Title: DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Gaza-istan?”
Show: DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas
Date: 2025-10-31
URL: https://youtu.be/_uVF7K2KuZw
Duration: 60:00

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[00:02] Good morning, John Kiriakou. Or hey, sorry, trying to get myself situated here. Me too. We have a new intro that I could not even play because I could not find it. So we are all trying to get ourselves situated. That is just how it is now. Welcome to "DeProgram" with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou for Halloween, October 31st, 2025. Please like, follow, and share the show. Just a reminder. We are here going deprogramming you from the mainstream BS Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern Time, and we are going to be here every single day of next week as well. So please tune in. Please tune in. Just want to say this is the end of the month. So we keep track of all the metrics and all the numbers are still improving month after month. And so thank you. That is thanks to you guys.We cannot do it without your support, financial and otherwise. So thanks for that. You guys are incredibly generous and means the world to us. John, we have lots to talk about today. There is a lot of craziness going on today. And for a Friday, you know, I always say I got this from the agency when I was at the agency that Friday. We just lost John Kiriakou. So John is overseas. He is finishing out the week. I do not think it is a secret. They are in Iberia and he will be back home this weekend. There is John. We will put him back on. I have no idea what that was all about. I blame ICE and Israel. Why not? Yes, Israel too. So I was saying,Fridays at the CIA were always very, very slow because everything is closed in the Middle East on either Thursday and Friday or Friday and Saturday, depending on the country that you are in. They have different weekends. And that sort of bled into the United States, too. It is usually quieter on a Friday. Congress is usually not in session. Even when they are in session, they are going home on Thursday nights. But man, there is so much to talk about today. It is busy and none of it is good news. I hate to say.No, that is true. I will just go through, I will run it through so everybody knows what to expect. So obviously, we are talking about the looming deadline tomorrow about SNAP benefits, as well as the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Everything hits the wall this weekend. Not that Congress much seems to care. The House has had the month off and the Senate has the weekend off. They are like, you know what, me worry? Anyway, we will get into that.Trump's polls among young voters have absolutely fallen off a cliff. And I do not mean like, oh, like, you know, in the last five years, I mean, literally, in just a matter of months, Gen Z voters, which is people under 30, have gone from 50% approval to 20% approval from February to October. I do not know that I have, I do not think Richard Nixon suffered such a drop off in 1974.That was more gradual. You know, he is concerned because yesterday he said that his poll numbers have never been higher and his poll numbers may be at a record high for any president in American history. I mean, you know, it is all true except for not being attached to reality at all. Yeah. And by the way, it is not just Gen Z. I know people are watching and saying, but people under 30 do not vote. And that is true.But this is also true about 30-somethings, and they do vote. And they have also been voting more and more. The Defense Department admitted in a classified briefing that they do not know who they are blowing up in the Caribbean. That is even some Republican congressmen are starting to question whether that is such a great thing. And of course they are admitting that they are serial killers. Yes, they are. That is what it comes down to. They are mass murderers. They are random murderers. Although I have to say, John, if you were a Venezuelan fisherman,Might you not, I know you have to make a living, but might you not decide to take like a two, three, six week vacation right now? Yeah, I would. Hey, can I add something else talking about killing Venezuelans and poll numbers and protesters and all this stuff? Yeah, I mentioned offhandedly last week that, that Stephen Miller lives in Arlington, Virginia, where I live. He lives walking distance from my house.And people have been going over there for weeks and writing mean things in chalk on the sidewalk in front of his house. And there is nothing he can do about it because the sidewalk is public thoroughfare. You can do whatever you want. So he abruptly sold his house for $2.3 million. It is a nice house. And moved. They never told us where he moved until today.I mentioned to you that I read this hyper local website for local news called Arlington now dot com. Arlington now dot com says it is not just Stephen Miller, Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem all moved on to Fort Meyer Army base. What is that? That abuts. Yep. And they moved into housing that is reserved for one to four star generals.All three of them and their families. There is no, I mean talk about talk about gated community. That is the mother of all gated communities. That is a great way to say it. It is the mother of all gated communities and I will tell you what before 9/11. Because my wife and I were both GS-15s we were allowed membership in the officers club at Fort Meyer, so we used to go bowling, have a beer, have a burger. We go to the pool in the summer.Then 9/11 hit and you need a DOD ID showing that you are either a general who lives there or that you are assigned to the base. So I have not been on that base since 9/11, but they are just allowed to move into homes reserved for three and four star generals and we are all supposed to just nod our heads.Well, what happens when Trump gets sick of them and fires them? Just let us assume we ever have another Democratic president again. Yeah. Not 100% certain. What happens then? I guess we throw them out on their asses. And then they have to put up with the chalk remarks on their sidewalk. People are such meanies. If you chalk the sidewalks, the terrorists have won. Yeah, exactly.Thank you very much Gregory Batista for the very generous $20 donation over on YouTube. Appreciated. Much, much, much appreciate. We have got some