old religion. They have their own thing. They want to be left alone and have good relations with everyone. Or the Yazidis in Iraq, who are always called devil worshippers, but they are not. They pray to Satan to appease him, not to worship him.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, that just confirms what I said. So, yeah. Well, okay. Before we move on here, anything else we want to say about the PBS thing? You know, I have a love-hate relationship with PBS and NPR, the way I do with the New York Times.

Ted Rall: Yeah, I’m mostly hate with NPR politics. The politics are stupid. They don’t really, I mean, there are a lot of dumb things about that network. Not the least of which is they lard up the weekend with a bunch of stupid quiz shows when it’s a news network, and news happens on weekends too. Also, the take is painfully woke and mainstream. The cultural coverage makes me want to die sometimes. It’s always like, “There’s a new novel by a trans, handicapped, half-dead quadriplegic,” and it’s like, okay, okay. From time to time, it would be great to hear stuff like that, but it’s not from time to time—it’s all the time. After a while, it’s like, really, again? Just for old times’ sake, it’d be great to say, “There’s this straight dude who wrote a book, let’s talk about it.”

John Kiriakou: You never hear that. No straight white guy has an interesting book. It’s so cheesy.

Oh, I couldn’t agree more. I was asked—Steve from NPR asked me to go in one weekend and do an interview, and it was live, which they didn’t tell me. It’s fine; I do a lot of live interviews, but it was a gotcha interview. We’re live right now.

Yeah, we’re live right now. It was a gotcha interview, and I didn’t budge one inch. He was giving it to me, and I was giving it to him right back. At the end of it, we went to, you know, whatever they call their commercial breaks. He said, “Well, I didn’t expect that kind of response.” I said, “Don’t ever call me again. Don’t ever call me again.” As I walked out, I turned my phone back on, and it blew up. Friends from all over the country were saying, “Oh man, you gave it to him so good.” I was like, “I just walked out on NPR, and I will never listen to them or speak to them ever again.” I haven’t.

Ted Rall: Yeah, I know. You told me the details of that story. We don’t have to get into it here, unless you want, but it was disgusting. I’ve been ambushed at Fox News, and I was pissed off there because you’re told a specific thing. You’re basically told what this is going to be about, what you’re going to be talking about, and they don’t give you the questions because, after all, we’re not Hillary Clinton going into a presidential debate. But you’re still given the topics, right? You generally know what this is about. Then suddenly, it switches, and it’s not about that at all. That’s an ambush, and it’s unethical. You’re not supposed to do that.

Ted Rall: That’s right. When we brought Jake Tapper on the other day, we didn’t switch on him and start talking about something unrelated to his book. No way. You know, CNN or CNN’s coverage writ large. He probably would have been fine answering, but the point is, we wouldn’t have mentioned it.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, that’s right. It’s not polite, right? It’s rude. It’s wrong.

Ted Rall: NPR comes off as very polite, but maybe they’re not polite, they’re just calm. Sort of like the line from Double Indemnity where Edward G. Robinson tells Fred MacMurray, “I used to think you were really smart, but you’re just tall.”

John Kiriakou: Chris Cross. So great. Such a fantastic movie. By the way, if you’re watching and you’ve never seen Double Indemnity, watch it today. You’ll thank me. It’s a great movie. Classic.

Ted Rall: Yeah, totally classic. Let’s go to the situation in Iran, which you’re probably more up on than I am. Basically, we’re still trying to figure out what was the extent of the bombing, how much damage was done to Iran, how much enriched uranium they got out, and all that. It doesn’t look like there was that much damage.

John Kiriakou: No, an Iranian intelligence assessment is that we really didn’t do much damage. They had already gotten all the enriched uranium out in the weeks before the bombing, anticipating that the bombing was going to come.

Ted Rall: Well, we all knew it was going to come, right? Or that it might come.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, we all did. Do you think that was intentional, like, you know, it’s like I scuba dive, right? One of the things people who worry about scuba diving worry about is sharks, and they always say you should look out for sharks. I’m like, “No, you shouldn’t worry about sharks because if you see the shark, he’s not going to attack you. If he does attack you, you’ll never see it coming.” It’s like that. If we were really going to bomb Iran and catch them with their pants down, we would have done it out of a clear blue sky, right? We wouldn’t have had all this working up the tension and analysts on all the networks talking about it. Obviously, the Iranians aren’t idiots. They know what’s coming. So they’re going to move their stuff.

