← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
10/14/25: Hostages Freed, Trump Says War Is Over, Trump Says Megadonor Loves Israel More Than US, 1929 Crash Repeat
01:16:23
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- [00:00]
Krystal Ball
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:04]
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- [01:28]
Krystal Ball
When you need it the most.
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- [01:39]
Krystal Ball
Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
- [01:41]
Saagar Enjeti
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
- [01:48]
Krystal Ball
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
- [01:54]
Saagar Enjeti
So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- [02:05]
Krystal Ball
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today.
- [02:16]
Saagar Enjeti
What do we have?
- [02:17]
Krystal Ball
Crystal?
- [02:17]
Saagar Enjeti
Indeed we do. So we're going to take a look at the hostage exchanges that happened yesterday. Who are they and what kind of condition were they returned in? Trita Parsi is going to join us to talk about what we can expect next. He is, you know, a phenomenal analyst taking a look at some of Trump's comments, trying to read the tea leaves about what the next phase may look like Trump is pulling back the curtain on how his foreign policy was just out and out bought by Miriam Adelson. Just saying the quiet part out loud. Truly an extraordinary clip. We'll play the whole thing for you. We are taking a look at economic indicators and asking the question whether it might be 1929. Again, very, very concerning some of the things that we are seeing. We're also taking a look at Ghislaine Maxwell. The Wall Street Journal had an extraordinary piece about how she had a secret meeting and what her life is like at this Club Fed prison camp. Kamala and Hillary have some thoughts on the past election. Marc Maron and Obama also have some thoughts on such things. And Ken Vogel is going to join us. He's out with a new book about foreign influence. Ken has been one of the best reporters out there in terms of tracking the influence of money in politics on both sides of the aisle. So really looking forward to speaking to him about that.
- [03:26]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's right. Thank you to everybody who has been signing up breakingpoints.com you got your great ama yesterday without me, without Emily, which I think is what the fans want. I'm joking. BreakingPoints.com to support us. If you can't, no worries. Just please hit subscribe on YouTube to the channel. It really helps people find the show. Also, if you're listening to this on a podcast, rate us five stars and send an episode to a friend. It's what word of mouth is always what helps us grow.
- [03:54]
Saagar Enjeti
But with that, I feel like Sagar, even when you're not here, we get lots of questions about you.
- [03:57]
Krystal Ball
Do you really?
- [03:58]
Saagar Enjeti
I guess I'm an enigma. You're very fascinated.
- [04:01]
Krystal Ball
I'm an enigma to the people. Yeah. Mostly about marijuana, though.
- [04:04]
Saagar Enjeti
So I wish there's a lot of.
- [04:05]
Krystal Ball
I just wish it was known for something else.
- [04:06]
Dr. Trita Parsi
I just wish it was.
- [04:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Oh, come on.
- [04:08]
Donald Trump
Yeah.
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LifeLock Ad
I love it.
- [04:09]
Saagar Enjeti
I love it.
- [04:10]
Krystal Ball
Let's be honest. Let's be honest. I love it. I love it. I drink your bong tears. Let's go to get to the hostages.
- [04:17]
Saagar Enjeti
All right. So yesterday we had the exchange of hostages from both the Israeli and the Palestinian side. Some the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages were released alongside roughly 2,000 Palestinians, most of whom had been picked up post October 7th. Thousands of Palestinians remain in Israeli custody. Let's go ahead and take a look at some of the VO of the Israelis being brought back home. You can see the cheering crowds, the Israeli flags. They're being transported here in buses. You can see them exiting these vans to cheers and you know Big smiles on their faces. You can only imagine how delighted their family and friends are to see them alive. It's going to be a bit more difficult. Some of the bodies of the deceased hostages were sent back as well. Some of them, they are having trouble locating. So that process will take a bit more time. This was all men who were released, by the way. There was a. A bunch of discussion about the fact that it was all men yesterday. The reason is because women were prioritized in the earlier hostage releases. So what remained were 20 men. Some of them had been kidnapped from that Nova Music festival. A number of them had been in the IDF and were taken on October 7th. So that's the joyous exchange. On the Israeli side, we can take a look at the Palestinian hostage release as well. You know, coming back from these Israeli prison camps, we've talked quite a bit, actually. There's been a lot of reporting, including in the Western media from the New York Times, about the treatment of detainees in these Israeli prisons. And here you can see, you know, someone's son just being lifted up to embrace him. You can also see some of the dire condition that a number of these Palestinian hostages were in. Which goes back to what I was saying about, we know, in these prison camps, you know, lack of food, lack of water, lack of sanitation. We know about that. There was that right to rape protest. So we know about torture and abuse that occurred. And you can see this released hostage saying exactly that, that they don't let them sleep. They threaten you, they say that they killed your children. They say that there is no Gaza left. And this is just. I mean, this just broke me to watch this man who was just released to find out that his three children were all killed by the Israelis while he was being held. And one of his daughters was about to have her birthday. He had made her a small bracelet. And now he's broken, finding out that his family is gone, so released. So, you know, this is the reality of what it is in Gaza. You know, there's joy and reunions and, you know, children who finally have a smile on their face and a bit of an increase in aid trucks coming in and some hope that maybe the intense bombardment is over. I will say there were some indications that Israel's already violated the ceasefire in a number of ways, but some hope there, some joy, some relief, some beautiful reunions, some people coming back and finding surprising that they. Some of their residence remains. And then you have these other stories that are just utterly. They'll just break you, you know, where they're being released and finding out the family's not there, they're coming back to find their home and finding it's complete and total rubble. 85% of the Gaza Strip has been turned into rubble. So, you know, still continue to be a lot of pain and suffering going forward.
- [07:36]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I mean, the entire scene is heartbreaking. You know, first of all, for Israeli hostages, you spent two years in captivity. Crazy, you know, to be able to come home. It was the driving force of the war. Then the Palestinian hostages, I mean, there's so many of them as well. And of course, you know, they haven't been highlighted nearly as much in the Western press. Part of the reason we thought it was important to put both side by side. We can feel joy for everybody who is coming home, and especially for the people of Gaza. They get to breathe for a day. Right. And that in of itself is a huge accomplishment. And it is something, though, that I said this in our initial segment about the ceasefire, when they eventually agreed to it. We all need to sit with all of the claims that were made over the last two years. The claim of the war was to free the hostages. It did not work. The vast majority of the hostages were not rescued in a military mission. They were gotten out through three successive ceasefire diplomatic negotiations.
- [08:37]
Saagar Enjeti
And in fact, many more hostages were killed through the kinetic warfare, at least than were rescued.
- [08:46]
Krystal Ball
And that's just in the acknowledged ones. I mean, who even knows? Like, right now there's all this dust up over the return of the remains, but part of the. I mean, look, who knows what Hamas and all of them are saying? Maybe they didn't kill them. Nobody really knows. But they're like, hey, you know, you're the ones who killed them. And we can't find their bodies because they're really buried under inches of rubble. Which seems somewhat believable, or at the very least, possible in this negotiation. But the point I think we just have to sit with is it actually was that simple the entire time.
- [09:11]
Saagar Enjeti
That's right.
- [09:11]
Krystal Ball
And I think that is so validating for so many critics of this war, because for years and years and years and years, we were told under this previous administration, we can't just tell Israel what to do. And it's like, oh, no, you can now. Why did Trump break? I will never know. There's reporting in the past, what is it that he actually knew about the Qatar strike, But then afterwards, he appears to kind of freak out about it, and he calls the emir and he apologizes. He makes Bibi read the hostage statement live. In the Oval Office being like, I'm very sorry that I attacked you. He creates the Sharm el Sheikh dialogue. They sprint to a ceasefire. By all indications, at every single turn, he told Bibi, it's over. And he keeps saying it over and over again. When he was asked in Israel, he just. They said, what's your message to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who won't say that the war is over? He said, the war is over. The war is over. The war is over. Do you understand me? The war is over. I don't know what it is exactly that broke him. It could be. We talked about this with Jeremy. Frankly, a lot of of the domestic political strife that has happened now, you know, the wide awakening of a lot of the youth, but I think everyone should just sit with this. At the end of the day, with Russia, with Ukraine, with Israel, with every other proxy conflict, it actually is as simple as the President of the United States calling somebody up and saying, you're done here. It's over. So Zelensky's coming here on Friday. Potentially, we'll get ourselves a deal here. But let's learn a little bit of that lesson is at any point, you can stop the weapons and you can say, it's done. Do you hear me?