questions coming in on the rumble feed too. So we should like get some of those and good morning to everybody who favorite Halloween candy, if you so wants to know. Mine, I do not really like candies, but I remain partial to chocolate.I like milk chocolate or dark chocolate the best, especially like the heavy salted kind. But they did not really do that in Ohio in the 1970s. I also like, what were those things called? Oh, I liked Life Savers, those things. I am a boring person. I like chocolate. I prefer dark chocolate, but I also like milk chocolate. Honestly, I will eat anything that calls itself chocolate.Except the white chocolate. Do not like that at all. TSTC 024 has a question too, John. Yeah, sure. Have we seen what is going on in Sudan with the civil war that is going on? 20 to 60,000 killed so far. What are our guys thoughts? I mean, that is a very underreported story, including by us. We have been remiss. Very, very. I was watching coverage this morning on this French channel that I have been telling you about, France 24 it is called. The video from Sudan.Is just epically brutal. Mean, hundreds and hundreds of bodies just laying, you know, in the fields or laying in this hospital parking lot. Government, a government affiliated militia attacked civilians day before yesterday, killed at least 624 people just in cold blood. Was a massacre. It is a crime against humanity is what it is.This reminds me a little bit of the under-reported civil war in Tajikistan in the 90s. A lot of people died, by some accounts, a quarter to a third of the population. There were massacres, ethnic massacres, all the time. They ran out of bullets at one point, and so they would tie people together with ropes and throw them into rivers and drown them all together. It was like one of those things.And the similarity with Sudan is that these were proxy wars that were funded by outsiders. As long as the money kept coming in, the war went on. But eventually, the proxy sponsors, which included the Taliban and the US and Russia and China, basically all lost interest in Tajikistan. And they stopped funding it. And then basically, there was a power sharing agreement.And they had a fragile peace and now they have really climbed out of the hole. It took a long time, but they were in a deep hole. Sudan feels like that, is not like so the rapid support forces, which is a breakaway part of the government, it is just a civil conflict within the government. They are supported by the UAE, they are financed by the UAE, right? And the government of Sudan is supported by, is it Qatar?I mean, who was that? Yeah, it was Saudi Arabia, think. Saudi Arabia. Yeah. So there seems to be a Wahhabi component to this conflict.You know, I would personally have called Hassan Trabi a Wahhabi and the leaders of Sudan today are sort of the ideological descendants of Hassan Trabi. So I would say, yeah, there probably is a Wahhabi component to this. He was a fundamentalist by anybody's definition of fundamentalism. John, think we should spend a little bit of our weekend reading up on, checking up on Sudan and doing a deeper dive next week. Cause we owe everyone a deprogram. And I thinkI think we owe people a discussion about Nigeria as well. There is a lot of bad stuff going on in Nigeria right now. All right, Sub-Saharan Africa, is next week. Effyso, thank you for the donation. Happy Pumpkin Day to you as well. I am a great pumpkin believer. As a huge fan of peanuts, of course, so am I as well. All right, so John, have all the, we have this panoply of stories to choose from. What would you like to get into first?Ted, if you do not mind, I would like to start at the end and talk about prospects for Pakistani troops to be sent to Gaza. Let us do it. You know, it sounds nuts and it actually makes a little bit of sense. And the reason is while Pakistan is Muslim, it has always kept the Arab Israeli conflict at arm's length because the Pakistanis are not Arabs.They are, they are Pakistanis. And so they have enough problems, let alone to have to worry about what is happening in Palestine as well. So now there are rumors that both the Israelis and the Saudis are saying, what about Pakistan? Now this makes a lot of sense to me from the Saudi perspective, because Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are joined at the hip like this. They love each other.And the Pakistanis make up the vast majority of the Saudi military. So to send Pakistanis to Gaza might actually work out. They are Muslims, so they should have the respect of the Gaza Palestinians and vice versa. They would show respect to the Gaza Palestinians because they understand the culture and the religion. And they would sort of take the air out ofHamas's sails, which is exactly what the Israelis want. I have not seen any comment by the United States on this, but I think this might be a good idea. Well, so the rumors that are floating are that they are talking about 20,000 troops. That is a lot. Of course, it is a place where 2.2 million people used to live and 1.7 million people still live. So it is not that much.But I mean, it is still a good sized group. This has supposedly been brokered between the ISI and Mossad. What is the relationship like? Well, there was a formal relationship as recently as 1979. But there is no formal relationship since then. Like I say, they do not have a lot.They do not have a lot to do with each other in day-to-day world events. But they are not at each other's throats. The Pakistanis are worried about the Indians. And to a slightly lesser extent, they are worried about the Afghans. They do not have time to worry about the Israelis. And the Israelis have never seen Pakistan as a threat to Israel. They will offer vocal support for the Arabs, but it ends there.With vocal support, that is it. So yeah, yeah, I mean, you know better than anyone, there are many different kinds of Muslims, right? Absolutely. So the Palestinian Muslims, particularly the ones in Gaza, how are they gonna relate to their Muslim brothers from South Asia? Not to mention, are not they going to be seen as an occupation force?That is doing the bidding of the Zionist entity.There is always the possibility that that would be the case. But the Gaza Palestinians are Sunni Muslims. The Pakistanis are almost entirely Sunni Muslims, handful of Shia, but they tend not to be in the military because they cannot get promoted. So that might be enough. You