Ted Rall: I think this was a very elaborate effort for everybody to save face. I really think that’s what it’s been about. The Israelis killed a lot of people, which makes the Iranians very, very angry. We talked about this on the show, where the Israeli strategy—well, that’s their deal. They always do that.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, the Israeli strategy is if there’s a target in an apartment building, they’ll blow up the entire city block to get that guy. They’re going to kill 300 other people, but their target is that guy. The Iranians didn’t do that. Their targeting was far more specific, and that’s why the Israeli casualty numbers were so much lower. Now we’re learning that we really didn’t put the Iranians out of business. The U.S. attacks were not crippling. They had already gotten the enriched uranium out, and if they want to reconstitute what they had, it would be relatively easy. Another thing, the Iranians said yesterday that they are ready and willing to go back to the negotiating table. Why, I have no idea, but they’re ready to continue talking. This tells me that the Iranians are far more reasonable than the Israelis have been and will be on this issue. The Israelis just want everything destroyed.

Ted Rall: Yeah, well, that’s their thing, right? They’ve convinced themselves, or at least they’ve convinced the world that they are convinced, that the biggest existential threat to Israel is Iran.

I have become convinced that the biggest existential threat to Israel is the Israeli government. They’re completely dependent on international support and everybody liking them, right, at the UN, at the ICJ, at the ICC, and that’s not true anymore.

Yeah, they’re underwater in the polls. The United States is their number one benefactor, but if the citizens of the country who supply you with the most foreign aid and run interference for you in international organizations like the UN Security Council don’t like you, you’re going to pay for that. The Israelis know that. They’ve got to know that.

John Kiriakou: We should add, Rita asks a question we’ve addressed a couple of times, but we can give a little more detail here. What would the Saudi reaction be? The Saudis have been pretty public with their policy that they want to begin enriching their own uranium. The original deal, in the two weeks before the October 7th attacks, was that the Saudis would sign the Abraham Accords. They would open an embassy in Tel Aviv, not in Jerusalem, and the Israelis would open an embassy in Riyadh. In exchange, the United States would guarantee Saudi Arabia’s security and provide Saudi Arabia with its first nuclear reactor, where they could begin enriching uranium and using the nuclear reactor to generate electricity. That all fell by the wayside, of course, but it looks like that’s the deal that’s on the table.

Ted Rall: We’ll see what happens. It feels like we just go round and round and round, right? I know it’s hard to know how to negotiate with the Iranians because no one person can really sign off on anything. It’s much more like you need a collective group, right? Iran has an overlapping, very Byzantine kind of governing style. But still, the Trump administration has had a lot of trouble with diplomacy. They dropped the ball with Russia and Ukraine. What do you make of this 50-day delay? The Ukrainians are complaining that this is just giving, during the peak of fighting season, the Russians more chance to beat them up and soften them up in preparation for the ultimate peace talks.

Ted Rall: Or maybe it’s just Trump, as usual, kicking the can down the road over and over, like a college student who keeps asking for extensions on his paper.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, I think that’s it. Trump is personally offended that Putin hasn’t agreed to engage in peace talks. Now he’s going to start taking it out on the Russians by providing arms to the Ukrainians that he had previously said he would cut off. Hegseth actually did cut off aid to the Ukrainians, only to be overturned by Trump a day or two days later. I don’t see any end in sight to this Russia-Ukraine thing, Ted. In fact, if anything, the Treasury Department is coming up with new sanctions to impose on the Russians. Are there, or could there be? Only meaningless ones. We’ve talked about this before. A sanction can be, well, there’s this guy, Ted Rall, and he is not going to be allowed to open a checking account in any of our banks. That’s a sanction, right?

I don’t want to. You never would open a checking account in one of their banks. So that’s a sanction. They can say, “Well, we toughened sanctions, so we’re going to see this thing through.” I don’t know. I think it’s all silliness.

Ted Rall: So, there’s also been talk that maybe the hot war between Iran and Israel isn’t over.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, on the Iranian side, at least if Iranian YouTube channels are to be believed, they fully expect another hit from the Israelis. They don’t know when it’s going to come, of course. They don’t know whether the United States is going to be involved, but they believe the Israelis are going to hit them again. What do you think?