- [10:43]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- [10:44]
Krystal Ball
And that's what these people, these Israel critics or these pro Israel people have always tried to drum into our head. Israel's a sovereign nation. It can do what it wants. We just have to support them. We have no say. They have their own internal affairs. It's all fake. Right? Because for all the years Crystal that we sat here and said, oh, Smotrich, he could do a deal. Ben gvir. And all these people, they can do the government. Where are they now? Where's their red lines? Zip. Nothing after Trump just says, hey, it's done, it's done, it's done. And for that, I mean, again, you killed potentially hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands at the very least, inflected immense pain and suffering, and you didn't actually get what you wanted to be done. You said you wanted to destroy Hamas. Yes, Hamas gave up power, but part of the deal is that Hamas gets amnesty, they get to give up their weapons, and they get to become a legitimate political party. That's actually not the destruction of what you originally claimed. I mean, their entire model of the war was World War II, unconditional surrender of the Japanese and of the Germans. Well, I didn't see any Nazis, you know, who had to just give up their arms, and they get basically completely you know, back allowed into the government. I don't remember the Japanese militarist not.
- [11:54]
Saagar Enjeti
Allowed into our government.
- [11:55]
Krystal Ball
Yes. Oh, you mean like Werner von Braun? Yeah, I mean, sure.
- [11:59]
Saagar Enjeti
Well, but you're complicated.
- [12:02]
Krystal Ball
We got the rocket out of it. All right, maybe it was a good deal.
- [12:06]
Saagar Enjeti
But I mean, I think there's a lot to linger on there. And I really appreciate you underscoring that point because we're not geniuses or rocket scientists here. But when I go back and think about Our commentary post October 7th, we said, number one, your goal of eradicating Hamas, it's impossible. Like through military means. It's impossible. The only way you can accomplish anything approximating that is through diplomatic negotiations, through giving people in Gaza a better alternative to Hamas. And, you know, so from the beginning it was clear. And we weren't the only ones saying military analysts, you know, even, you know, Israelis who had formerly been in government were saying the same thing. You are not going to accomplish your goal of eradicating Hamas through kinetic warfare. Not happening. Number two, we said he doesn't care about the hostages. The hostages are just an emotional tool for his to keep his own population on board with this. And that was never more clear than the first thing, ceasefire under Biden, when you had an exchange of hostages and it was, you know, it was abundantly clear that they were not able to retrieve hardly any. I think there were like maybe like two hostages that were actually rescued through some warfare which actually, by the way, killed like hundreds of civilians in the process of this military action. That was really clear. And number three, from something like October 9th or 10th, effectively this deal was on the table from Hamas, all for all. We'll give you back all the hostages. We want, all of our hostages. You're holding back. We will give up power. They were not particularly like wild about governing the Gaza Strip. Like something approximating this deal has been available the entire time. The only thing that changed was the willingness of the American President to say, we are done now. Caveats there. Like I said already, indications that Israel is, you know, has murdered a few more Palestinians, that they are already in low key ways violating the ceasefire. Israel has violated basically every ceasefire that they've agreed to. They're violating the ceasefire in Lebanon right now. It will take a lot of focus and commitment from this administration even to just maintain this ceasefire. That's before you get into any sort of rebuilding of Gaza. That's before you get into anything that approximates a long term political solution that could bring actual peace and coexistence. We are so, so, so far from that. But it's really key that people understand all of these years, these two years, these horrible days, the death, the starvation, the suffering, the turning Gaza into total and complete rubble, 85% decimated into rubble, all of it was for nothing. It was for nothing. You know, the Israeli hostages, some of them were killed over the course of that genocide. The untold number of Palestinians, you know, the fact that they can't even find some of the hostages in the rubble, what does that tell you about how many Palestinians are dead and lost in the rubble and not being counted in the official statistics? Like, I think we all know that the official number of dead wildly undercounts the number who were actually killed as a result of Israeli bombardment. So it was all for nothing. It all could have ended so quickly. It all could have come to the same conclusion almost from the very beginning. And because you had Netanyahu still, by the way, is committed to going back in and continuing the death and destruction. The only thing that is holding him back is the American President. And this was what Hamas was banking on. Like, they understood that strategically. I mean, that's what Jeremy would always tell us is like, it's not that we like, like and trust Donald Trump, but he's the only one, he's the literally the only person in the world who can make this thing stop. So we have to throw our chips in with him.
- [15:49]
Krystal Ball
Let's also look, Biden should escape nothing here because he has been proven wrong at every turn. Do you remember the Biden administration refused to engage in real diplomatic negotiations with Hamas? You have to give Trump credit. Basically from the Wyckoff days forward, they were willing to meet with them. And you know, the inside story of how this all came to pass has now been reported, at least the official version from Barack Ravid. The initial times when the Qataris kept presenting the stuff to the or the negotiation tables, to the Hamas, they said, we don't believe you. We need to hear it from the United States itself. And so what happens? Witkoff and Jared Kushner got into a bus, they drove to the Hamas villa, they met with them one on one, which remember the Biden administration again refused to do for some bizarre reason. And at the end of the day, Wyckoff looked them in the eyes and he said, the President says that the war is over if you guys sign this. And they said, okay, we have no choice but to believe you. They would have done the same under Biden. And so this is where the high minded liberalism of The Biden team of Anthony Blinken, of Jake Sherman. These guys are clowns. They presided not only of the destruction of Gaza, of the blank check, bear hug, but rhetorically kind of call out strategy. They refused to do anything to actually end the war. And you have to look at the results for what it is, is that you had two ceasefires and the actual end and the release of the hostages under Donald Trump. And the reason why is because of being ability to engage with Hamas itself and to provide them at least some guarantees. That is always how this war would have ended. Biden could have ended it, you know, over a year and a half ago. He didn't do it. Now, look, caveats galore, as you just said with Trump. He also gave them a blank check for years. He rhetorically was probably more pro Israel than anything. But I think what some of the more supporter realist supporters of Trump have always said is like, yeah, he's schizophrenic. He goes from one day to being Miriam Adelson's boy to the other of being, being like, Israel will not annex the west bank. And Bibi, you're done. And you never know which Trump you're gonna get on any given day. We finally got the good one after a while. But it's really not about Trump himself. It's about proving all of those defenders of the Biden status quo wrong, because they are. There's no defense of the way that they handle the war. And I'm still angry about it because, you know, one of the thing is about them is they always seemed as if they were at the mercy of history, like they were at the mercy of Israel and that they were at the mercy Russia and Ukraine. No, we're the primary actors. That's what we have said here on the show from the very beginning of the outbreaks of this conflict. We have the ability to drive and to shape events, if not outright dictate them from the Ukrainian side to even to the Russian side in terms of direct diplomatic negotiations from the battlefield. Israel is not. I mean, think about some of the stuff that Biden let Israel get away with, which frankly really expanded the war. He not only allowed the bombing of Lebanon, he allowed the bombing of that Iranian hostage in Syria. And then we defended Israel when Iran struck back at them. He's the one who emboldened and shaped the political environment such that being pro Israel was basically just selling them in weapons and then rhetorically backing them up, set the table for Trump and for Netanyahu to expand the war to six different countries. It's shocking to sit and to think about the Middle east now some two years later. And it's funny, you know, the pro Trump people are all saying, oh, it's a much safer Middle East. We'll get to that, I think, with Trita Parsi. But I mean, honestly, what we have had is the prevalence of like Israeli, basically foreign gangsterism from Iran. You know, either drawing the United States in or whatever you could describe it, having America have your back secretly. Nobody will really know the full story. Whatever happened, happened. You had the overthrow of the Assad regime, the installation of a literal Al Qaeda figure who is pro Israel. Okay, can we sit with that again? Everybody just seems to brush past it. You had the decimation of Hezbollah, of Lebanon. You had. I mean, I'm forgetting the number of countries, I'm forgetting the number of countries that they bombed now at this point, hundreds of billions of dollars in US Support now over decades, not to mention tens of billions since this war began. And also the diplomatic isolation both of Israel and of the United States. So at that station sets the table for whatever comes next. And that's where leading into the Treata Parsi segment, we also. There's so much exaggeration. I was watching Fox News, as I often do in big moments, just to.
- [20:16]
Saagar Enjeti
Be like, okay, you know, what's the take?