know, I was thinking about this when I first heard about it and I was thinking, well, the alternative would have been troops from Tahiti, right? We have talked aboutAbout how, or from Fiji, we talk about how these Pacific islands provide so many peacekeeping forces and it is a major source of income for them. It makes up a great part of their budget.They are cultural strangers. You know, the people from the South Pacific. At least the Pakistanis would understand Islam, would respect, you know, Palestinian women, all the stuff that non-Muslim peacekeeping forces over the years have been accused of ignoring. Will not get. Yeah. So they, I mean, but what if they are perceived as, I mean, if this is being framed as an ISI Mossad deal,Anything that is seen as being related to Israel is obviously as toxic as it can possibly get right now. But if the Saudis weigh in and endorse it, I think that will be good enough. The Saudis are not being viewed as, I mean, are not the Saudis being viewed as feckless by the Palestinians? Mean, you know, given the fact that they were before October 7th. I mean, if October 7th had not happened right now, there might be an Israeli ambassador in Riyadh.Yeah, that is exactly right. The Bahrainis, the Emiratis, the Tunisians, the Moroccans, even the Sudanese are indeed seen as feckless because they caved and joined the so-called Abraham Accords. You are right. If there had not been an October 7th, there probably would be an Israeli ambassador in Riyadh and a Saudi ambassador, at least in Tel Aviv, if not in Jerusalem. But there is not.And so I think the Palestinians would probably hang on that. Then what about, know, obviously the denials are coming out of Islamabad. Of course, you know, I always I am sure you are like me. There are denials and then there are and then there are denials. And this is not a denial denial. This is like a there. We have no such plans, which of course means you could be working on it, indeed have plans, but you do not, you know,You can still credibly say until you have pulled the trigger and the prime minister has signed off, it is not really a plan. It is just something we are discussing. Yeah, it is true. Of course, Pakistan is probably the most rumor tastic country in the world. Oh my God. Listen, I gave an interview to an Indian outlet last week. All hell has broken loose in South Asia. I have more death threats than I can shake a stick at.And then, and then the, what is his name? Imran Khan's party, issued a formal statement demanding that I apologize to Imran Khan. I apologize to the party and I apologize to the Pakistani people and they want it in writing by the end of the day today. And I told them, and please forgive me, but I told them that I wiped my ass with their apology. Good as they are getting.And then the death threats came in. Shocking. I cannot say I am surprised. But I would definitely have someone else do you who you do not like start your car in the morning. $20 donation. Thank you so much from unsung Pat. Just talking a little bit back to you know, back a little echo on Sudan starvation, one of the oldest weapons of war, plus poor plus desperation equals a powder keg slash napalm just need a match looting.Sudan, 700 days of conflict, right, two years. Civilian starving, something Irish heritage knows well. $1 donation from FUSO, thank you so much. Now it is on Candace Owen coverage of the Egyptian plane with the Charlie Kirk assassination.John, you have such thoughts? Do not. I am not familiar with it. Okay. Do you know anything about it? No, no, I am hoping you did. No, I am sorry. That was. Right. Maybe, FSO can elaborate a little bit in the chat. Yeah. We will try to figure that out. Also, thank you so much over on YouTube for the five euro donation from RoddenGoo9864 regarding the Cameroon situation. Man, it is all about Sub-Saharan Africa. Yeah, it is,It is dire over there. Aside from being, there, is there, do these crises have anything in common? Mean, is there a, you know, economic or agricultural thing going on right now in Africa? Cameroon less so than Chad, Mali and Nigeria. Chad, Mali and Nigeria, it is Al Qaeda and its associated groups, Boko Haram, they are just slaughtering people, especially Christians and what they have been doing.Is just going into schools and opening fire? They are kidnapping some of the children and opening fire on the adults, the teachers and administrators, or they will herd people into churches and then set the churches on fire and then shoot anybody who tries to escape from the burning church. Lovely. Not a good situation. And it is not being covered in the American media for some reason. No, not at all, for sure.Question from also from a donor, Zoe La Rosa, 211, thanks for the two bucks. Will Pakistan help Hamas though? Well, that is a good question. It is a legitimate question. And the consensus is that they will not because the Pakistanis do as the Saudis tell them to do. And if the Saudis tell them you are going to go and be peacekeepers and by being peacekeepers, you are also going to helpGazan society get back on its feet and you have got to protect the Palestinians from Hamas, then that is what they will do. Will not Hamas just roll Afghan style? I mean, they cannot melt into the mountains because there are no mountains, you know, mean, they are in, they are completely fully embedded in a civilian society. Mean, you you might be a Hamas fighter all throughout the last two years and then be a school teacher.During the conflict, after the conflict is over and you bide your time and you wait for the call from your commander. Of course you are not, they do not carry identity cards that say Hamas on it. Right. These are just regular normal people who have their own roles in society besides being Hamas fighters. Again, they might even go work for the Pakistanis. Right. Mean, like I met a guy, I met a guy in Afghanistan in, in, in 2010.And he saw no conflict between the fact that during the day he worked for the Northern Alliance government of Hamid Karzai as an irrigation expert. And at night he would go out with the Taliban and blow up irrigation canals. It is the great cycle of life for these people. There is no conflict in that. My God Almighty. We have a question too about Kimberly Guilfoyle. She arrives tomorrow in Athens as the US ambassador to Greece.The Greeks, the Greek media at least, is very excited about this. I will say that the Greek