I don’t think they will. The Iranians have done everything right, willing to go back to the negotiating table, not really retaliating against the United States. They fired a missile at Al Udeid air base. They hit a U.S. base after providing warning, the geodesic dome with the communications equipment in it. If they were to attack the Iranians again, they’re going to have to do it without American assistance. Obviously, the Iranians have to be racing to get that nuclear weapon online, but it’s going to take a while.

Oh yeah. Even though Netanyahu has been saying since 1992 that the Iranians are six months away from a nuclear weapon.

Ted Rall: Yeah, it doesn’t work that way, right? It’s funny because it’s not like a big secret. The Progressive magazine, remember when they published the H-bomb information, how to make one, back in the 70s?

John Kiriakou: The FBI raided their offices, right?

Yep. I was, you know, I was a nuclear engineering major at Columbia, in applied physics and nuclear engineering.

Oh my god. One of the first things you learn is it’s not really that hard. But it’s time-consuming.

John Kiriakou: It’s just like making a turkey. Anyone can cook it, but it takes all day.

Ted Rall: Exactly. So, let’s talk about facial recognition software. I was really fascinated by this. There’s this company called Clearview AI that has a very strange advisory board: Richard Clarke, Floyd Abrams, Richard Clarke of all people, right? Shame on him. As of 2020, and I’m sure they’re much bigger now, they had 2,200 contracts with police departments, intelligence agencies, and government agencies in 27 countries. That was five years ago. Two of those organizations are the New York Police Department and the Fire Department of the City of New York. I was trying to figure out why the fire department would need facial recognition software. Anyway, I should point out that in New York State, there is a law that says because when this was first introduced, the NYPD said, “Hey, we can use this to catch criminals.” The concern was that Clearview would scrape, and they did this, all photos ever loaded off of Twitter. Twitter sued them to try to get them to stop, and that case is still pending in the courts. In response to that, New York said, “Okay, you can only look, you can compare photos of your suspect that you’re trying to find, but only to arrest photos and parole photos, so we already know the person’s kind of in the system.” Never mind the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing, and if you’ve committed a crime before, it doesn’t mean you’re guilty of another crime—throw that out. That’s what the state legislature did here. Apparently, the NYPD and the FDNY can’t even follow that rule, even though it gives them a lot of access. This is a really crazy story. A city fire marshal—by the way, I should point out there’s been all sorts of violations of this kind of rule. For example, we mentioned John Catsimatidis.

As the resident Greek here, you have to do this. He’s the Gristedes grocery market billionaire. He used and subscribed to Clearview AI to identify someone his daughter was dating. What? Yeah. He also used it at Gristedes to identify shoplifters and go after them. So, this is a really over-the-top firm. They’ve been using it illegally over and over again. They just can’t. In this latest case, it involves a dude named Zuhdi Ahmed. I’m wondering, by the way, if they mispronounced it, if it’s Ahmed, Zud, Zuhdi, I don’t know, but this is how they’re reporting it in a thing called The City. The city fire marshal went into the FDNY to access this facial recognition software to help out the NYPD, who were trying to identify a pro-Palestinian protester at one of the encampments at Columbia University. He’s 21 years old, premed at City College. He was at Columbia, accused of throwing a rock at a pro-Israel Zionist protester back a year ago during the April 2024 protest at Columbia. The cops identified him using his old prom photos from high school that they found on social media, which is illegal. He was charged with felony assault, third-degree assault as a hate crime, which was then reduced to misdemeanor second-degree aggravated harassment. A criminal court judge dismissed the case and was very angry about it. She said where the state routinely gathers, searches, seizes, and preserves colossal amounts of information, transparency must remain a touchstone lest fairness be lost, Judge Valentina Morales wrote. The point is they keep doing this over and over again. Is it time to ban the use entirely of this technology? By the way, NYPD officers have repeatedly downloaded it to their own private phones, tapped into the base, and used it to investigate, for example, people they suspect their wives are cheating with or whatever. They just can’t help themselves. It’s been abused so much. Should we just ban the cops from using it?

John Kiriakou: I would. I know I’m biased, but I would because I don’t trust the cops or the firemen. Even, you know, as well as I do, a lot of these cops are going to see a beautiful woman in the next car, take a picture, and put it through facial recognition software to get her phone number, address, home address, see if she’s married or whatever. First of all, there’s no probable cause, so they shouldn’t even have the right to do something like this. There are only 17 states in America that are ID-on-demand states, so in 33 states, the cops cannot come up to you and say, “Hey, you have an ID, let me see your ID.” It’s like you can only see my ID if you have articulable suspicion that I have committed a crime, am committing a crime, or am going to commit a crime. You can’t just walk up to me and ask to see my ID. Obviously, if you’re driving a vehicle, it’s different.