- [20:19]
Krystal Ball
And they're like, oh, he has finally brought peace to the Middle East. And I was like, guys like, oh. I'm like, look, we can rejoice for the freedom of the hostages, which we do. We had the families. Griffin interviewed the father of one of the hostages who was released, who was just released. We rejoice for him. We sat with an early member, remember, of Israeli. We had here on the show. We had him here in the studio. His sister was taken hostage by Hamas. We rejoice for her freedom. We always have. We rejoice for the Palestinians who have been able to come back. But we cannot sit seriously and say that there has been brought peace to the Middle East. We have a diplomatically isolated Israel. We have the Palestinian people of at least some 2 million, probably less, to be honest, at this point, who knows? 1.6, 1.7 million. Nobody really knows how many people are alive. They are now about to be governed by some insane coalitional provisional authority of Gaza run by the West. Will they be sold for parts? Will they have states whatsoever? Like, what is that going to materialize? Are we just going to see that Hamas re rise again? You know, with all of the discontent and of their Treatment. Can you imagine being one of those people? Are you truly done? How can you be demilitarized after something like this? Or if you are, then it's gonna have to come from the US, Germany and Japan model and everybody sign up for 70 years of occupation of Gaza. Maybe that's on the table. I don't know. I didn't vote for it. I can say that. I don't think a lot of you did either.
- [21:54]
Saagar Enjeti
So I don't think this was a successful direction in terms of de. Radicalizing anyone, because I. I mean, just imagine that you're one of these kids that was bombed for your formative years. You know, if you're seven years old, basically all you've known in your life is like, being bombed and shot at and fleeing for your life and displacement and your loved ones being murdered and you being starved to death. Like, do you think that that's gonna engender feelings of love and peace across the population? And so, which, again, are things we've said from the very beginning that this was no way to go about achieving some sort of a sustainable peace. So all of that remains. I mean, there's a real risk that, yes, Trump was doing his whole victory lap at the Knesset and in Egypt and, oh, my God, I should get the Nobel Peace Prize, and at the same time bragging about, oh, I gave Israel everything they want, and they used it in this very harsh way. I mean, he, for months and months, was a monstrous war criminal overseeing a genocide. And that just doesn't get washed away. And there's a real risk that. That if this thing isn't kept together and if there isn't anything approaching a, you know, a sustainable. I can't even say just. But a sustainable solution here, that. That could end up looking like a bit of a mission accomplished moment. But, you know, for the time being, we're, you know, we're relieved that at least there's a lull in the kinetic, overwhelming force that had been applied and wielded against these people in Gaza. That's unbelievable. Just a couple of other updates. We could put a 7 up on the screen. Drop site is reporting on the influx of aid. This is another thing. I mentioned this yesterday, but I just have to. But given all of the lies and the propaganda, oh, it's not Israel that's blocking the aid, it's the un they need to get their acts together. It's the Palestinians who are, like, storming the trucks and the trucks can't get through. That's why we have to have GHF GHF is gone. As part of the deal, the UN and other aid organizations are allowed by Israel to flood the area with aid. So far, however, the amount of trucks coming in continue to be insufficient. According to the Gaza government media office, they said only 173 aid trucks entered the strip on Sunday. I believe the number is. There should be something like 600 trucks a day getting in for it to be sufficient for the population. Convoy included three trucks of cooking gas, six of solar fuel for bakeries, hospitals, generators. Amid severe shortages after months of blockade and destruction, authorities warn the amount was a drop in the ocean of Gaza's needs, stressing over 2 million residents require a sustained large scale flow of aid, fuel and medical supplies. And you can see the photo is from October 12th, so two days ago as hungry crowds strip aid trucks amid catastrophic hunger and deprivation. So there's still incredible need there. One of the things that I was seeing as well is the Israelis have withdrawn from part of Gaza. They still occupy a significant portion. And the part that they occupy is actually the area that has any sort of fertile farmland. Most of what they've withdrawn from is the sandy part where nothing can grow. They also, as we covered yesterday thanks to Dropsite News reporting, they also, Israeli soldiers, you know, torched and destroyed anything they could on their way out, including this key wastewater treatment plant in Gaza City. It was basically the only remaining even somewhat functional wastewater treatment plant in Gaza City to. So just to give you a sense of the, you know, the enormous challenges and suffering that remain, let's go ahead and put the next one up on the screen. You know, I don't think we could show these images enough to really give you a sense of what this, when they say they're returning home, like this is what we're talking about. 85% of Gaza has been turned into rubble. There are. Remember when we were all eyes on Khan Yunis, you know, all eyes, all eyes on Rafah. Remember that? All eyes on Rafah. I mean, Rafa is. Rafah's destroyed.
- [25:52]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that seems quaint at this point.
- [25:53]
Saagar Enjeti
I mean, unbelievable. And again, I mean, that was Biden too. That was supposedly a red line. Well, Rafa's wiped off the map. You know, Khan Yuna's wiped off the map. Gaza City largely destroyed. So most people who are coming back are saying, I have nothing to come back to. There's nothing here. It's destroyed. This family home that's, you know, that I built or my grandfather built or has been my home where my children grew up, like Gone, gone, gone. Not to mention all of the, you know, all the normal things we take for granted. The shops, the schools, the parks, like every constituent element of just normal day to day human existence was intentionally wiped off the map. And again, for people who claimed, oh, this is the most moral army in the world and this is just a war of self defense, A just war of self defense. You know, Jared Kushner saying some bullshit like that while he was in Israel. Look at that and tell me that's self defense. You didn't even destroy Hamas. You just wanted to, you just wanted to murder these people. You just wanted to destroy the life and wipe off the face of the earth any sign of Palestinian life and survival and culture. So, you know, it's a lot of pain and heartbreak that continues there.
- [27:05]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, it's shocking how we grasp. And by the way. Okay, let's sit with this too now. In some ways the work begins not only in terms of Gaza and how it gets governed and how, you know, aid begins to flow in the moment journalists start to go on in there and to document. It's gonna be drop after drop after drop. I mean, can you imagine, you know, to be able to go into Rafah Khan Younis, especially into North Gaza, which has been, you know, screwed with since October. Nobody's been there there for two years and all the journalists who were Palestinian are dead. So at this point, especially with no bombardment and you have live television cameras because the Rafa crossing is now open and people are going to start to go in there, doctors like we don't have to rely on secondhand testimony any there. It's, it's only a matter of time until the actual national news crews, the Clarissa Wards, the Trey Yanks and all these people start to go in completely unimpeded without IDF censorship, right?
- [28:04]
Saagar Enjeti
It's going to be IDF babysitters.
- [28:06]
Krystal Ball
It's going to be a different world when you get live cameras of mass grave. I mean, who knows what's down there, right? Ordinance, everywhere, graffiti. And we have a lot of this already from firsthand account. But it's another thing to actually go through and to report it all. And so when you have that, it could be honestly years of stories that start to come out. I mean, just think back to some of the great. If you think back to after war's end, you know, everybody in history, we kind of stop reading the book there. But there's a lot of, of life that was lived in between. And for years people grappled kind of what the scene was like and what happened and what this commander did or that. And then the international situation with again, the governance here. There's so many pitfalls for whether will there be a Palestinian Authority? What's going to happen to the West Bank? Trump says he won't let Bibi annex it. Bibi says that there will be no Palestinian state. What happens then? Trump is demanding. We're talking about this retreat in a moment. He's demanding Abraham accords, normalization of relations from all the Arab states. For all of them. A prerequisite allegedly is Palestinian statehood. Will they stick to that? I mean, I wouldn't put it past them to move beyond it. So who knows? It's gonna be. There's a long, long, long road ahead.
- [29:22]
Donald Trump
But.