American press is not excited about this. But with that said, for reasons that I will never understand, Donald Trump seems to love Greece and Greece seems to love Donald Trump. And it does not matter if Mitsotakis is the prime minister or if there is a socialist or Euro communist prime minister.Trump has gotten along with all of the prime ministers that Greece has had during the Trump presidency. You know, Greece has had a mix over the years of, of career diplomats who have been ambassador and political appointees who have been ambassador and they like it when the ambassador has a direct line to the president. You know, would I have chosen Kimberly Guilfoyle? Of course not. But, but she is, you know,Practiced seasoned attorney former US attorney or assistant US attorney and she has got a direct line to Trump. So we will see how the next three years go Zizis Karagiannis. Thank you so much for the 2999 Australian dollars much appreciated Thank you very much. So yeah, all right, so Just like scrolling through scrolling through. All right, soHmm, that is so strange. There are two shows going on one on screen one in chat. Oh, well, that is true. So anyway, that is always true in the rumble feed. You know, sometimes the rumble feed has nothing to do with what we are talking about. I am like, do you guys even watch? Mean, you know, hey, we are happy to be here. But what are we chopped liver? All right. So I mean, so I guess the thing is,How likely, let us put this on to the, likely, O meter, I mean, I think first of all, if there is an international peacekeeping force, then I could see this being a 40% chance this could happen. I do not think there is going to be an international peacekeeping force, but. I do not think the Israelis will allow it. They do not want peace. No. Yeah, I look at what they have been doing. We should talk about how they have been [ __ ] up the ceasefire. Yeah.Did you see today the Washington Post reported that in a classified briefing yesterday, the State Department said that they have confirmed Israeli atrocities against Palestinian civilians. There have been so many of them that they have not been able to go through all the different atrocities that have been committed. So why would the Israelis want outsiders, especially outside Muslims, to come in and be the peacekeepers?When they are still not even allowing the media in right and it is amazing to me. Mean, what do you make of the fact that American media organizations are not complaining and saying like, look, you guys did not let us in during the war and you should have but right now there is this active ceasefire brokered by the United States President and you are still not letting American reporters it you know they are chomping at the bit. Mean, I am I would go I mean, like so likeWhat is the deal? Yep, exactly right. If they are not going to let American journalists in, they are not going to let Pakistani troops in. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they do not want American journalists in there because the mass graves are being dug up right now. Yeah. Yeah. It is not good. All right. I guess we probably, while we are on this track, do you want to talk about the Southern Caribbean?Yeah, let us do that. Another place where all you can do is shake your head right now. Yeah. So we all know what has been going on with it. I mean, first of all, I am not really clear on how these attacks are supposed to be pressuring President Maduro. I mean, if I am President Maduro, of course, I am displeased that my nationals are being blown up like they are going out of season. But, you know, I mean, how is that like really making him think, oh, I shouldStep, I should step out, I should step away. I should run away, go into exile. I do not see it. Why? No, no, I, I agree with you. This is a stupid policy and now we have confirmed what we always suspected is that nobody even knows that these people are drug runners or if these are drug boats, they are, they are probably just innocent fishermen. You know, these bodies washed up in Trinidad and Tobago last week or pieces of bodies washed up.Apparently from from boats that the that the Pentagon bombed and they appear to be just Trinidadian fishermen. Can you imagine being at the beach like with your family and then you know someone's leg washes like yeah exactly another thing too is the US has long accused Maduro of drug trafficking I think I mentioned to you I did a I did an investigation when I was theSenior investigator in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And part of that investigation was drug trafficking through Venezuela. There is some drug trafficking through Venezuela. That is not to say that Maduro controls it or even has any idea when and where it is happening. What it is is Colombian drug planes landing in Venezuela to pick up, to drop off.Unload, who knows, and then continuing on to Africa. It is not clear cut like the administration wants you to think it is. And then we had this news from earlier in the week that the CIA tried to recruit Maduro's pilot so that were Maduro to flee ostensibly for Cuba, the plane instead of landing in Havana would land in Key West and the DEA would grab him.And then take them to Miami, just like we did to Noriega and charge them with international drug trafficking. By the way, why not out of curiosity, if you are involved in regime change, what do you give a [ __ ] where the deposed ruler goes? Why do you care if they go to [ __ ] Havana or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Nigeria or, or, I mean, why is not it like, what is the point of a Noriega situation? I still do not even understand what Bush got out of it.I think you get the, you get the, it is a trophy to put them on trial and to say that you captured him. Was talking about this with Doug McGregor a couple of days ago, Colonel Doug McGregor was very, very, very conservative, but in a libertarian kind of way. And he said that he said that Maduro is not stupid. First of all, he is not going to go anywhere unless the United States physically invades Venezuela. And even then,He is not stupid enough to go to Cuba that he will likely have arranged in advance to get to Moscow. OhNow, can he make it to Moscow without being intercepted by America or its numerous allies? That is a long trip. It is a long trip. You can ask. We can we can ask Ed Snowden about how perilous that trip can be. Yeah, you know, thank