Ted Rall: If you’re just protesting or standing on the street corner, whatever, the cops cannot just walk up to you and demand that you identify yourself. This is circumventing that, right? I think it should be illegal. I really do. I think you have a reasonable point. It’s interesting. You don’t have an expectation of privacy legally if you walk in public, right? Like, for example, I can take your picture on the street as part of a crowd scene or whatever if I’m just taking a picture on the street.

Ted Rall: But at the same time, I do think you should be free from thinking that your photo is going to end up in a database that could then, and this is not outlandish, be fed into a drone, an assassination drone that can track you down based on your face, identify you, and then shoot you remotely, even without a human operator controlling it. That technology exists now. It’s been deployed. Also, Clearview AI doesn’t seem to be very discriminant about who they lease this to. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, for example, is one of their customers, and they claim the Ukrainians now have access to two billion images from Russian social media.

John Kiriakou: Oh my god. At their disposal. So there’s just, you know, Twitter sent a cease and desist, I mentioned that, to Clearview. I love this: the CEO of Clearview replied to the lawsuit that they have a First Amendment right to access public data. I don’t think that’s quite true, is it?

Ted Rall: No, no, no, I don’t think it is true. Basically, it’s the wild west, and it’s just, you know, if they can’t identify this guy some other way, sorry. I guess, you know, the counterargument is this could be used to catch bad people. That’s true. Great. But we have a legal memo that the cops need to use to go catch that bad person.

Ted Rall: I would rather see guilty people get away than see innocent people harmed.

John Kiriakou: Oh my god, I agree completely. So, yeah, well, I mean, this, but here we go. It’s not an issue that even the left seems particularly concerned about, although traditionally it’s always the left that’s targeted. By the way, this technology was used to ID a lot of January 6ers too, I believe that.

John Kiriakou: I believe that. Hey, I know we’re short on time, but I want to say, remember a couple of weeks ago we talked about Rahm Emanuel running for president?

Ted Rall: Yes, yes, I remember that.

John Kiriakou: Well, Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is currently on a campaign trip in Iowa. He must have spoken to his mom, and she said, “You know what, Glenn, honey, you should be president.” So he’s off to Iowa to campaign. He said he’s not campaigning, he just wanted to give a quick talk at a dinner, and he’s really only concerned about serving the people of Virginia. Remember when Youngkin was the great Republican hope? I sure do. Is he still?

Ted Rall: No. What happened?

John Kiriakou: Oh, he ended up being Governor Veto. After a year as governor, the Democrats won both the House and the Senate in the state legislature. They did everything they could to protect education and abortion. He just vetoed, vetoed, vetoed. He vetoed everything, even stuff that the Democrats and Republicans agreed on, like budget numbers, just to throw a wrench into everything. So he ended up not accomplishing anything. The economy in Virginia is good just because it’s always good, until very recently. It’s because there have been federal layoffs for the first time since 1977. The buck has to stop somewhere. He took credit for the good economy; he’s going to have to take credit for the bad economy as well.

Ted Rall: Ideologically, where does he fit in terms of the whole country club Republican versus MAGA populist?

John Kiriakou: Very much the country club Republican. The guy is a multi-millionaire. He’s a businessman, one of the founding partners of BlackRock Finance. Plenty of money. He liked to call himself, almost four years ago, Donald Trump without the negatives. He’s not Donald Trump without the negatives. He is a down-the-line, run-of-the-mill country club Republican.

Ted Rall: I don’t see that coming back soon. It could come back at some point, but not, yeah, maybe after I’m dead. USC has a question here: What do we think about Newsom trying to expand his likability by going on shows like Shawn Ryan? I think it’s smart, you know.

John Kiriakou: But you know what, Newsom? First of all, I’m biased. I don’t like Gavin Newsom for personal reasons. What’s your personal reason? I can tell you mine. When he was running for lieutenant governor, he would specifically task his campaign manager with doing these long days, go represent me here, go represent me there. Meanwhile, he’s having an affair with the guy’s wife the whole time. They got caught, and he had to apologize: “Oh, my best friend, I betrayed my best friend, I had an affair with his wife.” Shame on him. Unforgivable, not worthy of Californians’ votes, in my view. With that said, Newsom is going to have to answer for the gigantic homeless population we’ve seen under his tenure. He’s going to have to answer for $6.50 a gallon gasoline. He’s going to have to answer for these ridiculous wildfires where the state government has done nothing to upgrade the electrical lines or do anything to stop these fires. California has so many problems right now. Highest taxes in America. His response is, “Oh, but I’m liberal, and I’m good-looking, so vote for me.” Uh-uh.

