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Hey there. It’s DeProgram. I’m Ted Rall. That’s John Kiriakou over there. Thanks as always for joining us here on DeProgram, where we try to deprogram you from all the corporate mainstream propaganda that’s in the media and everywhere else. It’s like the old Palmolive commercial: propaganda. You are soaking in it. Alright.

John: Yeah. It’s like a commercial. Yes. Yes. It’s like I’m old. I remember that stuff.

Ted: Alright, so today, we’re going to talk about the starvation crisis in Gaza, the prospect of even more sanctions against Russia—I guess they found some lying around between the sofa cushions that they hadn’t used yet—Trump’s visit to Scotland, rumors that Ghislaine Maxwell, whose name I still can’t pronounce, could be pardoned by Donald Trump, ICE raids here in New York City—things are going to get spicy here, I have a feeling, this week—and the ceasefire deal between Thailand and Cambodia seems to have been at least in part prompted by Trump’s tariff threats, which is one of the strangest combinations of stories I’ve ever heard. Yeah. John, shall we just get into the situation in Gaza?

John: Yes. Two Israeli human rights organizations today issued a joint statement saying that the Israeli government is committing genocide. They used the word “genocide” for the very first time. Wow. The New York Times dismisses this announcement by saying that these are liberal groups in Israel and are frequently in opposition to the Israeli government. But listen, genocide is genocide, and they compare what the Israelis are doing in Gaza to what the Germans did to them in the Second World War, minus the ovens. I think this is a very, very important development. In the meantime, the Israelis deny, deny, deny that there is any such thing as genocide. They say that they’re fighting a war with Hamas. Well, if you’re fighting a war with Hamas, why are so many children starving to death? And if you’re not committing genocide, then why would you make this grand announcement today that you’re allowing shipments of food? If there wasn’t a starvation policy, you would need to make an announcement that you’re sending in planeloads of food being dropped on pallets and parachutes. Not to mention, it’s a starvation policy that was announced immediately after October 7, 2023, and by the very same people who are still in the government.

Ted: That’s right. And who never retracted those statements or even apologized for them. So, John, one of my favorite comments that came out in the last day was from everyone’s favorite prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that, in response to the pressure, Gaza would receive minimal humanitarian aid. That’s more than yes. I mean, minimal. Yes. Because there was no food. None. The policy is to starve civilians. It is. It’s to kill people. It is. And so, I mean, aside from the question of how do you get up every morning and live with yourself, I mean, there’s the question of the messaging. Right? I mean, it’s kind of like that was greeted totally without commentary by outfits like the New York Times. Like, it’s blasé. Like, no big deal. I mean, as the occupying power, Israel has a responsibility to provide ample sustenance, food, water, power, and everything else for the people in the Gaza Strip. And they’re like, well, we’ll provide minimal. Like, that’s okay.

John: Even before hostilities, Ted, there were five hours a day of electricity and two hours a day of water. That’s all the Israelis allowed. And now, even Donald—so, you know, we of course, France has already decided to acknowledge Palestine as a state. I think that’s a big deal. That recognition is a huge deal. There’s pressure now on Keir Starmer, even in the UK. Now, I think I’ve always thought that the UK would be the second to last to go. The US would be last. So, I mean, the very fact that Starmer hasn’t rejected this idea out of hand, I think, is massive.

Ted: You know, John, those two Israeli groups declaring that this is genocide—that is a big deal. Of course, and of course, they’re liberal groups. It’s going to start with yes. Of course. Obviously. Yeah. What? You think Ben Gvir is going to call it genocide? That’s right. Maybe eventually we’ll get there. But right now, this is where it starts. I mean, it is a big deal. I mean, there’s definitely—you know, you can sense the shift in the—you just feel it. Right? I mean, the ground is falling out from under, you know, from support for the far-right regime of Netanyahu, specifically, and Israel in general.

John: You’re absolutely right. Keir Starmer already has a reputation for being weak and ineffective, not just as prime minister, but as a leader of his own Labour Party. So if we expected leadership from Keir Starmer, we’re likely to be disappointed. However, with that said, you make an important point and a correct point that I too would have believed that the Brits would be the next to the last country to turn away from the Israelis and in favor of the Palestinians. I’m going to change that now, and I’m going to say that the next to last country to turn away from Israel will be Germany. The Germans are irrational in their support of Israel, as irrational as American policy is, and they’re going to be with the Israelis until the bitter end.

Ted: And that’s because of their history. They feel like they’re the ultimate guilty liberals.

John: That’s right. That’s what it is. They’re the guilty liberals. Like, oh, look what we did. We have to make it right, so we’ll help the Israelis do it to the Palestinians, and that’ll put us right with the Israelis. It’s insane. Stupid policy.

Ted: Yeah. No. I mean, of course, obviously, look, I could understand the discomfort. But, I mean, it’s going to become—we can see already, like, Hakeem Jeffries and people like that. They’re having to backpedal. All these politicians, they were in a safe place. Right? And that was true in Germany too. It was always safe to support Israel. You and I both know, John, ten years ago, if you criticized Israel, you were in tremendous danger. You were jeopardizing your reputation, your job. You know, you’d be accused of being anti-Semitic. I know when I did anti-Israel cartoons thirty years ago, I got accused of being anti-Semitic. So nothing’s—you know? But now it’s safer. It’s safe.

John: Yeah. Right. Thanks to those photos that are coming out. Photos. It’s the photos that have done it. And you know what’s funny too? No one cares about starving and dying adults, by the way. No. It’s the children. It’s the children. And for the first day or two after those photos ran, there were a lot of complaints in the UK that the BBC had either doctored the photos or took the photos in other countries during famines and said they were Palestinians. Now, right. Not true. These are legit photos taken by BBC photographers of Palestinian children.

Ted: Yeah. They are. And there’s evidence too. But, you know, look. It’s look. In fairness, deep fakes are a real thing. We’ve seen tons of photos of, like, old disasters repurposed to present as something that’s contemporary outside of the Middle East crisis. So it’s not, like, impossible that such a thing would happen. Right. But the Israeli government, they have some balls. The official spokesperson today went on and said, this is fake news. These photos are faked. There is no famine in Gaza. This is the official policy, the official statement of the government. Scandalous. They’re kidding. Right? I mean, who did they—I mean, how much more full of shit could you be?