God that he did not make it to Ecuador. So the Trump administration is asking us to basically doBelieve something that we know is not true and cannot be true, they say that 70% of overdoses in the United States are directly attributable to fentanyl that is processed from a cocaine that originates in Venezuela. And like, that is just not how it works. That is what they said. That is not true. That is just simply not true. No. But I guess they are counting on people not really knowing about this.I got to go through that while we are talking because that is preposterous. Then congressmen. Yeah, this was this was what they said. And then like both Democrats and some Republicans are starting to ask questions like from the, you know, the defense or war department or whatever the [ __ ] it is called now. They go they went into, you know, they had this classified briefing. They are supposed to be told exactly what is going on in the, you know, the D.O.D. admitted. We literally do not know who we are killing. No, they do not know. They do not have any idea.Which how can there be any legal basis for that? Yeah. It is just murder. Plain and simple. Do you think anyone will ever? Do you think like if we had like a president, president AOC that anyone would ever be held accountable? Mean, no one was ever held accountable for, for CIA torture. Obama made sure of that within a day or two of taking office. Yep. Exactly. No one is ever held accountable. That is just how that works. Can do whatever the [ __ ] you want. No, no one is ever held accountable.Hey, I am looking at the DEA's fact sheet on fentanyl right here. And fentanyl is not made from cocaine. No. Period. It is mixed with cocaine and with every other drug that is out there. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine. It is mixed with everything. You can even put it in a nasal spray. 42% of all pills confiscated at the borderContained fentanyl, 42%. That is insane. Yeah. And it says 42% of all pills tested for fentanyl contained at least two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered to be a lethal dose. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, no, I mean, well, this is like, I mean, it is like the, if you remember the, course, obviously in the eighties,Angel when they when when drugs would be spiced with angel spiked with angel dust to make them PCP to make it a little more interesting quote unquote. I do not know, you know, the drug. Mean, I knew quite a few serious drug addicts at that time. And I do not think they were ever needing or desiring that, you know, I mean, honestly, it is a it was a flaw in the marketplace. And I do not mean to be dry about that. I just do not think it is something that drug users really wanted.You know, drug users want to know what they are getting. Yeah, they do. Just like any other consumers. My brother-in-law died of a of fentanyl overdose. Oh, wow. And, you know, he did not mean to. He thought he was just going to smoke some meth like he smoked every day. And and 15 minutes later, he was dead. And that was it. Jesus. Yeah. Thirty six years old. Jesus. What a horrible. I hate drugs.So, well, let us talk about, should we move on to the domestic situation? Sure thing. All right, so tomorrow is November 1st, people are gonna lose their, start losing their healthcare and poor people. I guess the question is, does anyone care about poor people? But 42 million Americans are gonna lose their food stamps slash SNAP benefits. Republicans, they might be.Singing a different tale, but you and I both know they are scared to death. There is that poll we talked about. It is the latest YouGo Economist poll that shows 20% of adults under age 30 liked Donald Trump a lot. Sorry, 50% liked him a lot back in February. Now only 20% like him. Even it is, mean, and the same, and those numbers are not quite as dramatic, butPretty damn dramatic for the 30 something crowd, the millennials. Obviously, like you said, we know the president is nervous. So the big takeaway here is just now Donald Trump is calling for the nuclear option. Not nuclear weapons or nuclear powered missiles. By the way, I want to thank the listener whoPointed out that nuclear powered missiles do not have to be nuclear weapons themselves. That is very true. We were not clear about that yesterday. Yeah, that is true. But like, so he wants basically they want to get rid of the filibuster for foreign viewers. Oh The US Senate has a rule that goes back. It has been controversial for a long time that says that basically you can keep the Senate in session and basically you cannot really trulyClose the deal unless you get 60%, not a simple majority of the vote. You need 60 seats, 50, 60 votes, not 50 votes. And basically what that allows is a minority in the Senate to gum up the works. Traditionally, that has been the Republicans, but certainly Democrats are doing it now, and that is why we have a shutdown. Donald Trump basically is calling for the end of the filibuster. That would have some dramatic long-term political implications.I want to be clear, Democrats started this [ __ ] when they got, they pulled the nuclear option on Trump's, on the, repub on the democratic Obama's, judicial nominations. And they thought literally they said, Oh, do not worry. Republicans will never get to avail themselves of this because Democrats will literally literally be in power forever. They literally said that you can look it up. Want to punch the corpse of Harry Reid right in the face. That was his idea.Idiot, [ __ ] idiot. Like the point is- Did you see the interview today that John Fetterman did with CNN? Oh no, I try to avoid that speaking of drug addicts. He is another one I want to punch in the face. He said that Democrats have to stop acting like children and just vote for this budget. Well then, but then, okay, so John Fetterman who has health issues should be able to relate to people who have health issues, who need health insurance. You would think.And so, you know, I mean, the dude had a stroke. I mean, yo, if you have a stroke, mean, I literally, okay, so I have a cartoonist colleague about a month ago. He is a little younger than me. He had a stroke. His entire right side is paralyzed. He is facing, he is about to become homeless. He posted on Facebook that he has no idea where he is gonna go. That the rehab is about to throw him out on the street.He has no one to take him in or take care of him. And