The mob vote for Trump is John Kiriakou’s answer to a viewer who asked, in November 2025, whether he had discussed politics with the organised crime figures he served time alongside, and what their politics were.[1]
The relationships
His answer opened with the fact that the acquaintances did not end at the prison gate: “A lot. I I had dinner with two with two of them in uh in Philadelphia over the weekend.”[1]
The politics
On their view of Donald Trump he was emphatic and repetitive: “They love love love Donald Trump. They love him.”[1]
The explanation
What interests Kiriakou is the reason, which he treats as occupational rather than ideological. Being a real estate developer in New York of all places, he says, means daily contact with the mob, because “They control everything.”[1][2]
He then itemised what everything means in the building trade: the concrete union, the union that makes windows, the steelworkers union. And the conclusion: “you’ve got to deal with these people if you want to build buildings.”[2]
Rall’s inference, that this is why Trump had those connections, and that he had to, drew Kiriakou’s agreement twice over: “Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.” His closing summary was that they love Trump and there are no two ways about it.[2]
Why it matters to him
The observation belongs to a body of material Kiriakou has produced about the people he met at Loretto, for whom his consistent method is to report what they think and why, rather than to treat their opinions as disqualified by their convictions.