- [29:22]
Saagar Enjeti
Well. And as an indication of how opposed Netanyahu is to any sort of, you know, Palestinian statehood, which has long been his position. Yeah, this is not a secret. He's very open about how this is one of his primary missions is to block the, you know, indefinitely, permanently, the creation of Palestinian state. One of the people they refuse to let out of their prisons is Marwan Barghouti, who is seen, I mean, he is actually from a rival political party to Hamas, but they really advocated for his release. Cuz he's seen as this potential unifying Palestinian force who actually could potentially be head of state of a unified Palestinian state. And they said, nope, absolutely, that guy cannot go out. There were also a number of people, Some, I think 150 roughly, Palestinians that were on the sheet to be released, were released, but they were deported to other places. So those families were expecting them back and then find out that no, actually they were shipped to Egypt, I think, primarily and are barred from returning to Gaza. So. And then we've been trying to track this doctor who had been detained by Israel and imprisoned by Israel, and his name is very unclear whether or not he was part of this release or not. The last that I saw, they haven't been able to get updates from the family over whether or not he was actually released. And I just want to remind people that Israel still holds thousands of Palestinians as prisoners, as hostages, most of whom they have no charges filed against. They just picked them up, largely quote, unquote, military aged men, but women and children as well. And, you know, they just pick them up and hold them and use them in, you know, the same way basically that Hamas used the Israeli hostages as leverage so that they can, you know, have this bargaining chip and continue to immiserate Palestinian people. So important to keep that in mind as well.
- [31:16]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, that's right. All right, let's get to treat to.
- [31:17]
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- [31:50]
Krystal Ball
Lenovo.
- [31:54]
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- [32:21]
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- [33:26]
Krystal Ball
Joining us now is Dr. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute to help us break down the entire Sharm El Sheikh summit. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
- [33:33]
Dr. Trita Parsi
Thanks for having me.
- [33:34]
Krystal Ball
Let's go ahead and start then with Donald Trump. He flew to Egypt after appearing in Israel before the the Knesset. He's claiming peace in the Middle east here has finally come with several world leaders behind him. Let's take a listen to what he said.
- [33:46]
Donald Trump
This is the day that people across the region and around the world have been working, striving, hoping and praying for with the historic agreement we've just signed. Those prayers of millions have finally been answered. The war in Gaza is over. Humanitarian aid is now pouring in, including hundreds of truckloads of food and medical equipment. We're also agreed that Gaza's reconstruction requires that it be demilitarized and that a new honest civilian police force must be allowed to create a safe condition for the people in Gaza. I don't know what it is. I like the tough people better than I like the soft, easy ones. I don't know what the hell that is. It's a personality problem, I suspect. But this gentleman from a place called Turkey has one of the most powerful armies actually, in the world. It's much more powerful than he even lets known. If you look at some of the recent conflicts, he was at the top of them and he was winning them, and he did win them, and he doesn't want any credits, he doesn't want anything. He just wants to be left alone. He's a tough cookie, but he's been my friend and every time I've ever needed him, he's been there for me. Just made a big deal today, so we'll smile. The biggest effort.
- [35:05]
Krystal Ball
A lot of pomp and circumstance in Sharm El Sheikh there at the summit. Dr. Parsi, what's your general read here on some of the claims about peace in the Middle east withstanding the hostage deal?
- [35:16]
Dr. Trita Parsi
Right now, we're quite a bit away from peace, but we do have to say, though, that this is a very important and welcome necessary step. There's plenty of flaws with this deal. There's plenty of things to be worried about. But something has happened that is absolutely crucial, and that is that the United States, for the first time in several years now, actually has put pressure on Israel. That is the key to a lot of these different things, a lot of reasons as to why a lot of these regional leaders are coming and giving this exaggerated praise for an effort that has not yet even begun to yield results beyond the ceasefire and the hostage release is precisely because they want to continue to encourage the United States to do something he hasn't done for years, which is put constraints on Israel, put pressure on Israel, and stop looking at the region solely from an Israeli lens. That's why they're so excited. They know very well this may not work out. But if for the first time, the US President is willing to try some of these tools, tries, the instruments of pressure, they want to be as encouraging as possible, is that enough? No. There's a lot that remains to be done. But without this pressure, we would not have a ceasefire. We would not have the release of the hostages from both sides, and we wouldn't have anything that could potentially start a real process to solve the actual core issue, which is the occupation of Palestinian land.
- [36:40]
Saagar Enjeti
So let's play this out a little bit. What will it take, even just for the ceasefire to hold? And then what further would it take for there to be something approaching a resolution?
- [36:49]
Dr. Trita Parsi
Well, for the ceasefire to hold, Trump needs to do what he didn't do between January and March. He first pressured Israelis into a ceasefire back then, but he did not sustain that pressure. And by March, Bibi Netanyahu managed to essentially weasel his way out of that agreement and restart the genocide. This time around, clearly, the demand from the Arab side and from the regional states has been that Trump needs to own this process as much as possible, make it as personal as possible, fly to the region, give all of these speeches, have all of these things in order to make it as difficult as possible for any party, particularly the Israelis, to violate the deal, because by doing so is to be in direct defiance of Trump himself. So, you know, that pressure needs to be sustained for this to work out. Once it gets to the issue of the core problem, I think here, the United States needs to really take a step back and recognize for so long, we have said that we need to get out of this region. I think that is absolutely correct. The United States is completely overextended, has put way too many bases and troops in the region. That is of increasingly little strategic value to the United States. But to do that type of burden shifting, we need something to shift it onto. We can't just shift it onto some sort of a vacuum. If the United States uses this momentum now to be able to help, not lead, but help creating an inclusive security order in the region, then I think we will have that mechanism, that infrastructure to shift the burden onto. For that to work. However, you cannot let the cancer of this continued conflict between Israel and Palestine to continue. You need to resolve the Palestinian issue. So I think we have to recognize that a creation of a Palestinian state is in the direct interest of the US Itself in order to be able to get to a security architecture that is crucial for the US to be able to disengage militarily from this region.
- [38:48]
Krystal Ball
One of the things Dr. Parsi, they are pushing hard is the Abraham Accords. Let's take a listen to Trump encouraging all of those states to join. Let's take a listen.
- [38:56]
Donald Trump
Everybody's gonna join the Abraham Accord. I like to Say the Avraham. I love Avraham, but somehow it doesn't sound as good when I say it as it does when some of my other friends say from the region pronunciation.
- [39:12]
Krystal Ball
And all of that notwithstanding, he is still encouraging those states to join. Why is he so wedded to that framework and does it have any chance of success?
- [39:21]
Dr. Trita Parsi
Well, it's interesting because it also seems as if he has changed what that framework actually means. The framework from the outset was a very erroneous one. It was actually designed to keep the United States militarily engaged in the region. It was about organizing the region, half the region against the other half, and particularly bring the Arabs and the Israelis together in order to contain Iran. This is what the US has been doing for the last 30 years. Started off with dual containment back in the 1990s. This was just giving it another name and making the Arab Israeli component much more explicit. Of course, it didn't work. It was sold as a peace plan. But in reality it threw the Palestinians under the bus and paved the way for October 7th because it was very clear that if you're closing the path for the Palestinians to achieve their rights to a state through diplomatic means, then eventually at some point it's going to translate into armed resistance, which is exactly what it did. So that part of it, I think is dead in the waters. Most countries in the region are not eager to normalize relations with Israel. We saw, for instance, according to Turkish press, at least the Turks warned Trump that if he actually gets Netanyahu to come to Egypt, the Turks will turn around mid air and go back. They're not going to attend that session together with Netanyahu. So if they won't even be on the same stage, and those are two countries that actually have relations, you can just imagine what the others are feeling like. But then there's also this other confusing thing, is that he's saying that he wants Iran to be in the Abraham Accord as well. Well, if Iran is in the Abraham Accord, then there's no longer an Abraham Accord because the Abraham Accord was centered on the idea of isolating and containing Iran. Unless of course, he's suggesting that he wants to have regime change in Iran and after that bring them into the Abraham Accord. But that would also then be a clear failure, a broken promise to his base, which he said no more regime change wars.
- [41:13]
Saagar Enjeti
Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what Trump did have to say about Iran.
- [41:17]
Donald Trump
But I think Iran will come along. They've been battered and bruised and you.
- [41:22]
Krystal Ball
Know.
- [41:26]
Donald Trump
They need some help. There are big sanctions and, as you know, tremendous sanctions. I'd love to take the sanctions off when they're ready to talk, but they can't really survive with those sanctions. Those sanctions are very tough, but at some point they're going to say, we want the sanctions off. We're going to end up with peace. I think Iran is going to be fine. I know so many Iranian people. They're great people. They're smart, great, great people. Engineers, lawyers. I mean, they're academics.
- [41:53]
Saagar Enjeti
So what did you read into those comments?