he cannot work. Right. Exactly. So then what? So you throw a dude with the right side of his body does not work. Know, John, you know what I would do? I would literally go to, I would be one of those nonviolent bank robbers where, you know, people have done this. They like, I need to go to prison. So I have a place to stay. And they, you know, they walk into the bank and they say, please give me all your money. And then they wait patiently for the police to arrive. And they say,You know, I needed to be arrested. Please take me to prison because I would be homeless. I have no way out. Think I told you that one of my cellmates, he was the last one of my cellmates to move in. He was from Pittsburgh. Nice guy, perfectly normal, totally normal guy. And I asked him what he was in for. And he said, oh, that he had a conviction years ago and he had already done his time. But every year at the start of winter,He intentionally violates his probation so that he can spend the winters in, in jail, in prison. He said that, he otherwise lives in a tent along the Ohio river and, you know, it is cold in Pittsburgh. And so he intentionally violates, he gets sent back for six months and he says, I get three meals a day. I get a warm bed and I get free medical care. So better to be in prison.Than in a tent, you know, in a van down by the river as the old Saturday Night Live skit goes. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think it is, I think, I think your, your old, do not know, colleague, your old, your old buddy, yeah, smart guy. Yeah. He is, he is working a [ __ ] up system. Yeah. You know what he did? He was one of these, carnies.You know, you ran the carnival rides. They are all convicts and most of them are pedophiles. So, he was selling drugs from the drugs from the carnival. And because he was crossing state lines, going from state to state to state selling drugs, was a federal charge. So he did seven years and he gets 10 years probation. And so every winter he just violates so you can get back in. I mean, okay. So John, I am glad that the conversation went in this way, because this is the really the big.Question I wanted to ask you. So here is the thing. It is a factoid now, but one, eight, this, this crisis reminds us, and one out of every eight Americans is on food stamps. In some states, it is one out of four, ironically, Republican states. And I am not gonna, and I am not one of those people who is like, well, you get what you deserve because you voted for these people. We do not even know that those people might have all voted a democratic, right? But the point is, what does it say?I mean, how can you be rah rah USA number one? What a great country we have. Let us tell other countries, let us share our values so that they can have one eighth of their country living in abject poverty. By the way, this is not the whole state of poverty, right? There is lots of people who are working poor, who do not qualify for food stamps or do not want them, do not apply for it. There is lots of people who are too...Marginal and sleeping like outside who are not going to get who are not in the system also. So this is just a subset of the poverty in this country, which is really more like one out of four. Yeah, people are I mean, one out of eight Americans is on food stamps. To me, I would be like, what the [ __ ] is wrong with our country if I am a if I am a congressman or a senator?Why are we not doing anything? Why did I mean, why is that like not a statistic that just makes like Donald Trump himself say what the [ __ ]? Why does that not make John Fetterman say what the [ __ ]? Why does that not mean John Fetterman, Lester? Hey, what the [ __ ] say should say what the [ __ ] because he was the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, which is one of the poorest, most crime ridden cities in the entire state of Pennsylvania. He knows better. You know, Ted in, in 2000,11, sorry, 2012 in January, I was arrested in mid January. Just one week after my arrest, I was sitting at the dining room table with my wife and she had a calculator. And then she looked up at me and she said, I do not see how we can afford to buy food next week. Jesus. And I said, are we in that bad of shape already? And she said, yeah, everything thatWe have, gave to the lawyers last week and I do not think we have enough money for food. So the next day we went to the welfare office in Arlington County and we qualified for literally everything, including a $90 monthly cash supplement because she was breastfeeding and we had two kids at home and I still had two kids, two other kids that I am paying child support for at the time. So we were onWe were on food stamps for nine months until she finally found a job in October of that year. And thank God for that. Yeah. So, so Fetterman knows better. Fetterman should know better. Fetterman should be saying exactly the opposite of what he has been saying and not just, you know, yesterday and today with CNN, but really for the, for the past two years. And if he is not going to help,Poor people feed their families, then maybe it is time to primary this guy. Well, and also, mean, the Republican posture, I even if you are working 55 hours a week and you do not follow all the details, right? I mean, you hear the Republicans say, agree to our plan and then we will negotiate with you afterwards. Everyone knows that is not how anything works, right? It is like...So, I mean, I guess the only exception to that is if you go into the hospital to get a operation, because it is gonna cost whatever they bill you and they do not tell you in advance. If you are like, hey, how much is this appendectomy is gonna be? They literally cannot tell you. They literally will not tell you. It is like, you get the bill and you pay. Tough [ __ ], thanks to be you. If you have to ask, you cannot afford it.That is it. Unsung Pat is making an important point here that in 1973, the wealth gap was the smallest and the middle class was the strongest. First of all, God bless Richard Nixon and his economic policy. Number one. Number two, starting with Dwight Eisenhower and going through Nixon, tax rates were the highest against the wealthiest people. And soI mean, of course, you had the same write-offs and such that, that, that, you know, we see today, but the, the basic, tax rate for the wealthiest people was upwards of 75% and they could whittle it down from there. Well, now