John: And, I mean, the denials only make their situation worse.

Ted: I mean, the Israelis are rightfully in a no-win situation, but the only thing they could really say is, you know, this whole Gaza humanitarian fund foundation thing didn’t work out. We’re going to let the UN back in and, you know, let the chips fall where they may. And then there was that article over the weekend in the Saturday New York Times media dump, where they revealed that actually, everything that Israel said about Hamas stealing aid was not true.

John: It’s not true. So yeah. They were just making shit up.

Ted: Yeah. But it and, you know, it just appears, like, so the Times dutifully released it on the Saturday. But when nobody’s been seeing it. Well, supposedly. Right? But that’s not really true anymore. I don’t think the New York Times understands that. I think, like, they think nobody read it. Actually, Saturday’s a major news day on the Internet now. Good. You know, they’re all old down there on Eighth Avenue and 40th Street. They’re very, very old. Not the people who work for them, but the editors who make the call. They don’t get it, and it’s kind of great.

You’re fine. Donald Trump today said that there should be more aid going into Gaza. He was asked if the photos were faked. He said they looked real to him.

John: Good. That’s actually a major announcement from Donald Trump for him to say something like that. But then, you know, we look back to just what was it, Ted? A week, maybe a week and a half ago when Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, and half the Senate showed up to take a selfie with him with Cory Booker, who I briefly flirted with the idea of supporting in a presidential run. That’s gone from my head. But him, like, lamely trying to hide his face, like he was having second thoughts just as they were taking the picture, it enrages me. I can’t believe that this guy is not treated like a war criminal. Well, yes. I can believe it. It’s the United States. And then we impose sanctions on the UN special rapporteur for torture. It’s just—I just can’t believe it.

Ted: Well, I mean, if there’s hope, is that really—I mean, things really are changing. Yes. I mean, fast by the day. I mean, if I’m the Israelis, I’m nervous as hell right now.

John: Absolutely. Because there’s no endgame for them. They know what they want to do. They want to kill every Palestinian. The ones they can’t kill, throw out. But that’s not a viable policy. It’s a crime against humanity. You can’t do that.

Ted: There’s a really great, well-written piece in Times of Israel, which is, of course, as you’d expect, a pro-government and very Zionist publication. But, basically, it’s saying that it’s claiming that Israel has never had an articulated policy throughout the conflict in terms of war aims. And that’s true. However, we know that there are war aims. Sure. I mean, the Israeli generals, they’re not bad generals or tacticians. Right?

John: Yes, sir. They know what they’re doing. And there was a minor Zionist party that is part of the Netanyahu coalition. The head of this party, whom I had never heard of before, said yesterday, look. The policy should be to either kill or expel every Palestinian, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say it. It’s like, well, you’re the only one who’s not afraid to say it. It is a war crime and a crime against humanity and the legal definition of genocide, but don’t let me stop you from saying it. It’s a violation of international law for an official of a government to even articulate such a statement.

Ted: That’s right. He could be prosecuted for that in the future.

John: Yes. He could. Of course, we would put sanctions on the court that prosecuted him. So, right. Yeah. Of course. Because it’s the judges you have to blame. Y

Ted: Yeah. So how much—so, I mean, okay. This is the tough question. I don’t think it’s probably unanswerable. Maybe we should both try to answer it or just punt. What happens next here? I mean, are we going to—how much longer is this going to go? I mean, my feeling is Israel’s got, literally, the amount of time that they have before they cave in and let the UN back in is measurable in days.

John: Seriously. I have to agree with you. There’s pretty much nothing left to destroy. All there is left to do is kill as many people as you can kill. As we said, that’s not a viable policy. And the only way that the Israelis can get out of this is to turn back to the United Nations. Declare victory, declare Hamas destroyed, and turn it over to the UN. And then you can engage the Saudis and ask them to join the Abraham Accords, and you can negotiate some deal later.

Ted: But if the Israelis knew what was good for them, they would declare victory and go home. They could offer Hamas’s leadership exile. Right?

John: They could—that’s a good idea. We will let you leave.

Ted: Yes. And you can go to a third country. I don’t know. To be determined. But we promise we will not send the Mossad after you to assassinate you later on.

John: Right. Nick has a good question there, Ted. What about the American leaders of both parties who are complicit in this genocide?

Ted: That’s—you know, seriously, that is a great question. It seems to me like, if you are the country that is the number one supporter—I mean, look. I guess it’s a question. What is the role of the United States in this World War II analogy? Right? If Germany is Israel, then the United States is a close ally, like it’s an Axis member, like fascist Italy or imperial Japan or perhaps Hungary or Romania—any of those, like fascist Axis or the collaborationist Vichy regime in France. That’s right. They were all prosecutable. They were all legally vulnerable. We focused on Germany at the end of the war—mm-hmm—for obvious reasons. But, hey. You know, the leader of Vichy France was condemned to death, and then his sentence was commuted to life in prison because he was 5,000,000 years old. He was, like, 86.

So, you know, but I think—yeah. No. I think, honestly, the political leaders of the United States—certainly the president, certainly the leaders of Congress—they should be held to account legally for their role in this. I mean, they sent the weapons. They sent the money. They provided logistical support. They provided intel. I mean—yeah. It’s people keep—you know, like, John, one of the rules that, like, the Zionists who try to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism say is if it’s antisemitism, if you hold Israel to a different standard than you hold other countries. Okay. But the difference is okay. When Myanmar commits atrocities against the Rohingya people, we’re not paying for them or sending weapons. It’s horrible, and it should be condemned and stopped. But it’s not really our thing. It’s not our responsibility. Right. It’s everybody’s business, but it’s not a special—Israel is the number one recipient of foreign aid. We run interference for them in the UN Security Council. We provide them with crazy amounts of intel and weapons—$4,000,000,000 a year, ever since Camp David. And by the way, is it—I mean, if Jimmy Carter were here, I think he would say, like, the reason that we’re bribing the Israelis and the Egyptians with $4,000,000,000 a year is to say, cut the shit and live in peace. Well, the Israelis broke their part of the bargain. The Egyptians didn’t. That’s right. The Jordanians didn’t. No. Everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to do, but the Israelis just do whatever the hell they feel like. I mean, really, it’s part of their national personality, if you believe it’s the thing.

