Deadly Plague Escapes Russian Lab | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

Today we discuss:

• Trump said the U.S. is willing to help Russia after the State Department announced it was monitoring a reportedly fatal case of "pneumonia of an unknown etiology”—pneumonic plague—linked to a Russian plague research laboratory in Irkutsk Oblast.

• 1,800 high schools and 90% of universities in France are currently blockaded or closed. The wave of protests started with 15 to 18-year-old lycéens and has now spread to their parents, university students and the biggest union, the CGT. The Interior Ministry estimates about 86,000 protesters have taken to the streets across France, not including the Paris region.

• Leaders in California have denounced Donald Trump as “reckless” and “deranged” after the US president suggested Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump’s approval rating at a record-low 32%. That polling included the president losing support among independent voters and Latinos, who had backed him in 2024.

• China has opened its first overseas air force base in its home continent of Asia—in Laos—where the US already maintains several military bases and access arrangements, marking a new phase in Beijing’s military expansion nearly a decade after establishing its first overseas military base in Djibouti, Africa, in 2017.

• The German federal prosecutor’s office announced it had detained the former spy chief, August Hanning, 80 — who led Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, from 1998 to 2005 — but did not say which foreign countries he was accused of spying for. Adding to the drama was the revelation that the investigation had origins in an alleged attempt by a German steakhouse heiress to kidnap her children from her estranged husband.

00:00 Cold Open: Plague, Protests, and Trump

03:27 French School Blockades Spread to Parents and Unions

16:54 Trump’s Approval Falls to a Modern Low

34:56 Lab Death from Pneumonic Plague in Siberia

46:25 Trump Jokes Iran Could Hit Los Angeles

49:04 China Opens a Military Base in Laos

55:38 Former German Spy Chief Arrested

59:20 Close and How to Support the Show

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