- [41:56]
Dr. Trita Parsi
I think we have to remind ourselves that this is pretty much exactly the same thing that he was saying back in January and February, and by June, he bombed Iran, despite ongoing and rather constructive negotiations taking place. So Tehran is extremely skeptical. They believe that there is a high risk, that diplomacy with the US at this stage is just another guy's facade for an effort to lull them into a false sense of security in order to bomb them. Again, I think that is understandable if you're sitting in Tehran, but I think it's also exaggerated. I don't think the Iranians had much to lose if they had actually showed up in Sharm El Sheikh. They were apparently invited, and Trump wanted them to be there. I think from their standpoint right now, their options are not particularly good, and the risk of actually engaging is, in my view, less than not engaging. Now, I think there's a critical element that needs to be fixed in order for this to actually be a negotiation and not what Trump actually seems to be looking for, which is a conversation about Iran's terms for capitulation. The Iranians are not going to capitulate. And as long as they think that that is what Trump is looking for, they're going to be very disinclined to get engaged in any real diplomacy with him. But if Trump goes back to his original red line, which was no weapons, not the Israeli red line of no enrichment, then I think there is a deal that can be had, and the Iranians have signaled clearly that they're open to that. And, in fact, they were very close to a deal on that issue. The question is, it seems like Trump thinks that Iran is in such a weak position that he has no choice but to capitulate. I think that is a misreading. Iran is in a weaker position, but it's not going to capitulate. And if you keep on insisting on it, you're more likely to get into a new round of confrontation rather than a deal and diplomacy.
- [43:41]
Krystal Ball
One of the things I've worried about, Dr. Parsi, is that with Gaza, at least not over entirely, but quieter, Netanyahu still needs a war to justify his own political position. Well, what is the unfinished war which he continually keeps bringing up? Iran. And so we have the snapback sanctions in place. We have the European Union and all them acting much more hawkish. It actually does seem to me as if conflict seems more likely with Iran at this point as a result now of this so called ceasefire deal or whatever, whether it holds or not. But it makes it seem as if politically to justify his own position, his own security doctrine that he has to go in search of monsters to destroy.
- [44:23]
Dr. Trita Parsi
I think, unfortunately you may be right on this one. I don't think in the next two weeks, not immediately in the immediate term, the risk has gone down, whereas the risk actually was pretty high. But by the end of this year, if this is not resolved and the Israelis keep on pushing, and as you said, they need some other conflict, they also have the option of really restarting it with Lebanon. But the price for their end, of course, is to be able to defang Iran entirely. I think one of the things the Iranians committed a mistake about is that they never engaged, not just directly with the US but they should have had just the conversation with Trump himself, whether it was the foreign minister or the president, because Trump, for him, everything is personal. Diplomacy is utterly personal. Just talking to Witkoff is just not enough. And I think there may have been a chance back then and there may still be a chance now, that if there is that type of a direct conversation, both sides will get a more realistic view of the other. From the US Side, recognizing the Iranians are not going to capitulate. You push for that and you get war. From the Iranian side, recognizing you can't play this game any longer of not talking directly to the U.S. in fact, swallow your pride, talk directly to Trump. That's the only chance of actually getting flexibility from the American side.
- [45:38]
Saagar Enjeti
And Dr. Parsi, lastly, it's important we try to think about what Netanyahu wants because he's proven very effective at manipulating American presidents, whether it's this one or the last one or a bunch of other ones. Besides, do you think that he is done with Gaza or wants to go back into, you know, all out kinetic warfare in Gaza as well?
- [45:58]
Dr. Trita Parsi
I don't think he is in the slightest finish with Gaza. In fact, I don't think this is what the Israelis wanted at all. I think what happened here is a combination of two things. One that there was this massive plunging of the standing of Israel in the America first constituency, which is Trump's core constituency, particularly in the last couple of months, it really accelerated and it started to become a political liability for Trump. In fact, he said to Netanyahu, according to his own conversation, as he conveyed it to Sean Hannity, he told Netanyahu, you can't continue fighting the world all the time. He's essentially telling him, you're becoming a pariah, you're becoming isolated. And this is costing me a lot because you're asking the United States to arm you, to defend you, diplomatically, spend a lot of political capital, to constantly bail you out of things. Enough is enough. I'm not going to walk into the midterm elections with this liability, if that is. And I think, of course, the strike against Qatar, which was this massive overreach by the Israelis, kind of was the trigger that shifted the debate inside of the White House on this issue and pushed him in the direction that we're seeing right now. So I don't think Netanyahu wanted any of this. He wanted to continue the fighting. He wanted to have an annexation, not just of Gaza, he wanted to use Gaza as a way of distract the world from what he's actually doing in the west bank right now. So this is a major uprooting of the plan that he had. I don't think he's abandoned the plan. I think he's bidding his time to see. When will Trump lose attention, shift his focus elsewhere, and when is the next opportunity for Netanyahu to restart this once again, just as he did in March?
- [47:35]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, Very, very important analysis. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
- [47:40]
Dr. Trita Parsi
Thanks so much for having me.
- [47:43]
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- [48:18]
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- [48:45]
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- [49:49]
Krystal Ball
Turning now to a side comment to Donald Trump. And yet, probably one of the most revealing comments of all time is Trump praising mega donor Miriam Adelson while he was in Israel, and in particular making a comment about how he once asked her whether she loved Israel or America more and she wouldn't answer. So he assumed Israel. Let's take a listen.
- [50:10]
Donald Trump
Broken promises from many other American presidents, you know, that they kept promising. I never understood it until I got there. There, there was a lot of pressure put on these presidents. It was put on me, too, but I didn't yield to the pressure. But every president for decades said, we're going to do it. The difference is I kept my promise and officially recognized the capital of Israel and moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. Isn't that right, Miriam? Look at Miriam. She's back there. Stand up, Miriam. Stand up. Miriam and Sheldon would come into the office, they'd call me, he'd call me. I think, I think they had more trips to the White House than anybody else I can think of. Look at her sitting there so innocently. She's got 60 billion in the bank. 60 billion. And she loves. And she, I think she's saying no more. And she loves Israel, but she loves it. And they would come in and her husband was a very aggressive man, but I loved him. He was a very aggressive, very supportive of me. And he'd call up, can I come over and see you? I say, sheldon, I'm the President of the United States. It doesn't work that way, he'd come in with. But they were very responsible for so much, including getting me thinking about Golan Heights, which is probably one of the greatest things to ever happen. Miriam, stand up, please. You. She really is. I mean, she loves this country. She loves this country. Her and her husband are so incredible. We miss him so dearly. But I actually asked her. I'm going to get her in trouble with this. But I actually asked her once, I said, so, Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more, the United States or Israel? She refused to answer. That means that might mean Israel. I must say, we love you. Thank you, darling, for being here. That's a great honor. Great honor. She's a wonderful woman.
- [52:42]
Krystal Ball
So that, by the way, is something that would get you banned from social media previously. It's something that would be considered anti Semitic, actually, under the government's definition. Let's go ahead and put B6, please, up on the screen. From our friend Glenn Greenwald. As he says, is that under the new expanded IHRA hate speech rules Trump forced American universities to adopt, accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel or to their alleged priorities of Jews worldwide than to the interests of their own nations is considered an act of antisemitism. And yet in this case, he tells a personal anecdote in which he directly asked Miriam whether she loved Israel or America more, and she wouldn't answer, and that he thinks that she meant Israel. If you have any doubt, by the way, about her husband, he once said that it was a regret that he wore the American uniform in battle and not the Israeli uniform, and that his children wore the IDF uniform. People think I'm joking. Look it up. All right. It's a direct quote from Sheldon Adelson. The main funder of Birthright visited the.
- [53:47]
Saagar Enjeti
Winehouse more than anyone else.
- [53:49]
Krystal Ball
Okay, all right. It's not an anti Semitic conspiracy theory. It is literally a fact. And yet, look, in some. I talked about the duality of Trump. He is both the megazionist and the guy who tells Bibi to shut up and to just go along. In this case, he just says the quiet part out loud. He told us all the truth. To him, it's very obvious. He's like, she's got 60 billion. She gave me 100 billion. Or how much?
- [54:13]
Saagar Enjeti
100 million just for this campaign.
- [54:15]
Krystal Ball
She gave me 100 million just for this campaign. Part of it was, I let Israel annex the West Bank. I guess she didn't fully get everything that she paid for, but she got a lot of what she paid for. And he said, he out of his own mouth, he said Miriam, in his own estimation, loves Israel more than she loves America.
- [54:31]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah, I mean, there's like really honestly no analysis needed for this clip. It's very self explanatory.