Ted Rall: Perception is reality, right? The perception is that California is a disaster. I happen to think it’s true. I lived there for years. I think, you know, it’s not like when Clinton, former governor of Arkansas, ran in ‘92, the national press didn’t go to Little Rock to look around. If they had, they might have said, “The guy who gave us this hellhole shouldn’t be president of the United States.” California is not secret. It’s not in hiding. Everyone can see it all the time. That’s his problem, right? When you’re a governor, you are judged on your state. You’re the executive.

Like I said, the buck has to stop somewhere. If Andy Beshear runs, everyone’s going to look at Kentucky. Josh Shapiro, everyone’s going to look at Pennsylvania. It’s not like that for John Fetterman, even though he’s from Pennsylvania. He’s a senator.

John Kiriakou: That’s right. It’s different, inexplicably. You still don’t understand why he’s still there.

John Kiriakou: No, I don’t either. Let’s very quickly touch base about Trump’s illness. How do you like that? He has circulatory issues, not uncommon for older people. It was pointed out that it looks like he’s probably had them for a while, and it’s only when his legs were photographed, using makeup on his hands.

Yeah. You saw the pictures?

Yeah. So he must have those black marks. Yes. He’s not, obviously, I don’t think it’s huge news to say he’s not the most physically fit dude whoever was president of the United States. He’s overweight, doesn’t eat well, doesn’t exercise. Clean living is not his thing. I guess Democrats are in no position to talk about this after what we just talked to Jake about. They’ve undergone a cover-up for four years. They can’t credibly say, “Hey, can we know more about Trump’s physical health?”

John Kiriakou: Not a chance. Nope. In fact, this week in congressional hearings about the Biden autopen and Biden’s health, everybody took the fifth.

Ted Rall: Yeah. What do you make of that? Because I was thinking, here’s my question, John. I know you’re not a lawyer, and neither am I, but I’m sure you’ve thought about this, and we both have lots of friends who are lawyers. I understood the doctor pleading doctor-patient confidentiality, but he also pled the fifth. There’s no law against covering up the failing mental acuity of the president of the United States. It’s not against the law.

So, but the only reason to plead the fifth is to avoid self-incrimination. What’s going on? Was this just to show contempt for the process?

John Kiriakou: I think it was exactly that. The Democrats, see, this is one of the reasons I hate the Democrats. They just don’t want to play this game. They’re willing to use it against the Republicans, but they don’t want the Republicans to, you know, Houdini. I said exactly the same thing when I saw the picture of his ankles. The first thing I thought was this is a renal problem.

John Kiriakou: Yes, I thought the same thing. It probably can be managed for a while.

Ted Rall: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. But full cards on the table, John, I never thought that Trump was going to finish his term. I remember you saying that a long time ago.

John Kiriakou: Who knows? That may be the plan. Who knows?

Ted Rall: We’re in a state now where most of my liberal Democratic friends are literally saying, you know, Vance wouldn’t be so bad.

John Kiriakou: I’ve said from the beginning, I’m more impressed with Vance’s wife than I am with Vance even.

Ted Rall: But you know, when someone has an impressive wife, you always think there must be more to that guy. She married him.

Yeah, right. Vance wouldn’t be terrible. I think, I don’t know. I mean, he’s a smart man. Of course, I’m highly biased, being a fellow creature from southwestern Ohio, from the rust belt. Even though his story and mine are very similar, except I don’t lie about claiming to be a hillbilly. It’s like, “Sorry, no, that was your grandma.” By that standard, I’m from Brittany, okay? So, be serious. Oh, but you went to visit. So did I. He went home in the summer, I mean, not home, he went to Kentucky in the summer. Sorry, fraud. Anyway, whatever. Okay, so, yeah. Okay, I’ll put this up.

John Kiriakou: Yeah, no, Ted, some people aren’t with the right one. Fair. Tell me about it. I’m saying some are. This is more about, like, if I have to choose between one of the two. I personally don’t like any of them.