John: It is. It is. That’s absolutely true. And you absorb that as you walk around Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or anywhere else in Israel. You just can feel the vibe that people emit as you’re over there walking around. Every Israeli that I ever knew—that’s not true. Almost every Israeli that I ever knew wanted to utterly destroy the Palestinians, kill them all, or exile them all, and let the Israelis live happily ever after. Almost every Israeli I know. Even my American friends who are Jewish and who consider themselves to be Zionist—there’s one guy who I’ve been close to for twenty years, and I’m just about ready to unfriend him on Facebook because I just can’t take his Zionist propaganda anymore. And then he starts off every post by saying, if there’s any antisemitism, you are permanently blocked. Well, any criticism of Netanyahu to him is antisemitism. Ridiculous. And I mean about time. I mean, I try not to do that because I like to keep lines of communication open, but sometimes there’s really no choice because it makes you literally insane.

Ted: Yeah. So, I mean, we’re—it’s just, you know, I look. I have to agree with you about the Israelis that I’ve met too. I knew one or two who were very compassionate to the plight of the Palestinians, viewed them as human beings, believed that we needed to—that the Israelis needed to live side by side in peace and friendship and harmony with them. But very—that’s really exceptional. Right? That most of them really view them as rats and vermin to be exterminated—just like it is, like that old joke, like, you know, what is Iraq doing on top of our oil? It’s like—what are these fucking Palestinians doing, you know, like infesting our land? Like, why are they here? Our holy land.

John: Yeah. Yeah. You know, honestly, the only people who are really the only Jews who I know who are really great on this in the United States are people associated with Jewish Voices for Peace or Code Pink or any of the other myriad groups—and those are big groups. Yeah. And they’re big groups, and they’re increasingly vocal. And I think it’s absolutely wonderful. Nico Pelleg is doing yeoman’s work as the head of Palestine House here in Washington, DC. It just opened a couple of weeks ago, and it’s small. But my goodness, it’s a start.

Ted: What is Palestine House? I

John: t is a meeting space slash gallery for pro-Palestinian human rights groups, Palestinian artists, Palestinian musicians. They have programming there several nights a week. It’s up on Capitol Hill. And one of the city’s big property developers who happens to be Lebanese-American donated the building. And they have a small endowment, so they’re able to make a go of it. And yellow banana—even Tucker Carlson sounds sane to me now. Oh my god. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that conversation with friends just in the last two weeks.

Ted: Well, Tucker has changed too. He’s changed. He’ll be the first to say so.

John: Yes. Oh, thank you, Dana. Tucker, once he was free of the bonds of Fox News, was able to be himself, his libertarian self. And while he’s still completely wrong, for example, on the issue of abortion, I love the guy. I consider him to be a friend, a loyal friend, and he’s 100% right on Palestine. And we should join forces. You know, I take a lot of heat about this too, and I know you do as well, Ted. But parties be damned in our country. We should join forces with everyone who agrees with us. We can get so much more done than if we impose these ideological purity tests that do nothing but divide us. I feel really strongly about that.

Ted: I totally agree. You know, I think about the—I know a lot about the French Resistance. You know, during the time when the Nazis invaded France, monarchists fought alongside communists and socialists. It was like the idea was like, we have an infestation here of Nazis. We can’t be worrying about each other. We will—yeah. My favorite example of this was, what was his name? The leader Shah Massoud, the leader of the human civilization alliance. Yeah. Ahmed Shah Massoud. Did you ever meet him, by the way?

John: Once. Right before he was assassinated. Yeah.

Ted: That was on 9/10—right when that happened.

John: Sure was.

Ted: So, Ahmed Shah Massoud was the legendary general from the Panjshir Valley, Tajik, from the Northern Alliance. And he unified the anti-Taliban, the anti-Soviet resistance. Right? And he famously convened all these tribes and factions who all hated each other. And they all got together, and he held up a cup of tea, toasted everyone, and said, first, we kill the Russians, then we kill each other. And remembering that order is very, very important. Right now, we have a major problem. I mean, on a foreign policy front, we’re knee-deep in militarism, adventurism, and Zionism, and complicity with genocide. We’ve got whoever—everyone is against that, left, right, whatever—we’ve got to get together. Here in the United States, we have rampant billionaires and corporations underpaying everyone, screwing us all, taking away our healthcare, left, right, middle. Everybody’s got to fight for ordinary people. Mmm. I mean, we’ve got to get together. I mean, there is a place to unify between the left and the populist left and the populist right, for sure. I mean, the populist right has been betrayed by Trump, and they know it.

John: Yeah. That’s absolutely true. Reid makes a couple of good points here too. Tucker is not going to cross the Rubicon because his kid actually does work for things. That is true. And it’s not just Palestine that he’s right on. He’s also talking about Zionist manipulation in the United States. He and I had a long conversation about that, actually, about Israeli intelligence operations in the United States and how the Israelis, for decades now, have been spread out all over the country trying to infiltrate our defense contractors and steal our defense secrets because we only give them 95% of what we have. They want the other 5%—that’s the Israeli way.

Ted: Yeah. It’s the Israeli way. Yasutake is joining us. Alright. Got it. Alright. Are we deprogrammed on Gaza right now?

John: Yeah. I’m all fired up about Gaza. There will be.

Ted: Oh, me too. And by the way, seriously, for people who are coming to this point of view belatedly, welcome. Welcome. And thank you. And better late than never, and we’re not going to give you shit.

John: You know, but seriously, welcome aboard. We have to put an end to this shit.