they pay almost nothing to begin with and whittle it down from there. And then you cannot understand why our deficits are so enormous and why there is such a, a, a wealth gap. That is why there is a wealth gap.I am glad you brought up Richard Nixon, who just to be clear was exactly the kind of president who I was supposed to and did hate at the time. But, you know, honestly, I remember wage and price controls. My mother was making $8,500 a year as a school teacher. And, you know, the price of sugar was five was five dollars for five pounds, which was a lot at the time. I remember the sugar crisis. When wage and price controls kicked in, thanks to Richard Nixon,My mom said, I hate that man. I hate the Vietnam War. I hate him. But, you know, he saved my life. I do not know how we would survive if not for these price controls. There is a conspiracy theory. I am sure you have heard it. It is actually, you know, kind of percolates pretty high into among historians that Watergate was really kind of orchestrated by the, you know, corporate powers that be as a sort of coup d'etat.To get rid of Richard Nixon, because they were so pissed about wage and price controls. Know, one of my earliest memories, my dad came home one day, I think I was four, my dad came home one day and he said to my mom, honey, I got a raise. And she said, you did? And he shows her this letter and he was making $6,800 a year. And then I remember my mom saying, just imagine honey, if you could make 7,000,We would be on easy street. Know, John, I was in a similar situation. I made $10,000 a year working at Bear Stearns in 1984, 85 as a trader trainee. And I calculated that if my boss cut my pay by $12 a month, $12 a, yeah, $12 a pay period, that I could get food stamps. Called the food stamp office. So I went to my boss and I asked him to cut my pay.He was like, get the [ __ ] out of my office. That is fantastic. Then and then but we were all so snotty about it. He would come come around with the paychecks, the paper paychecks. And it is like, you know, you know, here you go, blah, And there were guys who would be like, drop it in the trash. Like, it is not worth it is not worth waiting in line at the bank. You know, I remember that too, that they used toEven at the CIA, they would just come with our paychecks and flip them upside down and leave them on our chairs. Yeah, I remember a couple of things about the CIA, not to get too far off the subject, but I was talking to a former CIA colleague of mine and I said, you know, when I started at the CIA, you could smoke at your desk. And then like after a year, they made designated smoking areas. So all the all the managers.Made their offices designated smoking areas. Wow. So smoking was that big then? Oh, it was that big. Yeah. And then there is a barber in the basement of the CIA. And when I first joined, was like, oh, I might as well just go get a haircut at the CIA barber instead of going halfway across town. I went down there and they had Playboys and Penthouses all over the barber shop, inside the CIA.Yeah. It is like a whole city in there, right? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Do people avail themselves of like the dry cleaner or whatever? Oh yeah. Yeah. Everybody does. There is even a little, post office substation in there so you do not have to go into town to mail stuff. Oh, I would love that. Yeah. It is great. I used to use it all the time. God, the postal office. Do not even [ __ ] get me started there. It is like, what a [ __ ] disaster. And I am a huge, I am on, I am really on team post office too. And like, yeah.My sister is husband is a a mailman and he finally retired in March. He said the place is just in chaos. He just cannot do it anymore. He did 30 years. That is the end of it. Yeah, I do not blame I forget. Fras Mataz says I forgot which president but Nixon called it closing the gold standard gold window or whatever was a consequence of a 1960s president doing some other econ policy change. Cannot remember what it is specifically.I thought it was this it was 1973. Right? Yeah, it was Nixon. Yeah, I remember gold was like 35 an ounce or 38. Yeah, it was set at $35. Yeah. Yep. I wish I had bought like, I wish I just Well, I mean, I was 10 years old. I had I had a paper route. I could have I could have bought gold.Yeah. Yeah, that is right. Yeah. All right. So talking about yeah. Oh, for as much as I also do not I also I do not even blame him for Watergate. DNC deserved DNC deserved it. And Bob Woodward is a Navy Intel non journalist, but spying on Pentagon Papers guy Ellsberg, true American patriot, I think is what he was trying to say. Yeah.Auto-correct. I hate auto-correct. Have a colleague who is a very famous lesbian cartoonist. If you know anything about cartooning, you know who I am talking about. And well, I will just tell you, it is Alison Bechtel. She of the Bechtel test. She did Fun Home. And anyway, she, so I was texting her about something and it, I literally used the word pencil, you know, as a cartoonist, you use the word pencil and it auto-corrected. Thank God before I hit, I hit, caught it before I had sent to penis.And I am like, I do not want to be the guy who emails, who texts the word penis. Like, Hey, did you check out my penis? Oh, Oh God. Why is it like, does auto correct think that penis is a more often used word than pencil? Know. Right. I do not think so. Mean, Oh my God. So yeah. So what, so what is, yeah. I mean, obviously we are heading into this.Well, let us talk about the nuclear option. How would that look? How could the filibuster be eliminated? Ironically, could not the Democrats filibuster that? Could it be the sort of parliamentary maneuver? No, yeah. It is a decision made solely by the majority leader. There does not have to be a vote on it, because it is not a law. It is an internal rule.You know, and this was always so dangerous when Harry Reid lifted the filibuster, used the nuclear option on on judges. He said, well, it is going to be fine. But he would not listen to to reason when people said, wait a minute, the Republicans are going to be able to force through their judges if you use the nuclear option now. No, no, it is going to be fine. They are never going to be in the majority ever again because, know, we are so great. And then, of course, the Republicans took the Senate.If Donald Trump demands that John Thune use the nuclear option and he does it, Donald Trump is