Ted Rall: That includes the Democrats. They’re right-wing as far as I’m concerned. Okay, so, are we sufficiently deprogrammed? Anything we need to do further?

John Kiriakou: Yeah, I think so, Ted.

Ted Rall: All right then. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. It’s much appreciated. We will see you next Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5:00 PM Eastern time. We really, really, really mean it this time. Have a great weekend. Take care.

DeProgram: “Why Epstein Refuses to Stay Dead”

July 18, 2025•

Ted Rall

LIVE 1:00 pm Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

It’s time for “DeProgram,” where political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou tackle today’s most urgent stories.

Ted and John bring you up-to-date on the Jeffrey Epstein case Trump wishes would just go away, where the WSJ reveals a bromance between the president and the disgraced financier in a bound birthday book, and the White House orders the release of some court documents but not all.

Next, we dissect the Senate’s vote to cut $9 billion from NPR and PBS, threatening public media and perhaps even the lives in media deserts in places like Alaska and the Great Plains.

The focus then shifts to Iran’s nuclear program, bombed by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, with conflicting reports on damage—Trump claims “obliteration,” while intelligence suggests a mere months-long setback, raising the stakes for diplomacy, European sanctions or renewed war with Israel.

Finally, they address the NYPD’s use of FDNY’s Clearview AI access to bypass a facial recognition ban to illegally identify a pro-Palestinian Columbia protester, Zuhdi Ahmed, in a case dismissed due to this privacy violation, sparking outrage over free speech.

TMI Show Ep 183: “Trump Shoots Big Bird”

July 18, 2025•

Ted Rall

LIVE 10 AM Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

It’s Fri-yay on “The TMI Show” with Ted Rall and Manila Chan, your no-BS zone for the news you need to know to start your day! The Trump-besotted House approved the Trump administration’s request to slash $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including a devastating $1.1 billion cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This move wipes out all federal support for NPR, PBS, and over 1,500 local stations. NPR’s CEO calling it an “irreversible loss” that could gut programming, especially for smaller stations. How many Americans will die because they no longer get tornado or flood warnings?

Meanwhile, the Senate’s intense “vote-a-rama” saw only one amendment pass to protect PEPFAR, while the House squeaked by with a 216-213 vote, revealing deep GOP-Democrat divides. PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is a U.S. government initiative launched by Bush in 2003 to combat global HIV/AIDS through funding for prevention, treatment, and care, primarily in low-income countries.

Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, are slamming the rescission as a gut-punch to bipartisan funding processes, warning of chaos before the September 30 deadline. Also, $7 billion in foreign aid cuts spark heated debates. Is this a fiscal reset or a political power play?

Plus:

Trump is arresting and brutalizing U.S. citizens now. A U.S. veteran’s shocking ICE arrest raises civil rights alarms.
Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” is canceled. Was this Trump’s doing?
Another Queens subway joyride exposes MTA security gaps in NYC.

Retrain American Workers

July 17, 2025•

Ted Rall

More than anything else, American voters worry about the economy. Specifically, they struggle to pay their bills. Those with jobs are scared they will get fired through no fault of their own, perhaps because globalization ships all or part of their sector overseas or artificial intelligence replaces humans. The unemployed and underemployed are angry and terrified that they will never be able to re-enter the workforce.

Their fear is well-founded. The average American has three months of savings or less—a number that keeps falling. The average length of unemployment is more than five months—a number that keeps rising. The average worker will be “between jobs” about six times throughout their work life. It happens more to “unskilled” workers.

Workers live in a constant state of terror.

Trump won reelection in large part because he recognized these fears. He focused on inflation and high prices at a time of raging economic anxiety more than Harris, whose message centered on democracy. As president, however, Trump’s policies haven’t done anything to ease the financial concerns of the average American.

The president talks a lot about inflation and high prices. But his policies, which merely rehash failed Reagan-era supply-side economic theory, won’t help. Businesses love deregulation but high housing and medical expenses—the biggest-ticket bills for most consumers—depend on structural problems impervious to changing government rules, so prices are unaffected. Republicans claim that increasing domestic energy production reduces oil prices and thus transportation and production expenses, but “drill baby drill” doesn’t affect per-barrel rates set by a global energy market. Higher trade tariffs cannot have a deflationary effect soon, if ever. Trump argued that his DOGE spending cuts would reduce prices—economists were doubtful—but the point is moot. Those cuts turned into federal spending increases under his Big Beautiful Bill.