Ted: And if it’s—you know, look. We all have been propagandized, so it’s not shocking that it takes some people longer to be depropagandized than others. Alright. So Russia. Donald Trump had set a fifty-day deadline, which some people had interpreted as basically like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge to President Putin. Like, you guys can do some mopping-up operations there in preparation for a ceasefire negotiation. But I’m really looking for you after fifty days to sit down with the Ukrainians and sit down and work out some things. With the operative phrase being after fifty days. After fifty days. Well, this is kind of like one of those things—like, I had a credit card where they used to say you had twenty-eight days to pay. And then, like, one day I get a late notice after I paid ten days afterwards, and it was like, but I thought—oh, yeah. We changed that. You didn’t read that 5,000-word thing that we sent you. Yeah. So that’s kind of like what happened to Russia. I mean, Putin just got his notice, like, oh, no. Fifty days has been revoked. Now is now. I am impatient. Now. It might be ten to twelve days, maybe. Maybe. So okay. So then Trump’s saying if the Russians don’t hop to it and make peace with Ukraine, and the Ukrainians do appear more willing to talk and get serious than ever before, but who knows with them? Okay. So what exactly is the threat here to Russia? I don’t really get it because they’ve already slammed them with sanctions. They got you and me fired. Yeah. I mean, it’s like, what more do they—I mean, what more could Trump do? I know we still buy stuff, particularly energy from Russia. But, you know, the Russians can—they have other markets. It’s oil. You know, it’s like I used to work in banking, and we used to say, you know, we have the one product everyone wants, money. And it’s like, well, when you sell oil, you have another product everyone wants. I mean, if you’re Putin, are you losing any sleep?

John: No. Because the Indians and the Chinese have said, whatever oil you have, we’ll buy it. Right. And after that initial shock, you remember right after the Ukraine invasion, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said that the Russians were surprised at the quickness with which the US was able to impose sanctions, and we kind of knocked them off kilter for three or four weeks. And then they realized they don’t really need the United States, including the American banking system. When they can turn to the Indians and the Chinese and everybody else in the world that doesn’t want to fall into line behind US sanctions, they realized they’re actually not having too tough of a problem with it. Well, not to mention, it terrorized the rest of the world. Right?

Ted: Like, it did. You know, President Xi and Prime Minister Modi of India, they looked at that move and they said, the fuck—the Americans are feckless and reckless. Right? They will kick anyone out of the monetary system. You know, Bretton Woods be damned. They don’t care. They’re going to politicize the US dollar and the reserve currency. We better get our own deal going.

John: That’s right. And just wait until the BRICS countries make their own unified currency. It’s going to be a major change in global—it’s an atomic bomb.

Ted: That’s right. I mean, it could really tilt the US into a depression within days.

John: That’s right. It really could. So the Ukrainians finally saw the writing on the wall with Donald Trump, and the Russians saw an opportunity that hadn’t been there before. And so they’re not afraid of sanctions. We can sanction them from now until kingdom come. They don’t care about the sanctions because they don’t need us. Right. It’s really as simple as that. So, I mean, obviously, that said.

Ted: Yeah. In a way, Trump is pushing on an open door. Right? I mean, Russia doesn’t want this to go on forever. They’re not stupid. It costs money and time, and they’re not really getting anywhere. I mean, the lines aren’t moving very fast. I mean, pretty much this is—you know, it is what it is. You look at a map of where the front lines are. This is where it is. And you might have some land swaps to make things a little more even so we don’t end up with a Thai-Cambodian situation. But it is what it is. And I know Putin gets that. I mean, so yeah. Like, so I guess the question is, is peace, is a ceasefire, is a deal possible this year?

John: Yeah. Sure. Sure. But there has to be something really special in it for the Russians because they’re just not feeling under any pressure.

Ted: Mmm. Yeah. They’re just not—I mean, certainly an end to all the sanctions would be a start. Right? But then I think reintegration—I, you know, honestly, I bet G8 membership would be just the tasty treat that Putin would like.

John: I would agree with that. I would agree. Remember the G—and Donald Trump has said it should be the G7. Do you remember the G7 plus one? That’s just—your that was offensive. That was offensive.

Ted: And it wasn’t—it was like Gilligan’s Island and Russia and the rest and the rest. Yeah. And all the rest here on Gilligan’s Isle. Yeah. Yeah. They—you know, they by the way, I don’t know if you know that. Right? The rest were the professor and Mary Ann. And then they changed it in season two. And they—yeah. They negotiated a deal. And Mary Ann’s the only one who ever made any money from that show. Her agent negotiated, like, some insane deal for residuals and syndication. Back then, they were like, syndication? What’s that? And she lived in total luxury the rest of her life. Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah. She did. A year ago. Russia, though. I mean, so do you think—so be that might be enough, right, to bring to get it done with Russia. But then are the—you know, can Trump lean on the Ukrainians and force them to sign a deal? I mean, he can, but he’s getting pressure from the militarist forces and the supporters of Ukraine politically breathing. You know, he’s got Lindsey Graham and people like that breathing down his neck.

John: Yeah. So which way how does Trump fall on this? He has to do—I want my Nobel Peace Prize? Right. Or do I want to suck up to Lindsey Graham? Like, what is it? I think he wants the Nobel Peace Prize, which is why he called the Cambodians of the Thais over the weekend and told them to cut it out. And now they announced the ceasefire.

Ted: Yeah. Let’s just stop—let’s just skip to that. Let’s talk to that. Let’s talk about that because I thought it was an interesting story. Right? So back in 1907, the French—they were the colonial power. Thailand was independent. Right? But Cambodia was a French colony. And they signed a border deal. They declared they find the border mostly along a river, but with an exception. And the way that the treaty looked—the text of the treaty basically put these temples inside Thailand. And then, but the map that accompanied it put the temples inside Cambodia. So Cambodians are like, we’re going with the picture, and the Thais are like, we’re going with the words. I love this soul thing. And so they’ve been at it for years over this. Although, most of the time, no one cares. Basically, for five days, there’s been fighting across the border with heavy artillery. So—and some F-16 action. The Thais, as we talked about last week, obviously, have the military advantage overwhelmingly. And, basically, over the weekend, Trump said, we have an August 1 deadline for all of the tariffs with every country on Earth. And if you two rascals don’t cut the shit, you guys will get hit by massive sanctions—I mean, by massive tariffs and break it to none now. So Thailand, I got it. They have a lot of trade with the US. Yes. Cambodians don’t have shit.