going to get his budget for a year or two or even three maybe. But when the Democrats control the White House and the Senate and you know it is going to happen because it always does, the Democrats are going to be able to do anything they want. So this is an extraordinarily short sighted pronouncement from Donald Trump.That Thune has to use the nuclear option. Now, I doubt it. Thune is not a big Trump fan. He will say the right things to keep the MAGA people off his back, but he is not a big fan of Trump. And Thune has a better historical understanding of why the Senate needs to keep the filibuster. It is to preserve the rights of the minority. And he knows that they are going to be in the minority again.Obviously, yeah, no question. Mean, you know, could happen relatively soon, not next year, but definitely, you know, I think could happen in three years for sure. No question. Not next year, but it could happen in three years. Absolutely. That is I mean, that is the thing is like right. The Senate is all about the long game, right? I these are people with six year terms. It is it is a institution with long historical memory.People who serve, it is not at all weird or unusual to serve for decades. So they know that like, you know, Donald Trump is there now, but Donald Trump will not be there for forever. Yeah, I mean, just, I mean, obviously they, I mean, yeah. If I were the Republican senators, I would be very, very nervous about this. But I guess the thing is, John, is not it a little unusual in parliamentary systems, even in bicameral ones?To have an equivalent of the filibuster where, I mean, obviously we do not have the Mr. Smith goes to Washington thing anymore where you, even when Cory Booker did it, it was kind of fake and he was doing it too. But having to wear the astronaut diaper and piss in your pants or whatever you do. But like, still it is an unusual situation, right? To not have a simple majority prevail.You know, and it evolved, it is not in our constitution, it evolved over time. You know, I mean, what are the pros and cons of having, obviously minority rights, you you cannot run roughshod over the minority and you want to have policies, not just squeak through, you want them to have a, based on broader consensus than 50%. Yes. Right now you can really see it, the importance of that. And on the downside, it, it,Well, in my mind, to tell you the honest to God's truth, I do not see a downside. Protects the rights of the minority. On the downside, it also leads to gridlock. And obstructionism. There is that. Obstructionism, sure. Like, example, yeah, I mean, it is true that what the Republicans were doing to Obama's judges was really wrong. Yeah, it was. And what that evil [ __ ] Mitch McConnell did by denying Obama his final Supreme Court nominationThe Democrats, it may take years, but the Democrats are going to get revenge for that. Although, you know, and I agree with you for 100%. But I know I also do not forgive Obama for kick for kicking off to for kicking off to Martha's Vineyard while that was all happening. And just like, ah, good. See you later. See you in six weeks. It is all fine. Whatever. Hillary will win. Remember? Yeah. Said that. Hillary will win.So it will all be taken care of. That was the other thing, right? That is right. I am not worried about the election results. Easy peasy. We all woke up on election morning and Nate Silver had had had had had her chances of winning at 90%. You could like watch that. I remember that 90%. I remember Nate Silver having to eat crow afterwards. I cannot believe that guy even still has a job after that. I mean, think about the [ __ ]. Think about the [ __ ] weYou know, you have got like you are getting death threats over that thing with the Pakistanis. I mean Nate Silver, he really [ __ ] up and nothing happened. He really did. Mean, let us talk about this judge. Mean, so today, I do not know if this may even be happening while we are on the air right now, but this judge yesterday signaled that Indira Talwani is not, does not believe the Trump administration'sBasically argument. They do not want to release the emergency funds. There is 5.3 billion that Congress set aside in case there was a problem paying out SNAP. Now to be clear, that will not cover the month of November. So the government was arguing that it would be a logistical nightmare. I am like, really you guys have trouble with pro rata? You guys cannot say, you guys do not know the arithmetic of5.3 billion divided by whatever the normal no member is thing equals such percent and that is how much you get. I do not know if I trust this government to send people out to outer space. But okay, that said, the government was saying, it is only meant to be released as a supplement, but it is like an emergency fund is not a supplement. So the judge is gonna overrule.Will the administration ignore her or appeal to SCOTUS or? Yeah, they will appeal quickly, which is funny because they make no secret of the fact that they are trying to create a cutout to pay servicemen and women their salaries. Forget the poor people. They want the military people to get their pay. But yeah, I think it is going to beI think it is going to be an issue and that the administration is going to challenge it. They will appeal either to the circuit court or they will go straight to the Supreme Court. And what will the... So I guess the question is, will the Supreme Court say this is an administration prerogative and they can do what they want or will they... You know, it is just so hard to Yeah. I mean, you know my position on feeding poor people.But I am not sure that she has the authority to do this. OK, so I guess the next question is, I mean, of course, there is the broader question of if Congress allocates funds, do they have to spend it? We are out of time, unfortunately, but we will have, we will know by Monday what is happening and what the results look like. For those of you who are facing this cutoff, I am very sorry.And ashamed of our country. I just want to say that. Anyway, thanks everyone for liking, following, sharing the show. We are deprogrammed with Ted Roll and John Kierakou. We are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. Stay tuned. I will be staying on the air with Manila Chan with the TMI show. We will be having a special Halloween thing, about America's love affair with horror movies.Thanks everyone. Bye John. Bye everyone. Ted.