Nor is Trump creating new jobs. Under Trump, the U.S. is cutting about as many positions from agencies like US-AID and the EPA as it’s adding to defense and border control.

There is a better way.

The silent killer of the economy, and the primary driver of Americans’ anxiety, is the mismatch between the credentials and skills workers have and those that employers want in order to fill their job openings. Workers have the right degrees but their colleges didn’t prepare them for current reality. Or their skills have become outdated due to technological advancements. Or they have the skills but not the desired degree. Or they’re perfect but they live far away from where employers are located.

According to the Chamber of Commerce, employers are struggling with a labor shortage so acute that, even “if every unemployed person found a job, there would still be open jobs.” Corporations say they need H1B visa holders and other foreigners to fill the gap.

But how can that be? 1.6 million would-be workers are long-term unemployed, meaning they’ve been looking for work for at least 27 weeks. Several hundred thousand are STEM workers—the same field companies say they need to fill with foreign H1B visa holders. 5.5 million more Americans are “discouraged workers”—they want to work but have been rejected so often they’ve stopped looking. Whoever can move, retrain and re-educate those 7 million-plus people to new jobs will become an American hero.

To Trump’s credit, he recently signed an executive order on workforce modernization that targets the skills mismatch. It would reallocate $5.5 billion in existing federal programs to train a million apprentices a year for skilled trades and tech fields like AI. But implementation and funding, if they happen, are years in the future.

Who will step up? As a leftist, I look to government to take a more active role in managing the economy. Jobs should be America First. As long as a single American is under- or unemployed, no employer should be able to legally hire a foreigner. The Department of Labor should ban job listings that require credentials, like a college degree, that are not required to perform the required duties. Workers who move to another state to accept a job should be able to claim a federal tax credit subsidizing their relocation expenses.

Those who most need to rise to the occasion, however, are private employers who increasingly refuse to train their new hires.

“In 1979,” The Washington Post noted back in 2014, “young workers got an average of 2.5 weeks of training a year. While data is not easy to come by, around 1995, several surveys of employers found that the average amount of training workers received per year was just under 11 hours, and the most common topic was workplace safety — not building new skills. By 2011, an Accenture study showed that only about a fifth of employees reported getting on-the-job training from their employers over the past five years.” It’s worse now.

Job listings tell the story: the typical employer seeks an experienced worker who can hit the ground running, no training required. Left unanswered are the questions: If everyone wants someone else to train workers so they can poach them, what happens when there’s no more “someone else”? Why would anyone train a worker, knowing their increased skillset will make them more likely to be poached?

Between AI and other new technologies, we live in an age of perpetual disruption. Workers are human beings and human beings are not disposable. A skilled workforce increases productivity. Countries like Germany fund vocational training, contributing to low unemployment and a strong economy. So we ought to make retraining as easy as possible. Education at any level—certificate program, BA, MA, JD, MD—that is undertaken to pivot to a high-demand field like healthcare ought to be free or substantially subsidized by the government.

Government can help. Bosses aren’t training workers because it doesn’t pay to do so. Under the current tax code, a company can’t deduct its costs of training its worker for a new trade or business, or if the training is required to meet the minimum educational requirements for their current job. Training an accountant to become an office manager is not deductible. Nor is hiring someone smart and then paying them to go to law school.

Self-employed individuals can only deduct training costs if they update or improve skills for their existing profession. As a cartoonist, I can deduct a class about Adobe Photoshop. If I create a new business, however, I can’t. So I can’t deduct flight classes to become a pilot.

Congress should fix these perverse disincentives to reflect our new reality, which requires Americans to change jobs throughout their lives.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s WHAT’S LEFT.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)

TMI Show Ep 185: “Los Angeles Times, R.I.P.”

Transcript: DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: Donald Trump, Bully-in-Chief

Transcript: The TMI Show – “The Great Population Collapse”

DMZ America Podcast Ep 211 for Sunday, July 20, 2025: Transcript

TMI Show Ep 184: “Trump Joins the NeoCons”

DMZ America Podcast Ep 210: “‘Biden’ Was President. Who Was Running America?”

DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: Transcript for Friday, July 18, 2025

DeProgram: “Why Epstein Refuses to Stay Dead”

TMI Show Ep 183: “Trump Shoots Big Bird”

Retrain American Workers

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