John: No. They sell us empty tickets.

Ted: Yeah. So I think with the Cambodians, they just want it to be over because they’re getting their asses kicked. Right?

John: Agreed. Okay. Yes. That was my take.

Ted: So the Thais wanted to be—the Thais were motivated by—but whoever heard of ending a war with a threat of tariffs? I mean, it’s kind of brilliant.

John: It is brilliant, actually. And it has worked. I mean, listen. This whole tariff thing, you and I both said was nuts when it was first announced. It was going to crash the international economy. And son of a gun, if it’s not working out, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Jay. We’ve been talking about other things. But anyway, tying this crash lobby in the past. I’m sure it’ll come up again. Time this back to Ukraine and Russia. Somebody pointed out that the Pentagon has this plan going into 2026. Of course, it does. That’s what the Pentagon does. It does near-, medium-, and long-term planning.

Ted: Yeah. They have plans to invade Liechtenstein.

John: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They’re called off-the-shelf plans. They come up with a plan to invade XYZ country, and they just put it on the shelf. And someday, if you need to invade that country, you pull it off the shelf and you do the invasion. Of emergency, please brief us. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. So, I think that the Ukrainians are exhausted. I think that they don’t fully trust Donald Trump to keep funding them and sending weapons, and they also realize they’re going to have to concede some territory at least to the Russians. But the Russians—I don’t understand what the motivation is to keep fighting unless the Russians are serious about overthrowing Zelensky, taking, you know, Odessa someday. Who knows?

Ted: I don’t know. Just if they offer—it’s not acting rationally. Because, I mean, Russia has been kind of fighting with one hand tied behind their back. Yeah. I mean, they have not committed the full weight of the Russian military to this project. They’ve treated the Russia-Ukraine war as kind of like an important project, but one of many, not like an existential fight for the Russian Federation. This is not total war for them. It’s like something they’re just doing on the side kind of, and that’s why they’re not—I mean, if they threw everything they had at the Ukrainians, they would overthrow Zelensky and overrun the entire country.

John: Absolutely. It would be—so what’s going on? I don’t know. I’m wondering if they’re trying to put so much pressure on Zelensky that the Ukrainians rise up and push Zelensky out. Let Zelensky take his money and run to London, and then they might be willing to sit down and negotiate a settlement with whomever steps in and fills the void. I don’t know. I don’t know. Otherwise, the Russian position over the last several weeks does not make sense to me.

Ted: Yeah. This is the old Cold War thing about a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

John: That’s right. Yeah. A riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Russians are hard to figure out sometimes.

Ted: And sometimes they are also the most straightforward people in the world.

John: Yeah. Sometimes they are. No. Yellow banana, that’s one of the issues. The Ukrainian constitution election. Yeah. The Ukrainian constitution says that in a time of war, elections can be postponed indefinitely. If Zelensky declared martial law, and then he said, well, under martial law, you can’t have an election. So I would love to have an election, but because of the thing that I declared, we can’t have one. Yeah. Do it. And there’s no—and there’s no, by the way.

Ted: The US had elections during the Civil War. Just saying.

John: Yes. Yes. We did. Yeah. Yeah. I think, Pamela, I think that’s right. The Duran—you know, those guys in the Duran—they know more about Russia and more about the Russia-Ukraine war than I think anybody else on the planet practically. They’re saying that the Russians want to demilitarize Ukraine, and they use that term to denazify the Ukrainian military. I think it’s the same thing. And, I think—so we’re—so we’re moving, like the far-right—yeah.

Ted: Opponents, like the Azov-type people.

John: Correct. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, it just seems like—that’s—does Russia really want to micromanage another country’s military like that? God forbid. I can’t imagine. Have anything better to do? Unless they push the Costa Rican model where, you know, Costa Rica just doesn’t have a military. It just doesn’t exist. They have a national police force, but there is no military. There’s no navy. They have a little coast guard with one boat in the Atlantic and one boat in the Pacific. But that’s it.

Ted: Well, but the West would never tolerate that because Ukraine’s a major weapons purchaser.

John: It is. And a major weapons manufacturer.

Ted: What—what weapons do they make? Oh, they are prolific with the nine-millimeter and the Kalashnikov; they have factories just pumping them out. Yeah.

Ted: So this is a Soviet legacy?

John: Yes. Yes. Just like it is with the Romanians. Yeah. The Romanians make billions and billions of nine-millimeter ammunition every year. That’s super interesting. So Cambodia and Thailand—it—I would say, like, okay.

Ted: Yes. It’s fragile. It just—the ceasefire just went into effect. Like all ceasefires, this is one of those—we’ll stop fighting now; details to be worked out later in terms of this 1907 border conflict. But my feeling is that this is over for now. What do you think?

John: Yeah. I think so too. Yep. And there’s no—there’s no upside to it. Well, you could pick up some temples. I guess you get the temples. Yeah. You get the temples. Who doesn’t want their own Buddhist temple? I’d take a Buddhist temple. They look cool. Yeah. Speaking speaking of Buddhist temples, do you remember the giant Buddhas in central Afghanistan? Yeah. In Bamiyan. The in Bamiyan that the Taliban blew up, like 1,500-year-old Buddhas? The Greek government, in the depths of its economic depression, tried to buy those Buddhas just to save them. Oh, wow. And with the intention of then donating them back to a post-Taliban Afghan government. Yeah. Then Mullah Omar was like, fuck you guys.