- [54:36]
Krystal Ball
He said it.
- [54:36]
Saagar Enjeti
Trump is on here bragging about how his foreign policy was for sale. And this is the lady who bought it, at least with regard to Israel, talks about some of the action specifically he took in the first Trump term where he recognized Jerusalem as the capital moves. The American Embassy to Jerusalem recognized the Golan Heights, which under international law are part of Syria as being part of Israel. This was what was on their wish list for the first Trump administration. Reportedly, what's on their wish list for the second Trump administration is the complete annexation of the west bank. That has basically happened. I mean, if you talk to Jasper Nathaniel, in terms of the level of control that Israel exerts over the west bank, and if you consider especially some of the increase in settlements, key settlements that cut off the west bank from critical parts, so you've got already basically de facto annexation of the west bank. And I will say one red flag for this deal is how happy Miriam is about it. That's one thing that and the pro Israel crowd generally, that's one thing that's very concerning to me. Why are these people so happy? If he really stuck it to Bibi and drove a hard bargain, then why are they acting like they got everything that they ever wanted out of this? That's one thing to be concerned about. And also the fact that, like he just openly says, look, this lady, she gave me $100 million. I mean, this isn't exactly what he said, but this is the substance of his statements. She gave me $100 million. I'm gonna do what she wants me to do on this. So what else does she want? How does she want this deal to ultimately be resolved? But just extraordinary for the American President to be in there. Like, yeah, she gave money in my campaign. And so I did what she wanted me to do.
- [56:08]
Krystal Ball
Just out and out and to re sentiments. And this gets. We didn't get it in the show, but we're gonna, we're gonna cover. Maybe Ryan and I will cover it tomorrow. The AIPAC trying to rebrand themselves. This is exactly the point.
- [56:20]
Saagar Enjeti
That's America First. Incredible.
- [56:22]
Krystal Ball
So I'll give you. So the AIPAC people, what they always tell me is, look, these are Americans, they are American citizens. They have the right to engage in their politics. Well, when you literally have The President of the United States saying in this case that they have loyalty to a foreign country and they use their dollars to fund causes to promote more loyalty to that government. What world are we living in where that doesn't have to qualify for foreign agent registration or we need to change the law? Honestly, like imagine the roles reverse. I'm of Indian descent. I'm not even a citizen of India or an overseas citizen or any of that. I actually rejected. They have this overseas citizen thing where basically it's like a multi entry visa. I said no, even though it's a pain in the ass because I refuse to be a citizen even in name of any other country. And yet for them, they not only want the dual citizenship, they want also to be able to use their American citizenship to promote loyalty to this foreign government. And listen, I mean, I guess you have the right to do what you want, but at the very least, like you have to have some registration or disclosure purposes whenever it comes to that. And even that they would say it's anti Semitic. I just compared it to India. I would call out any Indian who's doing, doing the exact. I'm calling anybody Yugoslavia, whatever. Okay, Serbia, sorry, Yugoslavia doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. I've been doing some 1990s reading. So I have a globe in my desk which still from the 1900s, which still has like the Russian empire on it. So that's, that's part of the issue. But my point just broadly is it's not an anti Semitic point. I would say it about anybody. I genuinely would say it about anybody. Qatari. But they want a special exception. They refuse to even acknowledge any of this. And by the way, if Trump hadn't said it whenever people like I know Scott Horton said that, I think on the Lex Freeman podcast, whenever he was debating Mark Dubowitz, he was called an anti Semite for bringing up that point. When you literally quote the Adelsons and then point to their giving and what their priorities are, you're called anti Semitic. And then Trump just says the shit out loud.
- [58:30]
Saagar Enjeti
That card, it just doesn't work anymore. And it's a problem when you have genuine antisemitism because now everyone's like, well, was it really because you say that shit about like literally everything. So let's. We've got a little bit of an update about how things are going over at Barry's CBS as well that we can put up. This is B5. So now CBS News on their homepage is promoting some of the quote unquote reporting from the free press, including this article, some New York Police Department officers worry about Mamdani becoming the New York City mayor. So this is a type of partnership, type of hard hitting journalism that's being promoted now over at CBS News. I mean, it's just extraordinary. And it was interesting talking to Dr. Parsi about part of why this deal is happening now. And partly it's because, in Ryan's words, like, Israel was bombing Trump's money in Qatar. I think that was a big part of the reason. But the other part of the reason was the sense that Israel is incredibly isolated in the world, like it's impossible to continue running cover for them and, and stick with their propaganda. And that you have this significant faction, especially of young people in the America first movement, who were like, how is this America First? And it was becoming a problem. And one of the ways you could tell that this was becoming an issue is because you have had this increasingly heavy handed effort to censor any pro Palestine or Israel critical commentary, including what's happening at CBS being one piece of the. That what's happening at TikTok being another very important piece of this. So this was a sort of sign that they recognized they needed to get more aggressive because their previous tactics in Hespara were just utterly falling flat. So anyway, that's where we are. That's how things are going for Barry and cvs.
- [60:17]
Krystal Ball
There's our update with cvs. By the way, if anybody is interested, Paramount Skydance Stock is down 10.4% in the last days.
- [60:26]
Saagar Enjeti
I know one person who's interested.
- [60:28]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I am. Oh yeah? Did I disclose that? Did I disclose that?
- [60:31]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't think you have.
- [60:31]
Krystal Ball
If I did full disclosure what I did. On the day that the Paramount deal acquiring Bari Weiss's company, the Free Press was announced, I bought a put option on the stock for Paramount that it would crash by 25% in one year. And already the stock is down 10.4% in the last five days. And currently we're recording this before the market is open. It's down down another 1.17% as of this morning. So I can go ahead and check right now what I could sell and already exit my position for if I wanted to. Let's see, it was already up some 18% whenever I checked it yesterday. So that is my own personal full disclosure here. Even though, yes, I am against sports gambling. I am absolutely for. Look, I put my money where my mouth is, right? I said it's a stupid deal, it doesn't make any sense. And that it is indicative of ideology over content. And I'm gonna stick to that. Any moron who's gonna buy the free press for 150 million and wants to pay all cash for Warner Bros. Discovery is a moron worth betting against. And so that is my bet. Consider yourself fully informed audience.
- [61:41]
Saagar Enjeti
So Barry's big initial idea of her roundtable with Hillary and Pompeii or whatever, what it ended up being was a discussion with Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Ro on the future of the Middle East. And I'm just taking a look now. It looks like it got on their YouTube channel, which their YouTube channel, CBS News has like close to 7 million subscribers. Looks like it clocked in at 15,000.
- [62:06]
Krystal Ball
Solid, very solid.
- [62:07]
Saagar Enjeti
Yeah. And when they live streamed it, it had like 100 concurrents.
- [62:10]
Krystal Ball
Let's keep it going. All right. Let's start a GameStop thing. Let's crash this fucker. All right. And by the way, all proceeds I will use for something that would make Barry Fury. I haven't decided exactly what it would be, but if I make any profit, all profit will go to something that would make very well.
- [62:25]
Saagar Enjeti
It's sort of incredible that at least based on the stock price right now the actual valuation for the press was.
- [62:30]
Krystal Ball
Like negative, negative millions of dollars. I don't know. I need to look at the market cap overall of this company. Let's see, 18.74 billion. So down. Yeah, that's as of right now. I'd have to do some back of the napkin math now personally, but yeah, anyway, so there you go. Consider everybody yourself informed. It's all in due font. I think the total price was like $200. It wasn't like a serious bet or anything, but again all the proceeds will make to some will go to something. If I do sell it for a profit that will make Bari Weiss furious. Okay, let's get to the economy.
- [63:03]
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- [63:34]
Krystal Ball
Lenovo.
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- [65:09]
Krystal Ball
Turning now to the economy, a blockbuster new interview with Andrew Ross. Sorkin, who's got a new book out 1929, says a crash could happen again, referencing the great crash that caused the Great Depression. Let's take a listen.
- [65:22]
Saagar Enjeti
And in the 1920s people were saying stocks were going to go up because the entire world was buying into the.
- [65:28]
Dr. Trita Parsi
U.S. i think that's very true. I would actually specifically point, point actually to a technology story back then which was radio. Radio, the ticker symbol was radio. The company was rca. They also, by the way, not only had the technology for radio, they had the patents for television. And that was the Nvidia. I mean that was the meme stock of that era because people were buying into this future that we were all going to experience and they wouldn't have been wrong by the way. The conundrum is I think the stock stock split adjusted at the peak was like got to 530 some odd dollars and by 1932 was like $3.