Ted: Well, I remember—like—yeah. At the time, I mean, I think it’s important to remember that not to at all—you know, I can’t sign off on what they did. But the rhetoric was really interesting because it was 2000, and Mullah Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban at the time, said, look. You guys don’t care about our children who are starving to death due to sanctions. So why on earth should you care about this big sandstone thing? We’re blowing it the fuck up. And I remember thinking like, man, that’s brutal. ISIS had the same mentality in Syria and Palmyra and all that. But I could see it. You know? Like, you Westerners, you care about this 1,500-year-old thing, but you don’t care about people right here and now.

John: Yeah. Isn’t that the truth? First, I want to thank USC. And to answer his question, you know, my first couple trips with the CIA, I went to little, teeny, tiny, piddling countries that nobody would even pay any attention to. And we would have these massive, gigantic American embassies that would take up, like, an entire city block. And I remember asking—I forgot what country I was in. It was, like, Ethiopia maybe. And I was like, why do we have an embassy that’s this gigantic in Ethiopia when we don’t have any national interest here? And the station chief told me, because we have to make sure it’s bigger than the Russian embassy. I mean, that’s what it came down to. So it is the size of our national penis. That’s exactly what it is. You go to any African country, and our embassies are absolutely gigantic. And it’s because the Soviets had big embassies, so ours had to be bigger. It’s not the size of your consular representation—that’s how you use it. That’s great. So Reid’s points out that a lot of independent journalists and YouTubers are visiting Afghanistan lately. I’ve been watching them.

Ted: I’m jealous. You know? I love Afghanistan. I think it’s honestly—couldn’t possibly right now—is the safest it’s ever been in our lifetime. I

John: I’m absolutely sure that’s true.

Ted: Yeah. I think you could even travel on the Central Highway. The highway is a misnomer. But I bet you could do that and be okay.

John: Oh, the US embassy in Cairo. Oh my god. There’s a lot I probably shouldn’t say about the US embassy in Cairo other than, yes, it’s an enormous facility, and the Russian embassy is equally enormous. It’s ridiculous. Rita has this question. Why is it forbidden to take a photo outside the embassy overseas? Not everywhere. Well, I mean, it’s not laws that you can’t take photos. Their policy—the State Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security doesn’t allow photos because they can be used to case the embassy. So they have people on the roof, and they have people looking at the closed-circuit TVs, and they’ll run out and grab your camera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ted: Yes. Well, certainly, I’ve been to a lot of former Soviet Republics; you can’t take any pictures or in any authoritarian state; you can’t take any pictures of any public buildings at all. In Turkmenistan, I got into trouble taking a picture of a post office.

John: Well, I got in trouble in Saudi Arabia one time taking a picture of a sunset that just happened to have the Ministry of Interior off in the distance to the left. Did they try to take your camera? They did. Yeah. And I stood my ground, and it was a standoff for a half hour, but they finally backed down when I pulled out the black passport. I bet they did. Yeah. I bet they did. And I genuinely was not—I don’t care what the Interior Ministry looks like. I was genuinely taking a picture of a desert sunset. Yeah. No. I believe you.

Ted: Alright. So let’s talk—should we talk about Trump? He’s in Scotland. His mom is born and raised in Scotland.

John: Yeah. But how incredibly rude is it and what a gigantic violation of protocol that he goes to Scotland and then summons Keir Starmer to fly to Scotland to greet him. It’s like, come here, dog. The ball—and Starmer did. He got on a plane and he went. I was crazy. Yeah. Well—yeah. Shocked by it. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s interesting. Why do you think there are so many people in Scotland who are protesting him over Epstein? I mean, he’s got all—people are lined up along the side of the road everywhere Trump goes saying that, you know, calling him a pedophile and saying that he’s—why do they care about the Epstein files? I don’t think they do. I think this is just an easy swipe that they can take at him. They protest him every time he goes to his golf club in Scotland. And I think this Epstein thing has made it so easy to criticize him. I mean, here we are weeks into it, and there is still zero White House strategy with over how to deal with this. And then today, when he—well, they played for time by shutting down Congress early. That’s exactly what it was. They played for time by shutting down Congress until September. But also—not going to work. No. It’s not going to work. And—and then—it’s just like the countdown at the front at the beginning of our show. We’re just watching that countdown. They’re just waiting. Yeah. It’s like waiting for this stupid statement that, you know, are you going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell? And he says, well, I have the power to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. It’s like, oh my god. Like, have you learned nothing over the last two weeks? That’s exactly what you shouldn’t say in response to a question.

Ted: Why not?

John: Because Ghislaine Maxwell is a convicted pedophile serving twenty years in prison. His base is more anti-pedophile than any other presidency in American history. And what does he gain by pardoning a convicted pedophile?

Ted: I think I know the answer to that question. Which is that he—it’ll look like he’s being transparent. I’m pardoning her. Well, one of two things. Right? I think he’s trying to figure out what to do. Right? But if he pardons her, maybe he pardons her in exchange for a gag order. Like, she agrees to shut the fuck up. Otherwise, she’s going to have a drone up her ass one day. Or—and it also—it fits in with his narrative. Right? There’s nothing to see here. There’s nothing in the files. There was no—there was nothing in there. Therefore, she never should’ve—people have asked—she’s never been—should then she should—she’s never have been convicted. Right? And it’s like, yes. She never should have been convicted. So it plays into that narrative. Right? It’s like—yeah. It keeps your story straight as well; I mean, it’s a crooked story, but as straight as you can possibly keep it. I think that’s what he’s thinking.

John: That could be it. I would say his thinking is incorrect, but that could very well be it. Yeah. Bothers me very much.

Ted: Well, I mean—and then the other—the other approach could be to say, hey, I’ll let her go, and that’s part of my transparency operation. Maybe she doesn’t have much to say, at least not about me or anyone I care about much. And that will show that I didn’t—that we didn’t have—we, the establishment, have—didn’t have Jeffrey killed and Maxwell buried in prison. Like, we’re letting her run around. She can go be on The View, whatever she wants to do. And I’m going to show, like, I didn’t do anything wrong. I have nothing to fear. Yes. I think that’s—he’s toying with those two possibilities. That’s a good thought. And he likes to—and another thing is he likes to blab because it’s—I think it’s part of his test marketing. He likes to dip his toe in the water. He raises the flag to see if anyone salutes. Right? This is like, let’s see how people react. If people freak out and say, like, what the fuck are you talking about? You can’t pardon her. Then it’s like, you know? I never said that. I would have never done that. Which is a very common thing that the White House does. I mean, every president does this. You release this rumor just to see what the response is going to be to the rumor.

John: So it—that could be it? That could be it? Let’s—I want to answer Golar’s question. That’s a good question right there. If they—if they release the only person charged—well, someone else was charged too, but he died. Then where’s the justice for the victims? Well, that’s the whole point is, then there’s no vic—there are—there were no victims really, and the only person who is responsible has died. And because there were no victims, then we release the only person charged. I mean, I don’t believe in any of this. But—and Trump mentioned Larry Summers today? I missed that. That’s Larry Summers, former president of Harvard, who thinks that women don’t know math. Yeah. And former Secretary of the Treasury and current douchebag on top of it. Negative. Negative douche. Everybody who’s ever met Larry Summers says he’s one of the most awful human beings they’ve ever encountered. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard similar things. Well, I—I heard the other day that John Kerry was somehow involved as well, which doesn’t surprise me one iota.

Ted: Really?

John: No. No. There’s—yeah. Listen. I worked for Kerry for two and a half years closely—closely with Kerry. Kerry’s a scumbag, and he’s a fake progressive. There’s nothing—literally nothing progressive about him at all. And then he’ll do just stupid shit after stupid shit. Like, for example, I’ve been working for him for a year, and he bought a yacht. And it wasn’t just a yacht. It was like an ocean-going ship. Right? And the sales tax on it—or not the sales tax, but the mooring tax on it—was $6,000,000 in Massachusetts. So he registered it in Rhode Island, which doesn’t have a mooring tax. And what he did—he has a big house on Beacon Hill in Boston. He’s got a giant ski lodge in Idaho. He’s got 120 acres in Western Pennsylvania. He’s got houses all over—a house in Georgetown. So he bought a—he bought a wife. Well, no. He’s got as much money as she does.

Ted: Oh, is that true? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He’s—he was little Heinz is from the Heinz ketchup. Yeah. John Heinz’s wife. She’s lovely, by the way.

John: Yeah. So Kerry bought this little tiny condo in Rhode Island so he can have a Rhode Island address and save $6,000,000 by docking his ocean-going ship there. And then there was this uprising, and even staff members—we went to the chief of staff, really good guy who’s actually a member of the Kennedy family. And we said, David, this is a really bad look. You know, we’re supposed to represent him. And we’re out there, and people are bashing us over this over this failure to pay the mooring tax. And eventually, Kerry moved the ship back to Massachusetts and paid the 6,000,000. So disappointing. Do you want to answer Reid’s question? I missed Reid’s question. You got it there? Oh, oh, oh, oh, what mister Kiriakou, why don’t you—thank you. Oh, that—that actually is cool. So so Reid, a couple of nights a week—or so before I left for prison, I was at my wit’s end trying to save myself. So I wrote him an email to his private personal email address, and I said—well, by then, he was Secretary of State. So I said, Mister Secretary, I’m begging you to help me. Please ask the president if he’ll commute my sentence. The conviction would still stand, but I could work and earn money for my family and keep my family together and put food on the table. And he waited two or three days, and then he wrote back. And all the email said was, please do not ever attempt to contact me again. And that was the last time I heard from him.

Ted: That is cold. Yeah. I’m sorry, John. That’s brutal.

John: It was awful. It really was. And no—no explanation. No reason. That was it. Please do not ever attempt to contact me again. Wow. Mmm. Is Mike Baker a real ex-CIA agent? You have a minute? So I replaced—we’ve got time. I replaced Mike in Athens. And Mike’s a good guy. He was a legit counterterrorism case officer, operations officer. And he did something that was really, really—like, really stupid. He and another colleague of ours were doing surveillance on a terrorism suspect. And you know, the best security in the world is probably old Greek ladies peering through their drapes from their houses. And this old Greek lady kept seeing these two men sitting in a van day after day after day, so she calls the cops. And the cops come and surround the van. Right? Mike and his pal can’t get out. Oops. They finally open the door. The cops pull Mike and the other guy out. And inside the van, they have like three different changes of disguise each. They have like six different ID cards, all from different countries and in different names. And so they use their get-out-of-jail-free card and said, call my boss in this certain section of the embassy. They were expelled from Greece. And then Mike—when Mike went back to headquarters, he was called into the Director of Counterterrorism Center’s office, and Mike was kinda bragging to people that he was gonna get an operation for standing up to the Greeks like that. And instead, they told him, we want your resignation by the end of the day, and that was the end of Mike. Yeah. I ended up working with his wife for several years afterwards, but yeah, Mike was the real deal. He just made a really stupid mistake, and he paid for it with his career. The thing about Mike too—you know, Mike was a good-looking guy. I guess he’s still a good-looking guy. No. This is well before COVID.

He was a good-looking guy, so he went into male modeling. And he made a couple hundred—couple thousand bucks, you know, modeling, whatever. And then he tried to get his own show at Fox News, and it just didn’t work. He ended up pairing up with a KGB officer and opening a security consulting firm in London. I remember they did security for Madonna’s wedding to Guy Ritchie. But Mike never really made money like he thought he was going to, and he never went back to the agency. Got you.

Ted: John, let’s talk about ICE. It’s in four minutes; it’ll be 6:00 Eastern time here in New York City. A major protest is scheduled at that time in City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. ICE is bringing the big show from LA to New York. They’re going to be flooding the zone according to the Department of Homeland Security. They’re bringing in their military hardware. They’re going to be grabbing and snatching as many brown-skinned people as they possibly can.

John: The Washington Post told people, stay out, stay out of the area. It’s going to be hell. Yep. And yeah. And I have several friends who are like, oh, should I tell my friends not to go outside?