- [66:07]
Krystal Ball
So there you go. He's making some parallels there about the parallels between today's market and the 1920s. Obviously you could probably say that at any time about some stock. People have been talking about crashes and all of that for some time, but you know, it's looking a little bubbly I think if you ask me. I spoke to A friend recently who said, if you really want to be scared, it's not March of 2000, it's January of 1999. So we're still at the early part of where things might go for the dot com crash. I think the parallels, I think what scares me the most are those insular deals that I haven't stopped talking about here on the show because that's the type of stuff where you're like, yo man, this stuff is not just fake, it's fake beyond fake.
- [66:49]
Saagar Enjeti
And everybody knows looking ice cream cone.
- [66:51]
Krystal Ball
So it's like OpenAI announces a deal with a company, that company gets 10% of its stock to OpenAI. Then the stock goes up and then the amount that they're paying is covered by the overall value. And this happens over and over and over. Which AMD Nvidia did it with another company. OpenAI just announced a deal with Broadcom. It's like they have figured out their secret sauce is that investors are so bullish on the promise of AI that even when they put cash out the door, the cash out the door is enough for a requisite rise in the stock that if they take the stock the value goes up and it's effectively nothing there. When in reality nothing has happened. It's a five year deal. Who knows? Chips is a hard business. Can they really make them? You know, it's not that easy. As we've all figured out, it's been a few years since the chips act. How's that going? Not particularly well in terms of our production, it's literally probably the hardest manufacturing business in the world and yet it's all premised on, oh, we eventually are going to get to a place of AGI and the, you know, the profits and all of that are going to be so extraordinary and so unbelievable. And right now the reality, it just doesn't exist. I was telling you guys yesterday, as the audience knows, been watching some more NFL. You know, it's pretty crazy and weird to watch Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT running consumer ads on the NFL Network, like on the various networks. So for example, Microsoft Copilot is running ads right now about that dumb animation, like turning a photo of yourselves into anime. And they're like Microsoft Copilot where you can free image generation for everybody. I'm like, really? That's what you're selling to people? That's the promise of copilot. Same with ChatGPT. They're like, use it to plan a vacation or something. And it's like two brother and sister Driving through the mountains and I was like, so that's what all the data centers and all this shit is for, is for this.
- [68:39]
Saagar Enjeti
It's for like glorified Google, right?
- [68:42]
Krystal Ball
Like Google, Right. A Gemini, Right. I mean, if you look at the ads for these, it's not impressive. It's not at all what it was sold as. Now is it a good research tool? Sure. Does it help some efficiency a little bit and all that? Yeah, but that's not, you know, worth the hundreds and hundred trillions of dollars of market cap of where we are. So that's why I'm starting. I'm just getting very nervous. But you know what my cope is on why the market can't crash. The whole economy is fake. This shit is way more fake than 1990. Back in 1999 we actually had, we made shit in this country, like actual stuff. We had a lot more fundamentals. All of the bonanzas and all that Wall street subprime and all that hadn't happened yet. A lot of the fakeries and terms of accounting, et cetera, this is pre Enron. So it's like when I start to think about where things are today versus then I think we've actually gotten much more sophisticated at washing all this together. So maybe it can't crash.
- [69:34]
Saagar Enjeti
Keeping it, keep it going.
- [69:35]
Krystal Ball
Yeah, I think we put the superglow down, I don't know. And now it's not as easy to crash anymore. I could be totally wrong, but that's my cope.
- [69:41]
Saagar Enjeti
I don't know. And here's the thing is like there isn't a lot of indication that AI so far has. You know, there's all this projection, oh, it's going to increase employee productivity and so that's going to create all this GDP growth. There is not a lot of indication that that is happening yet. And we know that the vast majority of AI applications are not profitable. Like these companies that keep spending, spending, spending more money and acquiring different other companies and you know, their stock keeps going up and up and up, up. It's not like they're making money on any of these investments. So that's a bit of a red flag. So on the one hand, there's the risk of this technology doesn't really pan out to be as transformational as it was supposed to be. And at some point there's a reckoning with that and that creates a crash. The other possibility is that it is as transformational as being promised and it creates a mass like layoffs and societal tumult. So it's kind of a distressing story free either way you cut it. You know, the other piece of this is that with Emily and I covered this yesterday. Sarah, I want to get your take on it too with the China trade war stuff. China really holds our fate in their hands right now. If they want to pull the pin on us with regard to rare earths, they can do it now. They have vulnerabilities as well. Right. We're very interconnected in terms of our economies. But that's why on Friday when they were like, oh, we're going to up the export control on export restrictions on rare earth minerals, why there was such an instant market freak out because they. I was just looking. China controls about 70% of global rare earths mining, 90% of refining capacity. That's a really important piece. And 92% of these type of magnet production that are critical for motors and EVs, wind turbines and defense tech. All like, all of this is very critical also for AI. So if our entire economy is a bet on AI and we're deeply, deeply reliant on this country that Trump is set on antagonizing, that's a really dicey situation to be in as well.
- [71:41]
Krystal Ball
I don't know with the China thing. Yeah, you're absolutely right about the rare earth minerals. I just don't know how much of the trade fight is fake. It's like one day it's 100% tariff, the next day says not going to happen. By the way, as we are speaking, the Dow is falling the expectations because of US China tensions research. Even though it went up over 1% yesterday when it looks like China tensions were cooling. All I know broadly is that yes, we have serious fundamental and strategic risk whenever it comes to China. And there were a lot of easy ways to get away from that. As in not just chips, but even this. I mean look at the. Every tax bill, every time you touch the US tax bill code, it's a massive missed opportunity. It's a zero sum game. We only open up the tax code every five years. So every five years you have a bite at the apple to actually do something. And in this particular case, they didn't really do much to boost any American manufacturing in the critical sectors that we need it the most. And our trade policy is so schizophrenic. Are we really prioritizing rare earth minerals or not? Not really. Right. It's all just scattershot. It's not serious. And in the interim at every year China continues to go exponential. Now I've seen A lot of criticism about, oh, you're glazing. Listen, we can acknowledge all of their problems. Authoritarian government, bureaucracy, you know, a lot of it is for show. In some cases, like the bridge, for example, there was some criticism of people who covered the bridge. Like, oh, you're buying into Chinese propaganda. I'm like, well, you know, even if it is a bridge, to know it's still a remarkable engineering accomplishment. And the truth is, is that that's the way that they get the rural population on their side. I encourage people to read Dan Wang's book. People who live in rural China have watched in 20 years a literal exponential increase in their life. Now compare that to Appalachia or to this. I was just looking this morning at a graph of life expectancy. Southeastern United States. Is life expectancy 20 years, life lower than the rest of the country? Who is doing anything about that? Is anybody doing anything about that? No. Okay. And so I look at that, I look at the housing price. At the very least, the CCP pretends to give a shit about your problems. Sometimes they're actually really good at it, at solving them, sometimes not. You know, they give you a lot of propaganda, but they don't even pretend here. That's all. What I admire is the level of seriousness for the critical industry and for their long term thinking. I mean, people laughed, including me, at made in China 2025. I remember when I came out, I said, this is a joke. It's true, it worked. I would say the vast majority, if you go back to 2015 and read the documents, most of what they set out to do, which is declaring independence in batteries, critical minerals, in airplane production and in high tech manufacturing, I wouldn't say they won entirely. They haven't achieved total autonomy, but they made a lot of progress. Now compare the same rhetoric of 2015 in the United States about the pivot to Asia, Asia. Where are we today? How's the pivot to Asia going? It's literally 2025. What's the lead block of this show? Israel, Palestine. Who's Trump meeting with on Friday? Fucking Zelensky about Ukraine. Like, oh, what? That's literally two conflicts of no importance in the grand scheme of things to the usa. And that's what everything is focused on, not to mention all the dollars, all of the attention in Washington. So it's like, that's what I'm talking about is you have to zoom out. And I've seen this stuff from afar, you know, literally here in the city for, for the entire period of 2015. Now to 20, 25. And I think we've actually made less progress. If you look at manufacturing, if you look at the level of seriousness, divided politics, life expectancy, even Covid. We criticize them for zero. Covid. I certainly did. I thought it was incredibly stupid. But it turned out, you know, what they were able to do was actually exert even more control over their population. People predicted that that would lead to rise up in the. Hasn't happened. Literally hasn't happened. So, you know, we have to stop putting our own values or expectations on this other country, and we need to live in ours. And truth is, we live in a financialized bubble where the cost of living is unbelievably high for the vast majority of people who make under $100,000. That's just, that's just, that's the truth. And that's not the truth over there.