Ted: I’m like, yeah. Tell them to take the couple—take the week off from work. You know? So it’s going to be ugly. It’s—you know, most of this activity is going to be happening out in the outer boroughs and Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, where they have a much bigger minority population. You know, I’m reminded of that quote from Casablanca where Humphrey Bogart advises the Nazi major—you know, not that probably it wouldn’t be good to invade certain neighborhoods in New York. ICE is getting ready to invade certain neighborhoods in New York. I have a feeling they’re going to find it about as spicy as they found it out in LA. The locals don’t like it. We don’t like it here. And it—I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were clashes this week. The New York Times said this afternoon too that the level of raids that are expected in New York will dwarf the raids that we saw in Los Angeles.

John: Wow. This is—this is big. It’s just going to be very big, and we should probably expect to see some violence. I would think so.

Ted: And you know, I should remind people that here in New York City, you know, due to the Supreme Court ruling, this used to be a city where it was illegal to own a handgun unless you were a celebrity. That’s not true anymore. You can legally go out to Tennessee, buy a gun, bring it back. Hell, go to Long Island and buy a gun. And then—people just cross the border into Vermont and buy a gun. It’s really easy. I’m not encouraging it, but I mean, I do think it’s likelier than not. I mean—I should point out it’s also been a long, hot summer. We’re now in the fifth consecutive week of over 90 temperatures. It’s been a nonstop heat wave with no end in sight. We have heat index values of over 100 degrees every single day. My—I’ve got my AC going twenty-four seven. Someone asked if I had AC going for my cat. Yeah. But mainly for me, you know, it’s—it—but it’s like—yeah. My cat’s a Russian Blue, so he doesn’t really like the hot weather. But it’s definitely—it’s horrible. So—and I think there’s also going to be a lot of resistance. There’s organized resistance here. Yeah. You know, advocates for—for—for—and I think a lot of non-immigrants, non-migrants will help their migrant fellow New Yorkers. I mean, I would. It’s against the law, but I would. I would. Yeah. There’s no choice. You morally, I feel like I have to. John, did you hear about the case about this 82-year-old IRA veteran?

John: Yes. Oh my god. So what the fuck?

Ted: So—oh my god. This dude is 82 years old. He was convicted back in 1983 of trying to buy rockets to attack in New York because, you know, in New York in the eighties was a wild time. You could hang out at Studio 54 and buy rockets to attack the Brits. I’m sure it was probably just a fucking usual FBI entrapment sting operation. Yeah. But anyway, the point is he was trying to buy it. He was the leader of this thing. And then the Good Friday Accords came. And as part of the Good Friday Accords, all these charges were dropped. He was released from prison. He was given a green card allowed to stay in the United States. Anyway, the Trump administration just sent him a deportation notice. They said, you got to get the fuck out. He’s 82 years old, hasn’t committed a crime at all since 1983. And he’s got all sorts of heart problems, and he’s on Medicaid and everything else you can imagine. Yep. And he needs that. I mean, I guess Ireland has national healthcare. He’ll be fine. Yeah. But, I mean, they want to kick him back to Ireland, and he’s like, fuck you. Alright. Whatever. But, I mean, what’s going on, John? Is this just—like—are these letters being auto-generated for everybody who’s got a criminal record?

John: No. They must be. They must be because otherwise, I don’t understand the strategy here. If you want to raid all of the restaurants in New York City and grab the sous-chefs and the dishwashers, that’s one thing. But if you’re—if you’re expelling a Chilean torture victim, which was what they did last week, and an Irish freedom fighter for all intents and purposes, then who’s making that decision? I can’t imagine that they’re sitting around a table, you know, some conference room table in Washington with a stack of files saying yes, no, yes, no about who they expel. This has to be computer-generated. There has to be, like, this giant computer-generated list of everybody who’s ever been accused of a crime and is here on a green card, and then they’re being expelled. I just—otherwise, I don’t understand it. Yeah. And Houdini makes a point there too. This way they can say, oh, we’re not just expelling brown people. There have been white guys too. Yeah. Right. But, I mean, 82 years old. Yeah. 82 years old. Like, he’s a real threat to our society.

Ted: Yeah. Well, maybe, you know, they say it. It’s like when they turn 83 is when people get really crazy. Never know what—never know what they might do. Yeah. Crazy. Well—so—I don’t know. Alright. So I guess we’ll—we’ll watch that. We’ll know more about it later in the week when we have our—we’re here Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5 PM Eastern. And I’m trying to think, is there anything else that we missed here? Not really. Right? I mean, I—I’m a little scared. The ICE-ing weekends are slow, but there was a lot to talk about today being a Monday. Yeah. For sure. There’s a lot. It’s going to be—it’s going to be a busy and very hot summer.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Always. So, let’s see. Let’s put—oh, let’s put—let’s put this up. This is kinda cool. Thank you for the $10 donation. Much appreciated. The German chancellor announced an air bridge to Gaza today.

Ted: What’s an air bridge?

John: But stress the importance of Germany’s friendship with Israel and the need to remember October. Who can fucking forget the October seventh attacks? People just—they don’t stop talking about it. I mean—an air bridge is a direct path into another country’s airspace where you’re guaranteed safety. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Like, they’re in an air bridge. Cyprus to Gaza, and the Israeli Air Force won’t shoot you down. That’s an air bridge. Right. What we need is a bridge bridge.

Ted: What we need is an open border. That’s right. I mean—that’s right. Obviously. That’s right. Alright. Well, I guess we are going to declare ourselves sufficiently deprogrammed for today. Thanks, everybody. Thanks always for joining us. Much appreciated. Please like, follow, and share the show. Seriously, please do. If you’re not already doing it, it just takes a second of your time, and it really makes a huge difference. And we really are super moved by John and I talk about this by the incredible participation in the chats and just the enthusiasm. You guys are amazing. Lovely. Thank you for these smart, well-informed, relevant questions. It really keeps things going. Thank you for that. Hear hear. And so, please, check us out here on our various websites and stuff, but we’ll see you Wednesday, 5 PM Eastern time. Same bat station, same bat time. Take care. And if you’re undocumented, get documented. And if you can’t get documented, hide.