- [75:52]
Saagar Enjeti
The life expectancy thing doesn't get talked about enough. It's such a basic metric of how your society is doing. And when you see life expectancy, like, not just flatline, but actually falling and you, you know, like, that is such an indictment of a society and is also such a clear indicator that you're gonna have some fucked up politics, too. That is like Russia 1990, almost.
- [76:15]
Krystal Ball
There you go, 100%. How do you think Putin came to power? People like, oh, he's so authoritarian. He just came out of nowhere and he tricked the Russians. I'm like, oh, he tricked them? Or they were massively alcoholic, they got their economy destroyed, their population decimated, their empire was torn apart by the West. Then the west created NATO and started marching it forward. This stuff doesn't just happen in a vacuum. Exactly. And not excusing Putin, we can sociologically understand why that might be traumatic for a population. You're exactly right. Here in the US you have almost 10 years now of declining life expectancy, massive obesity, pre diabetic. Yeah. What do you think is going to happen? Where do you think Maha and all of that comes from? People are so furious. And then uranized health insurance premiums are about to go double. All right, People are going to go radical. People are going to go crazy when you start paying. I'm already paying like $9,000 a year for health insurance for me, my wife and my dog, one kid. All right, so $9,000. I have a $14,000 deductible. 14,000. That will wipe out any average person in this country. Wipe out one medical emergency, you're dead from a bankruptcy perspective. So put that on everybody else and Just think about where that's going to go.
- [77:30]
Saagar Enjeti
You know who has something to say about that? Marjorie Taylor Greene sounding off on prices and has been sounding the alarm about this spiking health insurance premiums that are on the horizon. Let's go ahead and listen to that. Costs have not come down. I myself can tell you my apartment here in Washington, D.C. the electricity bill.
- [77:47]
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- [77:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Year because you can look at your own bill and look at costs. Prices have not come down. That is a reality. People's wages have not gone up. That's another reality. And so Americans are, are continuing to have a very difficult time. The thing that's amazing to me is this is such so basic, like it's so basic and so obvious and everybody knows it. And yet for her to say it is like really remarkable.
- [78:17]
Krystal Ball
It feels really remarkable because Trump and the Republican Party demand fealty. You're not supposed to talk about it when he's in office. The tariffs, economy and all of that is booming. And she's like, no, it's just a reality. I think what I give her credit for is she always speaks, at least more recently from a point of view as a mother and as a congressman of this district. She talks about her children and about their economic. I mean, I think that is the only way that a healthy society can look at the political problems are not only how does this affect me, how does this affect the next generation? Looking at you boomers looking directly in the camera at you. It would be nice if you guys started to think a little bit more like that. But that's the issue. You know, I see a recent clip, I don't know if you did, of Ron DeSantis talking about when you buy a TV, you don't have to pay taxes on it every year, comparing it to property tax. That's what he said about tv. Yeah, that's the same thing, the tv. Apparently you need roads and all of that to operate a tv. I'm going to lose it when I watch this stuff happen because let's put this Wall Street Journal piece, please. Stronger growth, weaker hiring, forecaster C. A space split screen economy. And what is the split screen? It's exactly what we keep hammering home here is at the top 10%, things seem fine. At the rest, below 100,000. Yeah, it's not fine. And the split screen economy is one where without AI, we would be in a recession. Without all of this AI fakery, we would not only have a top and bottom recession, we would be in A full blown GDP respect recession. It's the only thing that is propping up the economy right now. And it's the only reason that rich people aren't beating the drum because their stock valuations and portfolios are sky high. But everything right now is weird. Gold all time high, we covered that. Bitcoin is near all time high. Stock market near all time high. That's not supposed to happen. Like those are supposed to be countervailing, right? So I don't know, the whole thing, it's making me crazy because it's just every day of stupidity marches on and that's one more day that we're not doing anything about it. She's the only politician on the right right now which is actually trying to elevate that in the discussion and she's getting blown to hell for it. From Israel to prices. I saw someone calling her a California liberal. I was like, okay, if that's the standard now we are cooked. Like cooked. If that's how it's gonna be.
- [80:38]
Saagar Enjeti
MTG is lib. Yeah, yeah, last piece here. Just, this is kind of what I was referencing before about, okay, well how is AI, how is it doing? How's it going, how's it impacting the workforce? Because part of the bet is that all of these companies are going to invest in AI. That's going to be where a lot of the revenue for these, for AI companies come from, that it's going to increase worker productivity. We could put this last one up on the screen. There's just not a lot of evidence that this has really come through yet. Now it might, it's still early days, right? And not just in terms of the technological development, but in terms of companies and workers how, figuring out how to use the tech. There are some early indications that in, in coding effectively, which is a huge irony since we were all told learn to code, that this is the technology of the future. That's like the one place where you can look. New college graduates coming out who have like computer science degrees are struggling to find work because that is the place where AI has been the most disruptive in terms of replacing entry level workers. But outside of that, there isn't a lot of indication that the promise is bearing fruits as of yet. So some massive mind boggling amounts of money have been spent on this. The amount of resources that are being sucked up, your electricity bill likely going up, as Marjorie Taylor Greene was talking about, as a result of these data centers sucking up so much power, water usage. You've got wells that have gone Dry when these data centers have located nearby. Actually, something I'm concerned about in where I live, where they're planning to locate a rise up Crystal Beacon data facility.
- [82:13]
Krystal Ball
Rise up in city council and say no.
- [82:15]
Saagar Enjeti
So, yeah, a little concerned about that myself. But in any case, all of these massive bets being placed and as of yet, the promise and certainly the profit to go along with those massive bets has not come to fruition.
- [82:28]
Krystal Ball
Bingo.
- [82:29]
Dr. Trita Parsi
Yeah.
- [82:29]
Krystal Ball
Everyone watch it. And it's like I said, it'll either come true like what they're claiming, there's three options. It'll either come true with AGI and what they're claiming, which is going to lead to a massive surveillance oligarchical state. You guys covered that yesterday. The Philip Peter Thiel thing number two is it won't come true, but because the economy is so financialized and so fake, is that we'll have like a modest period, but we'll have no crash. And option three is a full blown crash. So I really honestly don't know which is worse because the status quo is bad, the alternative is bad, and the victory scenario is also there's a fourth.
- [83:03]
Saagar Enjeti
Even more dystopian option, which is that one company achieves AGI and has all the dystopian results we're concerned about. But because they're all the other companies, you know, lose the race, there's still a dramatic crash because it's only that one company that succeeds. And by the way, almost a certainty out of all of this is that more wealth, more wealth and more power is gonna be consolidated in the hands of a few. How do you think that's gonna go for all of us? How do you think that's gonna go for our society? I mean, already I think the massive wealth and income inequality gap is part of what's fueling all of the turmoil that I see in our politics. So we're gonna consolidate that even more and we're hand it to Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, whoever else. And it's not even like I don't like any of those guys, but it's not even about whether they're good or bad people. Like, that much wealth and power consolidated, concentrated in the hands of one or a handful of individuals is just a very dangerous situation and, you know, with potential dire consequences.
- [84:18]
Krystal Ball
Ah, greetings from my bath, festive friends.
- [84:21]
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Krystal Ball
Back when I pay in four.
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Krystal Ball
Sculpted but pruny body.
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- [84:46]
Krystal Ball
PayPal Inc. And MLS 910457 Ah, come on.
- [84:49]
Saagar Enjeti
Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [84:52]
Krystal Ball
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Saagar Enjeti
Whoa, this thing moves.
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Krystal Ball
Stop the fitting. Snooze on new tech. Win the tech search@lenovo.com Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device. What kind of man would let this.
- [85:29]
Saagar Enjeti
Happen to his family?
- [85:31]
Krystal Ball
Inspired by shocking actual events I'm working.
- [85:34]
Saagar Enjeti
On, the story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.
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Krystal Ball
It's only cheating if you get caught. Hulu Original Series Murdoch Death in The Family premieres October 15th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers.
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- [85:56]
Krystal Ball
This is an I heart podcast.